The Audubon Societies 115 



radiance . . . He wished he could walk as a spirit walks — ." . . . "Of course, 

 the day jungle is the jungle asleep. This was its waking hour. Now the deer 

 were arising from their forms, the tigers and panthers and jungle cats stalking 

 noiselessly from their lairs in the grass. Countless creatures that had hidden 

 from the heat and pitiless exposure of the day stood now awake and alertly 

 intent upon their purposes, grazed or sought water, flitting delicately through 

 the moonlight and shadows. The jungle was awakening. This was the real 

 life of the jungle, this night life, into which man did not go. Here he was on 

 the verge of a world that, for all the stuffed trophies of the sportsman and the 

 specimens of the naturalist, is still almost as unknown as if it were upon another 

 planet." 



"He became less and less timorous as beast and bird evaded him or fled at 

 his approach, and when the moon sank suddenly, and darkness settled down, 

 'a great stillness came over the world, a velvet silence that wrapped about 

 him, as the velvet shadows wrapped about him. The corncrakes had ceased, 

 all the sounds and stir of animal life had died away, the breeze had fallen,' 

 and thus, calm and full of placid joy, he waited for the dawn, for he hadcon- 

 quered fear." 



This is an imaginary picture, based no doubt on some actual experience. 

 It is worth reading because it puts one into sympathy with Nature, even 

 with one of its wildest and most uninhabitable parts. There are girls, and boys 

 too, living in secure houses in village or town, who are afraid, afraid of the dark, 

 afraid of the deep woods, afraid of wild, lonely places where snakes may be 

 lurking, or some imagined beast. There are many grown-up people who are 

 more fearful than children, to whom a storm is terrifying, who see little beauty 

 in rough places, who take no enjoyment in fog, rain or snow. It is natural to 

 be afraid, but it is not wholesome, and it betrays ignorance. This kind of fear 

 deprives most people of much that makes up the very best of life. One need 

 not be rash or daring to conquer fear. It is only needful to awaken, to get 

 into sympathy with Nature, to see the world as it really is, and not as our 

 shrinking bodies lead us to imagine. 



A man died not long ago who for many years had lived perhaps as close to 

 Nature as anyone in this generation. His name was John Muir. He loved the 

 mountains with their vast silences and wide outlooks; the storms and winds, 

 searching every hidden corner and ruling all Nature in their passing; the giant 

 trees of his home country, majestic sentinels of tranquillity, and age-long growth ; 

 he loved the clouds and stars, birds, beasts and flowers ; he loved mighty waters, 

 whose power man's hand might never check. This man wrote at times modestly 

 and reverently of what he saw and felt. You can learn truth from him. Many 

 other men have seen deeply into Nature, and written with sincerity, pages 

 which we do well to study. There comes to mind the poet Lanier, who, struck 

 by the fatal hand of disease, sought to prolong his life by Uving with Nature 

 in. the open. How delicately and clearly he translated beauty into terms of 



