LETTER FROM THE HIGHLANDS. HUDSON HIGHLANDS, August, '50. DEAR MORRIS:-The summer, like other promises of unchanging warmth, has its caprices; and the mountain by whose side I sleep, and which was to wear a smile genial and balmy through its October, shows "a cold shoulder" to-day, and gives a foretaste of the soured airs of its November. The old age of the Season, like other old age, comes soon enough, at the slowest; and these premature gray skies, frowning over unmellowed fruit as they do, put the most amiable of pens and ink out of humour. The forecast shadow of the letter I am about to write, looks brief and cold. "No man is so poor that he must have his pig-stye at his front door," says a Fourth of July Oration which you sent me yesterday, and, since the atmosphere is charged with a sermon, let me preach one to our country people on this text. In the excursions I have made, through Orange and Rockland counties, within the last month, there is but one universal feature which has seemed other than beautiful—but one ever recurring disgust -the pig-troughs invariably outside the front gates, and the 156 CURIOUS FREEDOM OF THE ROAD. swine invariably kept in the public road. I say "invariably," because the country-seats of gentlemen are almost the only exceptions to this abomination. You may see traces of taste around the door of many a cottage and farm house-flowers in bloom, vine-colored porches, shrubs and neat walks, inside the fencewhile outside the fence, strange to say, is a filthy phalanx of pigs which you must charge and rout to get in. The way to the parlour is through the pig-stye! What is gained by giving hogs the freedom of the road, it is difficult to tell, for there is no waste food for them on the highway. What is lost by it seems so apparent as to make the custom a wonder, among people of any thrift or policy; for, besides the constant inroads they make upon the crops, and the frequency of their being run over, and of their injuring children, and being chased and maimed by dogs, they demean the general aspect of the neighbourhood, and disgust those whose choice of it for a residence depends on the agreeableness of the impression. I would not mention such a subject if it were not with a hope of hastening a reform in the matter. The country about the Hudson, particularly, is quite too beautiful to be disfigured by such an eye-sore. Let me add weight to what I have said, by quoting, from the Fourth of July Oration I spoke of, an admirable and most truthful passage, on the duty of every citizen to embellish the neighbourhood of his residence : "Every man, no matter how poor he may be, can do something towards making this world more beautiful. He can leave behind him monuments, through which the grateful zephyrs shall warble his praises, long after he shall be sleeping in the dust. Are you a poor man, toiling hard for frugal fare? You will be more than repaid for the labour that is required to keep the plat before your door clean and green; and you will love your home the better for the rose bush which blooms in the yard, looking up into your eye, DUTY OF BEAUTY. 157 as it were with gratitude, through its green leaves and blushing flowers. It was but the work of half an hour to plant it there. And many a year will it reward you and your wife and your children, with its smiles. A man cannot love a rose, without being a better man for that exercise of love. A child cannot prune it and water it, and watch with affection its swelling buds, without becoming more gentle in character, more refined in feeling, more docile in spirit. "Walter Scott in one of his graphic descriptions, represents a Scottish lord, riding by the humble hut of a peasant, who is planting a tree before his door. He commends him for his taste exclaiming, 'When you have nothing better to do Jock, be aye sticking out a tree Jock, 'twill grow when you're asleep Jock.' There is no little philosophy in this declaration. You plant a tree-give it that gentle nurturing which it may for a short time need, and it will ever after reward you with its foliage and shade. You sleep, and it steadily advances, in its growth, to the perfection of beauty. You go away for months, perhaps for years, and it forgets not to grow, and on your return your heart is gladdened by its fair proportions. “And a tree is property. Who will not give a few dollars more for a farm house, beneath the shade of whose ornamental trees his children can play, or his cattle slumber in the noon-tide heat? And how can the occupant of a village house make a better investment of a few dollars, than in attaching to his house those ornaments which every man of taste so eagerly covets? A few green sods will change an unsightly sand bank into beauty, where the eye may rest with pleasure and where the feet may love to linger. A few hours' work, in a spring morning, may give to your home the richest ornaments a home can have, tempering the fierce blaze of the summer's sun, and breaking up the fury of the winter's storm. 66 Property is worth more in a beautiful, well-shaded village, than on a bleak, sunburnt, unsightly plain. He who has no regard for the appearance of his own premises, not only sinks the value of his own property, but also sinks the value of the property of his neighbours. No one likes to live in the sight of ugliness. On the other hand, he who makes his own home attractive, contributes to the rising value of all the region around him. He is thus a public benefactor, contributing not merely to the gratification of the taste 158 HINT IN AN ORATION. of those who look upon his improvements, but adding to the real marketable value of the property in his vicinity. “Do not think that we are here urging expense upon those who are ill able to afford it. No man is so poor but that he can have a flowering shrub in his yard. No man is so poor, but that he can plant a few trees before his dwelling. No man is so poor, that he must have his pig-stye at his front door. We only contend that every man should exercise that taste which God has given to every man. And though we may not be able to vie with the rich in the grandeur of our dwellings, the lowliest cottage may be embellished with loveliness, and the hand of industry and of neatness may make it a home full of attractions. Let there once be formed, in the heart of man, an appreciation of the beautiful and the work is done. Year after year, with no additional expense, the scene around him will be assuming new aspects of beauty. "Say not, I am not the owner of house or lands and therefore I have nothing to do. All are but tenants at will. We are all soon to leave, to return no more. Wherever you dwell, even if it be in your own hired house but one short year, be sure and leave your impress behind you-be sure and leave some memorial that you have been there. The benevolent man will love to plant a tree, beneath whose shade the children of strangers are to play. It does the heart good to sow the seed, when it is known that other lips than yours shall eat the fruit. The love And he who all the wan "Neither think that this is a question without its moral issues. of home, is one of the surest safeguards of human virtue. makes home so pleasant that his children love it, that in derings of subsequent life they turn to it with delight, does very much to guide their steps away from all the haunts of dissipation, and to form in them a taste for those joys which are most ennobling." The author of this is the Rev. John Abbott, Principal of one of the best institutions in this country, and a man of admirably practical, elevated and sound mind. The Oration was delivered at Farmington Falls, and the other portions of it are well worthy of reproduction, had you room. |