The Rambles of an Idler 



swims according to the rules laid down for the 

 huge fishes of the sea. We may drive off all 

 our bears, but there will be a raccoon in some 

 hollow tree. Beavers are long gone, but there 

 is the musk-rat. There never was a neighbor- 

 hood that did not contain one real, live hunter 

 who could make his living. The later, cheaper 

 edition tells the same story as the first, with its 

 abundant, full-page illustrations. Even here, 

 where all is tame, there are mud and water and 

 weeds just as Indians found them when they 

 wandered about, and such as the Dutch and the 

 Swedes and the English saw when they went up 

 into the land and took possession thereof. 

 Here, I regret, even from my own point of view, 

 all is tame, but compare it with brick pave- 

 ments. 



If all is tame in a long settled country, please 

 always to remember it is even tamer when peo- 

 ple are about. Visit a trim woods when noisy 

 with a picnic and go afterwards alone to the 

 same place and you will know what I mean. A 

 tree, a bird and a cloud-flecked sky to yourself 

 half-way meets with your demand for wildness, 

 but you will never find a trace of it even in 

 the country, remote from town when a bab- 



248 



