At a certain season of our life we are aced to sider
every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed
the try on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In
imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were
to be bought, and I kheir price. I walked over each farmers
premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him,
took his farm at his price, at any price, ming it to him in my
mind; even put a higher pri it -- took everything but a deed of
it -- took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk --
cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew
when I had e long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This
experieled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate
broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the
landscape radiated from me accly. What is a house but a
sedes, a seat? -- better if a try seat. I discovered many a
site for a house not likely to be soon improved, whiight
have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village
was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I
did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could
let the years run off, buffet the wihrough, ahe spring
e in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may
place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An
afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and
pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to
stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to
the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perce, for a
man is ri proportion to the number of things which he
afford to let alone.
My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of
several farms -- the refusal was all I wanted -- but I never got my
fingers burned by actual possession. The hat I came to
actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had
begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with whiake a
wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the ave me
a deed of it, his wife -- every man has such a wife -- ged her
mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release
him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but tes in the world, and
it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten
ts, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However,
I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried
it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for
just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a
present of ten dollars, and still had my tes, and seeds, and
materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a
rich man without any damage to my poverty. But I retaihe
landscape, and I have sinnually carried off what it yielded
without a wheelbarrow. With respect to landscapes,
"I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is o dispute."
I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having ehe most
valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he
had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for
many years