by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog--a
natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me.
I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my
native town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are
no richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda
(_Cassandra calyculata_) which cover these tender places on the earth's
surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs
which grow there--the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill,
azalea, and rhodora--all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often
think that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull
red bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted
spruce and trim box, even graveled walks--to have this fertile spot
under my windows, not a few imported barrow-fulls of soil only to cover
the sand which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my
house, my parlour, behind this plot, instead of behind that meagre
assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and Art,
which I call my front-yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a
decent appearance when the carpenter and mason have departed, though
done as much for the passer-by as the dweller within. The most
tasteful front-yard fence was never an agreeable object of study to me;
the most elaborate ornaments, acorn-tops, or what not, soon wearied and
disgusted me. Bring your sills up to the very edge of the swamp, then
(though it may not be the best place for a dry cellar), so that there
be no access on that side to citizens. Front-yards are not made to
walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to
dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human
art contrived, or else of a Dismal Swamp, I should certainly decide for
the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me!

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness.
Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure
air and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The
traveller Burton says of it--"Your _morale_ improves; you become frank
and cordial, hospitable and single-minded. . . . In the desert,
spirituous liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a
mere animal existence." They who have bee