BIRCH BROWSINGS 187 
same moment we heard the stamping of our team in 
the barn. We sat down and laughed heartily over 
our good luck. Our desperate venture had resulted 
better than we had dared to hope, and had shamed 
our wisest plans. At the house our arrival had 
been anticipated about this time, and dinner was 
being put upon the table. 
It was then five o’clock, so that we had been in 
the woods just forty-eight hours; but if time is only 
phenomenal, as the philosophers say, and life only 
in feeling, as the poets aver, we were some months, 
if not years, older at that moment than we had been 
two days before. Yet younger, too, — though this 
be a paradox, —for the birches had infused into us 
some of their own suppleness and strength. 
1866. 
