The Eambles of an Idler 



herons. So too are the others of their family. 

 Whether green, blue, white or mottled brown, 

 they are all given to nocturnal sport, noisy and 

 demonstrative. 



There is much preaching throughout the land, 

 but the safest school for good manners, good 

 morals and a common-sense view of the world 

 we live in is out-of-doors. Compared with the 

 conditions civilization has brought about, the 

 out-door world never suffers. Candor, a word 

 merely with men, is the keynote of every wild 

 creature, however humble, that we meet, and 

 this is refreshing, enough so, it seems to me, t'o 

 take us oftener into tbe woods. 



The tirade against dirt so constantly heard 

 is probably the most tiresome item of the stock 

 in trade of housekeepers' communications, 

 Poor dirt! Pulverized rock, tried by frost, 

 purified by fire, washed by the rain and dried 

 by the innocent sunshine, and yet more roundly 

 abused than anything else in Nature. Thank 

 Goodness, I love the dirt! Love to walk on it, 

 to play in it; yes, to burrow waist-deep in it 

 and, emerging into the light of day, feel that I 



160 



