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crops were good, his family increasing; his wife had begun to find
the house uncomfortably small; they could afford to enlarge it.
Hence this addition, this "new part," as no doubt they were in the
habit of calling it, with pardonable satisfaction. It was more
substantially built than the original dwelling, and possessed, what I
dare say its mistress had set her heart upon, one plastered room.
The "new part"! How ironical the words sounded, as I repeated them
to myself! If things would only stay new, or if it were men's houses
only that grew old!
The people who lived here had little occasion to hang their walls
with pictures. When they wanted something to look at, they had but
to go to the window and gaze upon the upper slopes of Mount
Lafayette and Mount Cannon, rising in beauty beyond the
intervening forest. But every New England woman must have a bit of
flower garden, no matter what her surroundings; and even here I
was glad to notice, just in front of the door, a clump of cinnamon
rose-bushes, all uncared for, of course, but flourishing as in a kind of
immortal youth (this old-fashioned rose must be one of Time's
favorites), and just now bright with blossoms. For sentiment's sake I
plucked one, thinking of the hands that did the same years ago, and
ere this, in all likelihood, were under the sod; thinking, too, of other
hands, long, long vanished, and of a white rose-bush that used to
stand beside another door.
On both sides of the house were apple-trees, a few of them still in
good trim, but the greater number decrepit after years of buffeting
by mountain storms. A phœbe sat quietly on the ridge-pole, and a
chipper was singing from the orchard. What knew they of time, or of
time's mutations? The house might grow old,—the house and the
trees; but if the same misfortune ever befalls phœbes and sparrows,
we are, fortunately, none the wiser. To human eyes they are always
young and fresh, like the buttercups that bespangled the grass
before me, or like the sun that shone brightly upon the tranquil
scene.
Turning away from the house and the grassy field about it, I got
over a stone wall into a pasture fast growing up to wood: spruces,
white pines, red pines, paper birches, and larches, with a profusion
of meadow-sweet sprinkled everywhere among them. A nervous
flicker started at my approach, stopped for an instant to reconnoitre,
and then made off in haste. A hermit thrush was singing, and the
bird that is called the "preacher"—who takes no summer vacation,
but holds forth in "God's first temple" for the seven days of every
week—was delivering his homily with all earnestness. He must
preach, it seemed, whether men would hear or forbear. He had
already announced his text, but I could not certainly make out what
it was. "Here we have no continuing city," perhaps; or it might have
been, "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity." It should
have been one of these, or so I thought; but, as all church-goers
must have observed, the connection between text and sermon is
sometimes more or less recondite, and once in a while, like the
doctrine of the sermon itself, requires to be taken on faith. In the
present instance, indeed, as no doubt in many others, the pew was
quite as likely to be at fault as the pulpit. The red-eye's eloquence
was never very persuasive to my ear. Its short sentences, its
tiresome upward inflections, its everlasting repetitiousness, and its
sharp, querulous tone long since became to me an old story; and I
have always thought that whoever dubbed this vireo the "preacher"
could have had no very exalted opinion of the clergy.
I stayed not to listen, therefore, but kept on through the wood,
while a purple finch pitched a tune on one side of the path (he
appeared to feel no compunctions about interrupting the red-eye's
exhortation), and a squirrel sprung his rattle on the other; and
presently I came to the second farm: a large clearing, bounded by
the forest on all hands, but after these many years still yielding a
very respectable hay-crop (so does the good that men do live after
them), and with a house and barn still standing at the lower end. I
reached the house just in time to escape a shower, making an
enforced obeisance as I entered. It was but the ghost of a dwelling,
—the door off its hinges, and no glass in the four small windows;
but it had a substantial quality about it, notwithstanding, as a not
very tall man was liable at any moment to be reminded should he
carry himself a trifle too proudly under the big unhewn timbers. It is
better to stoop than to bump your head, they seemed to be saying.
Hither came no tourists but the rabbits; and they, it was plain, were
not so much tourists as permanent residents. As I looked at the
blank walls and door-posts, after a fortnight's experience among the
mountains, I felt grateful at the sight of boards on which Brown of
Boston and Smith of Smithfield had not yet inscribed their illustrious
names. I had left the city in search of rest and seclusion. For the
time, in the presence of Nature herself, I would gladly have
forgotten the very existence of my all-too-famous countrymen; and I
rejoiced accordingly to have found one lonely spot to which their
restless feet had not yet penetrated. Tall grass grew untrodden quite
up to the door-sill; raspberry vines thrust their arms in at the pane-
less windows; there was neither paint nor plastering; and the tiny
cupboard was so bare that it set my irreverent fancy to quoting
Mother Goose in the midst of my most serious moralizings.
The owner of this farm, like his neighbor, had planted an apple
orchard, and his wife a patch of cinnamon roses; and, not to treat
one better than another, I picked a rose here also. There is no lover
of flowers but likes to have his garden noticed, and the good
housewife would have been pleased, I knew, could she have seen
me looking carefully for her handsomest and sweetest bud.
By this time the shower was over, and a song-sparrow was giving
thanks. I might never have another opportunity to follow up an old
forest path, of which I had heard vague reports as leading from this
point to the railway. "It starts from the upper corner of the farm,"
my informant had said. To the upper corner I went, therefore,
through the rank, wet grass. But I found no sign of what I was
looking for, and with some heartfelt but unreportable soliloquizings,
to the effect that a countryman's directions, like dreams, are always
to be read backwards, I started straight down toward the lower
corner, saying to myself that I ought to have had the wit to take that
course in the beginning. Sure enough, the path was there, badly
overgrown with bushes and young trees, but still traceable. A few
rods, and I came to the brook. The bridge was mostly gone, as I had
been forewarned it probably would be, but a single big log answered
a foot passenger's requirements. Once across the bridge, however, I
could discover no sign of a trail. But what of that? The sun was
shining; I had only to keep it at my back, and I was sure to bring up
at the railroad. So I set out, and for a while traveled on bravely.
Then I began to bethink myself that I was not going up-hill quite so
fast as it seemed I ought to be doing. Was I really approaching the
railway, after all? Or had I started in a wrong direction (being in the
woods at the time), and was I heading along the mountain-side in
such a course that I might walk all night, and all the while be only
plunging deeper and deeper into the forest? The suggestion was not
pleasurable. If I could only see the mountain! But the thick foliage
put that out of the question.
After a short debate with myself I concluded to be prudent, and
make my way back to the brook while I still had the sun to guide
me; for I now called to mind the showeriness of the day, and the
strong likelihood that the sky might at any moment be overcast.
Even as things were, there was no assurance that I might not strike
the brook at some distance from the bridge, and so at some distance
from the trail, with no means of determining whether it was above
or below me. I began my retreat, and pretty soon, luckily or
unluckily,—I am not yet certain which,—in some unaccountable
manner my feet found themselves again in the path.
Now, then, I would carry out my original intention, and I turned
straight about. For a while the path held clear. Then it was blocked
by a big tree that had toppled into it lengthwise. I must go round
the obstruction, and pick up the trail at the other end. But the trail
would not be picked up. It had faded out or run into the ground.
Finally, when I was just on the point of owning myself beaten, my
eyes all at once fell upon it, running along before me. A second
experience of the same kind set me thinking how long it would take
to go a mile or two at this rate (it was already half past four o'clock),
even if I did not in the end lose my way altogether. But I kept on till
I was stopped, not by a single windfall, but by a tangle of half a
dozen. This time I hunted for a continuation of the path on the
further side till I was out of patience, and then determined to be
done with the foolish business, and go back by the way I had come.
A very sensible resolve, but when I came to put it into execution it
turned out to be too late. The path was lost entirely. I must fall back
upon the sun; and if the truth is to be told, I commenced feeling
slightly uncomfortable. The bushes were wet; my clothing was
drenched; I had neither compass nor matches; it certainly would be
anything but agreeable to spend the night in the forest.
Happily there was, for the present, no great danger of matters
coming to such a pass. If the sun would only shine for half an hour
longer I could reach the brook (I could probably reach it without the
sun), and even if I missed the bridge I could follow the stream out
of the woods before dark. I was not frightened, but I was beginning
to tremble lest I should be. The loss of the path was in itself little to
worry about. But what if I should lose my wits also, as many a man
had done in circumstances no worse, and with consequences most
disastrous? Unpleasant stories came into my head, and I remember
repeating to myself more than once (candor is better than felicity of
phrase), "Be careful, now; don't get rattled!" Then, having thus
pulled myself together, as an Englishman would say, I faced the sun
and began "stepping westward," though with no thought of
Wordsworth's poem. A spectator might have suspected that if I was
not "rattled," I was at least not far from it. "Now who is this," he
might have queried,

"whose sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week?"

Meanwhile I was, of course, on the lookout for any signs of the

missing path, and after a time I descried in the distance, on one
side, what looked like a patch of bushes growing in the midst of the
forest. I made for it, and, as I expected, found myself once more on
the trail. This time I held it, reached the bridge, crossed it, and, still
keeping up my pace, was presently out in the sunshine of the old
farm, startling a brood of young partridges on the way. Happy birds!
They were never afraid of passing a night in the woods. A most
absurd notion! But man, as he is the strongest of all animals, so is
he also the weakest and most defenseless.
This last reflection is an afterthought, I freely acknowledge. At the
moment I was taken up with the peacefulness of the pastoral scene
into which I had so happily emerged, and was in no mood to envy
anybody. How bright and cheerful the ragworts and buttercups
looked, and what sweet and homelike music the robin made, singing
from one of the apple-trees! The cool north wind wafted the spicy
odor of the cinnamon roses to my nostrils; but—alas for the prosaic
fact!—the same cool wind struck through my saturated garments,
bidding me move on. The pessimistic preacher was right when he
said, "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes
to behold the sun." I wonder whether he was ever bewildered in a
dark wood. From boyhood I have loved the forest, with its silence,
its shadows, and its deep isolation, but for the present I had had my
fill of such mercies.
As I came out upon the highway, it occurred to me what Emerson
says of Thoreau,—that "he could not bear to hear the sound of his
own steps, and therefore never willingly walked in the road." My
own taste, I was obliged to admit, was somewhat less fastidious.
Indeed, my boots, soaked through and through as they were, made
very grateful music striking along the gravel. And after supper, while
walking back and forth upon the piazza, in all the luxury of slippers
and a winter overcoat, I turned more than once from the glories of
the sunset to gaze upon the black slope of Lafayette, thinking within
myself how much less comfortable I should be up yonder in the
depths of the forest, so dark and wet, without company, without fire,
without overcoat, and without supper. After all, mere animal comfort
is not to be despised. Let us be thankful, I said, for the good things
of life, of no matter what grade; yes, though they be only a change
of clothing and a summer hotel.
It was laughable how my quiet ramble had turned out. My friend,
the red-eyed vireo, may or may not have stuck to his text; but if he
had seen me in the midst of my retreat, dashing through the bushes
and clambering over the fallen trees, he certainly never would have
guessed mine. "Consider the lilies," indeed! He was more likely to
think of a familiar Old Testament scripture: "The wicked flee when
no man pursueth."
 A PITCH-PINE MEDITATION.
So waved the pine-tree through my thought.

Emerson.

In outward, every-day affairs, in what we foolishly call real life, man

is a stickler for regularity, a devout believer in the maxim, "Order is
heaven's first law." He sets his house at right angles with the street;
lays out his grounds in the straightest of straight lines, or in the
most undeviating of curves; selects his shade-trees for their trim,
geometrical habit; and, all in all, carries himself as if precision and
conformity were the height of virtue. Yet this same man, when he
comes to deal with pictorial representations, makes up his judgment
according to quite another standard; finding nothing picturesque in
tidy gardens and shaven lawns, discarding without hesitation every
well-rounded, symmetrical tree, delighting in disorder and
disproportion, loving a ruin better than the best appointed palace,
and a tumble-down wall better than the costliest and stanchest of
new-laid masonry. It is hard to know what to think of an
inconsistency like this. Why should taste and principle be thus
opposed to each other, as if the same man were half Philistine, half
Bohemian? Can this strong æsthetic preference for imperfection be
based upon some permanent, universal law, or is it only a passing
whim, the fashion of an hour?
Whatever we may say of such a problem,—and where one knows
nothing, it is perhaps wisest to say nothing,—we may surely count it
an occasion for thankfulness that a thing so common as imperfection
should have at least its favorable side. Music would soon become
tame, if not intolerable, without here and there a discord; and who
knows how stupid life itself might prove without some slight
admixture of evil? From my study-windows I can see sundry of the
newest and most commodious mansions in town; but I more often
look, not at them, but at a certain dilapidated old house, blackening
for want of paint, and fast falling into decay, but with one big elm
before the door. I have no hankerings to live in it; as a dwelling-
place, I should no doubt prefer one of the more modern
establishments; but for an object to look at, give me the shanty.
Human nature is nothing if not paradoxical. In its eyes everything is
both good and bad; and for my own part, I sometimes wonder
whether this may not be the sum of all wisdom,—to find everything
good in its place, and everything bad out of its place.
Thoughts like these suggest themselves as I look at the pitch-pine,
which, to speak only of such trees as grow within the range of my
own observation, is the one irregular member of the family of cone-
bearers. The white or Weymouth pine, the hemlock, the cedars, the
spruces, the fir, and the larch, these are all, in different ways, of a
decidedly symmetrical turn. Each of them has its own definite plan,
and builds itself up in fastidious conformity therewith, except as
untoward outward conditions may now and then force an individual
into some abnormal peculiarity. And all of them, it need not be said,
have the defect of this quality. They are not without charm, not even
the black spruce, while the Weymouth pine and the hemlock are
often of surpassing magnificence and beauty; but a punctilious
adherence to rule must of necessity be attended with a
corresponding absence of freedom and variety. The pitch-pine, on
the other hand, if it works upon any set scheme, as no doubt it
does, has the grace to keep it out of sight. Its gift is genius rather
than talent. It has an air, as genius always has, of achieving its
results without effort or premeditation. Its method is that of
spontaneity; its style, that of the picturesque-homely, so dear to the
artistic temperament. Its whole make-up is consistent with this
germinal or controlling idea. Angular in outline, rough and ragged in
its bole, with its needles stiff and its cones hard and sharp, it makes
no attempt at gracefulness, yet by virtue of its very waywardness it
becomes, as if in spite of itself, more attractive than any of its
relatives.
The Puritans of New England are mostly dead; the last of their
spiritual descendants, we may fear, will soon be dead likewise; but
as long as Pinus rigida covers the sandy knolls of Massachusetts, the
sturdy, uncompromising, independent, economical, indefatigable, all-
enduring spirit of Puritanism will be worthily represented in this its
sometime thriving-place.
For the pitch-pine's noblest qualities are, after all, not artistic, but
moral. Such unalterable contentment, such hardiness and
persistency, are enough to put the stoutest of us to shame. Once
give it root, and no sterility of soil can discourage it. Everything else
may succumb, but it—it and the gray birch—will make shift to live.
Like the resin that exudes from it, having once taken hold, it has no
thought of letting go. It is never "planted by the rivers of water," but
all the same its leaf does not wither. No summer so hot and dry, no
winter so cold and wet, but it keeps its perennial green. What
cannot be done in one year may, perchance, be accomplished in
three or four. It spends several seasons in ripening its fruit. Think of
an apple-tree thus patient!
The pitch-pine is beautiful to look at, and "profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," but it would
be a shame not to add that it is also most excellent to smell of. If I
am to judge, scarcely any odor wears better than this of growing
turpentine. There is something unmistakably clean and wholesome
about it. The very first whiff savors of salubrity. "The belief in the
good effects of pine forests in cases of phthisis is quite unanimous"
(so I read the other day in a scientific journal), "and the clinical
evidence in favor of their beneficial influence is unquestioned." Who
can tell whether our New England climate, with all its consumptive
provocations, might not be found absolutely unendurable but for the
amelioration furnished by this generously diffused terebinthine
prophylactic?
When all is said, however, nothing else about the pitch-pine ever
affects me so deeply as its behavior after man has done his worst
upon it. It would appear to have some vague sense of immortality,
some gropings after a resurrection. The tree was felled in the
autumn, and the trunk cut up ignominiously into cord-wood; but in
the spring the prostrate logs begin to put forth scattered tufts of
bright green leaves,—life still working under the ribs of death,—while
the stump, whether "through the scent of water" I cannot say, is
perhaps sending up fresh shoots,—a piece of post-mortem
hopefulness the like of which no white pine, for all its seemingly
greater vitality, was ever known to exhibit. But leaves and shoots
alike come to nothing. If a pitch-pine die, it shall not live again. The
wood's blind impulses, if not false in themselves, were at least
falsely interpreted. Alas! alas! who has not found it so? What
seemed like the prophetic stirrings of a new life were only the last
flickerings of a lamp that was going out.
 ESOTERIC PERIPATETICISM.
I walk about; not to and from.—Charles Lamb.

Taking a walk is something different from traveling afoot. The latter I

may do when on my way to the cars or the shop; but my neighbor,
seeing me at such times, never says to himself, "Mr. —— is taking a
walk." He knows I cannot be doing that, so long as I am walking for
the sake of getting somewhere. Even the common people
understand that utilitarianism has nothing to do with the true
peripatetic philosophy.
The disciples of this philosophy, the noble fraternity of saunterers,
among whom I modestly enroll myself, are not greatly concerned
with any kind of merely physical activity. They believe that
everything has both a lower and a higher use; and that in the order
of evolution the lower precedes the higher. Time was when walking
—going erect on one's hind limbs—was a rare accomplishment,
sufficient of itself to confer distinction. Little by little this
accomplishment became general, and for this long time now it has
been universal; yet even to the present day it is not quite natural;
else why does every human infant still creep on all-fours till it is
taught otherwise? But of all who practise the art, only here and
there a single individual has divined its loftier use and significance.
The rest are still in the materialistic stage—pedestrians simply. In
their view walking is only a convenience, or perhaps I should say an
inconvenience; a cheap device for getting from one place to another.
They resort to it for business, or, it may be, for health. Of strolling as
a means of happiness they have scarcely so much as heard. They
belong to the great and fashionable sect of the wise and prudent;
and from all such the true peripatetic philosophy is forever hidden.
We who are in the secret would gladly publish it if we could; but by
its very nature the doctrine is esoteric.
Whoso would be initiated into its mysteries must first of all learn
how not to be in a hurry. Life is short, it is true, and time is precious;
but a day is worth nothing of itself. It is like money,—good only for
what it will buy. One must not play the miser, even with time. "There
is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty."
Who does not know men so penurious of minutes, so everlastingly
preoccupied, that they seldom spend an hour to any good purpose,
—confirming the paradox of Jesus, "He that loveth his life shall lose
it"? And between a certain two sisters, was not the verdict given in
favor of the one who (if we take the other's word for it) was little
better than an idler? The saunterer has laid to heart this lesson. On
principle, he devotes a part of his time to what his virtuous
townsmen call doing nothing. "What profit hath a man of all his
labor?" A pertinent inquiry; but I am not aware that the author of it
ever suggested any similar doubt as to the net results of well-
directed idleness. A laborious, painstaking spirit is commendable in
its place; it would go hard with the world to get on without it; but
the fact remains that some of the very best things of this life—things
unseen and (therefore) eternal—are never to be come at
industriously. It is useless to chase them. We can only put ourselves
in their way, and be still. The secret is as old as mysticism itself: if
the vision tarry, wait for it.
Walking, then, as adepts use the word, is not so much a physical as
a spiritual exercise. And if any be disposed to look askance at this
form of expression, as if there were possibly a suggestion of
profanity about it, they will please bethink themselves of an ancient
sacred book (to which, according to some friendly critics, I am
strangely fond of referring), wherein is narrated the history of a man
who went out into the fields at eventide to meditate. He could never
have misunderstood our speech, nor dreamed of its needing
justification. And your true saunterers of the present day, no matter
what their creed, are of Isaac's kin,—devout and imaginative souls,
who may now and then be forced to cry with the Psalmist, "O that I
had wings!" but who, in all ordinary circumstances, are able to walk
away and be at rest. Like the patriarch, they have accustomed their
feet to serve them as ministers of grace.
It must be a bad day indeed when, on retreating to the woods or
the fields, we find it impossible to leave the wearisome world—yes,
and our more wearisome selves, also—behind us. As a rule, this
result is not the better attained by quickening the gait. We may
allow for exceptions, of course, cases in which a counter-excitement
may peradventure be of use; but most often it is better to seek
quietness of heart at a quiet pace; to steal away from our
persecutors, rather than to invite pursuit by too evident a purpose of
escape. The lazy motion is of itself a kind of spiritual sedative. As we
proceed, gazing idly at the sky, or with our attention caught by some
wayside flower or passing bird, the mind grows placid, and, like
smooth water, receives into itself the image of heaven. What a
benediction of repose falls upon us sometimes from an old tree, as
we pass under it! So self-poised it seems; so alive, and yet so still! It
was planted here before we were born. It will be green and
flourishing long after we are dead. In it we may behold a perfect
illustration of the dignity and peace of a life undeviatingly obedient
to law,—the law of its own being; never in haste, never at a loss, but
in every fibre doing, day by day, its appropriate work. Sunshine and
rain, heat and cold, calm and storm,—all minister to its necessities.
It has only to stand in its place and grow; happy in spring-time, with
its buds and leaves; happy in autumn, with its fruit; happy, too, in
winter,—repining not when forced to wait through months of
bareness and dearth for the touch of returning warmth. Enviable
tree! As we contemplate it, we feel ourselves rebuked, and, at the
same time, comforted. We, also, will be still, and let the life that is in
us work itself out to the appointed end.
The seeing eye is a gift so unusual that whoever accustoms himself
to watch what passes around him in the natural world is sure to be
often entertained by the remarks, complimentary and otherwise,
which such an idiosyncrasy calls forth. Some of his neighbors pity
him as a ne'er-do-well, while others devoutly attribute to him a sort
of superhuman faculty. If only they had such eyes! But, alas! they go
into the woods, and they see nothing. Meanwhile the object of their
envy knows well enough that his own vision is but rudimentary. He
catches a glimpse now and then,—nothing more. Like his neighbors,
he, too, prays for sight. Sooner or later, however, he discovers that it
is a blessing to be able on occasion to leave one's scientific senses at
home. For here, again, surprising as it may seem, it is necessary to
be on our guard against a superserviceable activity. There are times
when we go out-of-doors, not after information, but in quest of a
mood. Then we must not be over-observant. Nature is coy; she
appreciates the difference between an inquisitor and a lover. The
curious have their reward, no doubt, but her best gifts are reserved
for suitors of a more sympathetic turn. And unless it be here and
there some creature altogether devoid of poetic sensibility, some
"fingering slave,"—

"One who would peep and botanize

Upon his mother's grave,"—

unless it be such a person as this, too poor to be conscious of his

own poverty, there can be no enthusiastic student of natural history
but has found out for himself the truth and importance of the
paradoxical caution now suggested. One may become so zealous a
botanist as almost to cease to be a man. The shifting panorama of
the heavens and the earth no longer appeals to him. He is now a
specialist, and go where he will, he sees nothing but specimens. Or
he may give himself up to ornithology, till eye and ear grow so
abnormally sensitive that not a bird can move or twitter but he is
instantly aware of it. He must attend, whether he will or no. So long
as this servitude lasts, it is idle to go afield in pursuit of joys "high
and aloof," such as formerly awaited him in lonesome places. Better
betake himself to city streets or a darkened room. For myself, I
thankfully bear testimony that when I have been thus under the
tyranny of my own senses I have found no more certain means of
temporary deliverance than to walk in the early evening. Indeed, I
have been ready, many a time, to exclaim with Wordsworth,—
 "Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour!"

Then the eye has no temptation to busy itself with petty details;
"day's mutable distinctions" are removed from sight, and the mind is
left undistracted to rise, if it can, into communion with the spirit of
the scene.
After all, it is next to nothing we are able to tell of the pleasures of
such fellowship. We cannot define them to ourselves,—though they
are "felt in the blood and felt along the heart,"—much less to
another. Least of all need we attempt to explain them to any
Philistine; the walls of whose house are likely enough hung with
"chromos," but who stares at you for a fool or a sentimentalist
(which comes, perhaps, to nearly the same thing), when he catches
you standing still before one of Nature's pictures. How shall one
blest with a feeling for the woods put into language the delight he
experiences in sauntering along their shady aisles? He enjoys the
stillness, the sense of seclusion, the flicker of sunlight and shadow,
the rustle of leaves, the insect's hum, the passing of the chance
butterfly, the chirp of the bird, or its full-voiced song, the tracery of
lichens on rock and tree, the tuft of ferns, the carpet of moss, the
brightness of blossom and fruit,—all the numberless sights and
sounds of the forest; but it is not any of these, nor all of them
together, that make the glory of the place. It is the wood—and this is
something more than the sum of all its parts—which lays hold upon
him, taking him, as it were, out of the world and out of himself. Let
practical people sneer, and the industrious frown; we who retain our
relish for these natural and innocent felicities may well enough be
indifferent to neighborly comments. Whatever worldlings may think,
the hour is not wasted that brings with it tranquillity of mind and an
uplifting of the heart. We seem to be going nowhere and looking for
nothing? Yes; but one may be glad to visit the Land of Beulah,
though he have no special errand thither. Who ever saw a child but
was fond of an idle hour in the woods? And for my part, while, I
have with me the children (and the dogs and the poets) I count
myself in excellent company; for the time, at least, I can do without
what is vulgarly esteemed good society. A man to whom a holiday
affords no pleasure is already as good as dead; nothing will save him
but to be born again. We have heard of convicts so wonted to prison
cells that they could feel at home nowhere else; and we have known
men of business whose feet, when they stopped going the regular
humdrum round, knew no other course to take but to steer straight
for the grave. It behooves us to heed the warning of such examples,
and now and then to be idle betimes, lest the capacity for idleness
be extirpated by disuse.
The practice of sauntering may especially be recommended as a
corrective of the modern vice of continual reading. For too many of
us it has come to be well-nigh impossible to sit down by ourselves
without turning round instinctively in search of a book or a
newspaper. The habit indicates a vacancy of mind, a morbid
intellectual restlessness, and may not inaptly be compared with that
incessant delirious activity which those who are familiar with death-
bed scenes know so well as a symptom of approaching dissolution.
Possibly the two cases are not in all respects analogous. Books are
an inestimable boon; let me never be without the best of them, both
old and new. Still, one would fain have an occasional thought of
one's own, even though, as the common saying is, it be nothing to
speak of. Meditation is an old-fashioned exercise; the very word is
coming to have an almost archaic sound; but neither the word nor
the thing will altogether pass into forgetfulness so long as the race
of saunterers—the spiritual descendants of Isaac—continue to inherit
the earth.
There is little danger that the lives of any of us will be too solitary or
lived at too leisurely a rate. The world grows busier and busier.
Those whose passion for Nature is strongest and most deep-seated
are driven to withhold from her all but the odds and ends of the day.
We rebel sometimes; the yoke grows unendurable; come what may,
we will be quit of it; but the existing order of things proves too
strong for us, and anon we settle back into the old bondage. And
perhaps it is better so. Even the most simple and natural delights are
best appreciated when rarely and briefly enjoyed. So I persuade
myself that, all in all, it is good for me to have only one or two hours
a day for the woods. Human nature is weak; who knows but I might
grow lazy, were I my own master? At least, "the fine point of seldom
pleasure" would be blunted.
The ideal plan would include two walks: one in the morning for
observation, with every sense alert; the other toward night, for a
mood of "wise passiveness," wherein Nature should be left free to
have her own way with the heart and the imagination. Then the
laureate's prayer might be fulfilled:—

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,

But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music, as before."

But this strict division of time is too often out of the question, and
we must contrive, as best we can, to unite the two errands,—study
and reverie: using our eyes and ears, but not abusing them; and, on
the other hand, giving free play to fancy and imagination, without
permitting ourselves to degenerate into impotent dreamers. Every
walker ought to be a faithful student of at least one branch of
natural history, not omitting Latin names and the very latest
discoveries and theories. But, withal, let him make sure that his
acquaintance with out-of-door life is sympathetic, and not merely
curious or scientific. All honor to the new science and its votaries;
we run small risk of too much learning; but it should be kept in mind
that the itch for finding out secrets is to be accounted noble or
ignoble, according as the spirit that prompts the research is liberal or
petty. Curiosity and love of the truth are not yet identical, however it
may flatter our self-esteem to ignore the distinction. One may spend
one's days and nights in nothing else but in hearing or telling some
new thing, and after all be no better than a gossip. It would prove a
sorry exchange for such of us as have entered, in any degree, into
the feeling of Wordsworth's lines,—
 "To me, the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears,"—

and I believe the capacity for such moods to be less uncommon than
many suppose,—it would be a sorry bargain, I say, for us to lose this
sensitiveness to the charm of living beauty, though meanwhile we
were to grow wiser than all the moderns touching the morphology
and histology of every blossom under the sun.

"Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail against her

beauty?"

Not we, certainly; but we will be bold to add, with Tennyson himself,
—

"Let her know her place;

She is the second, not the first."

In treating a theme of this kind, it is hard not to violate Nature's own

method, and fall into a strain of exhortation. Our intercourse with
her is so good and wholesome, such an inexhaustible and ever-ready
resource against the world's trouble and unrest, that we would
gladly have everybody to share it. We say, over and over, with
Emerson,—

"If I could put my woods in song,

And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void."

But this may not be. At best, words can only hint at sensations; and
the hint can be taken only by as many as are predestined to hear it.
As I have said, the doctrine is esoteric. How are those who have
never felt the like to understand the satisfaction with which I recall a
certain five or ten minutes of a cool morning in May, a year or more
ago? I was drawing towards home, after a jaunt of an hour or two,
when I came suddenly into a sheltered and sunny nook, where a
bed of the early saxifrage was already in full bloom, while a most
exquisite little bee-fly of a beautiful shade of warm brown was
hovering over it, draining the tiny, gold-lined chalices, one by one,
with its long proboscis, which looked precisely like the bill of a
humming-bird. An ordinary picture enough, as far as words go,—
only a little sunshine, a patch of inconspicuous and common flowers,
and a small Bombylian without even the distinction of bright colors.
True; but my spirit drank a nectar sweeter than any the insect was
sipping. And though, as a rule, an experience of this sort were
perhaps better left unspoken,—

"A thought of private recollection, sweet and still,"

yet the mention of it can do no harm, while it illustrates what I take

to be one of the principal advantages of the saunterer's condition.
His treasures are never far to seek. His delight is in Nature herself,
rather than in any of her more unusual manifestations. He is not of
that large and increasingly fashionable class who fancy themselves
lovers of Nature, while in fact they are merely admirers, more or less
sincere, of fine scenery. Not that anything is too beautiful for our
rambler's appreciation: he has an eye for the best that earth and
heaven can offer; he knows the exhilaration of far-reaching
prospects; but he is not dependent upon such extraordinary favors
of Providence. He has no occasion to run hither and thither in search
of new and strange sights. The old familiar pastures; the bushy lane,
in which his feet have loitered year after year, ever since they began
to go alone; an unfrequented road; a wooded slope, or a mossy
glen; the brook of his boyish memories; if need be, nothing but a
clump of trees or a grassy meadow,—these are enough for his
pleasure. Fortunate man! Who should be happy, if not he? Out of his
own doorway he steps at will into the Elysian fields.