The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 8, April, 1835Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 8, April, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
And in the ordering of a New England home-stead, there
is a quiet, smooth despatch--a neatness--a happy fitting of means to
ends--a nicety of contrivances for comfort--an economy of trouble in
every thing--all calculated doubly to endear it to a home-loving man.
When to all this we add, that though the prime necessaries of life are
cheaper with us, those elegancies and luxuries which as the world goes
have become necessaries, are so much more accessible in New England,
as to make a smaller income yield a larger store of comfort; it will
not seem wonderful, that the balance of enjoyment is on the
Massachusetts lawyer's side. I take for granted, you see, that he is
not insensible to intellectual pleasures; and that _they_ conduce the
most of all to happiness.
This is probably the last time you will hear from me before we meet;
as my tour is drawing near its close. The six weeks it has occupied,
have been crowded with more mind-stirring incident, than any six
months of my previous life. Vivid indeed is the contrast, between the
plodding, eventless tenor of the preceding eight years, and the
exciting, the feverish interest of these six weeks. Yet they have
afforded scarcely a describable adventure; nothing, at all calculated
to make an auditor's eyes stretch wide, or his hair stand on end. In
truth, the interest is explicable in great part by the simple case of
a plough-horse, turned loose to kick up his heels for an hour. He
enjoys the recreation (if his spirit is not broken by excessive work,)
five fold more than a daily roamer of the pasture could do. Judge how
the sport has kept my faculties aroused, by the fact, that though
habitually a great sleeper, requiring seven or eight hours in the
twenty-four, my sleep, since leaving Virginia, would hardly average
five hours. Even while on foot--walking from twenty to thirty miles a
day--my nightly allowance was sometimes less than five, never more
than six hours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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