Mountain walks of a recluse

Front matter

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Foreword

Who, among those who dwell in cities for pleasure or profit, does not at some season of the year, feel that indescribable longing, magnetic, irresistible, for the country !

'Tis Nature calling us : ''Come, and see, and partake of my riches !" Tangible and intangible she holds them forth with prodigal hands. Here are the birds, the fruits, the flowers, the radiant sunshine for one ; the wind, the frost, the snow, the majestic gloom for another, — something for everyone who seeks with ''the seeing eye."

But those, alas ! are so few. We are so wantonly blind to all these wondrous master-works ! We crowd with delighted eagerness, to view a bit of painted canvas or woven tapestry, yet carelessly trample on a gorgeous Autumn leaf and barely note the matchless tints of the sunset sky.

Still, one among us may stoop, and with tender hand brush away the dead leaves of Winter from the tiny green thing — the first-born of Spring — and read God's promises in every day's life and death. The brain is the note book, the iv Foreword.

heart the pen, and the love of the Creator, the inspiration which gives to us such a book as this — a book, ahve, breathing, speaking to us of the Life that is in us, and around us, everywhere, if we will but look and see. Perhaps we may be able to do this but superficially, as beginners in the great study of God's universe, so to us the "Recluse" gives the Nature-pictures he has so lovingly portrayed, and makes us his companions in his ''Mountain Walks."

What an atmosphere of leisured and literary meditation pervades every page of the book — much of the dignified, scholarly ease of the Lake Poets who sang when the world was sweeter and kinder; an atmosphere which we drink in with the consciousness that this life of domestic simplicity, of innocent pleasures, of high and reverential thinking, lived close to Nature's heart, is the true life — and that all else is wrong, and inadequate, and mean.

The end comes, and we lay the book aside. The city's ceaseless roar drifts into the distance ; the smoke haze fades away, and we stand in the sunlight's golden tracery under the walnut trees; the scent of summer is in the air, we hear the jubilant bird-songs and our souls are uplifted to the hills ''whence cometh peace."

May S. Gilpatric.

Mountain Walks of a Recluse.

I

'Tis August now, and Nature's tired and worn. The joy, the freshness, the full life of June, The bobolink's exhaustless floods of tune

No longer fill the fields at break of morn.

Few birds are heard save in the rustling com, Where quails, not seen, in flute-like notes commune.

The aftermath, dew- jewelled o'er, is strewn

With flowers that died ere harvest heat was born.

The buds, the blades, the fragrant blossoms yield

To full and golden ears on every field.

The grain ; the sickle ; work complete ; repose. Our weary Mother Earth shall soon have rest, Soon fall asleep on Indian Summer's breast.

As softly as the petals of the rose.

I sat 'neath the Monastery yesterday, Wallie, and wrote the enclosed sonnet while listening to the hot songs of the locusts. I send it with the hope that it may be a vital breath to you in the dust of your work. Full August reigns. The time for which we have longed since last February is come. The year is in its full majesty of strength now, its fullest revelation of splendours, its supreme mystery of contemplation. I look upon the sky, and the far-off hills, and the fields all bright with new grass, and the words of S. Bernard's old hymn come to me — "What radiancy of glory!" It is the one month of all the year that veils the hills and the forests with a languor of purple haze ; it gives an anaesthetic for the world's pain, and in its beatific calm we feel the very presence of God. And there is not that death-dealing rage in the heat of the sun that makes July so terrible. The clouds have none of the wild ravings of March ; the wind has softened all its Niagara crash of music unto the melodies of a flute ; the birds are as dignified as a House of Bishops, while in June they were as full of mischief as choir boys. The Spring lifted its bluet-gemmed baby clothes and splashed its feet in the rollicking waters of the brook ; but to-day both the brook and the Summer have acquired the decorum of middle age. The frail blossoms of Easter-tide bent 'neath the weight of an honey bee : but now the Cardinal-flower and the Eupatorium and the Purple Loosestrife are a very riot of colour. It makes one strong just to see the vigour of the flowers that make the swamps so gorgeous. I am at Monksrest, in the midst of the Woodsia Ferns, and the blue jays scream all round. Young Harry Phillips is with me, and is arranging a bunch of Cardinal-flower that is in the first beautv of Its youth, Hke himself. We are going now to Caltha Swamp, where the lad hopes to find a yellow orchid for you. The old gardener here has given us a half dozen stalks of tuberoses, and our nerves are drenched with their intense sweetness.