para&fse Circle 



cer and hear the thrushfes and mocking- 

 birds song-rollicking far and near. Indeed, 

 the bow is, to a wild, bird-haunted spot 

 like Paradise Circle, what sugar is to a 

 mint-julep — a thing to qualify and at the 

 same time authenticate essential original- 

 ities. Man made one ingredient of julep, 

 nature brewed the other in the stems and 

 leaves of mint ; sugar does the rest. My 

 bow connects bird-song with Chaucer- 

 song. I read Chaucer and hear the wild 

 twittering in bush and brake, while the 

 presence of the old yew and its quiver of 

 shafts somehow sweetens and deliciously 

 tempers both, blending them to suit my 

 very deepest taste. 



You smile doubtingly, as many a good 

 and true skeptic has done before you ; but 

 pray be practical and try it. Get you a 

 fairly good six-foot bow and a quiver of 

 arrows ; be ashamed of them in all frank- 

 ness ; feel like a great, unmanly fool while 

 sneaking away to the woods with them ; but 

 go on, and be unspeakably relieved when 

 once you are in the solitude of nature, 

 hidden from men by green thickets and 

 37 



