8 PREFACE. 



be taken as fact, what is offered as conjecture 

 or inference must be weighed as such, and 

 what appears to be the overflow of a cheerful 

 and optimistic fancy may be done by as the 

 reader please. 



As for me, when I turn these leaves I hear 

 the rustle of wild foliage and wilder wings, 

 the songs of many birds, the bubbling of in- 

 numerable brooks, the wash of surf, and the 

 tumbling of white-caps. Can the reader hear 

 these by the same means? If he can, my 

 writing has not been done without a touch of 

 genius. 



Who reads Nature without the side-light of 

 many books ? How shall one keep the art 

 of literature out of one's interviews with 

 things in the wilderness ? If I hear a thrush 

 or a mocking-bird sing, how shall I hinder 

 the coming of the Persian and Provengal 

 and old English poets with their rhymes 

 about the Nightingale ? Before I know it 

 I am assuming the attitude of a singer, and 

 am posing in Nature's face. How shall I be 

 dumb while the very stars are eloquent ? 

 Here is Theocritus and here is Keats singing 

 away, as young and happy as ever; why 

 shall I not attitudinize in my day and way ? 



"But these essays are incongruous," sug- 

 gests the critic. Well, then, they are incongru- 

 ous ; but what of it ? Nature is incongruous, 

 nay more, it is contradictory, as are certain 

 of my essays. At one time my observations of 

 facts clearly prove one thing ; at another 

 time they certainly establish just the oppo- 

 site thing. I am not sure that this is alto- 

 gether my fault, for Nature is tricksy in her 

 moods and as whimsical, now and again, as 

 any pedagogue. She strings her creations 

 together without rhyme or reason. The 



