IN THE OLD PATHS 147 



to a cliff. This is one of the places you had 

 in your eye on setting out. This land is 

 yours, and you have come to look at it. 



A strange thing it is, an astonishing im- 

 pertinence, that a man should assume to own 

 a piece of the earth ; himself no better than 

 a wayfarer upon it ; alighting for a moment 

 only ; coming he knows not whence, going he 

 knows not whither. Yet convention allows 

 the claim. Men have agreed to foster one 

 another's illusions in this regard, as in so 

 many others. They knew, blindly, before any 

 one had the wit to say it in so many words, 

 that " life is the art of being well deceived." 

 And so they have made you owner of this 

 acre or two of woodland. All the power of 

 the State would be at your service, if neces- 

 sary, in maintaining the title. 



These tall pine trees are yours. You have 

 sovereignty over them, to use a word that is 

 just now sweet in the American mouth. You 

 may do anything you like with them. They 

 are older than you, I should guess, and in the 

 order of nature they will long outlive you ; 

 for aught I know, also, it may be true, what 

 Thoreau said (profanely, as some thought), 



