ices
to, doos their duty, and gives themselves no airs?"

"But I sometimes think, sir, that your fences might be in more
thorough repair, and your roads in better order, if less time was
spent in politics."

"The Lord! to see how little you knows of a free country? Why,
what's the smoothness of a road, put against the freedom of a
free-born American? And what does a broken zig-zag signify,
comparable to knowing that the men what we have been pleased to
send up to Congress, speaks handsome and straight, as we chooses
they should?"

"It is from a sense of duty, then, that you all go to the liquor
store to read the papers?"

"To be sure it is, and he'd be no true born American as didn't.
I don't say that the father of a family should always be after
liquor, but I do say that I'd rather have my son drunk three
times in a week, than not look after the affairs of his country."

Our autumn walks were delightful; the sun ceased to scorch; the
want of flowers was no longer peculiar to Ohio; and the trees
took a colouring, which in richness, brilliance, and variety,
exceeded all description. I think it is the maple, or sugar-
tree, that first sprinkles the forest with rich crimson; the
beech follows, with all its harmony of golden tints, from pale
yellow up to brightest orange. The dog-wood gives almost the
purple colour of the mulberry; the chesnut softens all with its
frequent mass of delicate brown, and the sturdy oak carries its
deep green into the very lap of winter. These tints are too
bright for the landscape painter; the attempt to follow nature in
an American autumn scene must be abortive. The colours are in
reality extremely brilliant, but the medium through which they
are seen increases the effect surprisingly. Of all the points in
which America has the advantage of England, the one I felt most
sensibly was the clearness and brightness of the atmosphere. By
day and by night this exquisite purity of air gives tenfold
beauty to every object. I could hardly believe the stars were
the same; the Great Bear looked like a constellation of suns; and
Jupiter justified all the fine things said of him in those
beautiful lines from I know not what spirited pen, beginning,

"I looked on thee, Jove! till my gaze
Shrunk, smote by the pow'r of thy blaze."

I always remarked that the first silver line of the moon's
crescent attracted the eye on the first day, in America, as
strongly as it does here on th