106 
THE SOUTHERN CUi^TIVATOR. 
An English Farnier’’s Wife. 
Here is a beautiful chapter from the third 
part of Colman^s European Agriculture. Ev- 
ery reader may profit largely by the lesson it 
contains. Those who know the writer, and 
who have seen something of English rural life, 
have seen enough to convince them that, though 
called, even by the author, a pencil sketch, the 
picture isbv no means overdrawn. 
Pencil Sketch op an English Farmer’s 
Wife.— B y Henry Colnmn . — I must claim the 
indulgence'of my readers, if 1 give them an ac- 
count of a visit in the country, so instructive, so 
bright, so cheerful, that nothing but the abso- 
lute breaking-up of the mind can ever oblite- 
rate its record, or dispel the bright vision from 
mv imagination. I know' my fair readers— for 
with some such I am assured my humble re- 
ports are kindly honored — will feel an interest 
in it; and if I have any unfair readers, 1 beg 
them at once to turn over the page. But mind, 
I shall utter no name, and point to noplace; 
and if I did not know that the e.xample was not 
altogether singular, and therefore would not he 
detected, I should not relate it. I know very 
well, as soon as I return to my native land, if 
Heaven has that happiness yet in store for me, 
a dozen of my charming friends— God bless 
them!— With their bright eyes, and their gentle 
entreaties, will be pressing me fora disclosure; 
but I tell them beforehand, l am panoplied in a 
stern philosophy, and shall remain immovable. 
I had no sooner, then, entered the house where 
my visit had been expected, than I was met 
with an unaffected cordiality which at once 
made me at home. In the midst of gilded halls 
and hosts of liveried servants, of dazzlinglamps 
and glittering mirrors, redoubling the highest 
triumphs of art and taste; in the midst of books, 
and statues, and pictures, and all the elegancies 
and refinements of luxury; in the midst of ti- 
tles, and dignities, and ranks, allied to regal 
grandeur — there was an object which transcen- 
ded and eclipsed them all, and showed how 
much the nobility of character excels the nobil- 
ity of rank, the beauty of refined and simple 
manners all the adornments of art, and the scin- 
tillations of the soul, beaming from the eyes, 
the purest gems that ever glittered in a princely 
diadem. In person, in education, and improve- 
ment, in quickness of perception, and facility 
and elegance of expression, in accomplishments 
and taste, in a frankness and gentleness of man- 
ners tenrpered by a modesty which courted con- 
fidence and inspired respect, and in a high mor- 
al tone and sentiment, which, like a bright halo, 
seemed to encircle the whole person— I confess 
the fictions of poetry became substantial, and the 
bean ideal of my youthful imagination realized. 
But who was the person I have described? 
A mere statue to adorn a gallery of sculpture? 
A bird of paradise, to be kept in a glass case? 
A mere doll, with painted cheeks, to be dressed 
and undressed with childish fondness? A mere 
human tov, to languish over romance, or to 
figure in a quadrille? Far otherwise: she was 
a woman in the noble attributes which should 
dignify that name: a wife, a mother, a house- 
keeper, a farmer, a gardener, a dairy-woman, a 
kind neighbor, a benefactor to the poor, a Chris- 
tian woman, “full of good works, and alms- 
deeds which she did.” 
In the morning, I first met her at prayers ; for, 
to the honor of England, there is scarcely a fa- 
mily, among the hundreds whose hospitality I 
have shared, where the duties of the day are 
not preceded by family worship; and the master 
and the servant, the parent and the child, the 
teacher and the taught, the friend and the stran- 
ger come together to recognize and strengthen 
the sense of their common equality in the pre- 
sence of their common Father, and to acknow- 
ledge their dependence upon his care and mercy. 
She was then kind enough to tell me, after 
her looming arrangements, she claimed me for 
the day. She first showed me her children, 
whom, like the Roman mother, she deemed 
her brightest jewels, and arranged their studies 
and occupations for the day. She then took me 
two or three miles on foot to visit a sick neigh- 
bor, and, while performing this act of kindness, 
left me to visit some of the cottages upon the es- 
tate, who^e inmates I found loud in the praises 
of her kindness and benefactions. Our next 
excursion tvas to see some of the finest, and 
largest, and most aged trees in the park, the size 
of which was magnificent; and I sympathized 
in the veneration which she expressed for them, 
which was like that with which one recalls the 
illustrious memory of a remote progenitor. Our 
next visit was to the green houses and the gar- 
dens ; and she explained to me the mode adopt- 
ed there of managing the most delicate plants, 
and of cultivating, in the most economical and 
successful manner, the fruits of a warmer re- 
gion. Frona the garden we proceeded to the 
cultivated fields; and she inlorraed me of the 
system of husbandry pursued on the estate, the 
rotation of crops, the management and applica- 
tion of manures, the amount of seed sown, the 
ordinary yield, and the appropriation of the pro- 
duce, with a perspicuous detail of the expenses 
and results. She then undertook to show me 
the yards and offices, the byres, the feeding- 
stalls, the plans for saving, and increasing, and 
naanaging the manure, the cattle for feeding, for 
breeding, for raising — the milking stock, the 
piggery, the poultry yard, the stables, the har- 
ness-rooms, the implement-rooms, the dairy. — 
She explained to me the proce.ss of making the 
different kind.s of cheese, and the general man- 
agement of the milk, and the mode of feeding 
the stock; and then, conducting me into the bai- 
liff’s house, she exhibited to me the Farm Jour- 
nal, and the whole systematic mode of keeping 
the accounts and making the returns, with which 
she seemed as familiar as il they were the ac- 
counts of her own wardrobe. 
This did not finish our grand tour, for, on 
my return she admitted me into her boudoir, 
and showed me the secrets of her own admira- 
ble housewifery, in the exact accounts which 
she kept of every thing connected with the dairy 
and the market, the table, the drawing-room, 
and the servants’ hall. All this was done with 
a simplicity and a frankness which showed an 
absence of all eonscic usness of any extraordi- 
nary merit in her ov/n deportment, and which 
evidently sprang solely from a kind desire to 
gratily a curiosity on my part, which, 1 hope, 
under such circumstances, was not unreasona- 
ble. A short hour alter this brought us it to an- 
other relation ; for the dinner-bell summoned us, 
and this same lady was found piesiding over a 
brilliant circle of the highest rank and fashion, 
with an ease, elegance, wit, intelligence, and 
good-humor, with a kind attention to every one’s 
wants, and an unaffected concern forevery one’s 
comfort, which would lead one to suppose that 
this was her only and her peculiar sphere. — 
Now, I will r>ot say how many mud-puddles we 
had waded through, and how many dung-heaps 
we had crossed, and what places we explored, 
and how every farming topic was discussed ; 
but I will say, that she pursued her object with- 
out anv of that fastidiousness and affected deli- 
cacy which pass with some persons for refine- 
ment, but which in many cases indicate a weak 
it not a corrupt mind. The mind which is oc- 
cupied with concerns and subjects that are wor- 
thy to occupy it, thinks very little of accessories 
which are of no importance. I will say, to the 
credit of Englishwomen — I speak, of course, of 
the upper classes — that^it seems impossible that 
there should exist a more delicate sense of pro- 
priety than is found universally among them; 
and yet you will perceive at once that their good 
sense teaches them that true delicacy is much 
more an element of the mind, in the person who 
speaks or observes,, that an attribute of the sub- 
ject which is spoken about or observed. A 
friend told me that Canova assured him that, in 
modelling the |w’onderful statue of the Three 
Graces, from real life, he was never at any time 
conscious of an improper emotion or thought; 
and if any man can look at this splendid pro- 
duction, this affecting imbodiment of a genius 
almost creative and divine, with any' other emo- 
tion than that of the most profound and respect- 
ful admiration, he may well tremble for the ut- 
ter corruption, within him, of that moral nature 
which God designed should elevate him above 
the brute creation. 
Now, I do not say that the lady to whom I 
have referred was herself the manager of the 
farm; that rested entirely w'ith her husband; but 
I have intended simply to show how grateful 
and gratifying to him must have been the lively 
interest and sympathy which she took in con- 
cerns w'hich necessarily so much engaged his 
time and attention ; and how the country could 
be divested of that dullness and ennui, so cflen 
complained of as inseparable from it, w’hen a 
cordial and practical interest is taken in the con- 
cerns w'hich nece.ssarily belong to rural life. I 
meant also to show — as this and many other ex- 
amples which have come under my observation 
emphatically do show — that an interest in, and 
a familiarity w’iih, even the most humble occu- 
pations of agricultural life, are not inconsistent 
with the highest refinements of taste, the most 
improved cultivation of the mind, the practice 
of the polite accomplishments, and a grace, and 
elegance, and dignity of manners, unsurpassed 
in the highest circles of society. 
Ijife ill the Couulry. 
The following exquisite gena we take from 
the third number, just published, of Colman’s 
European Agriculture. 
“To live in the countr’, and enjoy all its 
pleasures, we should love the country To 
love the eountry is to take an interest in all that 
belongs to the country — its occupations, its 
sports, its culture, and its improvements, its 
fields and its forests, its trees and rocks, its val- 
leys and hills, its lakes and rivers; to gather 
the flocks around us, and feed them from our 
own hands; to make the birds our friends, and 
caM them all by their names ; to wear a chaplet 
of roses as if it were a princely diadem ; to rove 
over the verdant fields with a higher pleasure 
than we should tread the carpeted halls of regal 
courts ; to inhale the fresh air of the morning as 
if it were the sweet breath of infancy ; to brush 
the dew from the glittering fields as if our path 
were strewed with diamonds; to hold converse 
with the trees of the forrest, in their youth and 
in their decay, as if they could tell us the histo- 
ry of their owa times, and as if the gnarled 
bark of the aged among them were all written 
over with the record of by-gone days, of those 
who planted them, and those who early gather- 
ed their fruits; to find hope and joy bursting 
like a flood upon our hearts, as the darting rays 
of light gently break upon the eastern horizon ; 
to ses the descending sun robing himself in bur- 
nished clouds, as if these were the gathering 
glories of the divine throne ; to find in the clear 
evening of winter, our chamber studded with 
countless gems of living light ; to feel that “ we 
are never less alone than when alone;” to make 
even the stillness and solitude of the country el- 
oquent; and above all, in the beauty of every 
object which piesents itself to oursenses, and in 
the unbought provision which sustains, and 
comforts, and fills with joy, the countless mul- 
titudes of living existences which people the 
land, the water, the air, every where to reple- 
tion ; to see the radiant tokens of an infinite and 
inexhaustible beneficence, as they roll by us, 
and around us, in one ceaseless flood; and in a 
clear and bright daj^ of summer, to standout in 
the midst of this resplendent creation, circled by 
an horizon which continually retreats from our 
advances, holding its distance undiminished, 
and with the broad and deep blue arches ol hea- 
ven over us, whose depths no human imagina- 
tion can fathom ; to perceive this glorious tem- 
ple all instinct with the presence ot the Divini- 
ty, and to feel, amidst all this, the brain grow- 
ins: dizzy with wonder, and the heart swelling 
with an adoration and a holy joy, absolutely in- 
capable of utterance this it is to love the 
country, and to make it, not the home of the 
person only, but of the soul. 
