44 B Y- WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



the joy awaiting us on the other. It is, in 

 other words, apparently almost impossible for 

 Americans to fully recognize and appreciate 

 the richness of " local color " everywhere of- 

 fered at home. If we knew our country as well 

 as the English know theirs we should have a 

 stronger vital energy in our literature and art. 

 Of course we lack that long perspective and rich 

 historical atmosphere belonging to old coun- 

 tries, but as a nation we are just at that age 

 when our genius should find its note. Our 

 highways are reasonably good, our lanes and 

 by-ways are inviting, our people are hospitable 

 and communicative. There is no good reason 

 why some tourists, of a more interesting sort 

 than tax-gatherers and lightning-rod peddlers, 

 should riot explore the pastoral districts where 

 the richest materials for poetry, romance, and 

 art may be had for the taking. 



Rummaging the remote nooks of literature — 

 the pages of Chaucer and Spenser, and Izaak 

 Walton and Roger Ascham, or Francois Villon 

 and Marot and Ronsard, is very pleasing and 

 profitable ; but the living, budding, redolent, 

 and resonant by-ways of our own neighborhoods 

 offer- a richer reward. There are moments 

 when there are a fragrance and savor, so to 

 speak, in the song of a plough-boy heard across 

 the fresh-turned fields. One pauses by the 

 fence or hedge-row to enjoy what no book or 

 picture can quite give. A breath of perfume 

 from the blooming top of a wild crab-apple tree, 

 along with the hum of the bees at work there, 

 is a poem much older than any ball „cie or trio- 

 let, and fresher and sweeter than any song of 

 troubadour or any idyl of Greek lyrist. What 

 matters it whether one walks, or rides a tri- 



