THE VILLAGE. 
185 
premises, and did not get home till toward morning, by 
which time, as there had been several heavy showers in 
the mean while, and the leaves were very wet, they were 
drenched to their skins. I have heard of many going 
astray even in the village streets, when the darkness 
was so thick that you could cut it with a knife, as the 
saying is. Some who live in the outskirts, having come 
to town a-shopping in their wagons, have been obliged 
to put up for the night; and gentlemen and ladies making 
a call have gone half a mile out of their way, feeling the 
sidewalk only with their feet, and not knowing when 
they turned. It is a surprising and memorable, as well 
as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. 
Often in a snow storm, even by day, one w r ill come 
out upon a well-known road and yet find it impossible 
to tell which way leads to the village. Though he 
knows that he has travelled it a thousand times, he can¬ 
not recognize a feature in it, but it is as strange to him 
as if it were a road in Siberia. By night, of course, the 
perplexity is infinitely greater. In our most trivial 
walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering 
like pilots by certain well-known beacons and head¬ 
lands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still car¬ 
ry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; 
and not till we are completely lost, or turned round, — 
for a man needs only to be turned round once with his 
eyes shut in this world to be lost, —- do we appreciate 
the vastness and strangeness of Nature. Every man 
has to learn the points of compass again as often as 
he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not 
till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the 
world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where 
we are and the infinite extent of our relations. 
