The Eambles of an Idler 



can whistle back to it, in the same earnest and 

 fraternal spirit. Thus minded, the legal nice- 

 ties of land-ownership will not intrude. You 

 go about as Nature's guest and forget that any 

 bull-dog may be on the look-out to defend its 

 owner's sordid rights. Man mars not makes 

 the landscape. The chances are, these crowded 

 latter days, that he is Nature 's enemy, not her 

 friend, and certainly as he has waxed mighty in 

 intellect, Nature holds him at arm's length with 

 all her power. A product of her forces but a 

 rebellious one that she never forgives and kills 

 when she can. There should be no warfare, it 

 is true, but there is, and in the end she con- 

 quers. As dust she takes him up again and 

 fashions something else or a new man; but if 

 the latter, always with the hope that he may 

 prove more of a success, seen from her point of 

 view. 



But never mind man, alive or dead; let us 

 hear what Nature has to say. The main pur- 

 pose of an outing is to listen, to hear accurately, 

 to heed implicitly. It is ill-bred to shout in her 

 ears. She knows our needs, our limitations. 

 She will point them out in time, and he who 

 has been so far favored is fit for any company. 



x 



