1 8 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



best to remember the music of his tribe, but how 

 can he? How can he sing the songs of Teneriffe in 

 a strange land? What, indeed, are his best efforts 

 to the mellifluous ring of the thrush in our own 

 woods? Your love at a summer resort is sweet — 

 there is no denying it; but you are not to her what 

 you would be in a ramble with her alone in a soli- 

 tary wilderness. It is as chivalrous as the circum- 

 stances will permit to pick up her purposely dropped 

 glove; but what is that to gathering her in your 

 arms, and wading the swirling rapids or the treacher- 

 ous swamp, letting her rest timidly yet securely upon 

 your stalwart manhood, endurance, and courage. 



There is an impalpable, invisible, softly stepping 

 delight in the camp-fire which escapes analysis. 

 Enumerate all its charms, and still there is some- 

 thing not in your catalogue. There are paths of 

 light which it cuts through the darkness; there are 

 elfish forms winking and twisting their faces in the 

 glowing ash-veiled embers ; there are black dragons* 

 heads with red eyes, and jaws grinning to show 

 their fiery teeth; the pines whisper to the silence; 

 the sentinel trees seem to advance and retire; you 

 may hear the distant scream of the wolf, or the 

 trumpet of the moose, or the note of a solitary 

 night bird, or the more familiar note of the loon. 

 All these surround and conceal some other delight, 

 as the body veils while it reveals the soul. 



Our birth is a sleep and a forgetting, and yet a 

 remembering. It is the memory of the wide, wide 



