NATURE AND THE CITY. 323 



to Conquer," who says to Hastings, in reply to his 

 flattery: 



"We country persons can have no manner at all. I 'm in 

 love with the town, and that serves to raise me above some of 

 our neighboring rustics." 



Yet is there not a charm in an informal gathering 

 in the country, where old songs are sung, and old poems 

 read, and anecdotes brought forward of old times and 

 former days, with a taste, perchance, of honey or of 

 cider, which one will seek for in vain in the city? 

 When Mrs. Hardcastle objects to her old-fashioned 

 mansion and her husband's predilections for old stories, 

 and says that she hates such trumpery, Mr. Hardcastle 

 doughtily replies, and well : 



"And I love it. I love everything that 's old : old friends, 

 old times, old manners, old books, old wine ; and, I believe, 

 Dorothy {taking her hand), you '11 own, I 've been pretty fond 

 of an old wife." 



One of the most refined and cultivated, and yet 

 hardest working, women I have known, and one who 

 has lived in a city, once said to me : "When I see the 

 life in the cities, I am always thankful that I have had 

 the opportunity to bring my children up in the coun- 

 try." It was the wish of the poet Coleridge that his 

 boy Hartley should be "Nature's playmate," and he 

 so expresses this desire in his "Frost at Midnight," in 

 these lines; and it is a satisfaction to know that, with 

 all his weaknesses, Hartley retained a love for Nature 

 all his life: 



