When All the Woods are Green - 1905 Author:Silas Weir Mitchell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III S they floated quietly down the river, close to shore, under birch and beech and pine and silky tamarack, the delight of open air, the pleasantnes... more »s of the shifting pictures, the delicate, changeful odors, even the charm of the motion, were keenly felt by Rose. She was falling under the subtle magic of this woodland life, and lazily accepting the unobservant, half-languid joy it brought. At last she said: " Papa, does it take you long to — well, to get away from your work, so that you can fully enjoy all this?" " Three or four days; not more. I like at once the feeling that I have nothing I must do. After awhile the habit of using the mind in some way reasserts its sway. At home I watch men. It is part of my stock in the business of the law. Here I readjust my mind, and it is nature I have learned to watch. I was not a born observer; I have made myself one. After a day or two on the water, I begin to notice the life of the woods; the birds, the insects. This grows on me day by day, and, I think, year by year. It is a very mild form of mental industry, but it suffices to fill the intervals of time when salmon will not rise."" It is so pleasant to drift!" " Yes; that is the charm of the life. Nobody elbows you here; no rude world jostles your moods. You may entertain the gentle melancholy of Pense- roso or the entire idleness of Adam before the apple tempted him. You may be gay and noisy,— no one is shocked; and then, the noble freedom of a flannel shirt and knickerbockers! Why do we ever go back ?" " There is a queer indefiniteness about it all to me," said Rose. "I cannot get into any full — I mean interested — relation with the life and all there is in it. I don't say just what I mean." " I see, Rose: from Rome to this is a long way,—' a far cry,' we ...« less