s job by rough and ponderous strength,--now chancing to
hew it away smoothly and cleanly, now carelessly smiting, and making
gaps, or piling on the slabs of rock, so as to leave vacant spaces. In
the interstices grow brake and broad-leaved forest grass. The trees that
spring from the top of this wall have their roots pressing close to the
rock, so that there is no soil between; they cling powerfully, and grasp
the crag tightly with their knotty fingers. The trees on both sides are
so thick, that the sight and the thoughts are almost immediately lost
among confused stems, branches, and clustering green leaves,--a narrow
strip of bright blue sky above, the sunshine falling lustrously down,
and making the pathway of the brook luminous below. Entering among the
thickets, I find the soil strewn with old leaves of preceding seasons,
through which may be seen a black or dark mould; the roots of trees
stretch frequently across the path; often a moss-grown brown log lies
athwart, and when you set your foot down, it sinks into the decaying
substance,--into the heart of oak or pine. The leafy boughs and twigs of
the underbrush enlace themselves before you, so that you must stoop your
head to pass under, or thrust yourself through amain, while they sweep
against your face, and perhaps knock off your hat. There are rocks mossy
and slippery; sometimes you stagger, with a great rustling of branches,
against a clump of bushes, and into the midst of it. From end to end of
all this tangled shade goes a pathway scarcely worn, for the leaves are
not trodden through, yet plain enough to the eye, winding gently to
avoid tree-trunks and rocks and little hillocks. In the more open
ground, the aspect of a tall, fire-blackened stump, standing alone, high
up on a swell of land, that rises gradually from one side of the brook,
like a monument. Yesterday, I passed a group of children in this
solitary valley,--two boys, I think, and two girls. One of the little
girls seemed to have suffered some wrong from her companions, for she
was weeping and complaining violently. Another time, I came suddenly on
a small Canadian boy, who was in a hollow place, among the ruined logs
of an old causeway, picking raspberries,--lonely among bushes and
gorges, far up the wild valley,--and the lonelier seemed the little boy
for the bright sunshine, that showed no one else in a wide space of view
except him and me.

Remarkable items: the observation of Mons. S---- when