Where Town and Country Meet 



woman with a native vein of poetry is 

 likely to get more inspiration out of na 

 ture than at any other season simply 

 because the foreground of this subordinate 

 life is not so bewilderingly crowded, and 

 there is more opportunity and more invita 

 tion to seek the large impression of nature 

 the tout ensemble. That is the impression 

 out of which religious feeling rises. If we 

 are seeking God in nature, we shall not find 

 him so readily by analysis as by synthesis; 

 not by minute study of individuals and par 

 ticulars, but by free, joyous acceptance of 

 the effect of nature as a whole. So, I think, 

 we shall be justified in leaving our note 

 books at home in September, and just aban 

 doning ourselves to the influence of nature 

 upon the spirit. Something better may come 

 out of that than the discovery of a new plant 

 or the identification of a long-sought bird. 

 In closing, let me "come down a peg," 

 as the saying is, and make a few practical 

 suggestions to the tramper simply as a 

 tramper. It is a very different thing from 

 strolling about for an hour or two in the 

 summer woods, this starting off for a vigor 

 ous, leg-stretching, fifteen-or-twenty-mile, 

 142 



