FOUR DREAMERS 76 



such as was a fashionable parlor ornament in 

 our rural neighborhood, where there was more 

 theology to the square foot (and no preacher 

 then extant with orthodoxy strait enough to 

 satisfy it, though some could still make the 

 blood curdle) than there was of art or poetry 

 to the square acre ; but to be looking at Nat 

 Shaw's hayfield and the old unpainted house 

 beyond that marked the stranger at once 

 as not belonging in the ranks of common 

 men. If he was not a poet, he must be at 

 least a scholar. Perhaps he was going to be 

 a minister, for he seemed too young to be one 

 already. A minister had to think, of course 

 (so I thought then), else how could he 

 preach ? and perhaps this man was meditating 

 a sermon. I fancied I should like to hear a 

 sermon that had been studied out of doors. 



Times have changed with me. Now I sit 

 out of doors myself, and by myself, and look 

 for half an hour together at a tree, or a 

 bunch of trees, or a lazy brook, or a stretch 

 of green meadow. And I know that such 

 things can be enjoyed by one who is neither 

 a poet nor a preacher, but just a quite ordi- 

 nary, uneducated mortal, who happens, by 



