TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 45 



cycle, or spins noiselessly along on a bicycle, 

 so that one keeps one s eyes and ears open ? 

 If the body is to be refreshed and strengthened 

 by exercise, why not also take pains to recreate 

 the mind by filling the memory with pungent 

 and healthful data ? A cool draught from a 

 country way-side spring, where the calamus 

 grows, and the little platoons of sky-blue butter 

 flies arrange themselves on the damp spots, 

 might well inspire an ode as good as any Ana- 

 creon ever drew from the purple grape-juice. 

 The first dragon-fly of the season is always a 

 happy discovery for me. 



I know where Longfellow got the sugges 

 tions for his Flower de Luce, the fresher stanzas, 

 at least ; for the dew of morning, brushed from 

 brook-side flags and meadow weeds, is in them. 

 The poem is bookish, too, showing the scholar 

 a little too plainly, perhaps ; but it serves -to 

 urge a current of out-door air over one as one 

 reads, and the sound of the mill-flume is in the 

 measure. It is always a charming junction 

 where ripe scholarship and an accurate and 

 loving knowledge of nature flow together. 

 From that point onward how the imagination 

 is enriched ! 



The poems of Theocritus and the song of 

 the cardinal-bird are blended together, and 

 something new comes of the mixture. I like to 

 follow through a racy poem or essay some elu 

 sive, fascinating trace of the author s recipe. 

 It is never quite hidden. 



The impetus given to out-door rambling by 

 the advent of cycling must, it seems to me, 

 bring some fresh elements into American 

 thought. It will, unless we allow the love of 

 mere whirling to shut out everything else. I 



