PRELUDE 



RANKLY, little is to be anticipated from the Author 

 of this book. He is far from being a specialist. 

 He is not entomologist nor botanist nor ornitholo- 

 gist. He confesses to knowing which end of a 

 flower the root grows on and but little more. 



He purposes writing because he loves God's 

 Out-of-Doors. The blue sky touches him to ji 

 sadness, like reading a letter from one much 

 loved and long dead; and the 

 shadows in quiet water affect him like a A 

 prayer. The author's wish is to people other < 

 hearts with love of flower and woodland path 

 and drifting cloud and dimming light and 

 moonlit distance and starlight and voices 

 of bird and wind and cadence of the rainfall and the 

 storm, and to make men and women more the lovers of 

 this bewildering world fashioned in loveliness by the 

 artist hand of God. And beyond all this, he would be 

 glad to bring them into fellowship and love with God, 

 which is the poesy and eloquence of life. 



WILLIAM A. QUAYLE 



4977,39 



