148 FIELD AND HEDGEROW 
an American publication, roughly illustrated, which he 
alwayshad byhim. It is very strange that the art of the 
old-fashioned book for children has gone over to New 
York, which seems to us the land of newness. 
For grown-up people the modern books which are 
sent out in such numbers, often very cheap, have like- 
wise an artificial cityficd air so obviously got up and 
theatrical, such a mark of machinery on them, all 
stamped and chucked out by the thousand, that they 
have no attraction for a people who live with nature, 
and even in old age retain a certain childlike faith in 
honesty and genuine work. The reprints of good old 
authors, too, which may be had for a few pennics now, 
are so edited away that all the golden ring of the metal 
is clipped out of them. Overlaid with notes, and ana- 
lyses, and critical exegesis, the original throb of the 
author's heart has disappeared from these polished 
bones. Just to suggest the book that would please the 
country reader, look for a moment at those works which 
came into existence at the very first dawn of printing— 
those volumes with strongly drawn and Diirer-like illus- 
trations, very rough, and without perspective, but whose 
meaning is at once understood, and which somehow 
convey what I may call a genuine impression. Any 
countryman would tell you at once that the illustrations 
of half the books of the present day are mere vamped-up 
shallowness, drawn from a city man’s mind in a city 
room by gaslight. You must consider that the country- 
man who lives out of doors, and always with nature, is, 
as regards his reading, very much in the same mental 
position as the people who lived four hundred years 
ago—in the days when costly and rare manuscripts, few 
and far between, chained to the desk, were just being 
superseded by printed books at a fifth the price, which 
