"If I could put my woods in song,
And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void."
But this may not be. At best, words can only hint at sensations; and the hint can be taken only by as many as are predestined to hear it. As I have said, the doctrine is esoteric. How are those who have never felt the like to understand the satisfaction with which I recall a certain five or ten minutes of a cool morning in May, a year
or more ago? I was drawing towards home, after a jaunt of an hour or two, when I came suddenly into a sheltered and sunny nook, where a bed of the early saxifrage was already in full bloom, while a most exquisite little bee-fly of a beautiful shade of warm brown was hovering over it, draining the tiny, gold-lined chalices, one by one, with its long proboscis, which looked precisely like the bill of a humming-bird. An ordinary picture enough, as far as words go,—only a little sunshine, a patch of inconspicuous and common flowers, and a small Bombylian without even the distinction of bright colors. True; but my spirit drank a nectar sweeter than any the insect was sipping. And though, as a rule, an experience of this sort were perhaps better left unspoken,—
"A thought of private recollection, sweet and still,"
yet the mention of it can do no harm, while it illustrates what I take to be one of the principal advantages of the saunterer's condition. His treasures are never far to seek. His delight is in Nature herself, rather than in any of her more unusual manifestations. He is not of that large and increasingly
fashionable class who fancy themselves lovers of Nature, while in fact they are merely admirers, more or less sincere, of fine scenery. Not that anything is too beautiful for our rambler's appreciation: he has an eye for the best that earth and heaven can offer; he knows the exhilaration of far-reaching prospects; but he is not dependent upon such extraordinary favors of Providence. He has no occasion to run hither and thither in search of new and strange sights. The old familiar pastures; the bushy lane, in which his feet have loitered year after year, ever since they began to go alone; an unfrequented road; a wooded slope, or a mossy glen; the brook of his boyish memories; if need be, nothing but a clump of trees or a grassy meadow,—these are enough for his pleasure. Fortunate man! Who should be happy, if not he? Out of his own doorway he steps at will into the Elysian fields.
BUTTERFLY PSYCHOLOGY.
Gay creatures of the element,
That in the colors of the rainbow live.—Milton.