geography without going to school, making a bold maneuver, like a 
skillful general, and swinging back so far as to construct a huge penin- 
sula, and within a three-feet of flowing back into itself, when in strange 
willfulness turning off in a new direction to go clean to the back of the 
hill, where the rocks jut out, laughs at them for being naked, and 
chasing sunlight along its way and then drowsing within the shadows 
(for the heat is too intense to enjoy long at a time), thus loitering, then 
running off in great speed as if to do an errand forgotten, then off into 
another direction out into the open where grass is growing and willows 
dream; then down where the banks are high and steep, and where no 
sunlight is, and then dodges like children when they play blindman’s 
buff: and the upshot of all this is—the stream has written a poem of 
journeys. 
Never walk across lots when a stream is in your neighborhood 
(unless you are going on an errand for your wife. Then stay not on 
the ordering of your going), but follow the stream as the sycamores 
do. You shall find enchantment such as Merlin the mage knew not; 
and you will be led afield where the voices will make you glad and 
where every new step will be new delight, as with Merlin following 
“The Gleam.” 
144 
