that,--no life so stupid as that of the savage, with his low wants and
his narrow hopes and fears. My life here among my books, which seems
to you so tame, is excitement itself compared with that. Your
stupidest party is full of life, intelligence, wit, when put beside an
Indian powwow. There is but one charm in that wandering life,
Alice,--the free intercourse with Nature; _that_ never tires; but
then you must remember that to enjoy it you must be cultivated up to
it. There needs all the teaching of civilization, nay, the education
of life, to enjoy Nature truly. These quiet hills, these beech
forests, are more to me now than Niagara was at eighteen; and Niagara
itself, which raises the poet above the earth, falls tame on the mind
of the savage. Believe one who knows,--the man of civilization who
goes back to the savage state throws away his life; his very mind
becomes, like the dyer's hand, 'subdued to what it works in.'

"But I am going out of your depth again, girls," continued he, looking
at our wondering, half-puzzled faces. "Let it go, Alice; Life is a
problem too hard for you to solve as yet; perhaps it will solve
itself. Meantime, we will brighten ourselves up to-morrow by a good
scamper over the hills, and, the next day, if your fancy for study
still holds, we will plan out some hard work, and I will show you what
real study is. Now go to bed; but see first that Aunt Molly has her
sandwiches and gingerbread ready for the morning."


TALK NUMBER TWO.

Uncle John was well qualified to show us what real study was, for in
his early youth he had read hard and long to fit himself for a
literary life. What had changed his course and driven him to the far