r life--even at the peril of my own. If you desire, it is
your privilege to examine the deadly weapons before the hour of actual
combat," and I held out my arms to her appealingly.

She bent her body delicately aside, as always. "I am upset," she said,
discouragingly. "You have been abusing Kentucky."

"Ah, that is the trouble!" I answered. "You wish me to become more
interested in my fellow-creatures. And then you will not let me speak
of what they do. And the other day you told me that I am not perfectly
natural with anything but nature. Nature is the only thing that is
perfectly natural with me. When I study nature there are no delicate
or dangerous or forbidden subjects. The trees have no evasions. The
weeds are honest. Running water is not trying to escape. The sunsets
are not colored with hypocrisy. The lightning is not revenge.
Everything stands forth in the sincerity of its being, and nature
invites me to exercise the absolute liberty of my mind upon all life.
I am bidden to master and proclaim whatsoever truth she has fitted me
to grasp. If I am worthy to investigate, none are offended; if I
should be wise enough to discover any law of creation, the entire world
would express its thanks. Imagine my being assassinated because I had
published a complete report upon the life and habits of the
field-mouse!"

"If one mouse published a report on the life and habits of another,
there'd be a fight all over the field," said Georgiana.

"A ridiculous extreme," I replied. "But after you have grown used to
study nature with absolute freedom and absolute peace, think how human
life repels you. You may not investigate, you may not speak out, you
may not even think, you may not even feel. You are not allowed to
reveal what is concealed, and you are required to conceal what is
revealed. Natural! Have you ever known any two men to be perfectly
natural with each other except when they were fighting? As for the men
that I associate with every day, they weigh their words out to one
another as the apothecary weighs his poisons, or the grocer his
gunpowder."

"You forget," said Georgiana, "that we are living in a very
extraordinary time, when everybody is sensitive and excited."

"It is so always and everywhere," I replied. "You may never study life
as you study nature. With men you must take your choice: liberty for
your mind and a prison for your body; liberty for your body and a
prison for your mind.