The Man with the Wooden Leg
“A man who loves nature and lives near the country need never be lonesome,” said Micus Pat to his friend Padna Dan, as they strolled along a mountain road near the southwestern coast.
“That’s very true,” said Padna. “And if a man owes a lot of money, he has the consolation of knowing that he will not easily be forgotten.”
“Like every other man of poetic temperament, I think more about the glories of nature, for they are both inspiring and incomprehensible, than about what I owe, or the people who were good enough to oblige me with the loan of money,” said Micus.
“’Tis real decent of you to say so, and you such a judge of everything but your own idiosyncrasies,” said Padna.
“Look around and about you,” said Micus, “from the north to the south, and from the east to the west, and from the west again back to the east, and from the south again to the north, and if you are not impressed with the wonder and grandeur with which you are surrounded, you might as well give up your life to reading the newspapers and talking politics at the street corners.”
“Beauty confronts us at every turn. The saffron moon peeps through the vista of pines on the distant hills, the sky is all ablaze with twinkling stars, and not a sound is heard except that of my own voice, and the creak of a toad in the rushes,” said Padna.
“I can hear, or I seem to hear,” said Micus, “the rippling of a brook as it joins the Owenacurra on its way to the sea, and it is the sweetest of all music, because it is of nature’s own making, and more soothing to a troubled mind or a weary spirit than all the melodies made by man.”
“I hear no sound but my own voice,” said Padna.