46 A TOUR ROUND MT GARDEN. 



euvious! When I had nothvng of my own, I had forests and 

 meadows, and the sea, and the sky with all its stars; since 

 I purchased this old house and this garden, I have no longer 

 anjrthing but this house and this garden. 



Property is a contract by which you renounce everything 

 that is not contained within four certain walls. 



I remember an old wood near to the house in which I was 

 bom: what days have I passed under its thick shade, in its 

 green alleys; what violets I have gathered in it in the month 

 of March, and what lilies of the valley in the month of 

 May ; what strawberries, blackberries, and nuts, I have eaten 

 in it ; what butterflies and lizards I have chased and caught 

 there; what nests I have discovered; how I have there 

 admired the stars which in an evening used to appear to 

 blossom in the tops of the lofty trees, and in the morning the 

 sun which glided in golden dust through that thick dome of 

 foliage ! What sweet perfumes, and what still sweeter reve- 

 ries, have I there inhaled ! what verses have I there made ! 

 how I have there read and re-read her letters! How often 

 have I gone thither at the close of day, to recline upon a 

 little knoll covered with trees, to see the glorious sun set, his 

 oblique rays colouring with red and gold the white trunks of 

 the birch-trees which surround me ! This wood was not 

 mine: it belonged to an old bedridden marquis, who had, 

 perhaps, never been in it in his life — and yet it belonged to 

 him ! 



Far from being the master of nature, as so many philoso- 

 phers, poets, and moralists pretend, man is her assiduous 

 slave; property is one of the baits by means of which he 

 burdens himself with a crowd of singular taxes. Look 

 yonder at that man cutting his ha 7, how tired he is: the 

 sweat pours from his brow! He is cutting his hay for his 

 horse — he is proud and happy. 



Man is appointed by nature to harvusl her grain, and to 

 sow it again in suitable soils, and to dig the earth round the 

 foot of trees in order that they may receive the sweet and 

 salutary influences of sun and rain. 



The poor man has, in every moderately inhabited city, 

 a public hbrary, and consequently has at his command from 

 fifteen to twenty thousand volumes; should be become rich. 



