In Deep, Dark Woods. 249 



The woods you come to, seen from the open 

 fields, is not a mere barrier to further fieldward 

 progress, but the beginning of a new order of 

 things, and, much as I love the open fields, I 

 am moved to say, a better order. It is with a 

 sense of relief I enter a woodland tract. The 

 trace of the primeval savage, still lingering in 

 human nature, comes to the surface when we 

 breathe the woodsy air with its subtle distillation 

 of undiscoverable sweets, and then leaving the 

 mossy ground, and taking a seat on some ex- 

 tended limb, what endless fancies in the brief 

 hour of an arboreal existence ! The passion 

 for tree-climbing so pronounced in youth is a 

 serious loss when discarded in our maturer 

 years. The whole face of the country changes 

 at fifty feet from the ground, but who at fifty 

 ventures to climb a tree ? More's the pity, for 

 pleasures are not too many that even one can 

 be spared. 



Occasionally an exploratory impulse takes 

 hold of me and I lose myself in a wilderness 

 of tangled underbrush, having only so much 

 sky above me as the interlacing of tree-tops 

 permits. Nor is this child's play. We have 



