ents, nor intrudes his thoughts upon yours
unless you desire it.

I do not want long books and least of all story books in the
woods--these are for the library--but rather scraps and extracts and
condensations from which thoughts can be plucked like flowers and
carried for a while in the buttonhole. So it is that I am fond of all
kinds of anthologies. I have one entitled "Traveller's Joy," another,
"Songs of Nature," and I have lately found the best one I know called
"The Spirit of Man" by Robert Bridges, the English laureate. Other
little books that fit well in the pocket on a tramp, because they are
truly companionable, are Ben Jonson's "Timber," one of the very best,
and William Penn's "Fruits of Solitude." An anthology of Elizabethan
verse, given me by a friend, is also a good companion.

It is not a discourse or a narrative we want as we walk abroad, but
conversation. Neither do we want people or facts or stories, but a
person. So I open one of these little books and read therein the
thoughtful remark of a wise companion. This I may reply to, or merely
enjoy, as I please. I am in no hurry, as I might be with a living
companion, for my book friend, being long dead, is not impatient and
gives me time to reply, and is not resentful if I make no reply at all.
Submitted to such a test as this few writers, old or new, give continued
profit or delight. To be considered in the presence of the great and
simple things of nature, or worn long in the warm places of the spirit,
a writer must have supreme qualities of sense or humour, a great
sensitiveness to beauty, or a genuine love of goodness--but above all he
must somehow give us the flavour of personality. He must be a true
companion of the spirit.

* * * * *

There is an exercise given to young soldiers which consists in raising
the hands slowly above the head, taking in a full breath at the same
time, and then letting them down in such a way as to square the
shoulders. This leaves the body erect, the head high, the eyes straight
ahead, the lungs full of good air. It is the attitude that every man at
arms should wish to take, After a day in the woods I feel some such
erectness of spirit, a life of the head, and a clearer and calmer
vision, for I have raised up my hands to the heavens, and drawn in the
odours and sights and sounds of the good earth.

* * * * *

One of the great joys of such times of retir