A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



ward a little, and that one had touched upon 

 some kind of deep-lying assurance, for it is at 

 such moments of implicit abandonment that one 

 can hear the soft swing of the planets themselves. 

 Often when Charlie and I came home through 

 the cool woods, I would look at him and then, 

 like Dr. Martineau, feel that the course of my 

 dizzying speculations brought me out where the 

 boy started. 



I may as well say that my conviction as a cas 

 ual observer of Nature and, alas, I have been 

 too busy to be anything more my conviction 

 is that you must seek her confidences when she 

 is not in one of her exhibition moods. Like 

 woman herself, she is only communicative when 

 her passions and pageants are over, and then it 

 is that she will put her cool hand in yours and 

 let you see her gray spirits and white lisping 

 through her bare ruined choirs. Then it is she 

 speaks in sibylline undertones. She is a little 

 hushed by the stars. The conventional man 

 only knows her in her exhibition spells. He 

 remembers her full-dress sunsets and her decora 

 tive autumns. He revels in her blazonry of sun 

 shine, but he never dared enter her cloisters and 

 catch her in dishabille. 



I think the medicinal touch of the sweet waters 

 often remained with us in our dreams. We 

 could hear the Mother crooning while we slept, 

 and that cool lullaby was very apt to have a 

 minty breath. But better than all was the sense 

 of immunity that was built into me, and that is, 



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