THE COUNTRY. 117

 not loved as a brawling northern torrent is,
 which tumbles anxiously about among its bowl-
 ders, or turns a mill-wheel in a green meadow;
 one does not trust it as he trusts the narrow
 rivers, freckled with sunshine in shallows under
 their leaning alders, where bare-legged children
 wade about, or fish with crooked pins, and empty
 spools for floats. True, even in these friendly
 and familiar streams, Death has pulled a man
 under the brown water once in a while; but
 that was surely because, in the first place, he
 was careless, and afterwards did not heed the
 invitation of their pleasant shores, and was not
 quick enough to catch at the branches thrust
 out for his aid from kindly trees.

 Under a live-oak tree on the shore one puts
 his cheek down against the warm earth, and
 looks across the sweep of yellow water; on and
 on the eye travels, until the great waste of mul-
titudinous ripples is lost in the sky beyond;
the river pervades all space, it is supreme.
 It is easy to realize how a river commends
itself to the necessity of the soul for worship.