Miscellanies - 1860 Author:Charles Kingsley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MY WINTER-GARDEN. SO, my friend : you ask me to tell you how I contrive to support this monotonous country life ; how, fond as I am of excitement, adventure, ... more »society, scenery, art, literature, I go cheerfully through the daily routine of a commonplace country profession, never requiring a six-weeks' holiday; not caring to see the Continent, hardly even to spend a day in London; having never yet actually got to Paris. You wonder why I do not grow dull as those round me, whose talk is of bullocks—as indeed mine is often enough ; why I am not by this time ' all over blue mould' why I have not been tempted to bury myself in my study, and live a life of dreams among old books. I will tell you. I am a minute philosopher. I am possibly, after all, a man of small mind, content with small pleasures. So much the better for me. Meanwhile, I can understand your surprise, though you cannot understand my content. You have played a greater game than mine; have lived a life, perhaps more fit for an Englishman; certainly more in accordance with the taste of our common fathers, the Vikings, and their patron Odin ' the goer/ father of all them that go ahead. You have gone ahead, and over many lands; and I reverence you for it, though I envy you not. You have commanded a regiment—indeed an army, and ' drank delight of battle with your peers;'you have ruled provinces, and done j ustice and judgment, like a noble Englishman as you are, old friend, among thousands who never knew before what justice and judgment were. You have tasted (aud you have deserved to taste) the joy of old David's psalm, when he has hunted down the last of the robber lords of Palestine. You have seen ' a people whom you have not known, serve you. As soon as they heard of you, they obeyed you; but the strange children dis...« less