Page:The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man.djvu/44

36 can make one line, but I can never get a fellow to it."

"Well, father, as Susy would say, it's a comfort to have the feeling, though you can't express it." Charlotte was right. It is a great comfort and happiness to have the feeling, and happy would it be if those who live in the country were more sensible to the beauties of nature; if they could see something in the glorious forest besides "good wood and timber lots"—something in the green valley besides a "warm soil"—something in a waterfall besides a "mill-privilege." There is a susceptibility in every human heart to the ever-present and abounding beauties of nature; and whose fault is it that this taste is not awakened and directed? If the poet and the painter cannot bring down their arts to the level of the poor, are there none to be God's interpreters to them—to teach them to read the great book of nature?

The labouring classes ought not to lose the pleasures that, in the country, are before them from dawn to twilight—pleasures that might counterbalance, and often do, the profits of the merchant, pent in his city counting-house; and all the honours the lawyer earns between the court-rooms and his office. We only wish that more was made of the privilege of country life; that the farmer's wife would steal some moments from her cares to point out to her children the beauties of nature, whether amid the hills and valleys of our inland country, or on the sublime shores of the ocean. Over the city, too, hangs the vault of heaven "thick inlaid" with the witnesses of God's power and goodness—his altars are everywhere.