The Rambles of an Idler 



have so much that is spiritual to concern them, 

 the mechanical device of writing should not en- 

 croach upon their time when out of doors. Let 

 the fingers limp over the note-book as best they 

 can. Time enough later to interpret your hiero- 

 glyphics. In such a way, perhaps, a tree-smell- 

 ing book can be made. Memory is treacherous. 

 She can plan our discomfiture in short order. 



If we cannot bring back the dead, we can re- 

 call the past, even a past of which we pre- 

 viously had never heard. Here I stand on the 

 slope of gently rising ground, looking *up and 

 down a valley of incomparable grace. Below 

 me, only a short distance off, ripples a little 

 brook. The shallow water spreads like a sheet 

 of glass over a floor of pebbles. It is a live 

 brook, and to-day sings the pretty song it sang 

 two hundred years ago ; sings it to me as it did 

 to the Indians for centuries. The mellow sun- 

 shine and October's scarlet leaves do the best 

 they can to hide the ugly scars that come from 

 man's assault upon Nature, for this valley of 

 to-day was yesterday a prosaic mill-pond. Ill- 

 luck for its owner, but good luck for me, that 

 the dam is gone and the blessed sun again sees 



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