io November — An Excursion. 



to make an album of etchings which was to illustrate 

 everything of interest on the estate. In the selection 

 of subjects there was but one serious difficulty — their 

 inexhaustible and bewildering abundance. In the Val 

 Sainte Veronique itself there were groups of magnificent 

 chestnuts, centuries old, shadowing the woodland road 

 thc-t leads into the heart of the forest ; and though the 

 dense young woods were cut regularly for their revenue, 

 many an old giant had been spared from generation to 

 generation, and there were hollow trunks more ancient 

 than monarchy in France, and far more deeply rooted. 

 I desired also to illustrate the animal life of the great 

 woods, from the wild geese flying over their summits in 

 the chill evenings of the dying year, to the deer in the 

 sunny glade and the wolves in the winter snow. 



IV. 



An Excursion in the Forest — Dante's Suffering Trees — The Forest- 

 road — A Hill-top — We go astray — Observation on the Adhesion of 

 Dead Leaves — Analogy in Human Affairs — Wonderful Variety of 

 Color — Emerson on Winter Scenery — The Forest-Fear of Dante 

 — How I first understood it. 



ON the third day after our arrival in the valley the 

 weather, though still thickly overcast, was fair 

 enough to encourage ideas of exploration, and we set 

 out after cttjenner with the intention of making an ex- 

 cursion in shape something like the outline of a pear, 

 and so getting home again about dinner-time. We 



