A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



fight. But it is a very good plan at times to stop 

 overcoming and obey; to lie down and listen. 

 That there are sermons in stones and tongues in 

 trees, we have the best of authority for believing, 

 but the Shaksperian sense of it is not the recu 

 perative and obedient sense, for Shakspere im 

 puted a great deal to Things with the authority of 

 a poet, and, like Orlando, tacked himself up on the 

 trunks to their infinite embellishment. To me it 

 is the absence of books in running brooks that 

 delights. One gets past somebody s impression 

 of the thing to the thing itself, and, after all, that 

 is a fraternal realism that is not to be explicated. 

 Whatever the secret of the thing is, it is yours 

 when you cease to question it. 



How often since, in the fever and disappoint 

 ments of life, when ingratitude or envy or insin 

 cerity hurt me, I have thought of that old Cluny 

 Milldam, and pictured myself once more lying on 

 my back between the illimitable depths above and 

 below, that were glittering with stars, and Charlie 

 somewhere near, adding his childish voice to the 

 waters. I suppose we are all prodigals at our 

 best, only it is hardly correct to say that we are 

 returning to the Mother, for we never quite got 

 away from her. But I think that most of us who 

 look backward over our winding paths, at all 

 the palaces we built and deserted, will find that 

 they had no such outlooks as the open doors and 

 ample windows of the cabins and rude blossomy 

 bowers we erected during our first pilgrimage ; 

 and I fancy that many a man who is tired of his 



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