Little rivers have small responsibilities. They are not expected to bear
huge navies on their breast or supply a hundred-thousand horse-power to
the factories of a monstrous town. Neither do you come to them hoping
to draw out Leviathan with a hook. It is enough if they run a harmless,
amiable course, and keep the groves and fields green and fresh along
their banks, and offer a happy alternation of nimble rapids and quiet
pools,

"With here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling."

When you set out to explore one of these minor streams in your canoe,
you have no intention of epoch-making discoveries, or thrilling and
world-famous adventures. You float placidly down the long stillwaters,
and make your way patiently through the tangle of fallen trees that
block the stream, and run the smaller falls, and carry your boat
around the larger ones, with no loftier ambition than to reach a good
camp-ground before dark and to pass the intervening hours pleasantly,
"without offence to God or man." It is an agreeable and advantageous
frame of mind for one who has done his fair share of work in the world,
and is not inclined to grumble at his wages. There are few moods in
which we are more susceptible of gentle instruction; and I suspect there
are many tempers and attitudes, often called virtuous, in which the
human spirit appears to less advantage in the sight of Heaven.

It is not required of every man and woman to be, or to do, something
great; most of us must content ourselves with taking small parts in
the chorus. Shall we have no little lyrics because Homer and Dante have
written epics? And because we have heard the great organ at Freiburg,
shall the sound of Kathi's zither in the alpine hut please us no more?