She Mature-Student 
chance, — and in some form we are all waiting for 
inspiration. The nature-lover who lives with his fields 
and skies simply puts himself in the way of the most 
and gentlest of such inspirations. 
He may be ploughing when the spirit comes, or 
wandering, a mere boy, along the silent shores of a 
lake, and hooting at the owls. You remember the 
boy along the waters of Winander, how he would 
hoot at the owls in the twilight, and they would call 
back to him across the echoing lake? And when 
there would come a pause of baffling silence, 
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung 
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 
Has carried far into his heart the voice 
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene 
Would enter unawares into his mind 
With all its solemn imagery. 
That is an inspiration, the kind of experience one 
has in living with the out-of-doors. It doesn’t come 
from books, from laboratories, not even from an 
occasional tramp afield. It is out of companionship 
with nature that it comes; not often, perhaps, to any 
one, nor only to poets who write. I have had such 
experiences, such moments of quiet insight and 
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