Overview

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of ahouse. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. Inimagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew theirprice. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry withhim, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higherprice on it, -took everything but a deed of it, -took his word for his deed, for I dearly love totalk, -cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it longenough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estatebroker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from meaccordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat?-better if a country seat. I discovered many a site fora house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, foran hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place theirhouses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land intoorchard, woodlot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand beforethe door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to letalone.My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several farms, -the refusal was allI wanted, -but I never got my fingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I came to actualpossession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collectedmaterials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gaveme a deed of it, his wife-every man has such a wife-changed her mind and wished to keep it, andhe offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or tendollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried itfar enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he wasnot a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, andmaterials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to mypoverty. But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without awheelbarrow. With respect to lan

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