Countryman

“ The cultivated countryman, too,—one who has learned to use his eyes, and to see what nature has to offer him,—appreciates even more thoroughly, if not so keenly, the never-ending and ever-changing interest by which he is surrounded. ”

“ The situation of the countryman is in this sense favorable; he is surrounded by great natural teachers, by noble monitors, in the works of the Deity; many are the salutary lessons to be learned on the mountain-tops, within the old groves beside the flowing stream. The everlasting hills—the ancient woods—these are his monuments—these tell him of the past, and not a seed drops from his hand but prophesies of the future. The influences which surround the countryman are essentially ennobling, elevating, civilizing, in fact. ”

“ Almost every one is drawn to the country, and takes pleasure in rural pursuits. The citizen hopes to become a countryman, and contrives to secure his cottage or villa, unless he fail by some reverse of fortune or of character. 'Tis man's natural position, the Paradise designed for him, and wherein he is placed originally in the Sacred Books of the cultivated peoples; their first man being conceived a gardener and countryman by inspiration as by choice.
Gardens and orchards plant themselves by sympathy about our dwellings, as if their seeds were preserved in us by inheritance. ”

“ It may be important to provide new entertainment for the farmer; but it is much more important to develop his personal resources.
The simple life, as Pastor Wagner so well explains, is a state of mind. It is a simplification of desire, a certain directness of effort and [Pg 205] of purpose that brings us quickly to a result, and such an attitude that we derive our satisfactions from the humble and the near-at-hand. The countryman is the man who has the personal touch with his environment. ”

“ The countryman takes his pleasures more sadly than of yore. His rough old amusements and sports are gone; about the only excitement which penetrates into rural life being furnished by some realistically dished-up tragedy or cause célèbre imbibed through the medium of a halfpenny paper. ”

“ Be very sure the year-round countryman does not see what you see coming tired and half-broken from the town; and those who are caught and maimed by the City cannot conceive their plight, as do you, returning to them again from the country replenished and refreshed. ”

“ A Countryman sowing his Ground, two smart Fellows riding that Way, call'd to him with an insolent Air: Well, honest Fellow, says one of them, 'tis your Business to sow, but we reap the Fruits of your Labour; to which the plain Countryman reply'd, 'Tis very likely you may, truly, for I am sowing Hemp. ”

“ Making a Countryman into a Citizen.—It is important to enter into the spirit of the young people who prefer the streets and blocks of the town to the winding country roads, and are willing to sacrifice what there is of beauty and leisure in rural life for the ugliness, sordidness, and continuous drive of the city ”

“ But are your liberties endangered by this measure? 228 A COUNTRYMAN. Philosophy may mislead you. Ask experience. Are not the liberties of the people of England as safe as yours? — They are not as free as yours, because much of their government is in the hands of hereditary majesty and nobility. But is not that part of the government which is under the control of the commons ex- ceedingly well guarded? ”

“ These characters—the cowboy, the prospector, and the trapper—tarried for a brief moment on the frontier when the farmer, the first lasting settler, arrived. All these armed and vigorous people, the wearers of buckskin, were people of individuality and power. They made great changes throughout the West, and hastened its final development.
Pioneer men and women are among the great and influential figures in history. They were human, they were honorable, and we do honor them. ”

“ The next time you meet a family of emigrants on the frontier, you will probably observe them a little more closely.
Not a few of those who bear a prominent part in the government of our country—more than one of the first men of the nation—men whose names are now heard in connection with the highest office of the people—twenty years ago, occupied a place as humble in the scale of influence, as that flaxen-haired son of the stoop-shouldered emigrant. Such are the elements of our civilization—such the spirit of our institutions! ”

“ As we climbed your lofty mountains, which form a great barrier between the heart of your country and the outside world, we were continually passing from one deep impression to another, and at the same time were arriving at a clearer understanding of the character of your people. We saw the humble laborers of the field stand erect as we passed and show that noble type of manhood which has been observable in all the men we have met in this country. ”

“ The traveller, who may have occasion to cross their thresholds, will seldom witness the semblance of poverty, or the shadow of discontent. Since my arrival in the country, I have not beheld a single trace of anxiety or care in the countenances of the people. In the city, the town, the village, and the open country, every eye sparkles with contentment, and every tongue speaks the language of independence. ”

“ And here, gentlemen, you must learn that from time immemorial we have had the saying: "With all due respect to anyone else, our countryfolk are the backbone of the nation." In fact, there's an old rhyme about it, something like this: "Who is the man so strong and tall, Whose daily labour feeds us all? The farmer!" ”

“ Our frontier-men, although brave in council and action, and possessing an intelligence that quickens in the face of danger, are apt to feel shy of the pen. They shun the atmosphere of the student's closet; their sphere is in the free and open wilderness. ”

“ The very thought that speeds the emigrant pulls at the heart-strings of the immigrant; drawing home one son from the outposts, while thrusting out another toward the outposts, there to learn what England means, and to earn and deserve the glory of his birthright. ”

“ I think the country is just sweet. I love to see the peasant returning to his humble cot, his sturdy figure outlined against the setting sun, his faithful collie by his side, and his plough upon his shoulder! ”

“ Our rural ancestors, with little blest, Patient of labour when the end was rest, Indulged the day that housed their annual grain, With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain: The joy their wives, their sons, and servants share, Ease of their toil, and partners of their care: The laugh, the jest, attendants on the bowl, Smoothed every brow, and opened every soul: With growing years the pleasing licence grew, And taunts alternate innocently flew. But times corrupt, and Nature, ill-inclined, Produced the point that left a sting behind ”

“ It's the country that is the basis of English society. And you see, country life is—well, it's the hunting. It's the hunting that is at the bottom of it all." In other words, "the hunting" is the basis of English society. ”

“ Possessed of an easy competence, and a manageable field of labour, surrounded by the simplicities of rural manners, and the picturesque features of rural scenery,—lord of his sphere of duty, and master of his time,—his life can be, and often is, one of the most useful and happy, honourable in its toils, and graceful in its relaxations, to be found on earth. ”

“ In the midst of this busy life—a life where the citizens themselves watched over their boundaries, defended their territory, kept peace in their borders, took charge of the common property, governed the spending of the town treasure, laboured with their own hands at all public works, ordered their own amusements, the mediæval burgher had his training. ”

“ A windmilly country this, though the windmills are so damp and rickety, that they nearly knock themselves off their legs at every turn of their sails, and creak in loud complaint. A weaving country, too, for in the wayside cottages the loom goes wearily—rattle and click, rattle and click—and, looking in, I see the poor weaving peasant, man or woman, bending at the work, while the child, working too, turns a little hand-wheel put upon the ground to suit its height. ”

“ Over the whole face of our country the charm of a refined existence is diffused. There is nothing which strikes foreigners so much as the beauty [4] of our country abodes, and the peculiarity of our country life. ”

“ A traveller in the Eastern country overtook an old gentleman walking towards a town, and asked him, "Who is the great man of that little town? Who is your leading man? Who is the governor and controlling spirit of that little place?" ”

“ I would say to every owner of every quarter-section of land in the West, I would say to every man in the East who follows his own plough, and to every mechanic, artisan, and laborer in every city in the country,—I would say to every man, everywhere, who wishes by honest means to gain an honest living, "Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. ”

“ This great unpeopled country, where men are so urgently needed, was gladly sending of its best to “the Old Country”—“home,” as they tenderly call it, with a depth of sentiment incomprehensible here, and incomprehensible to anyone who does not know and feel his own patriotism awake and flourish on alien soil. ”

“ If he is disposed to go abroad, who has the money, or the education, to give facility and advantage to travel in every region like the English gentleman?—Such are the privileges and pleasures attendant on the country gentleman of England. ”

“ But he knew from long experience that on the frontier—the ragged edge of civilization—where life is wild and strenuous, only strong men could succeed; men sound in limb, keen in intellect, and thoroughly consecrated to the Master's cause. ”

“ Since the period of our tale, the active spirit of the country has surrounded it with a belt of rich and thriving settlements, though none but the hunter or the savage is ever known, even now, to penetrate its wild recesses. ”

“ A farmer up-country, who says he has been into the "bush" after cattle, means that he has been into the forest, in contradistinction to his own cleared land, the settlement, or the open country.
Our road lies at first through the fern lands beyond Riverhead, and we soon lose sight of the settlement. We appear to be travelling at random across the moor, for not a trace of what our English eyes have been taught to regard as a road can we discern. The country is all a rugged wilderness of range and gully: "gently undulating," you say, if you want to convey a favourable impression ”

“ All this hilly country, though malarious in the extreme and held in abject dread by the natives of the plains, wins the best affections of almost every European officer whom fate leads to serve within it. ”

“ But regular country gentlemen, with big properties, lots of money, and all the rest of it, they're there to show a good example to the countryside, whether it paid for the time or whether it didn't; and all us sort of chaps, on the cross or not, like them all the better for it. ”

“ God made the country, and man made the town. ”

“ Where you find the new rural civilization well developed, you find a self-respecting people, prosperous and happy, keeping abreast of the times in all important human interests, keenly alert to all new developments in agriculture and often proud of their country heritage. ”

“ The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and evince a tact for rural occupation. ”

“ Whatever may have been their impression, on returning to their own country, of its superiority or inferiority in other respects, they cannot but have felt one thing about it—the comfortable look of its towns and villages. ”

“ First had come the nomad, the hunter, then had followed the agriculturist of the agricultural state, whose towns and cities and ports were but the headquarters and markets of the countryside. And now, logical consequence of an epoch of invention, was this huge new aggregation of men. ”

“ I have considered the great rural establishments of the nobility, and the lesser establishments of the gentry, as so many reservoirs of wealth and intelligence distributed about the kingdom, apart from the towns, to irrigate, freshen, and fertilize the surrounding country. ”

“ Notwithstanding the sharp rivalry between different sections and towns, the leading men mostly pull together for the general good and glory,--building, buying, borrowing, to push the country to its place ”

“ This was, in the beginning of the present century, the state of the Highlands. Every man was a soldier, who partook of national confidence, and interested himself in national honour. To lose this spirit, is to lose what no small advantage will compensate. ”

“ I repeat it once more, let the exclusively loyal gentry—let the life and fortune men—let the hole-and-corner addressers come forward, and point me out one instance amongst their whole hordes, of a man who ever volunteered to serve his country to such an extent. ”

“ The Back Country folk, as they came from several countries, generally settled in national groups, each preserving its own speech and its own religion, each approaching frontier life through its own native temperament. ”

“ These frontier folk, the people of the up-country, or back-country, who lived near and among the forest-clad mountains, far away from the long-settled districts of flat coast plain and sluggish tidal river, were known to themselves and to others as backwoodsmen. ”