o intermediary between Nature's gifts and the man who needed
them. Wish was translated into act without the aid of thought.

One day I was lost in the forest among the giant tangles and I was not
at all anxious to find the way out again. Perhaps I might have
lived there all the Autumn, and only when the berries and nuts were
exhausted and the cold winter winds sought me out should I come
skulking back to the haunts of men like some wild animal made tame by
Winter.

I was aware, therefore, of a new experience, a modification in
personality, a change of rhythm. I was walking with Nature, marching
with her, with all her captains the great trees and her infantry the
little bushes, and I caught in my ears her marching music. I was
thrilled by the common chord that makes crowds act as one man, that in
this case made my heart beat in unison with all the wild things. I may
as well say at once I love them all and am ready to live with them and
for them.

V

THE QUESTION OF THE SCEPTIC

"That's all very well, but don't you often get bored?" asked a
sceptic. "I enjoy a weekend in the country, or a good Sunday tramp in
Richmond Park or Epping Forest. I take my month on the Yorkshire moors
with pleasure, or I spend a season in Switzerland or Spain, and I
don't mind sleeping under a bush and eating whatever I can get in
shepherds' cottages. I can well appreciate the simple life and the
country life, but I'm perfectly sure I should pine away if I had to
live it always. I couldn't stand it. I'd rather be debarred from the
country altogether than not go back to town. The town is much more
indispensable to me. I feel the country life is very good in so far as
it makes one stronger and fitter to work in town again, but as an end
in itself it would be intolerable."

This was a question I needed to answer not only to the sceptic but to
myself. It is true the wanderer often feels bored, even in beautiful
places. I am bored some days every year, no matter where I spend them,
and I shall always be. I get tired of this world and want another.
That is a common feeling, if not often analysed.

There is, however, another boredom, that of the weariness of the body,
or its satiety of country air; the longing for the pleasures of the
town, the tides of the soul attracted by the moon of habit. The tramp
also confesses to that boredom. But when he gets back to the town to
enjoy it for a while he swiftly finds it much more boring than t