se various materials; it
seemed more as if some strange architectural boulder had drifted from
some Runic period and been stranded there. It was as apt a confessional
as any of Wordsworth's nooks among the Trossachs; and when one thinks
how many men are wearing out their souls in trying to conform to the
traditional mythologies of others, it seems nobler in this man to have
reared upon that lonely hill the unfinished memorial of his own.

I recall another path which leads from the Lower Saranac Lake, near
"Martin's," to what the guides call, or used to call, "The
Philosopher's Camp" at Amperzand. On this oddly named lake, in the
Adirondack region, a tract of land was bought by Professor Agassiz and
his friends, who made there a summer camping-ground, and with one
comrade I once sought the spot. I remember with what joy we left the
boat,--so delightful at first, so fatiguing at last; for I cannot, with
Mr. Murray, call it a merit in the Adirondacks that you never have to
walk,--and stepped away into the free forest. We passed tangled swamps,
so dense with upturned trees and trailing mosses that they seemed to
give no opening for any living thing to pass, unless it might be the
soft and silent owl that turned its head almost to dislocation in
watching us, ere it flitted vaguely away. Farther on, the deep, cool
forest was luxurious with plumy ferns; we trod on moss-covered roots,
finding the emerald steps so soft we scarcely knew that we were
ascending; every breath was aromatic; there seemed infinite healing in
every fragrant drop that fell upon our necks from the cedar boughs. We
had what I think the pleasantest guide for a daylight tramp,--one who
has never before passed over that particular route, and can only pilot
you on general principles till he gladly, at last, allows you to pilot
him. When we once got the lead we took him jubilantly on, and beginning
to look for "The Philosopher's Camp," found ourselves confronted by a
large cedar-tree on the margin of a wooded lake. This was plainly the
end of the path. Was the camp then afloat? Our escort was in that state
of hopeless ignorance of which only lost guides are capable. We scanned
the green horizon and the level water, without glimpse of human abode.
It seemed an enchanted lake, and we looked about the tree-trunk for
some fairy horn, that we might blow it. That failing, we tried three
rifle-shots, and out from the shadow of an island, on the instant,
there glided a