Xii INTRODUCTION 



Since I left Washington in 1873, instead of an 

 iron wall in front of my desk, I have had a large 

 window that overlooks the Hudson and the wooded 

 heights beyond, and I have exchanged the vault for 

 a vineyard. Probably my mind reacted more vigor- 

 ously from the former than it does from the latter. 

 The vineyard winds its tendrils around me and 

 detains me, and its loaded trellises are more pleas- 

 ing to me than the closets of greenbacks. 



The only time there is a suggestion of an iron 

 wall in front of me is in winter, when ice and snow 

 have blotted out the landscape, and I find that it is 

 in this season that my mind dwells most fondly 

 upon my favorite themes. Winter drives a man 

 back upon himself, and tests his powers of self-enter- 

 tainment. 



Do such books as mine give a wrong impression 

 of Nature, and lead readers to expect more from a 

 walk or a camp in the woods than they usually get ? 

 I have a few times had occasion to think so. I am 

 not always aware myself how much pleasure I have 

 had in a walk till I try to share it with my reader. 

 The heat of composition brings out the color and 

 the flavor. We must not forget the illusions of all 

 art. If my reader thinks he does not get from Na- 

 ture what I get from her, let me remind him that 

 he can hardly know what he has got till he defines 

 it to himself as I do, and throws about it the witch- 

 ery of words. Literature does not grow wild in 



