56 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



the narrow wooden bridge over the brook 

 they turn aside, as by a common impulse, 

 to lean over the rail and look down into 

 the water. When I get there I shall do 

 the same thing. So will every man that 

 comes along, unless he happens to be on 

 " business." 



Running water is one of the universal 

 parables, appealing to something primitive 

 and ineradicable in human nature. Day 

 and night it preaches sermons without 

 words. It is every man's friend. The most 

 stolid find it good company. For that rea- 

 son, largely, men love to fish. They are 

 poets without knowing it. They have never 

 read a line of verse since they outgrew 

 Mother Goose; they never consciously ad- 

 mire a landscape; they care nothing for a 

 picture, unless it is a caricature, or tells a 

 story ; but they cannot cross moving water 

 without feeling its charm. 



Well, in that sense of the word, I too am 

 a poet. The tramps and I have met and 

 passed each other, and I am on the bridge. 

 The current is almost imperceptible (like 

 the passage of time), and the black water 



