88 RIVERBY 



desultory papers have also brought something of the 

 breath of the fields and woods, and who in return 

 has given me many glimpses of nature through eyes 

 purified by suffering. 



Women are about the best lovers of nature, after 

 all; at least of nature in her milder and more fa- 

 miliar forms. The feminine character, the feminine 

 perceptions, intuitions, delicacy, sympathy, quick- 

 ness, etc., are more responsive to natural forms and 

 influences than is the masculine mind. 



My Western correspondent sees existence as from 

 an altitude, and sees where the complements and 

 compensations come in. She lives upon the prairie, 

 and she says it is as the ocean to her, upon which 

 she is adrift, and always expects to be, until she 

 reaches the other shore. Her house is the ship 

 which she never leaves. " What is visible from my 

 window is the sea, changing only from winter to 

 summer, as the sea changes -from storm to sunshine. 

 But there is one advantage, messages can come to 

 me continually from all the wide world." 



One summer she wrote she had been hoping to 

 be well enough to renew her acquaintance with the 

 birds, the flowers, the woods, but instead was con- 

 fined to her room more closely than ever. 



"It is a disappointment to me, but I decided 

 long ago that the wisest plan is to make the best of 

 things; to take what is given you, and make the 

 most of it. To gather up the fragments, that no- 

 thing may be lost, applies to one's life as well as to 

 other things. Though I cannot walk, I can think 



