After the Storm. 57 



energy, and, reckless of lessened suppleness and 

 strength, I hurry away, scarce noting where, 

 only away, away ! Now, if ever, the blessed 

 wildness that is in us comes to the surface, and 

 he who has most of it is the happiest of men. 

 I do not speak hastily, I think, when saying 

 this. We are backward in all that makes man 

 what he was meant to be, when the grip of 

 artificiality has throttled all desire to breathe the 

 air beyond a village street. We hear much of 

 higher aims and of the superlatively superior 

 one of another existence, but must it be fol- 

 lowed by ignoring and making little of that 

 upon which we now dwell? I decline to make 

 the sacrifice. The sunshine of to-day, after 

 the storm, is bright enough ; anything brighter 

 would be blinding and painful, not enjoyable. 

 It is January, but I am afloat, not frozen in, as 

 if in the arctic regions, and how grand the 

 glittering sunlight on this nameless lake ! No 

 novelty, to be sure, but a repeated experience 

 of these past forty years and more, but history 

 has never repeated itself; and as of old, I am 

 all eagerness to see and hear. Leaves are too 

 tender for rude January days, yet the sapling sas- 



