A GREEN MOUNTAIN CORN-FIELD. 105 



question on which it is not pleasant, and, as 

 I think, not profitable, to dwell. We see 

 but parts of her ways, and it must be unsafe 

 to criticise the working of a single wheel 

 here or there, when we have absolutely no 

 means of knowing how each fits into the 

 grand design, and, for that matter, can only 

 guess at the grand design itself. Rather 

 let us content ourselves with the prudent 

 saying of that ancient agnostic, Bildad the 

 Shuhite : " We are but of yesterday, and 

 know nothing." The wisest of us are more 

 or less foolish, by nature and of necessity ; 

 but it seems a gratuitous superfluity of folly 

 to ignore our own ignorance. For one, 

 then, I am in no mood to propose, much 

 less to undertake, any grand revolution in 

 the order of natural events. Indeed, as far 

 as I am personalty concerned, I fear it 

 would be found but a dubious improvement 

 if the wildness were quite taken out of the 

 world, if its wilderness, according to the 

 word of the prophet, were to become all 

 like Eden. Tameness is not the only good 

 quality, whether of land or of human 

 nature. 



As I sat on my comfortable log (the noble 



