Upon the hills of Salem scattered wide,
Their yellow blossoms gain the eye in Spring;
And straggling e'en upon the turnpike's side,
Their ripened branches to your hand they bring,
I 've plucked them oft in boyhood's early hour,
That then I gave such name, and thought it true;
But now I know that other fruit as sour
Grows on what now thou callest _Me_ and _You_;
Yet, wilt thou wait the autumn that I see,
Will sweeter taste than these red berries be.
_Walter Savage Landor_
We sometimes meet in a stage coach in New England an erect
muscular man, with fresh complexion and a smooth hat, whose nervous
speech instantly betrays the English traveller; -- a man nowise
cautious to conceal his name or that of his native country, or his
very slight esteem for the persons and the country that surround him.
When Mr. Bull rides in an American coach, he speaks quick and strong,
he is very ready to confess his ignorance of everything about him,
persons, manners, customs, politics, geography. He wonders that the
Americans should build with wood, whilst all this stone is lying in
the roadside, and is astonished to learn that a wooden house may last
a hundred years; nor will he remember the fact as many minutes after
it has been told him; he wonders they do not make elder-wine and
cherry-bounce, since here are cherries, and every mile is crammed
with elder bushes.
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