and multiply themselves from every leaf and
blade; the cows lie upon the hill-side, with their broad peaceful backs
painted into the landscape; the hum of insects, "tiniest bells on the
garment of silence," fills the air; the gorgeous butterflies doze upon
the thistle-blooms till they almost fall from the petals; the air is
full of warm fragrance from the wild-grape clusters; the grass is
burning hot beneath the naked feet in sunshine, and cool as water in the
shade. Diving from this overhanging beam,--for Ovid evidently meant that
Midas to be cured must dive,--

"Subde caput, corpusque simul, simul elue
crinem,"--

one finds as kindly a reception from the water as in childish days, and
as safe a shelter in the green dressing-room afterwards; and the patient
wherry floats near by, in readiness for a reembarkation.

Here a word seems needed, unprofessionally and non-technically, upon
boats,--these being the sole seats provided for occupant or visitor in
my out-door study. When wherries first appeared in this peaceful inland
community, the novel proportions occasioned remark. Facetious bystanders
inquired sarcastically whether that thing were expected to carry
more than one,--plainly implying by labored emphasis that it would
occasionally be seen tenanted by even less than that number.
Transcendental friends inquired, with more refined severity, if the
proprietor expected to _meditate_ in that thing? This doubt at least
seemed legitimate. Meditation seems to belong to sailing rather than
rowing; there is something so gentle and unintrusive in gliding
effortless beneath overhanging branches and along the trailing edges of
clematis thickets;--what a privilege of fairy-land is this noiseless
prow, looking in and out of one flowery cove after another, scarcely
stirring the turtle from his log, and leaving no wake behind! It seemed
as if all the process of rowing had too much noise and bluster, and as
if the sharp slender wherry, in particular, were rather too pert and
dapper to win the confidence of the woods and waters. Time has dispelled
the fear. As I rest poised upon the oars above some submerged shallow,
diamonded with ripple-broken sunbeams, the fantastic Notonecta or
water-boatman rests upon his oars below, and I see that his proportions
anticipated the wherry, as honeycombs antedated the problem of the
hexagonal cell. While one of us rests, so does the other; and when one
shoots away rapidly above the water, th