"I shall expect, then," answered Ruth, smiling, "to hear of Ralph Weston, the hermit, occasionally, from those who may pass by here. Where do you propose to establish your hermitage?"
"In truth, I cannot say," replied Ralph; "but I suppose it will be when I, like the hermits of old, have become sufficiently disgusted with the world, to make me fly from it with hatred; I will not fix the precise time, just now—I will leave it to circumstances. But familiarity with Nature—converse with the solitude of the forest, is the best antidote to the disgust which many persons conceive of society. The man cannot be all bad, who has any relish left in him for the beauties which Nature can unfold to him."
"You are becoming very much of a philosopher, Captain Weston. You shall have another title added to that of hermit. You shall be a philosophical hermit."
"Ruth! you laugh at me! But you must pardon my caprice at the idea of a forest life; for I am not much of a woodsman, you know. But I'll venture to say, after all, that you agree with me."
"Yes," answered Ruth, earnestly, "I do like our new mode of life. We are nearly shut out from the world,—but we have still a thousand pleasures, perhaps the sweeter from our solitary position. We do not merely find a home, we create one. We see broad meadows starting out from the forest, and know that they are ours by the best of titles—a reclamation from the waste of Nature. I have often asked myself whether I would be willing to abandon our present home for the old home in the settlements, and I never yet could answer that I would."
"To a light, vain head," answered Ralph, "such a life would be tiresome; but it seems to me, although how long the feeling would endure, I cannot say—yet it seems to me, that the constant idea of dependence upon a Power beyond and over men, which must be ever present to the minds of those who dwell in the wilderness, would give life a higher and truer aim, than can be attained in society. But familiarity with scenes like these, blunts the mind, perhaps, and the idea is soon lost."
"I believe the remark is true," replied Ruth. "We cannot entirely forego society, without injury to ourselves."
"Yes, perhaps it is so," said Ralph; "we can attain no such marvellous degree of sentiment or independence as wholly to destroy our taste for crowds and social intercourse. I think, after all, that if I were to become a hermit, I should like a few familiar friends to share my hermitage."
Ruth smiled as she replied, "your hermitage, then, Captain Weston, would be a very different affair from the 'cave, rock and desert' of an old-fashioned recluse, who
"'Had nought to do but feed on roots,
And gaze upon the stars!'"