ysteries. I vowed I should never again belong to the town.

As upon a spring day the face of heaven is hid and a storm descends,
winds ruffle the bosom of a pure lake, the flowers droop, wet, the
birds cease singing, and rain rushes over all, and then anon the face
of heaven clears, the sun shines forth, the flowers look up in tears,
the birds sing again, and the pure lake reflects once more the pure
depth of the sky, so now my glad soul, which had lost its sun, found
it again and remembered its birds and its flowers.

II

NIGHTS OUT ON A PERFECT VAGABONDAGE

I

I have been a whole season in the wilds, tramping or idling on the
Black Sea shore, living for whole days together on wild fruit,
sleeping for the most part under the stars, bathing every morning and
evening in the clear warm sea. It is difficult to tell the riches of
the life I have had, the significance of the experience. I have felt
pulse in my veins wild blood which my instincts had forgotten in the
town. I have felt myself come back to Nature.

During the first month after my departure from the town I slept but
thrice under man's roof. I slept all alone, on the hillside, in the
maize-fields, in the forest, in old deserted houses, in caves, ruins,
like a wild animal gone far afield in search of prey. I never knew in
advance where I should make my night couch; for I was Nature's guest
and my hostess kept her little secrets. Each night a new secret was
opened, and in the secret lay some pleasant mystery. Some of the
mysteries I guessed--there are many guesses in these pages--some I
only tried to guess, and others I could only wonder over. All manner
of mysterious things happen to us in sleep; the sick man is made well,
the desperate hopeful, the dull man happy. These things happen in
houses which are barred and shuttered and bolted. The power of the
Night penetrates even into the luxurious apartments of kings, even
into the cellars of the slums. But if it is potent in these, how much
more is it potent in its free unrestricted domain, the open country.
He who sleeps under the stars is bathed in the elemental forces which
in houses only creep to us through keyholes. I may say from experience
that he who has slept out of doors every day for a month, nay even for
a week, is at the end of that time a new man. He has entered into new
relationship with the world in which he lives, and has allowed the
gentle creative hands of Nature to re-shape his soul