on guard I will speak of "environment" next lest I do, let me hasten 

 on, tightening my belt for speed); and in consequence their goings are 

 a series of sweet lawlessnesses. A bright stream in Syria was named 

 Meander, and from its multitudinous wanderings we keep the word 

 "meander" to mean a journey in winding ways. The reason why every 

 stream is beautiful is because every stream is bent on meandering. 

 Lovers can not keep to 

 a sidewalk. They give 

 scant attention to direc- 

 tion. A stream is the 

 same. I think it has no 

 compass and does not 

 know it can steer by the 

 pole star. I rejoice in 

 its ignorance. I am right 

 glad it has no theodolite 

 and chain, but has a 

 sweet unreasonableness 

 and pouting self-will and 

 strict inattention to rules 

 and advices the stream 

 " doeth whatsoever it 

 will." Who but God 

 taught the waters this 



quaint unreasonableness? Every step the stream takes is a deviation. 

 Being in no hurry it may be as leisurely as a summer afternoon. 

 Streams are in no sweaty haste, but with blunt Walt Whitman, may 

 loaf and invite their soul ; and so it happens that they will spend a half 

 day in your field when they might get beyond it in a jiffy. I love their 

 loitering. The streams go nosing around, digging under banks, stop- 

 ping to demolish a sandbar, then waiting to build a sandbar, putting a 

 curve on everything as a rainbow does, building little peninsulas where 

 a wild flower may root, laving the roots a sycamore has inadvertently 

 thrust too near the stream, dawdling around in pools, chasing its own 

 bubbles as a kitten runs after its own tail (poor silly), making froth at 

 the edge of some root which has with temerity walked out across the 

 stream, pouring down its little world of waters from a play-ledge of rocks, 

 and so has dug a little hollow where the waters stay when the stream 

 runs dry, running around and building an island so they may study 



143 



THROUGH LONG GRASSES 



