I was irreverent enough to let the others gather him up. Of course he
would not fall to pieces; I knew the Constantinople architecture. I
slipped out into the corridor and laughed until I was quite exhausted.

But since then I have often wondered what kind of dance it could have
been.






AUTUMN.


AARRE, October 7, 1890.

I had intended to send a few observations upon the wild-goose to
_Nature_, but since they have extended to quite a long letter, they go
to _Dagbladet_. It is not because I believe that they represent anything
new that no one has observed before; but I know how thoughtlessly most
of us let the sun shine, and the birds fly, without any idea of what a
refreshment it is for a man's soul to understand what he sees in Nature,
and how interesting animal life becomes when we have once learned that
there is a method and a thought in every single thing that the animal
undertakes, and what a pleasure it is to discover this thought, and
trace the beautiful reasoning power which is Nature's essence.

And thus most of us go through life, and down into a hole in the ground