The Rambles of an Idler 



that way. The chain of events had not heen 

 broken, but of the thirty links of that month, I 

 had only five. Enonigh to show how much I 

 had lost, if nothing more. But five days afield 

 ought to prove something more than the record 

 of so many trivial facts. What of their signif- 

 icance? It is a sorry ending of a ramble if 

 we can recall only the fact that we were out of 

 doors. All the meaning of an occurrence is not 

 apparent at the moment it took place. Usually 

 but little of it is realized. The incentive to 

 seek adventure is the subsequent conversion of 

 the event into subject matter for thought. Only 

 thus is Nature made clear and man methodical. 

 The impression of a fact is of as much value 

 as the fact itself, and it is not enough merely 

 to state it. Facts need something stronger 

 than a bold statement to make them clear to 

 another. A fact, without an opinion, will call 

 for no opinion on the recipient's part. It is 

 ever the narrator's attitude towards the fact 

 that stimulates a reader and leads him to put 

 himself in the author's place. Were this never 

 true, a book about Nature would be a waste of 

 ink and paper. It is true, we are not concerned 

 with the merchant so much as with the quality 



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