lue it, there is no form of property that inspires a
sense of ownership so jealous as solitude. Rob my orchard if you will,
but beware how you despoil me of my silence. The average noisy person can
have no conception what a brutal form of trespass his coarsely cheerful
voice may be in the exquisite spiritual hush of the woods, or what
shattering discomfort his irrelevant presence in the landscape.

One day, to my horror, a picnic ruthlessly invaded my sanctuary. With a
roar of Boeotian hilarity, it tore up the hillside as if it were a
storming party, and half a day the sacred woods were vocal with silly
catcalls and snatches of profane song. I locked up my hermitage, and,
taking my stick, sought refuge in flight, like the other woodland
creatures; only coming back at evening with cautious step and peering
glance, half afraid lest it should still be there. No! It was gone, but
its voices seemed to have left gaping wounds across the violated air, and
the trees to wear a look of desecration. But presently the moon arose and
washed the solitude clean again, and the wounds of silence were healed in
the still night.

Next morning I amused myself by writing the following notice, which
I nailed up on a great elm-tree standing guard at the beginning of
the woods:

SILENCE!

_Speaking above a whisper in these woods
is forbidden by law_.

This notice seems to have had its effect, for from this time on no more
hands of marauders invaded my peace. But I had one other case of
trespass, of which it is now time to speak.

Some short distance from the shack was a clearing in the woods, a
thriving wilderness of bramble-bushes, poke-berries, myrtle-berries,
mandrakes, milkweed, mullein, daisies and what not--a paradise of every
sauntering vine and splendid, saucy weed. In the centre stood a
sycamore-tree, beneath which it was my custom to smoke a morning pipe and
revolve my profound after-breakfast thoughts.

Judge, then, of my indignant shock, one morning, at finding a stranger
calmly occupying my place. I stood for a moment rooted to the spot, in
the shadow of the encircling woods, and he had not yet seen me. As I
stood, pondering on the best way of dealing with the intruder, a sudden
revulsion of kindness stole over me. For here indeed was a very different
figure from what, in my first shock of surprise, I had expected to see.
No common intruder this. In fact, who could have dreamed of coming upon
so in