







which I always make hither ward the world 

 slips away with the village that sinks be- 

 hind the hill at the first turn and reminds 

 me no longer by sight or sound that life 

 is fretting its channels there and every- 

 where with its world-old pathos and onward 

 movement, caught on the sudden by un- 

 seen currents and swept into wild eddies, 

 or flung over a precipice in a mist of tears. 

 As I go on I feel a return of emotions 

 which I am sure have their root in my 

 earliest ancestry, a freshening of sense which 

 tells me that I am nearing again those 

 scenes which the unworn perceptions of 

 primitive men first fronted. The conscious, 

 self-directed intellectual movement within 

 me seems somehow to cease, and some- 

 thing deeper, older, fuller of mystery, takes 

 its place; the instincts assert themselves, 

 and I am dimly conscious of an elder world 

 through which I once walked and yet 

 not I, but some one whose memory lies 

 back of my memory, as the farthest, faint- 

 est hills fade into infinity on the boundaries 

 of the world. I am ready for the woods 

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