A CLEARING. 21 



my rifle and fishing rod. Wc talk in New York of 

 going into the " country.'''' But let Saratoga be ex- 

 changed for " Long Lake," Nahant for " Indian 

 Lake," and New Rochelle for the gloomy shore of 

 Jesup's River, and our fashionables would get an 

 entirely different idea of the " country,''^ True, it is 

 lonely at first — after being accustomed to the din and 

 struggle of Broadway and Wall street to sit as I now 

 do, with a wide forest, climbing the steep mountains, 

 to bound my vision, and the little clearing around me 

 black with stumps, coming up even to the door of the 

 log house. All day long, and not the sound of a single 

 wheel, but in the place of it the cawing of crows, the 

 scream of the woodpecker, and the roar of a torrent 

 dashing over the rocks in the sullen forest below. 

 The very stumps have a forlorn look, and it seems a 

 complete waste of time and music for the birds to 

 sing, having no one to listen to them. It must be they 

 do it to hear the echo of their own voices, which these 

 wild woods send back with incredible distinctness and 

 sweetness. But if one is not entirely spoiled, he soon 

 attunes himself to the harmony of nature, and a new 

 life is born within him. To most of us, life has — as 

 the G-ermans would say, an " Einseitigkeit," (a one- 



