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Title: Summer In The Country
Author: Samuel Osgood [
More Titles by Osgood]
That was a beautiful and expressive ordinance of the Old Dispensation which enjoined a rural festival upon the conscience of the faithful. Every year the whole nation were ordered to pass a week in rural bowers woven of the boughs of goodly trees, in remembrance of the time when their fathers dwelt in the wilderness, and God led them to the Land of Promise. By the Israelites, the ancient festival is still remembered, and one of the most gifted of their modern writers thus describes its observance in Southern Europe.
"Large branches of the palm and cedar, the willow, acacia and the oak, cut so as to prevent their withering for the seven days, formed the walls of the tent; their leaves intermingling overhead so as to form a shelter, and yet permit the beautiful blue of the heavens to peep within. Flowers of every shade and scent formed a bordering within, and bouquets, richly and tastefully arranged, placed in vases, filled with scented earth, hung from the branches forming the roof. Fruit, too, was there,--the purple grape, the ripe, red orange, the paler lemon, the lime, the pomegranate, the citron."
This festival in its ancient form, Christians do not observe, although we may see some of its traces in the camp-meetings of Methodism and in the evergreen boughs of Catholicism. Yet its essential idea should, and does remain. Each year we are sadly dull and worldly, if the luxuriance of summer does not lift our thoughts to Him who sustained our fathers in their hard conflict with rude nature, and enabled them to change the savage wilderness into fertile fields, and peaceful groves. Grovelling indeed we are, if, upon our return from the pleasant retreats where we have sought rest and recreation, we cannot bring back some grateful remembrances of what we have seen and enjoyed in rural places.
The old festival, kept as it was by the whole nation at Jerusalem, in green tents, was a kind of annual consecration of the relation between the city and the country. Thus the feast had at once a special and an universal meaning. The bigot may have thought only of the years of wandering, when, in nomad tents, the chosen race escaped from their oppressors. But more enlarged and sensitive minds, of the race of David and Isaiah, interpreted the season far more generously; and we are assured by the presence of Him who went from Nazareth to take part in the scene, that some eyes looked upon those rural tabernacles which stood among the streets of Jerusalem, as emblems of the permanent relations which man should sustain to nature,--of the constant ministry of the works of God to man.
Our topic now is the relation between the town and the country, especially the power of rural life upon them who dwell in cities.
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We consider first the various objects which present themselves for contemplation. Cowper's contrast may have been too strong, when he said that "God made the country, and man made the town," for, in both places, we are surrounded by the works of God and man. The farm, as well as the busy street, shows what human toil can do, and they that live in cities are in themselves, and in the plenty that sustains them, constant proofs of the bounty of God; whilst upon all places the sunshine and the rain do fall with equal mercy. Yet, in the country, we see more of nature in its divine adaptations, less perverted by the artifices of man. The eye is not limited by streets and walls to some narrow spot, nor is the landscape curtailed of its breadth and beauty to suit the grasping policy of traffic. Generally the hand of rural art and labor rather interprets than obscures the plan of nature. The regions well cultivated are often the most picturesque, and at once charm by their scenery, and instruct by their varied uses and adaptations. We see man in just relations towards the soil as its cultivator, and towards the animal world as their master and friend. He lives in close sympathy with the heavens, the earth, the animated tribes. The sun in its rise, and course, and setting, counts to him the hours, and divides his times of labor and repose. He breathes the air as the Creator mingled it, and draws from the soil something of that quickening, vital force, which the great Mother never refuses to her children, who seek her. He enlarges the circle of his friendships more widely even than in metropolitan coteries, and has friends among birds and fowls; while, with the sheep, and horse, and ox, as well as with kindly neighbors, he can keep company. He is daily called to see the harmonious plan of the universe, the co-operation between light, and air, and rain, and dew, between all elements and all creatures in the universe of God. In fact, apart from any philosophical curiosity, the very necessity of his calling must make him not a little a sage in the observation of nature. When science is added to observation, the greater, of course, the privilege of his position, the more readily does he unlock the treasures around him, and his rural hours may be hours of favored vision, nay, of sacred communion.
But is not man the crown of nature? and where is man to be found in such perfection, as in the great centres where men congregate? If we would be wise, why not seek the great multitude and dwell most among the crowd? I will not disparage city life as a school of instruction in the science of human nature. He who knows nothing of the great market-places, and social resorts of his race, is ignorant certainly of our nature under very important aspects. But to be constantly mingling with men, is a very different thing from the true knowledge of man. The judicious analysis of a few characters will teach more wisdom than a superficial observation of ten thousand passers by, just as the dissection of a plant or an animal shows more of its structure than a glance at a whole kingdom or continent frequented by the same tribes. Human nature may be wisely studied wherever it is to be found, and if extent, as well as sharpness of observation is essential, we must remember that all men do not live in cities; that the country has its own forms of humanity; and moreover, that they who dwell among the great crowd, learn best in more quiet scenes to judge of the true meaning of the bustling life around them; and they that are wisest in their views of the busy town, are they who have been able to survey its characters and circumstances frequently, from the commanding elevation and distance of rural retirement.
Men and their arts, indeed, appear in utmost number and force in cities; but without the constant reinforcements from the country, the tribute of fresh energy and enterprise, the products of mechanical ingenuity, and of agricultural labor, the metropolis would soon languish, deprived at once of its daily bread, and its best intellectual resources. Even the beautiful arts, which adorn the homes and halls of cities, appeal to an eye and taste that ought to be well schooled in the observation of nature, and the canvas can never reveal its best meaning to minds conversant only with crowded streets and busy marts. If we must go to the city to see the gathered treasures of rural labor and skill, we must go to the country to learn to comprehend the affluence of the city, to understand the secret of its wealth, and to interpret the wonders of its useful and beautiful arts.
Surely, then, we cannot but recognize the worth of the country in respect to the objects which it presents. Its beauty, although in some measure expressive of the work of man's hand, is most eloquent with the glory of God. Its plainest utilities bloom into loveliness, and to a devout ear sing out in anthems. Its wealth speaks less of man's arrogance than of heaven's bounty. We might institute in this respect a comparison between the pursuits of men in town and country. They are in both situations toiling for gain, and in both cases more or less in competition with men, and in contact with natural laws. But in the country, men depend less upon shrewd bargaining, and far more upon the direct return of their labor in the products of the soil. They deal more directly with their Creator, and there is more constancy and security, if not so much excitement of hope and fear in their gains. Refreshing and instructive it is for those whose business habits lead them to look upon the chances of traffic as the source of wealth, to learn for themselves how much stronger security the Creator has given for the sustenance of man; and important as are finance and traffic, the best treasures of man come from the soil in return for his skill and industry. Surely the pursuits most habitual in rural life teach many a sober lesson to men fevered with the competitions of traffic. We might show also that the country may afford quite as valuable hints in the simplicity of its pleasures, as in the sobriety of its industry. They who are in the habit of regarding enjoyment as the result of some costly dissipation, need to learn of nature a stern, yet blessed lesson, and find that true happiness is not a far-fetched luxury, but is very near us, when we live near to God, and true to his laws. Wretched are they who make of their seasons of recreation but a new round of dissipation, and repeat the orgies of the winter in the retreats of the summer!
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It is often asked whether life in the town or the country is, on the whole, most favorable to the formation of character,--the pursuit of true wisdom, virtue, happiness. Without being obliged to take either side of the question, it is sufficient at present to urge the importance of guarding against the peculiar exposures of each condition; and especially, of urging people of the town to look well to the sins that beset them, and seek in the broad fields truths that they need in their own homes.
They live in the midst of excitement and need sobriety. If they have more intensity, they have also more fever of mind, and may take counsel wisely of those whose temper is more serene, if, perhaps, sometimes more sluggish, and whose habits are likely to be more equable, if in danger of becoming sometimes monotonous. We absolutely need the influence of rural life to soothe our spirits and calm our nerves. The pulse itself abates its fevered beat, and the heart is quieted down into harmony with the gentler pulse of nature. If the town offers stimulus to the visitor from the country, the country repays the gift by giving calmness, and thus the power of new energy to the visitor from the city.
A serene frame of body and mind is certainly one requisite of wisdom, and not the only requisite which rural life favors. We need to look beyond the horizon of fashion and conventionality, which we are so apt to mistake for the entire world, and correct our observations by careful notes of those forms of rural life, which, after all our city pride, we must regard as most expressive of the common lot of man in all nations and ages. The man who sums up all his views of rural manners in the contemptuous word countrified, will do well to remember that there is not a little reason to form a more contemptuous word in reference to such persons as himself, and call the fop, who mistakes his circle of loiterers for the human race, and his haunts of folly for the world of wisdom, as sillier than the simplest rustic, farther from the true mark in being citified than the latter in being countrified. They that dwell in crowds very easily become very knowing, but not necessarily wise. They that frequent the haunts of vice and frivolity learn many things that do but add to their folly. They do not view life in its best aspects and true aims, nor interpret it as its Divine Author teaches. Even those whose minds are open to the true science of humanity, need to flee from the crowd to ponder soberly upon its lessons. In the busy world, they are constantly finding seeds of thought, but in a far less troubled soil these seeds must be nurtured and matured. Probably the wisest meditations upon man, society, Providence, have been engaged in by persons well taught indeed in the ways of the great world, but ruminating in quiet upon its teachings, and correcting the prejudices of the hour by the sober reasonings of calmer scenes and influences. To such truthful judgment of distant things surveyed from its serener retreats, rural life adds a wisdom peculiarly its own,--a wisdom such as Solomon so sagaciously incorporated in his proverbs, and Jesus so divinely presented in his parables.
It would not be difficult to show the happy influence of familiarity with the country in teaching lessons of virtue--in bracing the frame for hardier labors--in urging the worth of the lesser ethics of frugality and economy, and the higher morals of true manliness and godliness. Virtue is moral strength, and is taught in every school that strengthens the moral energies. The genial air and simple habits of rural life favor manly fortitude, and a manly spirit. Poor would be the future prospects of our nation if they rested wholly with the dwarfed and fevered offspring of our cities. Our people would ere long lose their place among the nations, and would drop their heads in shame in comparison with men trained in hardy sports and healthful labors, as the yeomanry and gentry of England. Religion itself, which is the crown of true manliness, would languish if there were no more check to vice and skepticism than the check, strong indeed as it is, which metropolitan churches afford. How wonderfully the power of faith among the peasants of La Vendee withstood the sneers and threats of Paris, with its armed bands of Atheists in the great convulsion, when priests became scoffers and churches were places of rioting! How nobly our own churches have been favored by the words and thoughts of elect minds devoted to God and his truth, in peaceful villages away from the crowded marts! Where would the pulpit find the teachers that are needed, if its sole dependence were upon the youth reared in cities? I could not but think much of the power of rural life in raising up vigorous and independent preachers, whilst I was enjoying a few weeks of recreation in the lovely town in which President Dwight prepared himself for his more conspicuous ministry at New Haven. I have rambled with delight again and again over that noble Greenfield Hill, which he celebrated in a poem, and have not wondered that the vast and charming prospect, ranging as it does from the broad waters of Long Island Sound to the peak of the Catskill Mountains, should have made something of a poet of a theologian, sometimes so remorseless a logician. May we not see, however, in his theological works, and still more in the pages of his mighty predecessor in theology, Edwards, of Northampton, who, too, dwelt among scenes of singular beauty, ample proofs that nature never deserts her votaries, nor fails to breathe into them a spirit of beauty, that can live, after the harsh dogmas have perished like the husks that inclose the grain for the harvest.
I would not disparage our town life, nor call it by any means godless. It is happy in being able to command so many resources, happy in being able to ally to itself so many influences not its own. Where there are souls there God may be known, and where learning and experience gather their treasure; we may find light upon the ways of God and his Providence. But very poorly do we study this manifold creation, and the word of its Creator, if we limit our horizon to the streets and walls, and business and pleasure even of the greatest metropolis. The Bible itself--that book so full of the poetry of nature--from its first to its last chapter, from the Old Eden to the New Jerusalem exhaling the fragrance of fields and breathing the genial air of rivers and mountains,--lifting the soul to God by the contemplation of his works,--the Bible is a sealed book to us, if we do not always read its parallel revelation in the heavens and upon the earth. There is an expression in nature which must be caught, like that on a friend's countenance, from itself. Description is not enough, and the best scientific analysis, however valuable as an aid, is but a poor substitute for the original reality. God speaks to us still in his works, and what prophets and bards of old have heard, we may now hear. We may hear it perhaps all the more eagerly for the comparative rarity of the privilege. They that are trained in cities wisely yearn to breathe the country air, and in its diviner meaning, interpret the landscape. Pastoral poets and rural philosophers find their fondest admirers in such minds. Who has exercised this blessed ministry of the interpretation of nature better than Wordsworth, poet and philosopher at once as he is? With all their exquisite refinement, and their sometimes mystical sentiment, his poems are tinted with the hues of sky and mountain, lake and meadow, eloquent with the voices of the seasons, breathing the calm spirit of nature in its pleadings with the rebel temper of man. In how many of us they awaken blessed remembrances of our childhood, refresh us in our worn, anxious, and weary life as with the gush of living waters, and the sight of grassy meadows! Kind Heaven would not have us lose the companionship of nature, and has given us elect minds as well as glorious scenery to be its interpretation. There is peace as well as power in listening to such ministries. Nor do I fear to place upon this list, those men who have brought a fine taste and genial humility to the culture and adornment of the soil, the improvement of rural architecture and landscape gardening! What name deserves more grateful mention than that of Downing, that lover of nature and of the art that best interprets her ideal. I know of no village which does not bear directly or indirectly some mark of his mind, in the form of a cottage or school-house, or a garden devised after his idea. He has brought out the wealth of our forests, and in our summer retreat, many a tree that else had been cramped and hidden in the swamp has whispered his requiem to our ears.
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The course of thought which I have pursued regarding the objects and influences of country life, will find an answer in many of my city readers. We need no tent of green branches to quicken our remembrance of Heaven's bounty to us and our fathers in our relations to rural scenes. Our memory has a leafy arbor of unfading foliage, in which we may every day celebrate God's goodness to us in the gift of so noble a heritage, where we dwell and where we may visit.
It is not well to conclude these thoughts upon the influence of scenes upon character without urging home the truth, that our ruling principle is the main index and source of character; and he is sadly deluded who trusts to any position to secure his virtue or to excuse his vices. Apt enough we are to be discontented with our lot, and to burden fate or Providence with the blame that is our own. We imagine some more favored condition to be the sure warranty of success and worth. He who lives among the crowd ascribes to their example his vices, and he who lives among the fields refers his rudeness to want of better opportunity. Older than the Satire of Horace on human discontent is the wish of man for change of fortune, even as old as man himself. Better for him to make the best of what he has, and find his content thus keeping pace with his progress.
He that dwells in the country, while he should use every opportunity for enlarging his circle of experience by travel, must take heed lest he slight the privileges of his own position. He may fall into the vices of the town among the simpler habits of his neighbors, and be eaten at heart by the worst passion while breathing the purest airs of heaven. He must learn simple truth of a power above man, or nature will not save him from corruption.
He who lives in the city need not ascribe the evil that he suffers solely to circumstances, nor expect mental enlargement as the consequence of a cosmopolitan home. He must keep true simplicity in the midst of artificial conventions, and may narrow himself into an earthworm in the midst of the men and the culture of all climes and nations. He may be in bondage to a metropolitan mannerism which is quite as slavish as any provincial prejudice, and full as far short of a wise humanity as of a genuine faith.
Better counsel do we need than crowds can teach or nature alone can unfold. Wherever we dwell, we are to look to a kingdom not of this world, and by communion with its sovereign Head, elect Messiah and sainted intellects, we are to confirm what is best on earth by what is most gracious on high.
Still, though only in thought, need we weave our green bowers to tell us of the ancient march through the wilderness to the promised land, for still are we on our pilgrimage. Wisely do we keep the feast of tabernacles when we erect them at once in our remembrance and hope, looking upon the emblems of God's love for us in the past as the assurance of his love when the soul shall reach the river whose waters never fail, and rest beneath the tree of life whose leaf never fades, whose fruit never withers.
August.
[The end]
Samuel Osgood's essay: Summer In The Country
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