On Foot, However, We Continued Up Along The
Bank, Feeling Our Way With A Stick Through The Showery And Foggy
Day, and climbing over the slippery logs in our path with as much
pleasure and buoyancy as in brightest sunshine;
Scenting the
fragrance of the pines and the wet clay under our feet, and
cheered by the tones of invisible waterfalls; with visions of
toadstools, and wandering frogs, and festoons of moss hanging
from the spruce-trees, and thrushes flitting silent under the
leaves; our road still holding together through that wettest of
weather, like faith, while we confidently followed its lead. We
managed to keep our thoughts dry, however, and only our clothes
were wet. It was altogether a cloudy and drizzling day, with
occasional brightenings in the mist, when the trill of the
tree-sparrow seemed to be ushering in sunny hours.
"Nothing that naturally happens to man can _hurt_ him,
earthquakes and thunder-storms not excepted," said a man of
genius, who at this time lived a few miles farther on our road.
When compelled by a shower to take shelter under a tree, we may
improve that opportunity for a more minute inspection of some of
Nature's works. I have stood under a tree in the woods half a
day at a time, during a heavy rain in the summer, and yet
employed myself happily and profitably there prying with
microscopic eye into the crevices of the bark or the leaves or
the fungi at my feet.
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