21 8 In Touch with Nature. 



leaf of the huge elm above me, too, had a tuneful 

 throat. But never a life of unclouded sunshine. 

 The vehement whirring of a harvest-fly held the 

 destroyer in its course. A flash in mid-air ; a cry 

 of agony that stilled the million tongues about 

 me startled the earth ; a fiery-banded hornet bore 

 its helpless victim away. 



After all, happiness is but comparative. It is 

 well to rejoice if we escape misery, but it is weak- 

 ness to look upon the last overshadowing cloud 

 as really the last. We may deal only with sun- 

 shine while it is August, but winter is drawing on 

 apace. We may rest now as though the world's 

 work was done, but the demands of other days 

 already peep above the horizon. To turn our 

 backs upon them is but the fool's device. Well 

 we know this ; but yet, what journey so seductive 

 as that without a goal? I would be a great 

 traveller, but the world must come to me. I have 

 been nowhere to-day, as the man of affairs would 

 say, yet I have journeyed for hours. Why not 

 pause at one point as well as another? Nature 

 does not trumpet her glories to him who hastens. 

 The river invited both to the mountains and the 



