grotesque shapes; in a word I could play
with it. This I could not do with such objects as trees, house, barn and
fences; or rather there was no such response from them as from the
shadow.

Echo was the only other direct responsive thing I found in nature as
yet. Echo is the shadow of sound. Echo and shadow are brother and
sister; irresponsible children of nature who love to sport and play
pranks with matter and make men doubt their own senses. I knew several
of the dwelling places of echo; one in chief was between a large barn
and a deep wood, and others at different points on Beaver Pond. Never
would they return the individual voice; all came reflected back as
echo's own, neither mine nor that of my companions; only now louder or
less, more distinct or faint. It had a lonely, plaintive, even
melancholy tone, which the Greeks explained was in consequence of an
unfortunate love affair with the beautiful Narcissus. It sulked, and
hiding in a cave, never spoke again unless first spoken to. I could
hardly believe that echo was not the voice of a human being. To satisfy
myself I examined the barn and forest for some mocking man or boy. Was
not this better than the explanations which never explain to children?
And who can expound a shadow? When I once heard a minister exclaim that
man is but a shadow I understood him literally and was glad in my little
heart thinking only of its size and nimble movements.

Echo and shadow hint of other things in nature besides solid matter and
that which can be appropriated by any machinery or resolved by any
chemical yet discovered. These and sounds and perfumes also remind us
that the world was made for admiration and amusement as well as for use.
I believe that the Creator was thinking, when He planned it, as much of
little boys and girls and poets as of the husbandman and craftsman. Echo
loves to imitate our voice as much as we love to hear it; and shadows
love to caricature our forms that we may laugh and even assist them; for
if you stretch an arm between the sun and a snowbank shadow aids you
with its comic pencil. It is no wonder the sad ghosts throw no shadow;
there must be sunshine, life and joy or you cannot even living cast a
pleasant one. I sometimes more admire the shadows in a painting than the
figures or the scene. The imperfect landscape of the Greeks excused
itself from observing none in the sacred enclosures of the temples of
Zeus. The light must find no impediment in the