d grove of men beneath my feet, and felt
nearer heaven that there was nothing but this lovely, still reception
on the earth; no towering mountains, no deep tree-shadows, nothing but
plain earth and water bathed in light.

Sunset, as seen from that place, presented most generally, low-lying,
flaky clouds, of the softest serenity.

One night a star "shot madly from, its sphere," and it had a fair
chance to be seen, but that serenity could not be astonished.

Yes! it was a peculiar beauty, that of those sunsets and moonlights on
the levels of Chicago, which Chamouny or the Trosachs could not make
me forget.[A]

[Footnote A: "From the prairie near Chicago had I seen, some days
before, the sun set with that calmness observed only on the prairies.
I know not what it says, but something quite different from sunset
at sea. There is no motion except of waving grasses,--the cattle move
slowly homeward in the distance. That _home!_ where is it? It seems as
If there was no home, and no need of one, and there is room enough to
wander on for ever."--Manuscript Notes.]

Notwithstanding all the attractions I thus found out by degrees on the
flat shores of the lake, I was delighted when I found myself really on
my way into the country for an excursion of two or three weeks. We set
forth in a strong wagon, almost as large, and with the look of those
used elsewhere for transporting caravans of wild beasts, loaded with
everything we might want, in case nobody would give it to us,--for
buying and selling were no longer to be counted on,--with, a pair of
strong horses, able and willing to force their way through mud-holes
and amid stumps, and a guide, equally admirable as marshal and
companion, who knew by heart the country and its history, both natural
and artificial, and whose clear hunter's eye needed, neither road nor
goal to guide it to all the spots where beauty best loves to dwell.

Add to this the finest weather, and such country as I had never seen,
even in my dreams, although these dreams had been haunted by wishes
for just such a one, and you may judge whether years of dulness might
not, by these bright days, be redeemed, and a sweetness be shed over
all thoughts of the West.

The first day brought us through woods rich in the moccason-flower
and lupine, and plains whose soft expanse was continually touched with
expression by the slow moving clouds which

"Sweep over with their shadows, and beneath
The surface rolls