humble aims and ambitions, humble means and humble labors--ah! how
many weary, overloaded men--how many disappointed hearts--have
sighed for such a boon, and sighed knowing they could never
receive it.

It has been the habit of poets to surround simple pleasures and
pursuits with the golden atmosphere of romance,--not because they
would enjoy such pleasures and pursuits at all, but rather because
they are forever beyond their possession. A poet is always
reaching toward the unattainable, and he may reach forward to the
perfections of a life of which the best that he sees around him is
an intimation, or backward to the animal content of a life as yet
undisturbed by the intimation of something better. Bucolics are very
sweet, but their writers do not believe in them. "A nut-brown maid,"
with bare, unconscious feet and ancles, is very pretty in a picture,
but the man who painted her ascertained that she was green, and not
the most entertaining of companions. The truth is, that when we have
got along so far that we can perceive that which is poetical and
picturesque in the simplest form of rustic life, we have got too
far along to enjoy it.

I suppose that much of the charm which simple animal content has
for us, is connected with the memories of childhood. We can all
recall a period of our lives when there was joy in the consciousness
of living--when animal life, in its spontaneous overflow, flooded all
our careless hours with its own peculiar pleasure. The light was
pleasant to our eyes, vigorous appetite and digestion made ambrosia
of the homeliest fare, the simplest play brought delight, and
life--all untried--lay spread out before us in one long, golden
dream. We now watch our children at their sports, and see but little