Excerpt from Rural Letters and Other Records of Thought at Leisure: Written in the Intervals of More Hurried Literary Labor You will see with half a glance, dear Doctor, that here was too much company for writing. I screwed up my inkstand once more, and kept up the bed of the stream till it enters the forest, remembering a still place by a.pool. The tall pines hold up the roof high as an umbrella of Brobdignag, and neither water brawls, nor small birds sing, in the gloom of it. Here, thought I, as far as they go, the circumstances are congenial. But, as J ean Paul says, there is a period of life when the real gains ground upon the ideal; and to be honest, dear Doctor, I sat leaning on the shingle across my knees, counting my sky-kissing pines, and reckoning what they would bring in saw-logs - so much stand ing - so much' drawn to the mill. Then there would be wear and tear of bob-sled, teamster's wages, and your dead-pull springs, the horses' knees. I had nearly settled the per and contra, when my eye lit once more on my dear Doctor, staring from the nu filled sheet, like the ghost of a murdered resolution. Since I asked, looking myself sternly in the face; is it so dith cult to. Be virtuous? Shall I not write when I have a mind? Shall I reckon pelf, whether I will or no Shall butterfly ima gination thrust iron-heart to the wall N o 1. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.