The Rambles of an Idler 



I love to live on these outermost bounds of 

 habitable earth. The interior everywhere soon 

 grows commonplace, but there is freshness and 

 novelty as we wander from the centre to the 

 circumference. There is more to see. People 

 are all well enough in their way, but, as a strug- 

 gling crowd of strangers in a town, the most 

 tiresome objects in the world; while life, as I 

 view it, is comfortably near to Nature at the 

 outposts. We can see farther ahead, there, 

 than we dare venture, but the desire to explore, 

 ever uppermost, has chance for exercise. So, 

 to-day, had I been in town, I would have heard 

 the street-cars rattle ; as it was, out of it, at an 

 outpost, for the town can be seen by looking 

 backwards, I have Bob White whistling at my 

 elbow, and thrushes, finches and warblers all 

 a-tune, with the twittering swallows to fill in 

 the chinks when bird-song fails. 



"In this pleasing . . . wood-life . . . 

 let me record day by day my honest thought 

 without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot 

 doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I 

 mean it not and see it not. My book should 

 smell of pines and resound with the hum of 



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