th the frosty
kisses of the cold, and the passenger birds fly Southward. This class of
our population know where to find all the facilities for the best
country enjoyments, and their ample means assure them a free choice of
summer resorts, and adequate command of all the appliances of pleasant
country living.

But there is another and still larger class of citizens who have neither
the means to enable them to keep up both town and country residences,
nor such command of their time that they can pass two or three months of
every summer away from their business. There are thousands of clerks and
subordinate officers in the banking and insurance institutions in our
cities and in our large commercial houses; there are many merchants who
are making their way slowly and surely to competence and wealth, who
would gladly compromise for one-third of such a summer vacation. These
are men of intelligence, and sometimes of a good deal of social and
intellectual culture and refinement. Many of them were born, and their
boyhood nurtured amongst the hills. They love the country with the
intensity and purity of a first love, and they long for communion once
more with nature in all her moods of loveliness. Their sweetest dreams
still, when they forget the hard realities of life, are of green lawns
and sloping hill-sides, of waving trees and cool streams. And they would
wish that their children should become familiar with the same wholesome
associations, and be moved by the same attachments and inspirations. In
the city they are constantly exposed to its excitements, and subjected
to the restraints of its artificial modes, with few outward influences
to counteract upon their development; with very little, indeed, except
the discipline and the affections of home to emancipate them from the
tendencies to a trivial, artificial, and sordid life. They would gladly
supply to them the healthful tone and vigor--the outer and inner bloom
and freshness--which are the product of out-door life in the pure air of
the country. But they are compelled by considerations of economy, to
forego most of these advantages, and allow their children to grow up
with city tastes and habits. They long for the country but think they
must content themselves with the town, until the time comes when their
fortunes will enable them to command the coveted indulgences.

The time may come, sooner than they anticipate, when they will be
obliged to choose the country.

Ou