WOOD-PATHS. 289 



opening into a grander solitude, where dwells perpetual 

 twilight, halls familiar with darkness at noonday, and 

 visited only by the rays of the morning and evening sun. 



Everywhere there is a store of essences on the dewy 

 air ; sometimes a scent of pines, such as a mild south- 

 wind at twilight will waft into our windows from a neigh- 

 boring grove ; then the perfume of oaks, less sweet and 

 aromatic, but like that which we may suppose to have 

 surrounded the oracle of Dodona. Now a mild breeze 

 will waft us the scent of strawberry-beds, bearing a mes- 

 sage to the bee that tells where the flowers have spread 

 their feast of nectar. At every season the air about these 

 paths is full of sweet odors, that would communicate to 

 our senses the proximity of certain plants. Not a flower 

 appears that does not give some balmy notice of its pres- 

 ence ; not a zephyr wanders through this avenue but with 

 wings laden as if it had passed over the plains of Araby. 



While strolling in -one of these paths, where the ruts 

 of the wagoner's wheels are hardly perceptible along the 

 green turf, I am affected with a glow of pleasure that can- 

 not be felt in a nicely gravelled walk through the grounds 

 of a palace. I feel a sense of tranquil and poetic seclu- 

 sion here, that would dissolve, as by a spell, at the least 

 appearance of ornamental design. It is difficult to ex- 

 plain the philosophy of this sentiment. But Nature, 

 whose works perfectly harmonize with the rude wood- 

 path and the artless operations of rustic toil, refuses her 

 blessing to the nicely trimmed avenue and the ambitious 

 designs of wealth and pride. In a gravelled walk through 

 a lordly estate there is neither seclusion nor repose; in 

 the pathless wood, seclusion soon becomes painful soli- 

 tude ; but in the unadorned wood-path is sweet retirement, 

 while an endless maze of verdure and flowers renders the 

 solitude charming. 



Though the wood-path does not glow with the splendor 



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