the poet, the sportsman, the naturalist, would alike
rejoice in this wide range of untouched loveliness.

Then, with a very little money, a ducal estate may be purchased, and
by a very little more, and moderate labor, a family be maintained upon
it with raiment, food, and shelter. The luxurious and minute comforts
of a city life are not yet to be had without effort disproportionate
to their value. But, where there is so great a counterpoise, cannot
these be given up once for all? If the houses are imperfectly built,
they can afford immense fires and plenty of covering; if they are
small, who cares,--with, such fields to roam in? in winter, it may be
borne; in summer, is of no consequence. With plenty of fish, and game,
and wheat, can they not dispense with a baker to bring "muffins hot"
every morning to the door for their breakfast?

A man need not here take a small slice from the landscape, and fence
it in from the obtrusions of an uncongenial neighbor, and there cut
down his fancies to miniature improvements which a chicken could run
over in ten minutes. He may have water and wood and land enough, to
dread no incursions on his prospect from some chance Vandal that may
enter his neighborhood. He need not painfully economize and manage
how he may use it all; he can afford to leave some of it wild, and to
carry out his own plans without obliterating those of Nature.

Here, whole families might live together, if they would. The sons
might return from their pilgrimages to settle near the parent hearth;
the daughters might find room near their mother. Those painful
separations, which already desecrate and desolate the Atlantic coast,
are not enforced here by the stern need of seeking bread; and where
they are voluntary, it is no matter. To me, too, used to the feelings
which haunt a society of struggling men, it was delightful to look
upon a scene where Nature still wore her motherly smile, and seemed to
promise room, not only for those favored or cursed with the qualities
best adapting for the strifes of competition, but for the delicate,
the thoughtful, even the indolent or eccentric. She did not say, Fight
or starve; nor even, Work or cease to exist; but, merely showing that
the apple was a finer fruit than the wild crab, gave both room to grow
in the garden.

A pleasant society is formed of the families who live along the banks
of this stream upon farms. They are from various parts of the world,
and have much to com