The Rambles of an Idler 



Night more frequently than day recalls the 

 past, particularly such a night as this, and it 

 was natural, on returning home, to take up 

 Kalm's Travels in North America. More than 

 once he was within three or four miles of where 

 I had just been and he described in detail what 

 he saw in 1748^9. Coming from the marshes 

 late at night directly to his book, it was like a 

 new world just from the press. As I read, it 

 was the good old colonial time again, and I had 

 seen and saw, book in hand, what were the fa- 

 miliar daily sights of my ancestors. 



The sunny side of those days may not be 

 made plain in the histories we read, but that 

 there was such a side we all believe, though 

 not more so than to-day. Surely there was a 

 freshness and novelty then that is lacking now. 

 One certain advantage of such experience as 

 mine last night is that no element of deception 

 creeps in. It is the same creek and the same 

 sky above it that Kalm saw. If not the same 

 trees, they are trees of the same kind that grow 

 in the adjacent meadow; and then, toads, minks, 

 muskrats and night-herons have not changed 

 their language. Their message to Kalm in 

 1748 and to me one hundred and fifty-three 



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