regation to escape from the
preacher, or of the preacher to escape from himself, that drives
sophisticated people into the wilderness, as it is the unconquered
craving for primitive simplicity, the revolt against the everlasting
dress-parade of our civilization. From this monstrous pomposity even the
artificial rusticity of a Petit Trianon is a relief. It was only human
nature that the jaded Frenchman of the regency should run away to the
New World, and live in a forest-hut with an Indian squaw; although he
found little satisfaction in his act of heroism, unless it was talked
about at Versailles.

When our trampers come, late in the afternoon, to the bank of a lovely
lake where they purpose to enter the primitive life, everything is
waiting for them in virgin expectation. There is a little promontory
jutting into the lake, and sloping down to a sandy beach, on which the
waters idly lapse, and shoals of red-fins and shiners come to greet the
stranger; the forest is untouched by the axe; the tender green sweeps
the water's edge; ranks of slender firs are marshaled by the shore;
clumps of white-birch stems shine in satin purity among the evergreens;
the boles of giant spruces, maples, and oaks, lifting high their crowns
of foliage, stretch away in endless galleries and arcades; through the
shifting leaves the sunshine falls upon the brown earth; overhead are
fragments of blue sky; under the boughs and in chance openings
appear the bluer lake and the outline of the gracious mountains. The
discoverers of this paradise, which they have entered to destroy, note
the babbling of the brook that flows close at hand; they hear the splash
of the leaping fish; they listen to the sweet, metallic song of the
evening thrush, and the chatter of the red squirrel, who angrily
challenges their right to be there. But the moment of sentiment passes.
This party has come here to eat and to sleep, and not to encourage
Nature in her poetic attitudinizing.

The spot for a shanty is selected. This side shall be its opening,
towards the lake; and in front of it the fire, so that the smoke shall
drift into the hut, and discourage the mosquitoes; yonder shall be
the cook's fire and the path to the spring. The whole colony bestir
themselves in the foundation of a new home,--an enterprise that has all
the fascination, and none of the danger, of a veritable new settlement
in the wilderness. The axes of the guides resound in the echoing spaces;
great tr