Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/134

Rh so well; but he assured me I might walk through them without fear, "the police was too strong for them." The suburbs were thronged too; the straggling little villages along the road full of human life. The women and men were sitting on long benches beside the houses, drinking beer and eating cakes. The pressure of the population would have driven Malthus mad. Everything of womankind, down to the girl of four years old, had a baby in her arms, and young things were strewn over the ground, kicking up their heels, and making all manner of youthful demonstrations of happiness.

If some of our worn, pale mothers, who rock their cradles by the hour in close rooms, would turn their young ones into the sweet open air, they would find it play upon their spirits like the breath of Heaven on an Æolian harp. I never before saw the young human animal as happy as other animals, nor felt how much they were the creatures of mere sensation. "You see how well they look," said my friend, who observed my pleasure in gazing at them; "they work hard too, all that can work, and eat nothing but potatoes and milk." Simple, wholesome diet, and plenty of fresh air: this tells the whole story of health.

The forest of Soignies, which Byron makes poetically grieve over the "unreturning brave," lies now, at least a good portion of it, as low as they; and in the place of it are wheat, barley, potatoes, &c., which my utilitarian friend thought far better than unedible trees. The King of the Netherlands made a