proach of the whole
community; but no more formal indictment of the system of slavery, as
established in the United States, is required than the fact that a
former master could recall to slavery an emancipated slave family, the
head of which had paid in hard cash for himself, his wife, and all his
children, because his free papers had been burned, in a fire of
which, moreover, the neighbors accused the former owner of being the
incendiary. While those papers were in existence the negro could
legally sue and be sued; but without them he had no more legal rights
than a dog. The life which honest people lived in that primitive
community was Arcadian, and it is probable that even in Arcadia they
had slaves. Certainly, in my experience of living in many countries
and under various systems, I have not found that the most primitive
system secures the largest personal liberty; rather the contrary.

I returned to my painting with the early summer, and, when the season
came, to the organization of the Club and the inauguration of its
club-house and grounds. It was certainly the most beautiful site I
have ever seen in the Adirondack country,--virgin forest, save where
the trappers or hunters had cut wood for their camp-fires, the tall
pines standing in their long ranks along the shores of a little lake
that lay in the middle of the estate, encircled by mountains, except
on one side, where the lake found its outlet; and the mountains were
cloaked to their summits in primeval woods. In a little valley where
a crystal spring sent its water down to the lake, and a grove of
deciduous trees gave high and airy shelter, I pitched the camp,--a
repetition slightly enlarged of that on Follansbee Pond. As usual I
preceded the Club party, accompanied by S.G. Ward and his son, and
also the son of Emerson, to prepare the ground. The solitude of the
locality may be judged from the first hunt. We had arrived late in the
day, and had no food except the bread we took with us, and the next
morning we had to kill our breakfast before we could eat it. I took
Mr. Ward and the boys in my boat and paddled down to the foot of the
lake, where was a wide beach, on which we found a two-year-old buck
grazing. I paddled to within fifty yards of him, and, though I found
that my rifle would not go off and had to change it for another, with
considerable movement, the deer took no notice of us, and I dropped
him in his tracks with a feeling of compunction only over