and their breath was as sweet as their voices. Then things were natural, plain and wholesome; nothing was superfluous, nothing necessary wanting. Men of estate studied the public good, and gave examples of true piety, loyalty, justice, sobriety, charity; and the good of the neighborhood composed most differences. Laws were reasons, not craft; men's estates were secure: they served their generation with honor, left patrimonial estates improved to a hopeful heir, who, passing from the free school to the college, and thence to Inns of Court, acquainting himself with a competent tincture of the laws of his country, followed the example of his worthy ancestors. And if he travelled abroad, it was not to count steeples, and bring home feather and ribbon and the sins of other nations, but to gain such experience as rendered him useful to his Prince and his countrymen upon occasion, and confirmed him in the love of both of them above any other. Hospitality was kept up in town and country, by which the tenants were enabled to pay their landlords at punctual day. The poor were relieved bountifully, and charity was as warm as the kitchen, where the fire was perpetual."] [Illustration: Small decoration of a flower and leaves] II. RECREATION. "Thou who wouldst know the things that be, Bathe thy heart in the sunrise red, Till its stains of earthly dross are fled." GOETHE. [Illustration: Decorative banner of a beetle among flowers and leaves] RECREATION. I.--THE FOUNTAINS. Nature is wholesome. Without her elixirs daily taken we perish of lassitude and inanity. The fountains must be stirred to their depths and their torrents sent bounding along their sluices, else we sink presently into the pool of inertia, victims of indecision and slaves of fate. "Thy body, O well disposed man, is a meadow through which flow three hundred and sixty-five rivulets." Every pulse pushes nature's quaternion along life's currents recreating us afresh; the morn feeding the morn, Memnon's music issuing from every stop, as if the Orient itself had sung. Nature is virtuous. Imparting sanity and sweetness, it spares from decay, giving life with temperance and a continency that keeps our pleasures chaste and perennial. Nothing short of her flowing atmosphere suffices to refill our urns. Neither books, company, conversation,--not Genius even, the power present in persons, nature's nature pouring her floods through mind,--not this is enough. Nature is the good Baptist plunging us in her Jordan streams to be purified of our stains, and fulfil all righteousness. And wheresoever our lodge, there is but the thin casement between us and immensity. Nature without, mind within, inviting us forth into the solacing air, the blue ether, if we will but shake our sloth and cares aside, and step forth into her great contentments.