10 PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 



feared the river would all run by before I could wet 

 her bottom in it. This enthusiasm begat great 

 expectations of the trip. I should surely surprise 

 nature and win some new secrets from her. I should 

 glide down noiselessly upon her and see what all 

 those willow screens and baffling curves concealed. 

 As a fisherman and pedestrian I had been able to 

 come at the stream only at certain points ; now the 

 most private and secluded retreats of the nymph 

 would be opened to me ; every bend and eddy, every 

 cove hedged in by swamps or passage walled in by 

 high alders, would be at the beck of my paddle. 



Whom shall one take with him when he goes 

 a-courting nature ? This is always a vital question. 

 There are persons who will stand between you and 

 that which you seek : they obtrude themselves ; they 

 monopolize your attention ; they blunt your sense of 

 the shy, half-reyealed intelligences about you. I 

 want for companion a dog or a boy, or a person 

 who has the virtues of dogs and boys, transparency, 

 good nature, curiosity, open sense, and a nameless 

 quality that is akin to trees and growths and the in- 

 articulate forces of nature. With him you are alone, 

 and yet have company ; you are free ; you feel no 

 disturbing element; the influences of nature stream 

 through him and around him ; he is a good conductor 

 of the subtle fluid. The quality or qualification I 

 refer to belongs to most persons who spend their lives 

 in the open air, to soldiers, hunters, fishers, labor 

 era, and to artists and poets of the right sort. How 



