A DAY IN JUNE 131 



— leaves and leaf-buds — are, if anything, 

 prettier than the blossoms. Such beauty of 

 shape, such expansiveness, such elegance of 

 crimpling, and such exceeding richness of 

 hue, whether in youth or age ! If the bush 

 refuses transplantation, as I have read that 

 it does, I am glad of it. My sympathies are 

 with all things, plants, animals, and men, 

 that insist upon their native freedom, in 

 their native country, with a touch, or more 

 than a touch, of native Savagery. Civiliza- 

 tion is well enough, within limits ; but why 

 be in haste to have all the world a garden ? 

 It will be some time yet, I hope, before every 

 valley is exalted. 



With progress of this industriously indo- 

 lent sort it is nearly noon by the time I turn 

 into the footpath that leads down to Echo 

 Lake. Here the air is full of toad voices ; 

 a chorus of long-drawn trills in the shrillest 

 of musical tones. If the creatures (the 

 sandy shore and its immediate shallov/s are 

 thick with them) are attempting to set up an 

 echo, they meet with no success. At all 

 events I hear no response, though the fault 

 may easily be in my hearing, insusceptible as 



