Night-Prowls in the Streets 115 



nature is barred out in the day we get hints 

 of it out of the air at night. Even those 

 imps that whine and snicker among the 

 wires overhead bring messages from dis- 

 tricts that men have not "improved," and 

 that keep their wild look and wild music. 

 It is claimed that man improves nature 

 by his parks, his lawns, his high strains of 

 flowers and plants, his more speedy, more 

 milky, more hairy beasts, that he humanizes 

 nature, or tries to. As to any absolute in- 

 crease in worth or beauty, it needs some 

 impartial critic to say if, or no, this has 

 been gained. Where shall he be found? 

 When we find him we will ask him, seri- 

 ously, What are men for? What is life 

 for ? What is creation for ? 



The clock tells us it is late, and our jaunt 

 must end. It is well to circumscribe these 

 tours now and again, to see what we can see 

 near home. Travel is most good when it 

 opens a man's eyes to what can be seen 

 without it. Thoreau made few reports on 

 Canada, Minnesota, and Staten Island, but 

 perhaps he saw his Massachusetts clearer 

 for those visits. One lesson of travel, then, 



