rn,
columned with innumerable trunks, each like an Atlas upholding its
world of leaves, and sweating perpetual moisture down its dark and
channelled rind; some strong in youth, some grisly with decrepit age,
nightmares of strange distortion, gnarled and knotted with wens and
goitres; roots intertwined beneath like serpents petrified in an agony
of contorted strife; green and glistening mosses carpeting the rough
ground, mantling the rocks, turning pulpy stumps to mounds of verdure,
and swathing fallen trunks as, bent in the impotence of rottenness,
they lie outstretched over knoll and hollow, like moldering reptiles
of the primeval world, while around, and on and through them, springs
the young growth that fattens on their decay--the forest devouring its
own dead. Or, to turn from its funereal shade to the light and life of
the open woodland, the sheen of sparkling lakes, and mountains basking
in the glory of the summer noon, flecked by the shadows of passing
clouds that sail on snowy wings across the azure.

Yet it would be false coloring to paint the half-savage _coureur de
bois_ as a romantic lover of nature. He liked the woods because they
emancipated him from restraint. He liked the lounging ease of the
camp-fire, and the license of Indian villages. His life has a dark and
ugly side.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

Born in 1824, died in 1892; joined the Brook Farm Community;
traveled in Europe in 1846-50; became connected with the New
York _Tribune_ in 1850; editor of _Putnam's Monthly_ in
1852-57, with _Harper's Magazine_ in 1854, and with
_Harper's Weekly_ in 1863; prominent advocate of civil
service reform, being one of the commissioners appointed by
President Grant in 1871, but resigned on account of
differences with the President; president of the State Civil
Service League in 1880, and of the National Civil Service
Reform League afterward until his death; published "Nile
Notes of a Howadji" in 1851, "Lotus Eating" in 1852,
"Potiphar Papers" in 1853, "Prue and I" in 1856.

OUR COUSIN THE CURATE[55]

Our cousin the curate loved, while he was yet a boy, Flora, of the
sparkling eyes and the ringing voice. His devotion was absolute. Flora
was flattered, because all the girls, as I said, worshiped him; but
she was a gay, glancing girl, who had invaded the student's heart with
her audacious brilliancy, and was half-surprized that she had subdue