52 AMERICAN GAME. 
own skill and manhood; then, with the splendor of the 
American autumn weather, and ‘the gorgeous woodland 
scenes which you must penetrate, these alone would pay 
you for your toils; cares there are none in the woods, 
nor anxieties, nor ailings, nor sorrows—for these, with 
the ringing of door-bells at unseasonable hours, and the 
advent of matutinal duns, not to be satisfied save with 
the uttermost farthing, these are the growth of cities, 
and the tormenters of the civilized and cockney gentle- 
man, unknown to the forest, and set at easy defiance by 
its hardy, happy inhabitant. Oh! give to others who 
will it, the luxuries of city life, the costly banquets, the 
rich wines, the fascinations of women, the maddening 
excitement of play, the “ venerem, et plumas, et coenam 
Sardanapali,” but give me my hemlock shanty for my 
palace, my hemlock-bed for my couch of down, my rifle 
for my mistress, and my trusty Indian for my comrade 
and my guide ; and, winter or summer, scorching sun or 
deep-piled snow, the wilderness, give me the wilderness. 
“The life in the woods for me.” 
When winter sets in cold and stern, then it is not the 
Moose’s paradise—rather it is his anti-paradise, and the 
winter of his discontent made glorious summer to his 
adversaries, who then hug hope to run him down by 
their strength of wind and limb, and to conquer him by 
open force and no unmanly fraud or base deceptions. 
Well aware that he cannot travel safely or feed easily 
and plentifully, when his goings to and fro are converted 
