66 BY-WAYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
Southern Emerson would not be content with 
mere adjectives of color and form ; he would 
go about like a bumble-bee, extracting from 
nature such sweets as might be found racy of 
the soil. He would be a mole among the 
juicy roots of plants, a butterfly among the 
flowers. He would cut into the sap-veins of 
the trees; he would peel the fragrant barks. 
His poems would not be composed of these 
things, nor principally of them, but their flavor 
would come out of them, and out of the sun- 
shine and the lazy summer winds. 
Who knows but that the invention of the 
wheel, this charming instrument of self-propul- 
sion, is to work a new element into our litera- 
ture—not merely the wheel element, but the 
provincial element —an element which seems 
to have almost disappeared from the poetry 
and fiction made in the great literary centres 
of New York, London and Paris. I have felt, 
while enjoying short leisurely tours on the tri- 
cycle, that all the bright young cyclists of our 
country are certainly in the best way of gath- 
ering that knowledge which fully complements 
the lore of the books. Surely it is given to 
him who knows Nature and loves her, to 
speak : 
“ As if by secret sight he knew 
Where, in far fields, the orchis grew.” 
IV. 
Here are my notes of a short tricycle run 
made on the second of May, 1884. The trip 
was far more pleasing to me, no doubt, than 
I can make it appear to others, but the notes 
may serve to show how much can be seen, 
