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ones who were the companions of such idle but happy 
days.” How well can the heart respond to these remin¬ 
iscences ! for a proneness to dwell with pleasure on the 
sports of our early years, and to retrace those scenes 
“ Where erst our careless childhood stray’d, 
A stranger yet to pain,*’ 
is a universal passion; and among those sports nutting 
has ever held the foremost place. What a lively picture 
Thomson gives us of this rural pastime; and how feel¬ 
ingly, too, Wordsworth describes it, though, in this 
instance, his was a solitary joy: — 
■ —“ It seems a day 
(I speak of one from many singled out), 
One of those heavenly days which cannot die; 
When, in the eagerness of boyish hope, 
I left our cottage threshold, sallying forth, 
With a huge wallet o’er my shoulder slung, 
A nutting, crook in hand, and turned my steps 
Towards the distant woods, — a figure quaint, 
Trick’d out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds 
Which for that service had been husbanded, 
Motley accoutrement, of power to smile 
At thorns and brakes and brambles, and in truth 
