ral lodging-houses,
and the general abatement and contraction of creature-comforts, in such
startling contrast to the abounding luxuries of their own city palaces.
But they are right. The country, at any discount, is better, in the
fearful heats of July and August, than the town with its hot, unquiet
nights and polluted air. Any hillside or valley in the country, and a
shelter under any roof in or upon them, with the broad cope of heaven
above, (not cut into patches and fragments by intervening walls and
chimney-tops,) and broad fields, and grass, and corn, and woodlands, and
their flowers and freshening dews and breezes, and all Nature's infinite
variety, is better than every appliance and contrivance of luxury, with
the din, the suffocation, and unrest of city life.

Yes, our city friends are right in their summer flight from

'----the street,
Filled with its ever-shifting train;'

but they must not flatter themselves that their mere glimpse of country
life--their mere snatch at its midsummer beauty, the one free-drawn
breath of their wearied spirit--is acquaintance with it. As well might
one who had seen Rosalind, the most versatile of Shakspeare's heroines,
only in her court-dress at her uncle the duke's ball, guess at her
infinite variety of charm in the Forest of Ardennes. Nature holds her
drawing-room in July and August. She wears her fullest and richest
dresses then; if we may speak flippantly without offense to the
simplicity of her majesty, she is then _en pleine toilette_. But any
other of the twelve is more picturesque than the summer months:
blustering March, with its gushing streams tossing off their icy
fetters; changeful April, with its greening fields and glancing birds;
sweet, budding, blossoming May; flowery June; fruitful September;
golden, glorious October; dreary, thoughtful November; and all of
Winter, with its potent majesty and heroic adversity.

But let our citizens come to our rural districts; the more, the better
for them! Only let them not imagine they get that 'enough' which is 'as
good as a feast.'

This preamble was naturally suggested by our autumnal life in the
country, and by a recurrence to a late delightful passage through the
'White Hills of New Hampshire.'

'That resort of people that do pass
In travel to and fro'

during the intense months of July and August, we found in October so
free from visitors, that we might have fancied ourselves the