. Backgrounds of literature. are the children of God, play-ing in a world in wh jh their fellows toil. It istheir happy lot to see all things afresh and keepthe world young. There was a garden on the south side of theEmerson house, and apple-trees brought themost ancient fragrance and domestic associa-tions to the place; but Emerson was more athome in the broad landscape which inclosedhis own acres. What the old road over the hillto Grasmere and Loughrigg Terrace were toWordsworth in the long years at Rydal Mount,the Great Fields and Meadows, the shores andgroves of white pine about Walden Pon
. Backgrounds of literature. are the children of God, play-ing in a world in wh jh their fellows toil. It istheir happy lot to see all things afresh and keepthe world young. There was a garden on the south side of theEmerson house, and apple-trees brought themost ancient fragrance and domestic associa-tions to the place; but Emerson was more athome in the broad landscape which inclosedhis own acres. What the old road over the hillto Grasmere and Loughrigg Terrace were toWordsworth in the long years at Rydal Mount,the Great Fields and Meadows, the shores andgroves of white pine about Walden Pond,Peters Field, and the level stretches throughwhich the Musketaquid, most quiet of rivers,flows, were to Emerson during the most fruit-ful period of his life. He found endless de-light in the ownership of a tract of land fromwhich he could look down on Walden Pondand away to the farther hills: My garden is a forest ledge Which older forests bound;The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,Then plunge to depths profound. 92. be EMERSON AND CONCORD Self-sown my stately garden grows; The wind, and wind-blown seed,Cold April rain and colder snows, My hedges plant and feed. Emerson was not a successful farmer,though he had the respect of the practicalfarmers about him, and was known as a first-rate neighbor and one who always kept hisfences up ; his business was not with the acres,but with the landscape. No one ever took am-pler or nobler harvests of the spirit off the landthan Emerson. He had a keen eye for thesmall facts of natural life, but he caredchiefly for the vital processes, the flooding life,the revelation of truth, the correspondence ofsoul between man and Nature; he was, in aword, the poet in the woods and fields. Withserene faith and loyal fellowship he keptfriends with Nature from youth to age, and thejoy of his intimacy sufl*ered no shadow of es-trangement as the years went by. A walk inthe woods, he declared, was one of the secretsfor dodging old age ; and in an add
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