INTRODUCTION xiii 
upon my favorite themes. Winter drives a man 
back upon himself, and tests his powers of self-enter- 
tainment. 
Do such books as mine give a wrong impression 
of Nature, and lead readers to expect more from a 
walk or a camp in the woods than they usually get ? 
I have a few times had occasion to think so. I am 
not always aware myself how much pleasure I have 
had in a walk till I try to share it with my reader. 
The heat of composition brings out the color and 
the flavor. We must not forget the illusions of all 
art. If my reader thinks he does not get from Na- 
ture what I get from her, let me remind him that 
he can hardly know what he has got till he defines 
it to himself as I do, and throws about it the witch- 
ery of words. Literature does not grow wild in 
the woods. Every artist does something more than 
copy Nature; more comes out in his account than 
goes into the original experience. 
& Most persons think the bee gets honey from the 
flowers, but she does not: honey is a product of 
the bee; it is the nectar of the flowers with the bee 
added. What the bee gets from the flower is sweet 
water: this she puts through a process of her own 
and imparts to it her own quality; she reduces the 
water and adds to it a minute drop of formic acid. 
It is this drop of herself that gives the delicious 
sting to her sweet. The bee is therefore the type 
of the true poet, the true artist. Her product 
