150 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



who has eyes to enjoy it. Appreciation is 

 ownership. 



So you go on, pausing here and there to 

 admire a lichen-covered boulder or stump 

 (there is nothing prettier, look where you 

 will), a cluster of ferns, a few sprouts of 

 holly, a sprinkling of pyrola leaves (green 

 with the greenness of all the summers of the 

 world), or a bed of fruit-bespangled par- 

 tridge-berry vine, till by and by you begin to 

 feel the overshadowing, illusion-dispelling, 

 soul-absorbing presence of the wood itself. 

 The voice of eternity is speaking in the pine 

 leaves. Your own identity slips away from 

 you as you listen. You are part of the 

 whole ; nay, you are not so much a part of 

 it as lost in it. The raindrop has fallen into 

 the sea. For a moment you seem almost to 

 divine a meaning in that bold, pantheistical, 

 much neglected scripture, " That God may 

 be all in all." 



For a moment only. Then a cord snaps, 

 and you come back to your puny self and 

 its limitations. You are looking at this and 

 that, just as before. A chickadee chirps, and 

 you answer him. You are you again, a man 



