The Choice of a Camp 



267 



bright shell; there are tremulous memories in them of his 

 last thousand years. Nature, like heaven, lies about us in our 

 childhood, — and so do the intimations and interpretations of 

 Nature. 



"We are what suns and winds and waters make us ; 

 The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills 

 Fashion and win their nurshng with their smiles." 



You will remember Longfellow's quatrain upon Agassiz : 



"And Nature, the old nurse, took 

 The child upon her knee ; 

 Saying, Here is a story book, 

 The father hath written for thee." 



And Wordsworth's ''Boy:" 



"There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs 



And islands of Winander ! Many a time 

 At evening would he stand alone 

 Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake ; 

 And then, with fingers interwoven, both hands 

 Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth 

 Uplifted, he as through an instrument, 

 Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, 

 That they might answer him. And they would shout 

 Across the watery vale, and shout again 

 Responsive to his calls. 

 . . . And when it chanced 

 That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill. 

 Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung 

 Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 

 Has carried far into his heart the voice 

 Of mountain torrents; — or the visible scene 

 Would enter unawares into his mind. 

 With all its solemn imagery, its rocks. 

 Its woods and that uncertain heaven, received 

 Into the bosom of the steady lake." 



Oh, the blessedness of having been a boy in the country! 

 What gladness in the experience, what riches in the retrospect. 

 I am glad the practice of being born in the country has not 

 utterly gone out. Dame Nature loves her country boy. Her 

 city boy, too, I suppose; only he was born away from home, 

 and must be coaxed back, first, to its quietness and peace. 



