SOLITUDE. 
141 
When I return to my house I find that visitors have 
been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flow¬ 
ers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a 
yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They who come rarely 
to the woods take some little piece of the forest into 
their hands to play with by the way, which they leave, 
either intentionally or accidentally. One has peeled a 
willow wand, woven it into a ring, and dropped it on my 
table. I could always tell if visitors had called in 
my absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or 
the print of their shoes, and generally of what sex or 
age or quality they were by some slight trace left, as 
a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and 
thrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half a mile 
distant, or by the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. 
Nay, I was frequently notified of the passage of a trav¬ 
eller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent of 
his pipe. 
There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our 
horizon is never quite at our elbows. The thick wood 
is not just at our door, nor the pond, but somewhat is 
always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated 
and fenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. 
For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, 
some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my pri¬ 
vacy, abandoned to me by men ? My nearest neighbor 
is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place 
but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have 
my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant 
view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one 
hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road 
on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary 
where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia 
