Rural scenery

“ Of all the numerous changes that are perpetually taking place in the general appearance of rural scenery during the year, there is none so striking as this which is attendant on the falling of the leaves ”

“ As we proceeded southward the picturesqueness of the scenery increased, now winding through valleys or creeping over mountain passes. Wherever the valleys widen into plains there are seen numberless rural homes, substantial and attractive, surrounded by [Pg 264] fertile fields, cultivated gardens, and large fruit-orchards,—the latter leafless at this season, though the general foliage of the country is evergreen. Thrifty gorse hedges are prominent everywhere, blazing with yellow blossoms which lighted up and warmed the landscape like sunshine. ”

“ With those who are really fond of rural life, other things have weight besides the mere landscape, besides the beauty of the view or the exhilaration of the keen air of the hill-tops. The charm of woodland walk, of river path, of quiet lanes, or of lonely places in the hills, is increased a hundredfold by some knowledge of rural sights and sounds. ”

“ The hedges, the trees dappling the road with shade and sunshine, the cottages, the village greens and ponds, the village itself through which we pass with a fleeting interest in its life, the glimpses down side lanes into their infinite suggestions of light and colour—these are sights repeated in the endless variety of nature and rural life, and of which the changeful pleasure is unending. ”

“ The ruder nature of woods and villages, of sturdy ploughmen and the healthy though soiled and ragged children in rural neighbourhoods, affords a by no means unpleasing contrast and introduction to the trim trees and smoothly undulating lawns, and curved walks, and gay parterres, and fine ladies and well dressed and graceful children on some old ancestral estate. We look for rusticity in the village, and for elegance in the park. ”

“ The corn-fields, the vineyards clothing the uplands, the woods that varied the landscape, and the meandering river that gave it light and life, were all in their fairest summer dress. Plenty and peace brooded over a happy land. From a traveller in a diligence no more detailed description of city, village, or scenery, can be expected. ”

“ Now the cars sped through the charming country of rural England, with its ever-changing scenes, than which there is nothing more beautiful and peaceful. Cattle browsed upon the hillocks, tiny hamlets were spotlessly neat and orderly, the 72 roads were edged with trimmed hedges, and even in the woods, where wild-plants grew, there was no débris to be found. ”

“ In our day these warm and fertile slopes give place to cultivated farms, from whence arise the rural sounds of flock and herd so grateful to the spirit, and that primitive blast of horn, winding itself into a thousand echoes, the signal for the ingathering of a household. ”

“ The rural landscape is so formed and trimmed and cultivated that sometimes it achieves the look of a lovely little garden, just as the English landscape sometimes has the look of a great park. Here, much more than in England, every available inch of land is put to use. ”

“ A refreshing wash, a substantial breakfast, and a brisk walk up and down the village street, restored the strength and spirit of the wearied young pair, so that they re-entered the lumbering old coach without any remaining oppression from fatigue, and well prepared to enjoy the day’s ride through the varied scenery of hill and dale, woods, waters, fields, farms, towns and hamlets that diversified the valley that lay between the two great ranges of mountains. ”

“ It is surrounded by fine woods and pleasure-grounds, laid out in the formal style, which is still the characteristic of French landscape-gardening. Nothing can be more beautiful than the surrounding scenery, the winding river with its vineyards hanging in terraces from the opposite heights, the village reposing beneath sun-lit hills, while corn-fields, pasture-land, and cattle grazing, convey the most pleasing ideas of the comfort of those who dwell upon this luxuriant soil. ”

“ Our fields are divided by wooden fences; wooden bridges cross our rivers; our village streets and highways are being paved with wood; the engines that carry us on our way by land and by water are fed with wood; the rural dwellings without and within, their walls, their floors, stairways, and roofs are almost wholly of wood; and in this neighborhood the fires that burn on our household hearths are entirely the gift of the living forest. ”

“ The fields which border this quiet bit of road are among the oldest in our neighborhood, belonging to one of the first farms cleared near the village; they are in fine order, and to look at them, one might readily believe these lands had been under cultivation for ages. But such is already very much the character of the whole valley; a stranger moving along the highway looks in vain for any striking signs of a new country; as he passes from farm to farm in unbroken succession, the aspect of the whole region is smiling and fruitful. ”

“ Gradually the hedges and fields give way before long rows of houses; and a few single domiciles, with plats of turf cut into patterns, and bunches of daisies dusty and dry as if just dropped from the wreath of a figurante, are what the orientals call so pleasant and rural, so convenient for stages and Sunday. Soon one straight line succeeds another; and we know the wilderness of streets is begun, which, in another century, will end heaven knows where. ”

“ Still flat, however, unenclosed, without hedgerows, clumps of trees, straying cattle, and the numerous rural peculiarities which give life and variety and interest to an English landscape, almost a single glance suffices to take in all they exhibit of the picturesque, and to satisfy the merely superficial tourist. ”

“ Nothing can be more delicious than the rural paradises which now surround our country houses. Walks, waters, lawns of velvet softness, trees casting broad shadows, or whispering in the stirrings of the breeze; seclusion and yet airiness; flowers from all regions, besides all the luxuries which the kitchen-garden, the orchard, conservatories, hothouses, and sunny walls pour upon our tables, are so blended and diffused [68] around our dwellings, that nothing on earth can be more delectable. ”

“ It is to the heart of one of these models of rural beauty that we now invite the attention of the reader. The immediate location of the village was in a sort of valley, close within the verge of an immense forest, and surrounded by an intervening underwood, which Nature had fashioned as a sort of defensive barrier. ”

“ In rural life, however tame and lonely, the home is not merely a few square feet hedged in by brick walls, but the whole wide countryside: the barns, the fields, the woods, the orchards, the animals wild and domesticated, the outlook over hill and valley—these all constitute the farmer’s home. ”

“ The lover of country life who looks upon rural objects in the true spirit, and, for the first time surveys the cultivated portions of the United States, will be struck with the incongruous appearance and style of our farm houses and their contiguous buildings ”

“ To-day, with its cultivated fields and with just enough woodland left to vary the monotony that characterises the treeless plains, as we looked across the country, really park like in appearance, we could almost fancy that we were passing through some of the rural districts of Old England. ”

“ There are, however, pleasures and advantages in a rural situation, which are not confined to philosophers and heroes. The freshness of the air, the verdure of the woods, the paint of the meadows, and the unexhausted variety which summer scatters upon the earth, may easily give delight to an unlearned spectator. ”

“ Physical Types.—To understand the continually changing rural life of the present, it is necessary to examine into the physical characteristics of the country districts, the elements of the population, the functions of the rural community, and its social institutions.
The physical characteristics have a large part in determining occupations and in fashioning social life. A natural harbor, especially if it is at the mouth of a river, seems destined by nature for a centre of commerce, as the falls of a swift-flowing stream indicate the location of a manufacturing plant. ”

“ The boy who lived on a farm or in a village, who had the swimming-hole in summer, the farm with its hay-loft, and in winter sledding and skating, was able to satisfy his love of adventure. To-day, even rural conditions have changed, and there is as much need of decent and wholesome recreation in the country and small villages as in cities. Churches are open only on Sunday, schools are closed two days in the week, the only meeting-place is the corner store, or the saloons, and the streets. ”

“ See the beautiful plains, the prairies beneath us, one great carpet of cultivation,—the fields of grain, the yellow wheat, the verdant maize, the flocks, the herds, the meadow, the woodland, forming beautiful and defined figures in its texture, while the villages in glistening whiteness, are scattered, like patches of snow, in every part of the landscape; and hark! in that indistinct and mellow music we hear the bell slowly tolling from yonder slender spire. ”

“ Those little, unique fields, defined by lines and shapes unknown to geometry, are going out of the rural landscape. And when they are gone, they will be missed more than the amateurs of agricultural artistry imagine at the present moment. ”

“ It is benignly ordained that green fields, clear blue skies, running streams of pure water, rich groves and woods, orchards, and all the ordinary varieties of rural nature should find an easy way to the affections of all men. ”

“ In these upper reaches there is little of this, but the immediate slopes of the valley wear, nevertheless, not only an air of physical luxuriance but of rural opulence, so significant not merely of the presence of great landlords but of a popular neighbourhood, where in lodges and granges and other attractive snuggeries prosperous aliens, with fishing proclivities in most cases, spend a part at least of their days. ”

“ Heavy night dews there feed the wild flowers that sicken in the nerveless pallor of the summer sea-air, and fresh water runs swiftly from mountain springs. Sometimes they are narrow and hidden valleys, in whose depth even villages could scarce find a home, did they not climb the hill-sides on either hand, and camp out, as it were, upon the meadows or among the vineyards. Or, again, they are wider, so that little towns have been built within them—quaint towns with tall houses and taller campanile, at whose side there flows, perhaps, a shallow river, brown upon its shingly bed. ”

“ Unfortunately, we find it difficult to share this enthusiasm for rural life. You see, we worked on a few farms when we were a wild lad just out of college—we were seeking inspiration in the soil. So we know just how a farm looks and smells in the spring when they are enriching the ground. ”

“ The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. ”

“ Roughs from the towns, idle fellows from the villages, cobblers, tinkers, gipsies, the nondescript “residuum,” all congregate in crowds, delighted at the chance of penetrating into the secret recesses of woods only thrown open two or three times a year. It is impossible to stay the inroad—the gates are wide open, the rails pulled down, and trespass is but a fiction for the hour. ”

“ The forest has been cleared away, the corn-field and the orchard have supplanted the wild grass and the bush, and towns and villages have arisen as if by magic. You may hear the lowing of herds where, a few years before, you would have trembled at the wild whoop of the savage, and the stillness of that once solitary shore is broken by the sound of wheels and the busy hum of commerce. ”

“ The summer countryside, as viewed from an aeroplane, is to my mind the finest scene in the world—an unexampled scene, of which poets will sing in the coming days of universal flight. The varying browns and greens of the field-pattern merge into one another delicately; the woods, splashes of bottle-green, relieve the patchwork of hedge from too ordered a scheme; rivers and roads criss-cross in riotous manner over the vast tapestry; pleasant villages and farm buildings snuggle in the valleys or straggle on the slopes. ”

“ If we go up and down France we shall find the rural population decidedly dense. [77] One little village usually follows another closely and every collection of huts swarms with human bipeds. There are, indeed, vast forests and marshes which might with better management be put under the plow, but the extent of arable land is great. Heaven surely loves the peasants, it has made so many of them. ”

“ At all times the locality is very beautiful, but it is especially so in summer, when the thin line of trees on the one side of the road and the rustling wood upon the other cast a welcome shade upon the traveller, who can rest against the old railings, and look down upon a rich expanse of meadow-land and corn-fields, bounded in the distance by dim, solemn-looking hills, and over the white farm-houses, snugly set in the midst of luxurious vegetation. ”

“ These are generally detached, and in many cases stand within their own gardens, and their isolation from one another, and the grove-like look of the whole place, gives it a rural, or at least suburban, character, suggesting rather the outskirts of some continental pleasure resort that the streets of a populous town. ”

“ The following notes contain, in a journal form, the simple record of those little events which make up the course of the seasons in rural life, and were commenced two years since, in the spring of 1848, for the writer's amusement. In wandering about the fields, during a long, unbroken residence in the country, one naturally gleans many trifling observations on rustic matters, which are afterward remembered with pleasure by the fire-side, and gladly shared, perhaps, with one's friends. ”