Country Life Volume 39 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 Excerpt: ...That done, he felled trees, dug new roads, and staked the property off in polyangled plots. For a time his enthusiasm mounted high, but potential dwellers in this suburban paradise failed to buy his lots, and at length his imagination glimpsed only a mossy graveyard in which lay his buried hopes. Then he disposed of the woods and another friend of mine--a prosaic, workaday friend--took up the development where he left off. She effaced the marks of his ax, buried beneath young foliage the upturned earth, and erected dwellings of her own. As the years went on the home site became populated beyond the wildest hopes of my first friend; and now if you will look closely you may see not only the nests of birds and squirrels, but the hidden dens of a fox who acts as local magistrate for the wooded precinct. Destiny has been served. My first friend, as you will have guessed, was Man, the usurper, who destroys that he may build up, and at length, his work unfinished, lays down his tools and dies. Nature is my other friend, who has no sporadic bursts of enthusiasm, no special love for what you call comforts and conveniences, no impelling desire to ttansform the world. She builds slowly, methodically, pausing now and again to breathe in the cold of. winter and exhale the warmth of spring, and succeeding without trying to be beautiful. Sometimes, as I push through the fragrant woods, and stub my toe on rotting signboards labeled Montmorency Boulevard, I think her doctrine is the better of the two. THE thermometer stood sixteen degrees below that morning when we started our climb up Whiteface Mountain, in the Adirondack range. There were three of us in the party--Arthur Bush, Miss Hilda Hoyt, who had shown herself to be an adept on skis, and myself. We had three good bre...