302 SECLUSION AND FREEDOM. 



it. Even a long journey through it would be tiresome 

 and depressing. We love solitude and the scenes that 

 inspire the sensation, if our seclusion is to be but tem- 

 porary. We love to go out and remain a few hours, 

 apart from all appearances of culture, if we know that 

 we may at any hour return from our solitude to the 

 pleasures of home and society. Such was the kind of 

 solitary life that was sought by Thoreau in his hermitage 

 in Walden woods. With all his eccentricities, he was a 

 man of social habits. His love of society equalled his 

 love of solitude, and he sought the gratification of each 

 of these sentiments in his solitary hut, often emerging 

 from it to pass a few hours with his friends in the world 

 which he seemed to have renounced. 



The pleasures of forest life are chiefly derived from 

 the sentiments of freedom and seclusion. The wood- 

 cutters, though for the most part incapable of feeling the 

 enthusiasm of a poetical mind, find pleasure in the free- 

 dom and solitude of a pathless wood, when seasoned with 

 the anticipation of a return to the busy world. Occasion- 

 ally these foresters are joined by men of culture and sen- 

 sibility, who in their descriptions of this mode of life 

 dwell with rapture upon the charms of that temporary 

 solitude, and of that freedom which is unrestrained except 

 by the material impediments to their progress. They are 

 delighted with the experience of living apart from the 

 world, mingled with the hope of soon returning to it. 



When affected by any absorbing grief, there is some- 

 thing in the rude and desolate aspects of nature that 

 dilutes our sorrows with the romantic sentiments they 

 inspire, while their occasional scenes of beauty afford us 

 a healthful diversion. A flowery and sequestered nook, 

 resounding with the melody of birds and the hum of 

 insects, seems as if designed by some propitious deity for 

 our solace. This seclusion does not clash with our feel- 



