State Convention—Self-Culture. 
421 
English has had a great and salutary effect upon the national 
character. I do not know a finer race of men than the English 
gentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which charac¬ 
terize the men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union of 
elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of com¬ 
plexion, which I am inclined to attribute to their living so much 
in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations 
of the country. These hardy exercises produce also a healthful 
tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of man¬ 
ners which even the follies and dissipations of the town cannot 
easily pervert, and can never destroy. 
44 In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. It 
leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it 
leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the 
purest and most elevating of external influences. Such a man 
may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. 
4fc To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may be attri¬ 
buted the rural feeling that runs through British literature; the 
frequent use of illustrations from rural life; those incomparable 
descriptions of nature that abound in the British poets, that 
have continued down from “The Flower and Leaf” of Chaucer, 
and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance 
of the dewj T landscape. 
44 The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupa¬ 
tions has been wonderful on the face of the country. 
44 The great charm of English scenery is the moral feeling that 
seems to prevade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, 
of quiet, of sober, well-established principles, of hoary usage and 
reverend custom. Everything seems to be the growth of ages of 
regular and peaceful existence. 
u All the common features of English landscape evince a calm 
settled security, and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues 
and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the 
moral character of the nation. It is this sweet-home feeling, this 
settled repose of affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, 
the parent of steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments.” 
Mr. Skavlem: I admire the beauty in the description of the 
44 country gentleman.” One thing I wish is that these country 
gentlemen would go home and show these beauties to their neigh- _ 
