Then, with a very little money, a ducal estate may be purchased, and by a very little more, and moderate labor, a family be maintained upon it with raiment, food, and shelter.  The luxurious and minute comforts of a city life are not yet to be had without effort disproportionate to their value.  But, where there is so great a counterpoise, cannot these be given up once for all?  If the houses are imperfectly built, they can afford immense fires and plenty of covering; if they are small, who cares,—­with, such fields to roam in? in winter, it may be borne; in summer, is of no consequence.  With plenty of fish, and game, and wheat, can they not dispense with a baker to bring “muffins hot” every morning to the door for their breakfast?

A man need not here take a small slice from the landscape, and fence it in from the obtrusions of an uncongenial neighbor, and there cut down his fancies to miniature improvements which a chicken could run over in ten minutes.  He may have water and wood and land enough, to dread no incursions on his prospect from some chance Vandal that may enter his neighborhood.  He need not painfully economize and manage how he may use it all; he can afford to leave some of it wild, and to carry out his own plans without obliterating those of Nature.

Here, whole families might live together, if they would.  The sons might return from their pilgrimages to settle near the parent hearth; the daughters might find room near their mother.  Those painful separations, which already desecrate and desolate the Atlantic coast, are not enforced here by the stern need of seeking bread; and where they are voluntary, it is no matter.  To me, too, used to the feelings which haunt a society of struggling men, it was delightful to look upon a scene where Nature still wore her motherly smile, and seemed to promise room, not only for those favored or cursed with the qualities best adapting for the strifes of competition, but for the delicate, the thoughtful, even the indolent or eccentric.  She did not say, Fight or starve; nor even, Work or cease to exist; but, merely showing that the apple was a finer fruit than the wild crab, gave both room to grow in the garden.

A pleasant society is formed of the families who live along the banks of this stream upon farms.  They are from various parts of the world, and have much to communicate to one another.  Many have cultivated minds and refined manners, all a varied experience, while they have in common the interests of a new country and a new life.  They must traverse some space to get at one another, but the journey is through scenes that make it a separate pleasure.  They must bear inconveniences to stay in one another’s houses; but these, to the well-disposed, are only a source of amusement and adventure.