ngs but slow returns, the village
has been gradually drained of the greater part of its active and
enterprising younger population, and is chiefly occupied by retired and
quiet persons who maintain a very gentle stir of social life, save for
a month or two in summer, when the streets brighten with the influx of
guests from abroad.

[308] It must have been very different seventy years ago. Instead of
three slenderly attended churches, divided by infinitesimal differences
of creed, and larger variations of government and discipline, all the
people then were accustomed to meet in one well-filled church; and the
minister, a life resident, swayed church and congregation with large
and unquestioned rule. There were several doctors with their trains of
students, and lawyers of county celebrity, each with young men studying
under his direction; and all these made the nucleus of a society that
was both gay and thoughtful, and that received a strong impulse to
self-development from the isolated condition of a small village in those
days. Railroads and telegraphs have changed all this, and scarcely a
hamlet is now so lonely as not to feel the great tides of the world's
life sweep daily through it, bringing polish and general information
with them, but washing away much of the racy individuality and
concentrated mental action which formerly made the pith of its being.
Sheffield has gained in external beauty and refinement year by year,
but, judging from tradition, has lost in intellectual force. There is
more light reading and less hard reading, much more acquaintance with
newspapers and magazines, and less knowledge of great poets, than in my
father's youth; but his love for his birthplace remained unchanged,
and his eyes and his heart drank repose from its peaceful and familiar
beauty.

[309] To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 6, 1869.

DEAR BRYANT, THE BOUNTIFUL,--You are something like grapes yourself.
By the bye, it 's no matter what you call me; "my dear Doctor" is well
enough, if you can't do better; only "my dear Sir" I do hate, between
good old friends such as we are, as much as Walter Scott did. But, as I
was saying, you are like grapes yourself,--fair, round, self-contained,
hanging gracefully upon the life-vine, still full of sap; shining under
the covert of leaves, but more clearly seen, now that the frosts of age
are descending, and causing them to fall away; while I am more
like--but I have so poo