14 UNDER THE TREES. 



forest were long ago erased in that quiet usurpa 

 tion of man s work, which Nature never fails to 

 make the moment she is left to herself. The 

 ancient spell of the woods is unbroken in this leafy 

 solitude, and no traveler in whom imagination sur 

 vives can hope to escape it. The deep breathings 

 of primeval life are almost audible, and one feels in 

 a quick and subtle perception the long past which 

 unites him with the earliest generations and the 

 most remote ages. 



Passing out from this brief worship under the 

 arches of the most venerable roof in Christendom, 

 the road takes on a frolic mood and courts the 

 open meadows and the flooding sunshine ; green, 

 sweet, and strewn with wild flowers, the open fields 

 call one from either side, and arrest one s feet at 

 every turn with solicitations to freedom and joyous- 

 ness. The white clouds in the blue sky and the long 

 sweep of these radiant meadows conspire together 

 to persuade one that time has strayed back to its 

 happy childhood again, and that nothing remains of 

 the old activities but play in these immortal fields. 

 Here the carpet is spread over which one runs with 

 childish heedlessness, courting the disaster which 

 brings him back to the breast of the old mother, 

 and makes him feel once more the warmth and 

 sweetness out of which all strength and beauty 

 spring. A little brook crosses the road under a 

 rattling bridge, and wanders on across the fields, 

 limpid and rippling, running its little strain of music 



