PRELUDE 
YRANKLY, little is to be anticipated from the Author 
of this book. He is far from being a specialist. 
He is not entomologist nor botanist nor ornitholo- 
gist. He confesses to knowing which end of a 
flower the root grows on and but little more. 
He purposes writing because he loves God's 
Out-of-Doors. The blue sky touches him to 
sadness, like reading a letter from one much 
loved and long dead; and the 
shadows in quiet water affect him like a ¢ 
prayer. The author's wish is to people other ( A 
hearts with love of flower and woodland path es 
and drifting cloud and dimming light and 
moonlit distance and_ starlight and voices 
of bird and wind and cadence of the rainfall and the 
storm, and to make men and women more the lovers of 
this bewildering world fashioned in loveliness by the 
artist hand of God. And beyond all this, he would be 
glad to bring them into fellowship and love with God, 
which is the poesy and eloquence of life. 
WILLIAM A. QUAYLE 
