AN OLD EPISTLE. And if kind Heaven should bless my store With five, or six, or seven more, How happy I would be. 243 "There, Mrs. S., take those papers and put them away with the old love-letters, and the rest of the bye-gones. Some day you will take them out again; perhaps, to read to another generation? Quien sabe?". CHAPTER XVIII. A Conference in the Library-Mr. Sparrowgrass writes an Essay-Life in Town and Life in the Rural Districts-Mrs. Sparrowgrass continues the theme-Two Pictures from Nature-and the Last Word. "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, inci A COMPLIMENT FROM MRS. S. 245 dent 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 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. "To one who has been long in city pent, Now then 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair • And open face of heaven, to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is the more happy, when, with heart's content, Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair And gentle tale of love and languishment." A SHORT ESSAY. 247 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. |