66 BY-WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



Southern P^merson would not be content with 

 mere adjectives of color and form ; he would 

 go about like a bumble-bee, extracting from 

 nature such sweets as might be found racy of 

 the soil. He would be a mole among the 

 juicy roots of plants, a butterfly among the 

 flowers. He would cut into the sap-veins of 

 the trees ; he would peel the fragrant barks. 

 His poems would not be composed of these 

 things, nor principally of them, but their flavor 

 would come out of them, and out of the sun- 

 shine and the lazy summer winds. 



Who knows but that the invention of the 

 wheel, this charming instrument of self-propul- 

 sion, is to work a new element into our litera- 

 ture not merely the wheel element, but the 

 provincial element an element which seems 

 to have almost disappeared from the poetry 

 and fiction made in the great literary centres 

 of New York, London and Paris. I have felt, 

 while enjoying short leisurely tours on the tri- 

 cycle, that all the bright young cyclists of our 

 country are certainly in the best way of gath- 

 ering that knowledge which fully complements 

 the lore of the books. Surely it is given to 

 him who knows Nature and loves her, to 

 speak : 



" As if by secret sight he knew 

 Where, in far fields, the orchis grew." 



IV. 



Here are my notes of a short tricycle run 

 made on the second of May, 1884. The trip 

 was far more pleasing to me, no doubt, than 

 I can make it appear to others, but the notes 

 may serve to show how much can be seen, 



