214 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



ing in the cosmos, to the doming hardwoods on the hill 

 beyond, which throw their leafy outlines against the 

 lower slopes of vast mountain ranges, mighty Hima- 

 layas robed in eternal snow but with no terror in their 

 billowy ravines the ethereal heights of the cumuli. A 

 great, snowy, pink-tipped cumulus cloud above a dom- 

 ing green hill, rising into the blue of the summer sky, the 

 hum of bees, the scent of flowers, and far off, perhaps, 

 the sweet shrill of children at play who for such a pic- 

 ture would not neglect his work? Who, indeed, but 

 would let even his imagination grow languid, and if 

 Hamlet were to say: "It is very like a camel," would re- 

 ply: "By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed"; and 

 when he said: "Or like a whale?" would answer quite as 

 cheerfully: "Very like a whale." After all, camel or 

 whale or Mount Everest what does it matter? It is a 

 great white cloud on a summer day ! 



But it is when we leave the city abruptly, where we 

 have scarcely been aware of moon or stars, sunsets or 

 sunrisings, and go into camp, perhaps, on the shore of 

 some forest lake, or on the shoulder of a mountain, that 

 we become most startlingly aware of the importance of 

 the weather and the beauty and familiarity of the sky. 

 What camper rising in the night to poke a dying fire, 

 or waking on the ground with unaccustomed aches, has 

 not looked up in sudden astonishment to the vault of 

 stars, amazed at their number and aware, too, with a 

 strange, new sensitiveness, that they are shedding a 



