A collector recently bought at public auction in
London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of
Shakespeare: but for nothing a schoolboy can read Hamlet, and can detect
secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein." [3] And yet
"What hath the owner but the sight of it with his eyes." [4]
We are really richer than we think. We often hear of Earth hunger. People
envy a great Landlord, and fancy how delightful it must be to possess a
large estate. But, as Emerson says, "if you own land, the land owns you."
Moreover, have we not all, in a better sense--have we not all thousands of
acres of our own? The commons, and roads, and footpaths, and the seashore,
our grand and varied coast--these are all ours. The sea-coast has,
moreover, two great advantages. In the first place, it is for the most
part but little interfered with by man, and in the second it exhibits most
instructively the forces of Nature. We are all great landed proprietors,
if we only knew it. What we lack is not land, but the power to enjoy it.
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