PREFACE. 



This little book is made up after the fashion 

 of Nature's concretions. The parts seemed to 

 have a sort of affinity for one another, with- 

 out, in some instances, any discoverable kin- 

 ship. A sheaf of essays (most of them written 

 in the woods of the South) I offer to the reader 

 just as it was bundled together after appear- 

 ing at intervals and in separate wisps in the 

 Atlantic, Scribner^s, the Library, and other 

 magazines. 



From my earliest boyhood to the present 

 hour, I have felt a constant and increasing 

 pleasure in chasing sylvan secrets through 

 sunlight and shadow, by river and brook, on 

 mountain and in valley, all the way back and 

 forth from the lakes of the North to the great 

 Southern gulf. Many of these secrets I have 

 caught, as in a net, a lot of rustling, chirrup- 

 ing, melodious things, like singing birds, or 

 prismatic, glowing, odorous, flower-like vis- 

 ions robbing me of the power of expression, 

 and yet ever demanding description. I have 

 felt no other limitation quite so galling as the 

 inadequacy of my insight. I can see almost 

 to the nucleus of things— I can nearly make 

 out this or that perfect form — I almost know 

 what the serpent thinks, w^hat the dove de- 

 sires, what the mocking-bird sings ; but the 

 dainty film is always interposed, just at the 

 moment of triumph, to shut out the perfect 

 conclusion and to leave a haunting half- 

 5 



