Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/57

54 would not like to have the draining of their adorning-waters, and the laying out of the ground into streets and building-lots, a passion as worthy as Scott's old Cummer's for streaking a corse. It would, indeed, be changing the living into the dead to drive the spirit of health and the healthiest pleasure from these beautiful grounds. The utilitarian principle, in its narrowest sense, has too much to do in our country. I can fancy a Western squatter coming into Regent's Park and casting bis eye over its glades, gardens, and shrubberies, exclaim, "Why, this is the best of parara land; I'll squat here!"

Yes, dear C., that surely is a narrow utilitarianism which would make everything convertible to the meat that perisheth; and to that would sacrifice God's rich provisions for the wants of man's spirit. The only chance a London tradesman has to feel that he has anything nobler in his nature than a craving stomach, is when he comes forth on Sunday from his smoky place of daily toil into these lovely green parks, where he and his young ones can lay themselves down on the green sward, under the shadow of majestic trees, amid the odour of flowers and the singing of birds: all God's witnesses even to their dulled senses. We have 300,000 souls now in New-York. We shall soon have our million; but, alas! we have no such paradise in preparation for them!

The Zoological Garden is in Regent's Park. As a garden merely, it is very beautiful; and I do not doubt its planner or planners bad reference to the