Sons of the soil Author:Honoré de Balzac 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: II. A BUCOLIC OVERLOOKED BY VIRGIL. When a Parisian drops into the country he is cut off from all his usual habits, and soon feels the dragging hours, no m... more »atter how attentive his friends may be to him. Therefore, because it is so impossible to prolong in a tete-a-tete conversations that are soon exhausted, the master and mistress of a country-house are apt to say, calmly, " You will be terribly bored here." It is true that to understand the delights of country life one must have something to do, some interests in it; one must know the nature of the work to be done, and the alternating harmony of toil and pleasure, — eternal 83'mbol of human life. When a Parisian has recovered his powers of sleeping, shaken off the fatigues of the journey, and accustomed himself to country habits, the hardest period of the day (if he wears thin boots and is neither a sportsman nor an agriculturalist) is the early morning. Between the hours of waking and breakfasting, the women of the family are sleeping or dressing, and therefore unapproachable; the master of the house is out and about his own affairs ; a Parisian is therefore compelled to be alone from eight to eleven o'clock, the hour chosen in all country-houses for breakfast. Now, having got what amusement he can out of carefully dressing himself, he has soon exhausted thatresource. Then, perhaps, he has brought with him some work, which he finds it impossible to do, and which goes back untouched, after he sees the difficulties of doing it, into his valise ; a writer is then obliged to wander about the park and gape at nothing or count the big trees. The easier the life, the more irksome such occupations are, — unless, indeed, one belongs to the sect of shaking quakers or to the honorable guild of carpenters or taxidermists. If one rea...« less