“Very true,” said Mr. Woodburn; “and out of that divine mouth issued these divine words: ‘Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ He who made beauty as well as material food, and showered it on the earth, and continues so to shower it, knew and knows that we want food for every part of our nature. ‘Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them.’ Now, according to my notions, every part of us demands its proper food. Food for the support of the body, grace for the life of the soul, beauty for the imagination, love for the heart, and truth for the intellect. To feed only the body, and to devote all our labours and our lands only to this purpose, is, in my opinion, to make ourselves no better than the beasts that perish.” Mr. Drury smiled contemptuously. “That is all very well for you, Mr. Woodburn, who live at ease on your own land; but that sort of doctrine won’t do for tenant-farmers.” Mr. Woodburn thought it as good for tenant-farmers as for anybody else; and should be very sorry to see the tenant-farmers allowed to follow such a system of agricultural economy, as would make the whole country as bare as a drill-ground, and as ugly as sin. He had seen this style of cultivation carried out in some parts of the country, and he would sooner emigrate to the American forests than live in such a featureless district. He thought, to cut down hedges almost to the ground, and exterminate every tree, was by no means beneficial to cattle or sheep, which in cold weather, and especially during the sharp east winds of early spring, required shelter as well as food. After one or two conversations of this kind Woodburn thought Mr. Drury would say no more to him on this subject, but he was greatly mistaken; for Mr. Trant Drury was one of those people that we now and then come across, who carry their hobbies to a perfect monomania. They are always on the same subject, in all places and with all persons. Though they may have told you the same thing fifty times, they never seem to recollect it, but treat it as perfectly new, and go over the whole ground with merciless pertinacity. After a few inflictions of the all-profit and threadbare country doctrine, Mr. Woodburn began to wince visibly, and to say rather crustily, “Oh! Mr. Drury, you have told us all that again and again.” “But you don’t benefit by it,” Mr. Drury would say. “No, nor ever shall, so far as I am concerned,” Mr. Woodburn would reply.