nature's temple. 115 



Straggling on in Indian file, we went in a sort of 

 hurry scurry through the woods, saying nothing, but 

 each one evidently aware that he could not get to a 

 supper too soon. Over mountains and across swamps, 

 through a break in the Adirondack chain, which we 

 here again struck ; we urged on our jaded animals, 

 with naught but the rush of the wild bird's wing, and 

 the scared look of the pheasant or the deer, as he hur- 

 ried from our path, to break the monotony of the ride. 

 Yet this traveling along a narrow path in the forest is 

 a right kingly march. Only think of riding all day 

 through a magnificent colonnade, the columns lifting 

 a hundred feet above your head, and crowned with 

 Corinthian capitals, made after a richer model than 

 the acanthus leaf. How the soul awakes in this new 

 existence, and casting off the fetters that has bound 

 it, rejoices in broader liberty, and leaps with a new, 

 exultant feeling. The green, moving arch over your 

 head does not confine you as it sheds down its fresh- 

 ness and fragrance on the path, for it reveals between 

 its glorious fret-work of leaves and twigs a limitless 

 dome beyond, that carries away the soul to farther, 

 freer, brighter regions. Oh ! how I love the glorious 

 woods, and the sense of freedom they bring. How 



