WAYS OF NATURE 
a long shoot of a honeysuckle that came in through 
a crack of my imperfectly closed window last sum- 
mer. It came in looking, or rather feeling, for some- 
thing to cling to. It first dropped down upon a pile 
of books, then reached off till it struck the window- 
sill of another large window; along this it crept, its 
regular leaves standing up like so many pairs of 
green ears, looking very pretty. Coming to the end of 
the open way there, it turned to the left and reached 
out into vacancy, till it struck another window-sill 
running at right angles to the former; along this it 
traveled nearly half an inch a day, till it came to the 
end of that road. Then it ventured out into vacant 
space again, and pointed straight toward me at my 
desk, ten feet distant. Day by day it kept its seat 
upon the window-sill, and stretched out farther and 
farther, almost beckoning me to give it a lift or to 
bring it support. I could hardly resist its patient 
daily appeal. Late in October it had bridged about 
three feet of the distance that separated us, when, 
one day, the moment came when it could maintain 
itself outright in the air no longer, and it fell to the 
floor. “Poor thing,” I said, “your faith was blind, 
but it was real. You knew there was a support some- 
where, and you tried all ways to find it.” This is 
Nature. She goes around the circle, she tries every 
direction, sure that she will find a way at some 
point. Animals in cages behave in a similar way, 
looking for a means of escape. In the vineyard I 
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