n the sound I have heard I know
not what of deep and joyous mystery; the long-past and the far-off
future whispering together, under cover of the night, of those things
which the stars remember from their youth, and to which they look
forward in some remote cycle of their Shining.

Past old and well-worked farms, into which the toil and thrift of
generations have gone, the old road leads me, and brings my thoughts
back from elemental forces and primeval ages to these later centuries
in which human life has overlaid these hills and vales with rich
memories. Wherever man goes Nature makes room for him, as if prepared
for his coming, and ready to put her mighty shoulder to the wheel of
his prosperity. The old fences, often decayed and fallen, are not
spurned; the movement of universal life does not flow past them and
leave them to rot in their ugliness; year by year time stains them into
harmony with the rocks, and every summer a wave out of the great sea of
life flings itself over them, and leaves behind some slight and seemly
garniture of moss and vine. The old farm-houses have grown into the
landscape, and the hurrying road widens its course, and sometimes makes
a long detour, that it may unite these outlying folk with the great
world. There stands the old school-house, sacred to every traveller
who has learned that childhood is both a memory and a prophecy of
heaven. One pauses here, and hears, in the unbroken stillness, the
rush of feet that have never grown weary with travel, and the clamour
of voices through which immortal youth still shouts to the kindred
hills and skies. Into those windows Nature throws all manner of
invitations, and through them she gets only glances of recognition and
longing. There are the fields, the woods, and the hills in one
perpetual rivalry of charm; the bird sings in the bough over the
window, and on still afternoons the brook calls and calls again. Here
one feels anew the eternal friendship between childhood and Nature, and
remembers that they only can abide in that fellowship who carry into
riper years the self-forgetfulness, the sweet unconsciousness, the open
mind and heart of a child.

Chapter IV

Along the Road

II

I have found that walking stimulates observation and opens one's eyes
to movements and appearances in earth and sky, which ordinarily escape
attention. The constant change of landscape which attends even the
slow progress of a loitering gait puts o