periods. The difficulty had become ever greater of discoursing with any freshness of utterance or originality of thought upon the themes that had exercised the highest skill of so many hundreds of generations.
It is with the first development of a literature as with the opening of a new country. The earliest cultivators draw with ease rich harvests from the virgin soil, from which succeeding generations find increasing difficulty in obtaining an adequate reward for their toil. For the first comers are the great nuggets, and the rich surface placers, the primeval forests, and the abundant game. Yet in this period, though little poetry was written, there was much enjoyed; just as there was much religion in life, though theology was almost as extinct as a department of literary activity.
Finding Reva was about to gather the fruit for the evening meal, I naturally volunteered my aid. Even in so small a matter as the cultivation of small fruits, I found much to remark and to admire. This may be understood when I state, that, by the methods in use, strawberries—and what strawberries! Even the amiable and enthusiastic author of "Small Fruits" would have been filled with amazement to see what had been accomplished in the improvement of his favorite fruit,—improvements in flavor and size beyond his wildest dreams,—by the methods in use, I repeat, strawberries had come to be in season for six months in the open air, May and October both inclusive. For other fruits, there were correspondingly extended seasons.
The selection and gathering of the strawberries, at present so disagreeable a task, were greatly facilitated by
