William Bartlett - A Breeze from the Woods, 2nd Ed.

The greater number of the papers comprised in this volume were originally contributed to the Overland Monthly , and nearly in the order in which they now appear. Two essays, written at later dates, were printed in the Californian . The final paper of the series only, has been slightly abridged. It was originally prepared as a platform address, and still retains that distinctive character.

If these pages disclose more of the freedom of outdoor life than the philosophy born of private meditation, it is because the author loves the woods better than the town; the garden better than the low diet and high thinking of any philosopher (who goes above the clouds); and the friendships which have ripened under genial skies, better than all.

"Shall we go to the Springs this year?" asked a demure woman as she handed the tea and toast across the table.

Now there are more than five thousand springs in the Coast Range which have never been defiled. It isn't necessary for the preservation of one's mortal system that it should be daily saturated with a strong solution of potash or sulphur. As a pickle, I much prefer a few gallons dipped up from the ocean, or a spring bath from a little mountain stream. Do you think it is evidence of insanity in a hungry man to expect a wholesome dinner in a country hotel kept expressly for city boarders? We will have a vacation nevertheless. If our homes were in Paradise, I think we should need it. One might get tired even of looking at sapphire walls and golden pavements. Did you observe how promptly that artisan dropped his tools when he heard the mid-day warning? Many a man gets more than one significant warning to drop his tools – all his instruments of handicraft and brain work – at midsummer and be off. If he does not heed this protest of nature, there will come a day when the right hand will lose its cunning and the brain its best fibre. It is better to sit down wearily under the shadow of a great rock and take a new baptism from the ooze and drip, than to trudge on as a money-making pilgrim up the bald mountain, because forsooth some men have reached it at mid-day – and found nothing. What we need is not so much to seek something better in the long run than we have found. There may be a sweet, even throb to all the pulsations of domestic life, and no small comfort in gown and slippers, and the unfolding of the damp evening newspaper. But the heaven, of what sort it is, may seem a little fresher by leaving it for a month's airing. It is a point gained to break away from these old conditions and to go forth somewhat from one's self. The lobster breaks his shell and next time takes on a larger one. He is a better lobster for that one habit of his. The trouble with many men is that they never have but one shell, and have never expanded enough to fill that. They do not need a vacation, when the beginning and end of them is vacuity. It is possible that the horizon may shut down too closely about one and be too brazen withal; and that as we go the weary round the cycle of our own thoughts will be finished with every revolution of the earth. There is no great difference after all in a desert of sand and a desert of houses, when both by a law of association suggest eternal sameness and barrenness. There is a wearisome sameness in this human current which is shot through the narrow grooves of the great city. What inspiration does one get from this human concussion? Are there any sparks of divine fire struck off, or struck into a man by it? In all this jostling crowd is there any prophet who knows certainly what his dinner shall be on the morrow? The struggle is mainly one for beef and pudding, with some show of fine raiment, and possibly a clapboard house in which there is no end to stucco. The smallest fraction may yet be used to express the value of that element of civilization which teaches society how much it needs rather than how little will suffice.

Argenti, the banker, fared sumptuously every day. But you notice that he had the gout cruelly. You didn't find him at any fashionable watering-place last summer. His pavilion was under an oak tree, with the padding of a pair of blankets. His meat and drink for six weeks were broiled venison and spring water. What his rifle did not procure and the spring supply, he utterly refused to swallow. He went up the mountain-side with muffled feet and a vexed spirit. He came down per saltem singing something about the soul of one Brown, which he said was marching on. It is not necessary that our modern pulpiteers should go back to the diet of locusts and wild honey. But there is comfortable assurance that there is no gout in that fare. And if more of naturalness and fiery earnestness would come of that way of living, it might be worth the trial. There is fullness of meat and drink, and much leanness of soul. It only needs some manifestation of individuality, with an honest simplicity, to suggest a commission of lunacy.

"This," said the divinity who served the toast and tea, "is your vacation philosophy. How much of it are you going to reduce to practice?"

As much as we can crowd into three weeks, or more of rational living. There might be a charm in savage life if it were not for the fearfully white teeth of the wolf and the cannibal. There is nothing in Blot's book which teaches how a missionary should be cooked; and a roast pig, that pleasant adjunct, is only well done by the Fiji Islanders. And so, after some further discussion, oracular and otherwise, it was agreed that precedents should go for nothing; and that the vacation of three weeks should be spent with a rational regard for health, economy and pleasure. Ourselves, including a half-grown boy, would count three, and our neighbors – husband and wife – would make up the convenient number of five. It was agreed, moreover, that we should not enter a hotel, nor accept any private hospitality which included indoor lodging. No journey for the benefit of baggage smashers. No more notable incident will happen on this part of the planet, for some time to come, than the fact that two females, not averse to a fresh ribbon in spring-time, consented to a journey of three weeks without taking along a trunk of the size of a Swiss cottage, or so much as a single bandbox. Railroads, steamboats and stages were to be given over, as things wholly reprobate. There happened to be on the farm of one of the party three half-breed horses, well broken to harness and saddle. These, with a light, covered spring wagon, should suffice for all purposes of locomotion – a single span before the wagon, and the third horse with a saddle, to admit of an occasional change. The half-breed horses, which would not sell in the market for fifty dollars each, are the best in the world for such a campaign. They never stumble, are not frightened at a bit of bad road; under the saddle they will pick their own way, jumping over a log or a small stream with the nimbleness of a deer. A tether on the grass at night keeps them in good trim. Bred in the country, they are the proper equine companions with which to plunge into the forest and to go over unfrequented roads. They have an instinct which is marvelously acute. They will take the scent of a grizzly in the night sooner than the best trained dog, and are quite as courageous; for both dog and horse will break for camp at the first sniff of one of these monsters. When stage horses start on a tearing run over a mountain road at midnight, look for bear tracks in the morning. It is but fair to say that Bruin does not generally meddle with people who are not of a meddlesome turn of mind. When put upon his mettle, he goes in for a square fight; and as far as my scanty data may be relied upon, he whips in a majority of instances. A Henry rifle, two shot-guns, a small military tent, some heavy blankets, and a good supply of fishing-tackle, with two or three cooking utensils and some small stores, made up the equipment. No wonder-mongering was to be done. It was not in order, therefore, to go to the Big Trees, Yosemite or the Geysers. There are more wonders on a square mile of the Coast Range than most of us know anything about.