A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



more than one occasion, when achievement had 

 been wrought through incalculable stress, and the 

 triumph seemed very hollow by the side of the 

 outlay on such occasions, I say, and on others, 

 when it seemed that all the malign forces of the 

 universe were arrayed against me, and I began to 

 doubt the moral government of the world, feeling 

 that the best a man can do is to fold his arms and 

 set his teeth with Greek defiance, and bid the gods 

 work their worst then there has come a filmy 

 recollection of Gabe Hotchkiss asleep in his 

 Quaker rocker, with his weekly paper on the 

 floor, and the cool scented wind coming lazily 

 through that hall, lifting his gray locks softly, 

 without waking him, and I have wondered, just 

 for a moment, if he did not have the best of it. 



All these things come back to a man over lost 

 hours, bringing the scents with them. I must 

 have spent some time on that old porch. Does 

 any one suppose that its antique flavour, or even 

 its morning-glories that made cathedral windows 

 of the vines at sunrise, were the enchantment ? I 

 am sure I did not give particular heed to them 

 while the girl, Griselle, was present. But now, 

 the summer odours, the cool rustling of the leaves, 

 the architecture of the sky on the western side 

 of the house at sunset, the gradient colours of the 

 intervening fields, and that musky odour of the old 

 wood, and the girl herself, are all piarts of one 

 composition. The dry bones of the Hotchkiss 

 genealogy took on some kind of life when this 

 girl touched them in our conversation. The old 



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