Extravagant Economy: Page 3 of 4

almost enough to upset your appetite, for no fish ever tastes quite as sweet to a man as the one with which he has measured skill; the one he has, with his own hand, brought to the pan.

The sky will grow gradually darker until the moon comes up from beyond the pines to strew a path of star dust, like a golden pontoon, across the quiet lake. The silence of the forest will enfold you, and the calm of the lake will invite you to its confidences. You instinctively seek your boat, at ride upon the star-jeweled water, and in the moonlight you drift out-away from even the solitude of the silent woods; away from all but your own thoughts; such thoughts as bring man nearer to himself; nearer to what is best within him.

When the moon hangs, lantern-like, over the far tree-tops, and you feel the refreshing weariness that seems so different from that which follows the everyday routine, moor your boat and return to camp, and when the breath of the pine and the balsam fills your lungs and you throw your weary self upon the pine-bough bed, and gaze out and up and begin to count the stars, sleep will come, on the noiseless wings of night, bringing sweet dreams—such dreams as hopes are made of.

When the first flushes of the dawn paint all the hilltops, and every blade of grass is jewelled with dew, the birds will wake you with their morning carols and all the world will bid you to a feast such as no artist's brush could ever paint.

Even the boat, champing at its chain, will seem impatient to be off. Peace, all-pervading peace, will fill the air, the mists will leave the lake to veil the hills and everywhere will be the welcoming freshness of a new-born day. The breath of life will be in every flower, and health and pleasure in each passing breeze. A little row, a cast, a fish—and with it all an appetite that tempts, then urges, then insists, till back to camp you go to surprise yourself at the breakfast you will eat, and with a relish such as never attends a city meal. Depend upon it there is a better doctor than the man of pills, a better medicine than druggists sell, for Nature is the great healer of

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Update history: This page originally created 2 March 2007. Latest update 2 June 2011