HERMIT LIFE. I 29 



other people, and a great deal for myself and my own ; 

 but not to work any harder than is absolutely consistent 

 with comfort. I don't believe in going to bed early, nor 

 always in rising early — especially in town. I don't be- 

 lieve in hardening my muscles, or making iron out of the 

 flesh God gave me, by gymnastics, or what you call exer- 

 cise. I don't believe in wasting the physique which I 

 have by any extraordinary efforts " for the good of the 

 race." I don't believe in letting alone coffee and tobacco 

 because the doctors are positive that they ought to be 

 and are injurious to the health, or because I believe that 

 they are so myself. The argument of health, which seeks 

 to prolong life by selecting articles of food which are 

 hurtful, and articles which are safe and wholesome, is no 

 argument to me. 



But where am I wandering ? The loon was laughing at 

 me when I said to myself that I could be happy in a for- 

 est home. I suppose the loon meant to intimate that I 

 would be tired of it in a few weeks or months ; and per- 

 haps it was so. 



As I sat that night on the piazza of Paul Smith's house 

 and looked out on the exceeding beauty of the moonlit 

 lake, and heard again and again that laugh across the 

 water, I began to recall the histories of hermits who had 

 lived and died in forest and wilderness, and then Turner 

 or some one told me the story of Follansbee, after whom 

 the pond was named ; and this, in fact, was a story of 

 hermit life, somewhat exaggerated in the repetitions it has 

 undergone. But when that story was told, and another 

 and another, I sat alone ; and my thoughts went wander- 

 ing over the distant hills to the abodes of the hermits of 

 ancient times, and then I recalled a story of one of them, 

 and told it to my listeners — a story of the old faith. 



I 



