"LITTLE RIVERS" 117 



love most are always the ones that we have known 

 best the stream that ran before our father's door, the 

 current on which we ventured our first boat or cast our 

 first fly, the brook on whose bank we first picked the 

 twin flower of young love." 



Here is an exquisite little bit which our author 

 quotes from Charles Darwin, in a letter to his wife. 

 " At last," says he, "I fell asleep on the grass, and 

 awoke with a chorus of birds singing around me, and 

 squirrels running up the tree, and some woodpeckers 

 laughing, and it was as pleasant and rural a scene as 

 ever k I saw ; and I did not care one penny how any of 

 the birds or beasts had been formed" 



At the end of this chapter the author describes very 

 fairly, but as I think too modestly, what the book is. 



"You shall not be deceived in this book. It is 

 nothing but a handful of rustic variations on the old 

 tune of ' Rest and be thankful,' a record of uncon- 

 ventional travel, a pilgrim's scrip with a few bits of 

 blue sky philosophy in it. There is, so far as I know, 

 very little useful information, and absolutely no cri- 

 ticism of the universe to be found in this volume, so if 

 you are what Isaak Walton calls *a severe, sour- 

 complexioned man,' you would better carry it back to 

 the bookseller and get your money again, if he will 

 give it to you, and go your way rejoicing after your 

 own melancholy fashion." 



The next essay is called " A Leaf of Spearmint." 

 " The clear, spicy, unmistakable smell of a bed of 

 spearmint, that is the bed whereon memory loves to 

 lie and dream. " A leaf of mint plucked from between 

 the pebbles, and rolled between his fingers, wafts him 



