10 PREFACE. 



time when tropic flowers and spicy plants 

 and grasses and odorous fruits grew around 

 the boreal pale. To me all nature is ro- 

 mance ; even the skull of a bird is the flower 

 of a long chanson de geste coming up through 

 a million years of adventure and change 

 from the fish or the saurian. Every species 

 of plant or animal has an heroic significance 

 when I remember what a battle it has fought 

 for existence. When I am out with the trees 

 and the winds and the birds and the flowers, 

 I am consorting with things of ancient ex- 

 traction whose adventures and experiences 

 reach back into the farthest mists of perspec- 

 tive. They have secrets to tell me, but how 

 shall I know when they are told ? 



THE AUTHOR. 



