第46章 THE SKETCH BOOK(2)

These are but a few of the features of park scenery; but what mostdelights me, is the creative talent with which the English decoratethe unostentatious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, themost unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands of anEnglishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicelydiscriminating eye, he seizes at once upon its capabilities, andpictures in his mind the future landscape. The sterile spot grows intoloveliness under his hand; and yet the operations of art which producethe effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and trainingof some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the nice distributionof flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the introductionof a green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of bluedistance, or silver gleam of water: all these are managed with adelicate tact, a pervading yet quiet assiduity, like the magictouchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture.

The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country hasdiffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy, thatdescends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatchedcottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. Thetrim hedge, the grassplot before the door, the little flower-bedbordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall,and hanging its blossoms about the lattice, the pot of flowers inthe window, the holly, providently planted about the house, to cheatwinter of its dreariness, and to throw in a semblance of greensummer to cheer the fireside: all these bespeak the influence oftaste, flowing down from high sources, and pervading the lowest levelsof the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit acottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant.

The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of theEnglish has had a great and salutary effect upon the nationalcharacter. I do not know a finer race of men than the Englishgentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which characterizethe men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union of eleganceand strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of complexion, whichI am inclined to attribute to their living so much in the open air,and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of the country.

These hardy exercises produce also a healthful tone of mind andspirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even thefollies and dissipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and cannever entirely destroy. In the country, too, the different orders ofsociety seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend andoperate favorably upon each other. The distinctions between them donot appear to be so marked and impassable as in the cities. The mannerin which property has been distributed into small estates and farmshas established a regular gradation from the nobleman, through theclasses of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantialfarmers, down to the laboring peasantry; and while it has thusbanded the extremes of society together, has infused into eachintermediate rank a spirit of independence. This, it must beconfessed, is not so universally the case at present as it wasformerly; the larger estates having, in late years of distress,absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, almostannihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, Ibelieve, are but casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned.

In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads aman forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves himto the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest andmost elevating of external influences. Such a man may be simple andrough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore,finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders inrural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lowerorders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and isglad to waive the distinctions of rank, and to enter into thehonest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed the veryamusements of the country bring men more and more together; and thesound of hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believethis is one great reason why the nobility and gentry are morepopular among the inferior orders in England than they are in anyother country; and why the latter have endured so many excessivepressures and extremities, without repining more generally at theunequal distribution of fortune and privilege.