spirits and love of life return. Then we were obliged to leave him, and since we know nothing of his existence, whether he be alive or dead. But if there was a chance for him, we pointed it out when we bade him return to the bosom of the kindly mother from whom he had so widely departed.

Another case we knew, of a young man of decided mathematical and astronomical talent, who, because he had such exceptional gifts, was stimulated to the top of his bent to climb to the highest range of acquisition. Him, too, we saw at the end of a long course of superlative effort bowed like an old man, plodding listlessly along, evidently far removed from interest in life, perhaps, as he seemed, even weary of it. Some of the great monuments of Greece, although in ruins, still attest her ancient grandeur, and with the best of her literature still survive, and the stars pursue their courses as they have rolled since the creation of the universe. But what advantageth it them, the world, or the universe that a man should wreck his mortal frame in Greek and astronomical lore in seeking to reach empyrean heights? What accrued to these two poor young men, to whose cases we could add a score, in advantage to themselves or others from such self-sacrifice? The measure of one's self one should take with the measure of accomplishment. This is the plain wisdom for every human being through every act of life.

The celebrated Hufeland, German philosophic physician, instructed all who might read, long before the days of the wondrous modern advance in physiological knowledge, that life in the individual varies in intenseness, that its existence and duration depend on draught upon it. The life of the old and feeble is a faint flame that burns steadily low. Trim and stimulate too much the wick, represented by the failing body, and the flame flashes up for a moment and then expires. But, no matter what the strength of the individual, the same underlying law obtains through the fact that everywhere, at all times, the body

has relation to amount of exercise of function in its environment. Take the very strongest in brain or muscle, and exercise these unduly, or in undue relation to each other, and the vital flame burns lower and lower until it may be snuffed out with a breath. What is rest cure? The discovery of a modern physician? Not at all. It is born of the instinctive knowledge of every mortal wearied in body or mind. What is camp cure? Is it the discovery of the same physician? Not at all. It is at bottom the instinctively self-prescribed cure by the physically depressed, yearning for the pure breath of the fields and heavens.

One of the miracles in this world's strange and unequal disposition of its goods is their partial apportionment among the unappreciative. It would really seem at first as if deprivation were necessary to secure appreciation. The pent-up people of cities long for the landscape and the air to which country people never give a thought. But this is the superficial aspect of this state of things, the truth of which cannot be denied. Below the surface, at the true inwardness of it, lies the fact that deprivation, although, as it always does, stimulating desire, is not the sole or the greater cause of this difference. That lies in the generally higher grade of education in cities raising the mind to greater love of nature as well as of art, through which, in turn, comes greater appreciation of nature itself. Show us the village or little town, or farm-house, however endowed in its surroundings by nature, whose inhabitants generally seek the fields, woods, and hills for the sake of any beautiful prospect. Show us any such place where the wretched pictures on the walls do not betray the possessor's ignorance of nature as seen through art. Is it the eye, through the picture thrown on the retina, that sees? Yes, in a measure, but in far from the larger measure. It is the mind that sees through the agency of the eye as its instrument. Hence, men see so differently, differently according to their original constitution of mind, and differently according to their

cultivation. If some of our country friends, whose homes and habits differ from those herein described, are inclined to think our picture overdrawn of the striking difference exhibited in culture as to nature and art between denizens of the city and those of the country, we say with the poet, if you seek the monument, look around you. If you present happy exemption from the rule, thank heaven that you are not as other countrymen in that regard. But do not flatter yourselves that your happy condition represents the rule. Travel through the length and breadth of the land, as we have, taking in its average farm and country life, and you will find that what we have said is strictly true, that the country generally cares for neither nature

nor art.

Here, then, we have presented one of the standing anomalies of civilization, that a great number of persons are constrained to live in cities who love and are capable of appreciating the country, while a large proportion of those living in the country are destitute of the sense of the picturesque. We knew a young girl of 17 years of age, of perfect leisure; idle, one might say, except when in attendance on a fashionable school. Around her village home nature had lavished a profusion of gifts in grayblue rocks surmounted by foliage, brilliant in summer, and all the more in the glowing autumn, while beyond, at a turn, about a mile away, of the rock-parapeted road that led from the home in which she had been born and reared, broke the glorious sea with its everlasting roar. Yet she had never, as she mentioned, unconscious of its strangeness, been even as far as that inviting turn in the road, in plain view from the porch of her father's house. The peculiarity of the case does not lie in its isolation, for we have met multitudes of such cases, differing not at all in kind, but solely in degree.

Here is a contrast, indeed, between the city maiden, who would love to roam, if it were ever safe, on the outskirts of her

city, and the average country girl, who habitually shrinks from the exercise of walking, and cares not a straw for scenery. Could we transplant them it would certainly be well. We do, in a measure, transplant one, as the yearly exodus to the country shows. But here the city-bred meet a difficulty hard to understand in a rich and luxuriant land. In real country living the barbaric stage of fried cooking is, for the most part, found. One cannot live on view alone; the mind refuses to lend itself to the highest æsthetic enjoyment while the body grumbles for the lost flesh-pots of Egypt. An Irish servitor of ours, who accompanied us on one of our tours, put it neatly when he said one day to the hostess of our temporary lodging, "Ach, indade, ye may talk about your fresh country vigetables and milk and crame, but I find they come in the city much better to the gate!"

Where, too, is to be found the freshest air and brightest light, there they are the most rigidly excluded. Who does not know the stuffy, darkened rooms of the ordinary farm-house, the subtle smell in the chambers of the painted window-shades, and of the long-plucked feathers in the pudding bed; the sittingroom with its single ray of light, sparing the colors of the carpet, by which one navigates toward a book; and the one room devoted to refreshments, where alone are light and air, and flies hold high revelry? This is no fancy sketch of multitudes of farm-houses we have visited. We have ridden day after day amid mountains, with knapsack strapped behind the saddle and rifle resting athwart the pommel, dismounting to catch trout or to draw a bead upon some startled deer. At night-fall we have, with our companions, hobbled the horses to allow them to graze with restricted liberty, and then, becoming a cook for the nonce, have helped prepare viands in the style of Homer's heroes. Then we have retired to our blankets with a profound sense of comfort not experienced in many a farm-house. There was at

least fresh air. Oh, what a boon is fresh air! And the sunshine, perhaps, would greet us in the morning. What healing there is in these two ministers to life! This is a savagery, but it is the sweetest phase of savagery; savagery without its famines and its baleful passions; savagery with the sweetness of the earth around, under the pure canopy of heaven with its twinkling stars. It is the kind of savagery that only the highest civilization can thoroughly enjoy. Compared with the barbarousness or the semi-civilization of life which shuts out by the walls of a house what seeks entrance as some of the kindliest gifts of heaven, it is luxury. Digestion waits on appetite; the whole physical and mental being is exalted and in touch with something higher than ordinary life.

In cities the knowledge of hygienic living is far greater than in the country. Despite the unfavorable surroundings for health, which make the death-rate in cities much larger than in the country, the checks are greater there against disease and death. The city collects within its boundaries the ablest physicians of the land; even poverty proves no bar to receiving the best medical treatment; general sanitary knowledge among the educated is quite high; the municipality sees to the drainage and other salutary measures; it guards against ignorance, carelessness, or recklessness, by demanding for the public good that no one shall maintain an unhealthful nuisance; even neighbor is watchful over neighbor for his own and the public weal, that every noxious condition or practice that may lead to disease or pest shall be removed. Undoubtedly there is still room for much improvement, and great improvement is being constantly made through increase of general knowledge of sanitary laws. The city's chief fault, at the present time of its generally rapid growth in this country, is in not efficiently guarding against dumping of improper matter in the process of filling and grading at its extreme limits. Yet we cannot but admit, at the