"Emerson, Ralph W. - The Young American" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

consciousness of this fact, is beginning to take the place of the
purely trading spirit and education which sprang up whilst all the
population lived on the fringe of sea-coast. And even on the coast,
prudent men have begun to see that every American should be educated
with a view to the values of land. The arts of engineering and of
architecture are studied; scientific agriculture is an object of
growing attention; the mineral riches are explored; limestone, coal,
slate, and iron; and the value of timber-lands is enhanced.

Columbus alleged as a reason for seeking a continent in the
West, that the harmony of nature required a great tract of land in
the western hemisphere, to balance the known extent of land in the
eastern; and it now appears that we must estimate the native values
of this broad region to redress the balance of our own judgments, and
appreciate the advantages opened to the human race in this country,
which is our fortunate home. The land is the appointed remedy for
whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. The continent we
inhabit is to be physic and food for our mind, as well as our body.
The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative influences, is to repair
the errors of a scholastic and traditional education, and bring us
into just relations with men and things.

The habit of living in the presence of these invitations of
natural wealth is not inoperative; and this habit, combined with the
moral sentiment which, in the recent years, has interrogated every
institution, usage, and law, has, naturally, given a strong direction
to the wishes and aims of active young men to withdraw from cities,
and cultivate the soil. This inclination has appeared in the most
unlooked for quarters, in men supposed to be absorbed in business,
and in those connected with the liberal professions. And, since the
walks of trade were crowded, whilst that of agriculture cannot easily
be, inasmuch as the farmer who is not wanted by others can yet grow
his own bread, whilst the manufacturer or the trader, who is not
wanted, cannot, -- this seemed a happy tendency. For, beside all the
moral benefit which we may expect from the farmer's profession, when
a man enters it considerately, this promised the conquering of the
soil, plenty, and beyond this, the adorning of the country with every
advantage and ornament which labor, ingenuity, and affection for a
man's home, could suggest.

Meantime, with cheap land, and the pacific disposition of the
people, every thing invites to the arts of agriculture, of gardening,
and domestic architecture. Public gardens, on the scale of such
plantations in Europe and Asia, are now unknown to us. There is no
feature of the old countries that strikes an American with more
agreeable surprise than the beautiful gardens of Europe; such as the
Boboli in Florence, the Villa Borghese in Rome, the Villa d'Este in
Tivoli, the gardens at Munich, and at Frankfort on the Maine: works
easily imitated here, and which might well make the land dear to the
citizen, and inflame patriotism. It is the fine art which is left