About half-way between Martinsville and Liberty Corner, Pennsylvania, hidden from inquisitive eyes by tall trees and dense-growing shrubs, stands a neatly built house of ancient date; the home of a pair of lovers of a quiet life, who, the world forgetting, by the world forgot, have dwelt there in a semi-hermit way for nigh upon forty years.

Samuel and Joseph Pooley, brothers in mind as well as in blood, claim kindred on their mother's side with one of England's wealthiest nobles, and boast direct descent paternally from a follower of the Norman, who settled in Kent. In 1828 they set up in business together in New York; and in the same year Samuel, the elder of the two, coming over to England, fell in love with a beautiful girl, and wooed and won her; at least it was settled that she should become Mrs Pooley so soon as the success of the New York establishment was assured. A second visit to the old country in 1834 proved less happy in result. Samuel was not prepared to take a bride home with him; and tired of living upon hope deferred, the lady declared off; and not very long afterwards put the renewal of the engagement beyond possibility by marrying a readier suitor.

From that time Samuel Pooley became another man. The brisk man of business, the ardent politician, the lively companion, lost all liking for society, politics, and trade. His brother sympathised with his altered mood; and when, a few years later, a legacy fell to them, they resolved to retire far from the busy city and its restless crowd, and live as men whom man delighted not, nor women either.

Four thousand dollars made the Pennsylvanian homestead and its hundred and five acres their own; and there they have abided ever since, never, except when necessity compelled, finding their way even so far as the neighbouring village. Twenty years ago a sister-in-law spent a day or two at the farm; but from that time to this no woman's foot has crossed its threshold. A New York reporter describes Joseph Pooley as a ruddy-complexioned merry man, with large round wide-open eyes, a long pointed white beard, and snow-white locks bristling up nearly three inches from his scalp. Samuel, better known as 'the Squire,' is seventy-three years old—two years older than his brother, and not so stoutly built. He sports a short tuft of iron-gray beard, jutting out abruptly between his chin and throat.

As the inquisitive caller came upon the pair enjoying the cool evening air in the garden, the raggedness of their raiment struck him as something simply perfect. Joseph was arrayed in a woollen shirt (or rather enough of one to suggest what it once had been), a considerable portion of a jacket, and a very fair representation of the leading features of a pair of pantaloons; a pair of stout shoes and a gray felt hat of no particular shape completing his costume. As to the Squire's outfit, the facilities for ventilation were even greater than those enjoyed by his brother. His skin gleamed through innumerable rips and rents, to the great convenience of the mosquitoes, which he did not seem to notice; and his black felt hat was a more antique effort of the hatter's art than the gray one decking Joseph's head.

'It is unjust to say of them,' writes the note-taking visitor, 'as some do say, that they have not washed their faces or hands for ten years; they wash themselves when they feel like doing it. But seeing them, one would not find it difficult to believe that they had not felt like it for five years. At all events, this does not seem to be their year for ablutions.'

The consumption of water at the hermitage is not calculated to cause a scarcity of that article. 'On the table were standing a number of dishes of coarse yellow and blue and white delf, which had evidently just been used for supper. They always stand there, and they always have evidently just been used. Dish-washing is looked upon as a superfluous frivolity and waste of exertion. If perchance a sudden freak takes one of the hermits, just as he is sitting down to eat, that he would like to put on a little extra style, he wipes his plate with a bunch of grass or a piece of paper. But they are men of settled habits and seldom have freaks.' These Pennsylvanian disciples of Zimmerman would be at home among the dirt-loving Eastern Christians, whose domestic arrangements lately wrung from a special correspondent the declaration, that he would rather dine off a Turkish floor than a Bulgarian plate.

Like recluses in general, the Pooleys seem to be physically none the worse for contemning cleanliness, being troubled with fewer infirmities than most men at their time of life; while, unlike the common run of solitarians, they have kept their mental faculties in working order by the constant use of a first-rate collection of books, their library counting up eight hundred volumes. Neither miserly by nature, nor compelled to be so by poverty, they are by no means anchorites; and if they do go raggedly clad, it is not from economical motives, but because they are comfortable in their tatters, and have no reason to study appearances, since those who know them care not how they are dressed; and for the opinion of those who do not know them they care nothing.

Said Joseph to the New Yorker: 'It may seem strange to you that we should exile ourselves in this way from the life of the big town, after such a busy life as ours used to be; but I assure you we see enough of life to content us here. The life of the birds, the bees, the waving branches over our heads, the flowers blooming about us, and the grass beneath our feet—all these fill our hearts with a quiet content; and here we are truly happy.' It is something to know that two men in the world have succeeded in attaining this degree of contentment, though not quite to be generally admired.