WAYSIDE RAMBLES. II 
thronging life and activity. While I may be lone- 
some in a crowd, my neighbor is almost sure to feel 
lonesome in the marsh or the deep ravine. If all 
men loved Nature with a passion that could not be 
controlled, much work would be left undone that is 
indispensable to human life and happiness. I am 
glad, therefore, that there are many birds of many 
kinds ; glad, too, that there are many men of many 
minds. ‘The apostle does well to remind his breth- 
ren in the church that there are “ diversities of gifts” 
and “ diversities of operations,” even if all do spring 
from “ the same Spirit.’ 
Albeit, as for me, give me 
“ A secret nook in a pleasant land, 
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned.” 
Emerson voices my own feeling when he sings: — 
“ A woodland walk, 
A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, 
A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine, 
Salve my worst wounds ; ” 
for, 
“What friend to friend cannot convey, 
Shall the dumb bird instructed say.” 
And it is true that a wayside ramble will often do, 
by way of self-revelation and conviction, what no 
human voice of chastisement can accomplish. Mr. 
Howells says, in one of his most trenchant analytical 
novels : “If you ’re not in first-rate spiritual condition, 
you te apt to get floored if you undertake to com- 
mune with Nature.’”’ There are times when the very 
