A DAY IN JUNE 131 



— leaves and leaf-buds — are, if anything, 

 prettier than the blossoms. Such beauty of 

 shape, such expansiveness, such elegance of 

 crimpling, and such exceeding richness of 

 hue, whether in youth or age ! If the bush 

 refuses transplantation, as I have read that 

 it does, I am glad of it. My sympathies are 

 with all things, plants, animals, and men, 

 that insist upon their native freedom, in 

 their native country, with a touch, or more 

 than a touch, of native savagery. Civiliza- 

 tion is weU enough, within limits ; but why 

 be in haste to have all the world a garden ? 

 It will be some time yet, I hope, before every 

 valley is exalted. 



With progress of this industriously indo- 

 lent sort it is nearly noon by the time I turn 

 into the footpath that leads down to Echo 

 Lake. Here the air is full of toad voices ; 

 a chorus of long-drawn trills in the shrillest 

 of musical tones. If the creatures (the 

 sandy shore and its immediate shallows are 

 thick with them) are attempting to set up an 

 echo, they meet with no success. At aU 

 events I hear no response, though the fault 

 may easily be in my hearing, insusceptible as 



