CURIOUS FREEDOM OF THE ROAD. 99 front door," says a Fourth of July Oration which you sent me yesterday, and, since the atmosphere is charged with a sermon, let me preach one to our country people on this text. In the excursions I have made, through Orange and Rockland counties, within the last month, there is but one universal feature which has seemed other than beautifulbut one ever recurring disgust--the pig-troughs invariably outside the front gates and the swine invariably kept in the public road. I say "invariably," because the country-seats of gentlemen are almost the only exceptions to this abomination. You may see traces of taste around the door of many a cottage and farm house--flowers in bloom, vinecolored porches, shrubs and neat walks, inside the fence-while outside the fence, strange to say, is a filthy phalanx of pigs, which you must charge and rout to get in. The way to the parlor is through the pig-stye! What is gained by giving hogs the freedom of the road it is difficult to tell, for there is no waste food for them on the highway. What is lost by it seems so apparent as to make the custom a wonder, among people of any thrift or policy; for, besides the constant inroads they make upon the crops, and the frequency of their being run over, and of their injuring children, and being chased and maimed by dogs, they demean the general aspect of the neighborhood, and disgust those whose choice of it for a residence depends on the agreeableness of the impression. I would not mention such a subject if it were not with a hope of hastening a reform in the matter. The country about the Hudson, particularly, is quite too beautiful to be disfigured by such an eye-sore. Let me add weight to what I have said, by quoting, from the Fourth of July Oration I spoke of, an admirable and most truthful passage, on the duty of every citizen to embellish the neighborhood of his residence : "Every man, no matter how poor he may be, can do something towards making this world more beautiful. He can leave behind him monuments, through which the grateful zephyrs shall warble his praises, long after he shall be sleeping in the dust. Are you a poor man, toiling hard for frugal fare? You will be more than repaid for the labour that is required to keep the plat before your door clean and green; and you will love your home the better for the rose bush which blooms in the yard, looking up into your eye, as it were with gratitude, through its green leaves and blushing flowers. It was but the work of half an hour to plant it there. And many a year will it reward you and your wife and your children, with its smiles. A man cannot love a rose, without being a better man for that exercise of love. A child cannot prune it and water it, and watch with affection its swelling buds, without becoming more gentle in character, more refined in feeling, more docile in spirit. "Walter Scott, in one of his graphic descriptions, represents a Scottish lord, riding by the humble hut of a peasant, who is planting a tree before his door. He commends him for his taste exclaiming, When you have nothing better to do Jock, be aye sticking out a tree Jock, 'twill grow when you're asleep Jock.' There is no little philosophy in this declaration. You plant a tree-give it that gentle nurturing which it may for a short time need, and it will ever after reward you with its foliage and shade. You sleep, and it steadily advances, in its growth, to the perfection of beauty. You go away for months, perhaps for years, and it forgets not to grow, and on your return your heart is gladdened by its fair proportions. "And a tree is property. Who will not give a few dollars more for a farm house, beneath the shade of whose ornamental trees his children can play, or his cattle slumber in the noon-tide heat? And how can the occupant of a village house make a better investment of a few dollars, than in attaching to his house those ornaments which every man of taste so eagerly covets? A few green sods will change an unsightly sand bank into beauty, where the eye may rest with pleasure and where the feet may love to linger. A few hours' work, in a spring morning, may give to your home the richest ornaments a home can have, tempering the fierce blaze of the summer's sun, and breaking up the fury of the winter's storm. "Property is worth more in a beautiful, well-shaded village, than on a bleak, sunburnt, unsightly plain. He who has no regard for the appearance of his own premises, not only sinks the value of his own property, but also sinks the value of the property of his neighbours. No one likes to live in the sight of ugliness. On the other hand, he who makes his own home attractive, contributes to the rising value of all the region around him. He is thus a public benefactor, contributing not merely to the gratification of the taste of those who look upon his improvements, but adding to the real marketable value of the property in his vicinity. "Do not think that we are here urging expense upon those who are ill able to afford it. No man is so poor but that he can have a flowering shrub in his yard. No man is so poor, but that he can plant a few trees before his dwelling. No man is so poor, that he must have his pig-stye at his front door. We only contend that every man should exercise that taste which God has given to every man. And though we may not be able to vie with the rich in the grandeur of our dwellings, the lowliest cottage may be embellished with loveliness, and the hand of industry and of neatness may make it a home full of attractions. Let there once be formed, in the heart of man, an appreciation of the beautiful and the work is done. Year after year, with no additional expense, the scene around him will be assuming new aspects of beauty. Say not, I am not the owner of house or lands, and therefore I have nothing to do. All are but tenants at will. We are all soon to leave, to return no more. Wherever you dwell, even if it be in your own hired house but one short year, be sure and leave your impress behind you— be sure and leave some memorial that you have been there. The benevolent man will love to plant a tree, beneath whose shade the children of strangers are to play. It does the heart good to sow the seed, when it is known that other lips than yours shall eat the fruit. "Neither think that this is a question without its moral issues. The love of home is one of the surest safeguards of human virtue. And he who makes home so pleasant that his children love it, that in all the wanderings of subsequent life they turn to it with delight, does very much to guide their steps away from all the haunts of dissipation, and to form in them a taste for those joys which are most ennobling." The author of this is the Rev. John Abbott, Principal of one of the best institutions in this country, and a man of admirably practical, elevated, and sound mind. The Oration was delivered at Farmington Falls, and the other portions of it are well worthy of reproduction, had you room. Just enough of an invalid to be very much "under the weather," as I am, dear Morris, I must break off with thus much of a letter for this week, and hope for more sunshine and a quicker pulse when I next write to you.-Yours, &c., -N. P. W. OLD WHITEY AND GENERAL TAYLOR. WE were standing at the corner of President Square, in Washington, the other day-literally brought to a stand-still by the heavenly beauty of the weather-when a loose horse trotted leisurely by us in the open street, and we found ourselves expanding towards him, in sympathetic recognition of the similarity of our respective happiness. "There are two of us out of harness, to-day," we mentally said—" God bless you, old brother workey, and may you enjoy, as I do, this delicious sunshine and its heavenly nothings-to-do!" On he trotted towards the President's gate, and, halting a little before the entrance, he seemed hesitating between perfect liberty to go in or stay out-when it suddenly occurred to us that our fellow idler might not be, after all the “private individual" for whom we had fancied our sympathy to be rather a condescension than otherwise! What if it should be "Old Whitey," reposing on his laurels! A moment's look, up and down the pavé in front of the President's mansion, corroborated the conjecture. There were, perhaps, twenty persons in sight, and, among them, we recognized one of the Cabinet Secretaries, a venerable Auditor, the Austrian Chargé, and two of those un-anxious and yet responsible-looking persons whom you know to be "Members" and not office-seekers-and-(curious to see)— all eyes were fixed, not upon the distinguished foreigner, not on the Honorable officials, not on the Honorable members, not on an unharnessed and loose Editor of the Home Journal -but, on the unharnessed and loose white horse! We felt the smoke of Buena Vista and Resaca de la Palma, of Palo Alto and Monterey, pushing us towards the old cannon-proof charger. He went smelling about the edges of the side walk-wondering, probably, at such warm weather and no grass-and we crossed over to have a nearer look at him, with a feeling that the glory was not all taken from his back with the saddle and holsters. "Old Whitey" is a compact, hardy, well proportioned animal, less of a battle-steed, in appearance, than of the style usually defined by the phrase family-horse," slightly knocked-kneed, and with a tail (I afterwards learned) very much thinned by the numerous applications for a "hair of him for memory." He had evidently been long untouched with a currycomb, and, (like other celebrities for want of an occasional rubbing down) there was a little to much of himself in his exterior-the name of "old Whitey," indeed, hardly described with fidelity a coat so matted and yellow. But, remembering the beatings of the great heart he had borne upon his back—the anxieties, the energies, the defiances of danger, the iron impulses to duty, the thrills of chivalric triumphs, and the sad turnings of the rein to see brothers in arms laid in the graves of the battle-field-remembering all that has been thought and felt, in the saddle which that horse was wont to wear-it was impossible to look upon him without a throb in the throatone of those unbidden and unreasoning tear-throbs, that seem to delight in paying tribute, out of time and unexacted, to trifles that have been belongings of glory. We saw General Taylor himself, for the first time, the next day-with more thought and reverence of course, than had been awakened by looking upon his horse-but with not half the emotion. The "hero-President" has been more truthfully described ROUGH AND READY. 103 than any man we ever read much of before seeing. One who had not learned how extremes touch, in manners-the most courtly polish and the most absolute simplicity-might be surprised, only, with that complete putting of every one in his presence at ease, which is looked upon in England, as the result of high breeding; and which General Taylor's manners effect, without the slightest thought given to the matter, apparently, and with the fullest preservation of dignity. "Rough and ready"-in this way-an English Duke would be, as well; and, by the way, his readiness is of a simplicity and genuineness which it is wonderful indeed to find so high on the ladder of preferment! There were but six or eight persons in the room, when the party we accompanied were presented to the President; and the conversation, for the ten minutes we were there, was entirely unstudied, and between himself and the ladies only. But we should have been anywhere struck with the instant directness, obviousness, and prompt and close-hitting immediateness, with which he invariably replied to what was said. Let it be ever so mere a trifle, the return thought was from the next link of association. Most great men, diplomatists and politicians particularly, go "about the bush" a little, for a reply to a remark, omitting the more obvious and simpler answer it might suggest, for the sake, perhaps, of an appearance of seeing more scope in the bearing of the matter. But Taylor -(we thought we could make certain, even from these few brief moments of observation)—has no dread of your seeing his mind exactly as it works; and has no care, whatever, except to think and speak truthfully what comes first, regardless of any policy, or management of its impression on the listener. The key of his voice, at the same time, is that of thorough frankness, good humour and unconsciousness of observation, while his smile is easy and habitual. The grace with which these out-of-door characteristics accompany a mouth of such indomitable resolution and an eye of such searching and inevitable keenness, explains, perhaps, the secret of the affection that is so well known to have been mingled with the confiding devotion felt for him throughout the army. It is impossible to look upon the old hero, we should say, without loving and believing in him.* • General Taylor's death followed very closely upon the period when this was written. |