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“Here we are, Mrs. Sparrowgrass, just on the
eve of retiring to private life. We must shake
hands with our friends, and say `good-bye.' This
is to be the last paper—`to-morrow to fresh fields
and pastures new.' ” Mrs. Sparrowgrass smiled a
little smile, and sighed a little sigh; then it became
very still, but the clock ticked loudly on the
library mantel, and the wood-fire chirped, and the
sound of thread and needle tugging through a stiff
piece of linen, were quite audible. “I think,”
said Mrs. S., after a long pause, “I think there is a
great deal to be said about living in the country;
a great deal yet to be said.”

“True,” I replied, “but I believe, Mrs. S., I have
said my say about it. I begin to feel that the
first impressions, the novelty, the freshness,

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incident to the change from city to country are wearing
away.”

“Do you think so?” said Mrs. Sparrowgrass.

“Yes,” I replied, “I think so; in truth I am
very sure of it. Do you not see it with very
different eyes from those you first brought with
you out of the city?”

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said, “She did not know but
that she did.”

“Of course you do,” I continued, “the novelty
of the change is gone; we have become used to
our new life—custom has made every part of it
familiar.”

“Not to me,” answered Mrs. S., brightening up;
“not to me; every day I see something new, every
day the country seems to grow more beautiful;
there are a thousand things to attract me, and interest
me here, which I never could have seen in the
city; even the winters seem to be brighter, and the
days longer, and the evenings pleasanter; and then I
have so much to be thankful for, that the children
are so strong and hardy; that we keep such good
hours; and that you have grown to be so domestic.”

This compliment made me smile in turn, but I
pretended to be very busy with my writing. The

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smile, however, must have been seen, I think,
for Mrs. S. repeated, very softly, “You have grown
to be more domestic, and that alone is enough to
make me happy here.”

“So, my dear,” said I, after a pause, “you
believe that, among other things, a domestic turn
of mind can be better cultivated in the country
than in the city?”

Mrs. Sparrowgrass assented by nodding like a
crockery Chinese lady.

“Then,” said I, “the fact is worth publishing,
and it shall be, for the benefit of all concerned.
And now let me read to you a short essay I have
been writing on country life, seen in a twofold
aspect—that is, as we had imagined it, and as we
have found it.”

Mrs. Sparrowgrass placed the candles nearer the
desk and resumed her needlework. Now then—

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There are very few persons insensible to the
tender influence of nature; few who do not feel at
times a yearning to exchange a limited life, held in
common with the vast multitude, for one of more
generous boundaries, where the soul can repose
amid contemplation, and the mind rest from its
labors, and even the languid pulse thrill with an
inspiration that is independent of excitement. It
is this feeling that lends a crowning grace to
works of fiction, that adds enchantment to narrative,
that makes every virtue conceivable, that
echoes into music, and blossoms into song. It is
this feeling that leads us to prefer Sir Roger de
Coverly to Sir Andrew Freeport; it is this that
transports us with delight as we wander with
Robinson Crusoe; this that weaves a spell of fascination
around the loves of Paul and Virginia.

But we may leave the kingdom of books and
pass from their royal domains into the broader commons
of every-day life, and if yonder laborer,
trudging along the dusty high road, far from the
pitiless pavements, could give expression to his
thought, he would affirm that this early, summer,
Sunday morning is, to him, an idyl full of poetic
beauty and tenderness.

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Take, too, the city school-boy and his mates, and
see them with uncontrollable instincts pouring forth
from the avenues of the town to revel in the ragged
grass of the suburbs, to sit, haply, beneath the
shadow of a tree, or to bathe in waters that
dimple over beaches of sand, instead of beating
against piers of weedy timber. Take the school-boy,
and if he tell you truly, he will confess that,
even amid the discipline of the school, his mind
was truant to his hard arithmetic, and his dry
grammar; that while he was seemingly plodding
through his lessons, he was really dreaming of
green fields, and sunny air, tremulous with the murmur
of brooks, and fragrant with the odor of lilacs.

Nor is this feeling limited to certain classes of
men, nor is it incident only to our earlier years.
It is the prospect of some ideal home in the country,
that often binds the merchant to the town, in
order that he may win a competency to retire
with; binds him to his desk until his head begins
to silver over, and habit has made the pursuit of
wealth a necessity. It is this ideal future that
often haunts the statesman with pictures scarcely
less seductive than ambition itself, with prospective
hopes, which he promises himself some day

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shall be realized—some day, when his labors are
over, and the nation is safe. It is this that passes
like a vision before the eyes of the soldier in the
solitary fortress; this that lulls and cradles the
mariner to sleep, in his oaken prison; this that leads
the angler into the depths of the solemn woods;
this that depopulates cities in the sweet summer
time.

Most natural then as this wish may be, to those
accustomed to the life of a city, there are certain
seasons only when the desire throbs in the veins
with an impulse not to be resisted—as during the
feverish dog-days, or in the dewy mornings of early
spring—

At such times the heart, instinctively led by its
own happiness, revels in, anticipation of, winding
woodpaths, and green glades and quiet nooks, and
streams, and the twitter of birds, and the voluptuous
breathing of flowers, and the murmur of
insects in the holiday fields.

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But when the winter comes, the bright city,
with its social populace, presents a striking contrast
to the dreary, solitary country, with its lonely
roads, dark plains, and desolate woods, so that the
very thought itself is suggestive only of gloom and
discomfort.

There are other considerations, too, sympathies
that may not be readily, nor rudely divorced—
actualities by which we are strongly, though
almost imperceptibly, bound to a city life, such as
customary habits, familiar acquaintances, and communion
with old, time-honored friends. These, in
themselves, are often potent enough to prevent us.
Separation is the saddest word in the book of
humanity.

Then again come other actualities—little actualities
of two, and four, and six years old, with preternatural
eyes, and feverish lips, and wasted arms,
mutely imploring us to follow the doctor's advice,
and give them a change of air—not for a few
weeks, but for a few years, and these have their
influence. For I pity the parent who does not feel
the welfare of his little ones nearest his heart.
So that at last, after gravely weighing all arguments
on either side, the great word is spoken—

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“We will move into the country.” Once settled
as a fixed fact, once established as a thing no
longer debatable, the idea of living in the country
speedily invests itself with its old and happiest colors,
puts on cap and kirtle, and cottages the future in
an Eden of lattice-work, and lawn. Thenceforth
every grass-plat in the city becomes an object of
interest, every tree a study, every market vegetable
a vital topic. Anticipation can scarcely wait
upon fluent time; weeks and months seem narrow
and long, as the streets we traverse. At last the
period of thraldom over, for such it seems, the
May day of moving comes, and then, with all the
silver in a basket, and all the children in a glow,
and all the canary birds in a cage, we depart from
the city, its houses, and its streets of houses, its
associations, and its friendships. We depart from
the city, not forgetful of its benevolence, its security,
its protection. Sorrow be to him who would
launch a Parthian arrow at his own birth-place,
wherever, or whatever that may be!

It must be confessed, that the realization of a
hope is sometimes not so beautiful as the hope
itself. It must be confessed that turnpike roads
are not always avenues of happiness; that distance,

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simply contemplated from a railroad depot, does
not lend enchantment to the view of a load of
furniture travelling up hill through a hearty rain-storm;
that communion with the visible forms of
nature, now and then, fails to supply us with the
requisite amount of mild and healing sympathy;
that a rustic cottage may be overflowing with love,
and yet overflowed with water; that, in fine, living
in the country rarely fulfils at once the idea of
living in clover. To one accustomed to the facile
helps of a great city, its numerous and convenient
stores, its limited distances, its ready attentions,
and its easy means of information and communication,
the slow and sleepy village presents a contrast,
which, upon the whole, can scarcely be
considered as favorable to the latter. Plumbers
are very slow in the country; carpenters are not
swift; locksmiths seldom take time by the forelock;
the painter will go off fishing; the grocer on
a pic-nic; the shoemaker to the menagerie:


“The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,
And all of them gone to the fair,”
strikes harshly upon the nice, civic sense of one
accustomed to the prompt exactitudes of the town.

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Say, however, that by the driving wheel of perseverance,
the customary, inside economy moves on
regularly as usual, yet are there new sources of
disquiet; the chickens will walk into the kitchen,
the dogs will get into the parlor, and the children
will march into the dining-room with an incalculable
quantity of mud. This last is the most grievous
trouble of all, for how can we keep the children
in, or keep them out? Then, too, there are other
little matters; the well will dry up, or the chimney
will smoke, or the dogs will dig immense holes in
the garden-beds, or somebody's wagon will take a
slice off the turf border of the grass-plat, or the
garden-gate will fracture one of its hinges, or
something or other of some kind will happen, in
some way, to disturb the serenity of the domestic
sky. And let it be remembered also, that although
a green hedge is a very pretty object, it requires to
be trimmed; that peas must be supplied with
bushes from infancy; that lima beans when they
want poles, have to be indulged in that weakness;
that tomatoes get along best on crutches; that corn
and potatoes, being very courteous plants, require
a little bowing and scraping at times, with a hoe;
that garden vegetables of all conditions seem

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rather fond of leading a ragged, vagabond life,
and therefore should be trained by themselves,
and not suffered to grow up in a rabble of
weeds.

Let it then be fairly and candidly confessed, that
living in the country does not exempt from care
and laborious patience, those, who build their habitations
beneath its halcyon skies. There are many
things which should have been thought of, and
which one never does think of as accessories in the
ideal picture. The first effort of rural simplicity is
to disabuse the mind of these fallacies. Once
understood that life in the country does not imply
exemption from all the cares and business of
ordinary life; that happiness, here as elsewhere, is
only a glimpse between the clouds; that there are
positive disadvantages incurred by living out of
town; and that anticipation must succumb to the
customary discount; once understood, and carefully
weighed in a just balance, life in the country
becomes settled on a firm basis and puts on its
pleasantest aspect.

Then a well-ordered garden presents manifold
charms to the eye, whether it be when the first
green shoots appear, or in the ripened harvest;

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then every bud that blows bears in its heart a
promise or a memory; then rain-storms are fountains
of happiness; then the chirping of early birds
is sweeter than the cunning of instruments; then
the iterated chorus of insects in the fields is pleasanter
than a pastoral poem; then the brown,
unbroken soil has an earthy smell no thing can
match; and the skies, the river, the mountains,
with a thousand touches, illustrate the bounty,
the tenderness, the wondrous providence of the
Creator.

Furthermore, the very toil, which at first seems
like a hardship, betimes, carries with it a recompense.
As the frame becomes disciplined by the
additional duties imposed upon it, the labor grows
lighter, and more attractive; not only that, the
blood circulates with renewed life, the eye becomes
brighter, the muscles more elastic, cheerfulness
begins to ring out its bells in the clear air, and
sleep falls upon the lids, gentle as a shadow.

If you have little ones, think what a blessing
such discipline is to them. Just look at the boys,
and their red-blown cheeks, and their sled out in
the snow there! Listen; did you ever hear such a
Christmas carol in the streets?

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Not the smallest item in the account is this, that
for want of other pleasures, parents are prone, in
the country, to turn their attentions to the little ones,
to enter more familiarly into their minor world, to
take a part in its pageants, to read more carefully its
tiny history, to become developed by its delicate
sympathies, so that in time one gets to be very popular
there, and is hailed as a comrade and good fellow—
one of the elected—and eligible to receive all the
secret grips and pass-words of the order. And this
is not to be lightly considered either, for how can
we expect our children will make us their choicest
companions when we are old, if we make them not
our friends when they are young? And as a child
is often like a star in the house, why should not the
father and mother be nearest to its light. Jean
Paul Richter somewhere says of children, “The
smallest are nearest God, as the smallest planets are
nearest the sun.” Therefore, it is a good thing not
to be on the outside of their planetary system.

Take it all in all, then, we may rest assured, that
although our first experiences do not fulfill the ideal
images we had raised, yet when the fibres become
familiar to the soil, and spread, and strengthen, we
soon overcome the shock of transplantation. Then

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our new life burgeons and blossoms, like a tree, that
in more open ground spreads forth its happy leaves
to catch the sunshine and the rain, the air and the
dews; and ever and ever growing and growing, its
harmonious proportions are uplifted nearer and
nearer to that harmonious Heaven, which God has
hung with clouds and studded with stars, as types
and symbols, only, of the glories of that which lies
still further beyond.

“Is that all you have to say?” said Mrs. Sparrowgrass.
“That is all, my dear,” I replied, and then
very composedly lighted a cigar. The clock ticked
loudly again, the wood-fire chirped, and the thread
and needle tugged its way through the linen
with a weary note, like a prolonged sigh with the
bronchitis.

“For my part,” said Mrs. S., after a pause of
fifteen minutes' duration by the library clock, “I
think you have not done justice to the country.
You do not speak at all of the pleasant neighbors
we know, of the pleasant visits we have had, and
the parties on the river, and the beach in front of
the house, where the children go in bathing during
the summer months, and the fishing, and crabbing,

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and the delightful drives and rides, and the interest
we take in planting, and the pleasure of picking off
the early peas, and the quiet of our Sabbaths, and
`the charm of seclusion,' which you so often allude
to in your library, when you sit down at a pile of
books.”

“True.”

“And although it may be a trifling matter, yet
it is a very pleasant thing to own a boat, and to
have a hammock swung under the trees for the
children to play in, or to read and smoke in, when
you are tired; and to keep poultry, and to watch a
young brood of chickens, and to have eggs fresh
laid for breakfast.”

“I know it.”

“And even if we do meet with mishaps, what of
them? I never do expect to pass through life without
some disappointments; do you?”

“Certainly not.”

“And then you have scarcely alluded to the
country in winter time: why nothing can compare
with it; I could not have believed that it would
have been so beautiful, if I had not seen it and
known it.”

(Three puffs of smoke in rapid succession.)

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“And then to walk through a green, winding
lane, with daisies and roses all along on both sides,
as we often do towards evening, in summer, is
a thing worth remembering.”

“Worth remembering? It is a poem in itself.”

“And the pleasant note of a cow-bell at nightfall,
or in the wood by day, is a pretty sound.”

“It is a wonder the golden chime of that bell has
not been rolled out in melodious lines by somebody.”
(two puffs and a half.)

“And, although it may make you smile, there is
something very musical to me, in the bullfrog's
whistle. I love to hear it, in early spring.”

“After that we may expect blue-birds.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. S., “ah, how fond the children
are of blue-birds.”

“Yes, and how thankful we should be that they
have such innocent loves.”

“I think,” said Mrs. S., “children can scarcely
develop their natural affections in the city. There
is nothing for them to cling to, nothing to awaken
their admiration and interest there.”

“Except toy-stores, which certainly do wake up
an immense amount of admiration and interest in
the small fry, Mrs. S.”

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“True, but they are better off with a few occasional
presents. I know how happy they are for
a short time with them; but I fear me the excitement
is not productive of good. Toys produce more strife
among the little ones than all the pleasure is
worth. For my part, I almost dread to see them
come into the house, although I do feel gratified in
witnessing the surprise and delight with which
they are received by the children.”

“That is a clear case.”

“If you want to see a picture,” continued Mrs.
S., full of the theme, and putting down her sewing,
“I think I can show you one worth looking at.”

(One short puff, and one eye shut, expressive of
an anxious desire to see the picture.)

Mrs. Sparrowgrass rolled back the library window-shutters,
and the flood of white light that
poured into the room fairly dimmed the candle on
the table. There was the pure white snow; and the
round, full moon; and the lustrous stars; and the
hazy line of the Palisades; and the long reach of
river glistening with a thousand brilliants. For
from every point of ice there shone a nebulous
light, so that the river seemed a galaxy studded
with magnificent planets; and as we stood gazing

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upon this wondrous scene, we heard the sound
of an approaching train, and then, suddenly reddening
through the stone arch in the distance, there
darted forth into the night, the Iron Meteor with its
flaming forehead, and so flying along the curve of
the road, thundered by, and was presently heard
no more.

I think Mrs. Sparrowgrass rather surpassed herself
when she conjured up this splendid vision, for
she became very grave and silent.

“This beautiful scene,” said I, “this glistening
river, reminds me of something, of a scientific fact,
which, although true in itself, sounds like the
language of oriental fable. Did you know, my
dear, that those vast Palisades yonder, rest upon
beds of jewels?”

“Beds of jewels?” echoed Mrs. Sparrowgrass.

“Yes, my dear, beds of jewels; for these are
basaltic rocks of volcanic birth, and at some time
were spouted up, from the molten caverns below
the crust of the earth, in a fluid state; then they
spread out and hardened on the surface; so that if
we go to, or a little below, low-water mark, we shall
find the base of them to be the old red sandstone,
upon which they rest.

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“I thought,” replied Mrs. S., “they went down
very deep in the earth—that they were like all
other rocks.”

“No,” I answered, “they are not rooted at all,
but only rest upon the top of old red sandstone.
Well, in the crevices between the basaltic and
sandstone rocks, the mineralogists find the best
specimens of amethysts, onyxes, sapphires, agates,
and cornelians. And that this is the case with the
Palisades, has been often proved at Fort Lee, where
the cliffs begin. There the sandstone is visible
above ground, and there the specimens have been
found imbedded between the strata.”

“You are sure the idea is not imaginary?” said
Mrs. S.

“All true, my dear.”

“Then I shall never think of them in future,
without remembering their old jewels; I wonder,
if they were to tumble down now and expose their
riches, whether the amethysts and onyxes would
compare with the brightness of those frozen
gems?”

“Certainly not.” (Shutters close.)

“And now,” continued Mrs. Sparrowgrass, “I
want to show you another picture;” and with that

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she lifted the candle and walked softly up stairs
before me into the nursery; there were five little
white-heads, and ten little rosy-cheeks, nestled
among the pillows, and I felt a proud, parental joy
in gazing upon their healthy, happy faces, and
listening to their robust breathings.

“These,” said Mrs. S., in a whisper, as she shaded
the light, “are my jewels.”

“And mine too, Mrs. Sparrowgrass,” said I.

“Yes,” whispered Mrs. S., very seriously, “and
if ever I should be taken away from them, I want
you to promise me one thing.”

“Tell me what it is,” said I, very much determined
that I would do it, whatever it might be.

“Promise me,” said Mrs. S., “that while they
are growing up you will keep them from the city—
that their little minds and bodies may be trained
and taught by these pure influences, that, so long
as they are under your direction, you will not
deprive them of the great privilege they now
enjoy—that of living in the country.”

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