Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/78

Rh has his place of business in New York and his proper home here in Brooklyn, one of the very prettiest rural homes, by name “Rose Cottage,” which he himself built, and around which he has himself planted trees, covered arbours with trailing vines, has sown the fields with maize, and other vegetables, so that the place has the united character of park and garden. From this place he drives every morning to New York, and hither he returns every evening, but not merely to sleep, but to rest, and enjoy himself with wife, children, and friends. Rose Cottage lies just on the outskirts of the town (you must not imagine it a little town, but one which has a hundred thousand inhabitants, its own proper town-house, very magnificent, and from fifty to sixty churches), and the country, with wooded heights and green fields, may be seen therefrom on three sides. But houses are now building at various distances, and threaten soon to shut out the country. It may, however, be some years yet before Rose Cottage comes into the city. I shall now remain here a little while before I set off to Massachusetts and Boston.

Much, very much, had I to tell you, but alas! I have neither the time nor the necessary repose; and I must here give you my life more as a compendium than I did in Denmark. My impressions of life here are more great, more massive, on a broader scale, so to say: I cannot yet bring them under control, cannot yet deal with them; I cannot give them expression. I have a feeling of the forms in the block, but it will require time and labour to hew them out. This much, however, is certain: the effect of my American journey, as far as myself am concerned, is altogether quite different to what I expected. I came hither to breathe a new and fresher atmosphere of life; to observe the popular life, institutions, and circumstances of a new country; to become clearer in my own mind on certain questions connected