The Rural Magazine, and Literary Evening Fire-Side, Vol. 1 No. 05 (1820)Various
Philosophy
The Rural Magazine, and Literary Evening Fire-Side, Vol. 1 No. 05 (1820)
Various
Agriculture; Agriculture -- Periodicals
But, in the language of a distinguished prelate, that original
transgression which banished man from Paradise, banished Paradise
from the earth. The primal curse is still in unmitigated operation,
and, without "_the sweat of the brow_," the least reluctant soils
will yield but scanty fruits for the sustenance and the comfort of
man. Toil is an indispensable pre-requisite in every department of
life, where wealth, or honour, or even _daily bread_, is sought
with a reasonable prospect of success. The scholar, amid the lofty
abstractions of the closet, when fatigued by incessant vigils,
realizes the painful truth, that "_much study is a weariness of
the flesh_." The merchant, though stimulated by the incitements of
enterprise and the bustle of occupation, must occasionally feel
the energies of his body and mind relax under the pressure of
business, without variety and without remission. And how grievous
are the toils of those _choice spirits_ who discover no enterprise
but in the pursuit of pleasure--who disdain to "_eat the bread of
carefulness_," and seek, amid the fugitive joys of sensuality, a
temporary refuge from the torpor of dejection, or the oppressive
listlessness of voluntary inaction.
Let not the unobtrusive husbandman fear to compare his lot with that
of those whose proud externals and apparent exemption from toil are
extremely fallacious indications of their just rank on the scale
of human happiness. Living in a land of promise and of plenty, and
under the government of mild equal laws, the American Farmer must
exult in the consciousness that "_the lines are fallen to him in
pleasant places_"--that his is, in truth, a goodly heritage. He
loves the soil, because it is the legacy of his fathers, and because
he derives from its fruitful bosom the means of sustaining life, and
protecting his feelings and opinions from the dictation of arrogance
and the various temptations of penury.
His quiet and unsophisticated modes of thinking and living,
indispose him to listen with eagerness to the solicitations of
intrigue or sedition, and it is proverbial that the contagious
frenzy of revolution, extends not without difficulty, to the
cautious, reflective, and well balanced mind of the farmer.
[_R. I. American._
ON DRESSING FLAX.
_Extract of a Letter from R. H. Harrison, Esq. to J. Wood,
Corresponding Secretary of the Cayuga Agricultural Society, N.
Y. dated_
NEW YORK, March 27, 1820.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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