Camping and Pfunting in the SJioshone 



the way, of the bait, in this case a dead 

 elk. 



On this occasion I occupied an unusually 

 good point of vantage. My armchair not 

 only commanded a little sloping prairie, 

 but the heads of two deep ravines leading 

 to it, and the crest of the ridge, some three 

 hundred feet above me, to my left. Hour 

 after hour passed peacefully by. I tried 

 to read Tennyson (I had a pocket volume 

 with me), with but poor success, and so 

 gave myself up to the beauty of the scene. 

 I realized, without effort, what a blissful 

 thing it might be nay, sometimes is 

 simply to exist. Such hours do not come 

 to any of us often ; but when they do, 

 with them surely may come an overmas- 

 tering sense of that great truth Elizabeth 

 Barrett Browning so tersely puts 



" Earth's crammed with heaven, 

 And every common bush afire with God ; 

 But only he who sees takes off his shoes." 



Without cant, I trust, that evening I 

 took off mine, as the old prayer came to 

 mind : " We thank Thee for our creation, 

 preservation, and all the blessings of this 

 life/' 



I was in a state of stable equilibrium, 

 bodily and mentally (if it ever is given to 



