rming sacrifice, and I invest
largely in these fragile wares. Tomorrow, I shall go yonder across three
tumultuous streams, upon three convenient logs, broad and mossy. Some
book or other goes with me, and is opened now and then. Such books as
Plant Life, The Sexuality of Nature, Studies in Animal Life, suggest
themselves. Open these anywhere, and each is annotated and illustrated
by the scene before me. Every page is a running text to the hour I
glorify.

Perhaps a leaf falls into my lap as I sit over the brook, on a log--a
single leaf, gilded about its border, in the centre a crimson flush,
fast swallowing up the original greenness; the whole will presently be
bronzed and sombre. O, Leaf! how art thou mummified! We do not think of
these little things of Nature. Look at this leaf. What is its record?
How many generations, think you, are numbered in its ancestry? A
perpetual intermarriage has not weakened its fibres. The anatomy of this
leaf is perfect, and the sap of this oak flows from oak to acorn, from
acorn to oak, in an interminable and uninterrupted succession since the
first day. What are your titles and estates beside this representative?
What is your heraldry, with its two centuries of mold; your absurd and
confused genealogies, your escutcheons, blotted no doubt with crimes and
errors, when this scion, which I am permitted to entertain for a moment,
comes of a race whose record is spotless and without stain through ten
thousand eventful years. Why, Eve would recognize the original of this
stock from the mere family resemblance.

Do you think these days tiresome? It is embarrassing for some people to
be left alone with themselves. They can no longer play a part, for there
are none like themselves to play to. The sun and stars know you well
enough--most likely, better than you yourselves do. I like this. I would
out and say to myself: "Here is a confidant. Day hides nothing from me,
or you; it expresses all, exposes all--even that which we might not ask
to see. It is best that we should see it; there are no errors in
Nature."

Walking, the squirrel nods to me. I nod back; and why shouldn't I?
Nature has familiarly introduced us. Squirrel munches under his tail
canopy till I am out of sight, jabbering all the while. What sage little
fellows go on four feet! I believe an animal has all the instincts of
Adam. He should never be tamed, however, lest he lose his identity.
Civilization rubs down the points in our c