The Choice of a Camp 



265 



spend whole days in silence unreserved, without embarrass- 

 ment; and again beside the campfire talk through long 

 evenings or for half the night sometimes over the smouldering 

 ashes. How he loved the forest solitude! What varied cul- 

 ture he had garnered from it! How he could open its inner 

 meanings to neophytes like some of us who went with him, 

 page by page, chapter by chapter, scarcely with words at all, 

 but by his own deep gladness and visible comprehension of it. 

 But he is gone, and all the forests are poorer for it. Yet one 

 should not say that either. It is not wholly true. Mountain 

 and wood mourn him, yet his invisible presence abides in them 

 everywhere. It can be felt in places where in bodily presence 

 he never went. Whoever was privileged to wilderness-com- 

 radeship with Professor Sill will keep that comradeship un- 

 broken and living so long as there are forests to visit, and he 

 is permitted to visit them. 



Your material surroundings bent to your mind, settle down 

 for six weeks' stay at least ; not a day less will suffice for much. 

 Stay as much longer as you can. Abide in this retreat meekly. 

 Do not set up to be the superior intelligence there, which you 

 are not ; be content to have footing as the inferior, which you 

 will very soon find you are. Go not to lord it over your little 

 brethren of the wood. Nature's other children, but to be their 

 guest; not even to learn about them, but to learn from them. 

 Draw closely to these gentle neighbors, obeying, with reference 

 to them, St. Paul's injunction to esteem others better than 

 yourself. For they are better; every one of them, and their 

 name is legion ; is, up to the measure of his calling and in his 

 way, fulfilling God's will more perfectly than you. 



And if you are to gain anything in this place or to gain any- 

 thing in Nature's precincts anywhere, you must provide your- 

 self with open mind, "alert to observe, but above all things 

 else ready to receive whatever of truth, power or spirit, Nature 

 has to impart." Nature's meanings are not to be strained after, 

 only yielded to ; not grasped, only to be received by instillation. 



Nature well knows the hiding of her strength. She stands 

 without discomposure. Full willing is she the multitude should 

 do its utmost upon her nurslings. For it is her multitude. It 



