Saturday, 19th.—Decided change in the weather; thermometer 62, with cool, north wind. This sort of atmosphere is very unfavorable to the scenery; it lowers the hills, narrows the lake, and altogether, the familiar objects of the landscape do not look half so well as when a soft haze hangs upon the hills. The natural features of the country are not on a scale sufficiently grand to rise superior above such accidents of light and shade. Most summers, we have a touch of this sort of weather—sometimes in July, sometimes in August—this sort of cool, matter-of-fact atmosphere, when things look unenjoyable without, and people feel cross at having to close their doors and windows, and sometimes light a fire.
Saw a large flock of barn-swallows hanging in clusters upon the mullein-stalks in a waste field. They are thinking of moving.
Monday, 21st.—Very pleasant again. Walked some distance. The grain harvest is now over, very generally, and cattle are seen feeding among the stubble on many farms.
In this part of the world, although we have once seen a woman ploughing, once found a party of girls making hay with the men of the family, and occasionally observed women hoeing potatoes or corn, we have never yet seen a sight very common in the fields of the Old World: we have never yet met a single gleaner. Probably this is not entirely owing to the prosperous state of the country, for there are many poor among us. “The poor ye have with you always, and whensoever ye will, ye may do them good.” In the large towns, who has not seen the wretched creature who pick up the filthy rags from the rubbish and mud of the streets? Where human beings can earn a livelihood in this way in the cities, gleaning in the fields of the country ought not to surprise
