THE WINDINGS OF A STREAM 
TREAMS are poor geometers and are in ill repute 
with rigid mathematicians. The mathematician 
has engaged himself to and married the straight 
line; and a straight line the 
stream knows nothing of, or 
knowing of, absolutely refuses to 
recognize. | am proud of the 
stream. It may not be mathe- 
matical, but is poetical, which, 
with all deference to mathema- 
ticians, is much better. Mathe- 
matics are necessary; poetry is 
more necessary. God is both 
mathematician and poet; but such combination exists only in him. Men 
must be mathematician or poet; and, as for me, | will join hands with 
the poet if he will let me. 
Every water course refuses (absolutely and without reason, like a 
little man) to go on section lines. I have watched them through 
many years and have never found a stream which would of its own 
accord go as the crow flies. Water is a sad gad-about. It has no 
more notion of sticking to a road than a dog has when he goes driving 
with you. In short, the stream has a mind of its own, like a little 
woman; and there is the end of it. You can not argue with water. 
Like a woman, it goes by intuition; but its ways, like a woman’s 
ways, are very sweet and self-justificatory. 
Every stream is a poet. Poets are born so. How many streams 
I have followed toward or to their source! What wild rollics | have 
had, with the streams laughing at me with wild rollicking laughter, 
141 
A 
