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ing the nil admirari becoming to a "picked man of countries," (acquired with some pains, I may say,) I now catch myself smiling with pleasure to think the river will not all run by, that there will be another sunset to-morrow, that my grain will ripen and nod when it is ripe, and such like every-day marvels. Have we scales that drop off our eyes at a "certain age ?" Do our senses renew as well as our bodies, only more capriciously? Have we a chrysalis state, here below, like that parvenu gentleman, the butterfly? Still more interesting query-does this delicious novelty attach, later in life, or ever, to objects of affection-compensating for the ravages in the form, the dulness of the senses, loss of grace, temper, and all outward loveliness? should like to get you over a flagon of tokay on that subject.

I

There is a curious fact, I have learned for the first time in this wild country, and it may be new to you, that as the forest is cleared, new springs rise to the surface of the ground, as if at the touch of the sunshine. The settler knows that water as well as herbage will start to the light, and as his axe lets it in upon the black bosom of the wilderness, his cattle find both pasture and drink, where, before, there had never been either wellhead or verdure. You have yourself been, in your day, dear Doctor, "a warped slip of wilderness," and will see at once that there lies in this ordinance of nature a beautiful analogy to certain moral changes that come in upon the heels of more cultivated and thoughtful manhood. Of the springs that start up in the footsteps of

thought and culture, the sources are like those of forest springs, unsuspected till they flow. There is no divining rod, whose dip shall tell us at twenty what we shall most relish at thirty. We do not think that with experience we shall have grown simple, that things we slight and overlook will have become marvels, that our advancement in worth will owe more to the cutting away of overgrowth in tastes than to their acquisition or nurture.

I should have thought this change in myself scarce worth so much blotting of good paper, but for its bearing on a question that has hitherto given me no little anxiety. The rivers flow on to the sea, increasing in strength and glory to the last, but we have our pride and fulness in youth, and dwindle and fall away toward the grave. How I was to grow dull to the ambitions and excitements which constituted my whole existence-be content to lag and fall behind and forego emulation in all possible pursuits-in short, how I was to grow old contentedly and gracefully, has been to me a somewhat painful puzzle. With what should I be pleased? How should I fill the vacant halls from which had fled mer. riment and fancy, and hope and desire ?

You can scarce understand, dear Doctor, with what pleasure I find this new spring in my path-the content with which I admit the conviction, that, without effort or self-denial, the mind may slake its thirst, and the heart be satisfied with but the waste of what lies so near us. I have all my life seen men grow old, tranquilly and content, but I did not think it possible that I should. I

RENEWAL OF ARCADIA.

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took pleasure only in that which required young blood to follow, and I felt that, to look backward for enjoyment, would be at best but a difficult resignation.

Now let it be no prejudice to the sincerity of my phi. losophy, if, as a corollary, I beg you to take a farm on the Susquehannah, and let us grow old in company. I should think Fate kinder than she passes for, if I could draw you, and one or two others whom we know and "love with knowledge," to cluster about this-certainly one of the loveliest spots in nature, and, while the river glides by unchangingly, shape ourselves to our changes with a helping sympathy. Think of it, dear Doctor! Meantime I employ myself in my rides, selecting situations on the river banks which I think would be to yours and our friends' liking; and in the autumn, when it is time to transplant, I intend to suggest to the owners where trees might be wanted in case they ever sold, so that you will not lose even a season in your shrubbery, though you delay your decision. Why should we not renew Arcady? God bless you.

LETTER X.

You may congratulate me on the safe getting in of my harvest, dear Doctor; for I have escaped, as you may say, in a parenthesis. Two of the most destructive hail-storms remembered in this part of the country have prostrated the crops of my neighbors, above and below -leaving not a blade of corn, nor an unbroken window; yet there goes my last load of grain into the barn, wellripened, and cut standing and fair.

'Some bright little cherub, that sits up aloft,
Keeps watch for the soul of poor Peter."

I confess I should have fretted at the loss of my firstlings more than for a much greater disaster in another shape. I have expended curiosity, watching, and fresh interest upon my uplands, besides plaster and my own labor; and the getting back five hundred bushels for five or ten, has been to me, through all its beautiful changes from April till now, a wonder to be enjoyed like a play. To have lost the denouement by a hail-storm, would be like a play with the fifth act omitted, or a novel with the

A SIDE-HILL HORSE.

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last leaf torn out. Now, if no stray spark set fire to my barn, I can pick you out the whitest of a thousand sheaves, thrash them with the first frost, and send you a barrel of Glenmary flour, which shall be not only very excellent bread, but should have also a flavor of wonder, admiration-all the feelings, in short, with which I have watched it, from seed-time to harvest. Yet there is many a dull dog will eat of it, and remark no taste of me! And so there are men who will read a friend's book as if it were a stranger's-but we are not of those. If we love the man, whether we eat a potato of his raising, or read a verse of his inditing, there is in it a sweetness which has descended from his heart-by quill or hoehandle. I scorn impartiality. If it be a virtue, Death and Posterity may monopolize it for me.

I was interrupted a moment since by a neighbor, who, though innocent of reading and writing, has a coinage of phraseology, which would have told in authorship. A stray mare had broken into his peas, and he came to me to write an advertisement for the court-house door. Af. ter requesting the owner "to pay charges and take her away," in good round characters, I recommended to my friend, who was a good deal vexed at the trespass, to take a day's work out of her.

"Why, I aint no job on the mounting," said he, folding up the paper very carefully. "It's a side-hill critter! Two off legs so lame, she can't stand even."

It was certainly a new idea, that a horse with two spavins on a side, might be used with advantage on a hill-farm. While I was jotting it down for your

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