" Deerslayer went on,
in his own steady, earnest manner, for the darkness concealed the
tints that colored the cheeks of the girl almost to the brightness
of crimson, while her own great efforts suppressed the sounds of
the breathing that nearly choked her. "As for farms, they have
their uses, and there's them that like to pass their lives on 'em;
but what comfort can a man look for in a clearin', that he can't find
in double quantities in the forest? If air, and room, and light,
are a little craved, the windrows and the streams will furnish
'em, or here are the lakes for such as have bigger longings in that
way; but where are you to find your shades, and laughing springs,
and leaping brooks, and vinerable trees, a thousand years old,
in a clearin'? You don't find them, but you find their disabled
trunks, marking the 'arth like headstones in a graveyard. It
seems to me that the people who live in such places must be always
thinkin' of their own inds, and of universal decay; and that, too,
not of the decay that is brought about by time and natur', but the
decay that follows waste and violence. Then as to churches, they
are good, I suppose, else wouldn't good men uphold 'em.
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