“What a strange diversity of tastes exists among the people of this world of ours,” said the Doctor, addressing himself to me, as we sat in front of our tents, listening to the roar of the waters.  “You and I, I take it, enjoy a fortnight or so, among these lakes, and old forests, with a keener relish than Spalding or Smith here.  I judge so, because we indulge in these trips every year, while this is their first adventure of the kind.  But even you and I, however much we may love the woods, however we may enjoy these occasional tramps among their shady solitudes, would not enjoy them as a residence; and yet I have sometimes thought I should love to spend the summers in a forest home, alone with nature, with my pen and books, a fishing-rod and rifle to supply my wants, and a friend to talk with occasionally.

“Many years ago, I was out on the Western prairies, some sixty days beyond the region of bread; we had encamped on the banks of a stream, along which a narrow belt of timber grew.  More than a quarter of a century has passed since I took that trip to look upon the Rocky Mountains.  There was no gold region laying beyond them then, or rather, the enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon had not discovered its existence, and the greed of the white man had not made the trail over the mountains, or through their dismal passes, a familiar way.  Along in the afternoon we were visited by a trapper, who had, in his wanderings, discovered the smoke of our camp fires.  He was a weather-beaten, iron man, of the solitudes of nature, who had wandered away from his home in New England, and from civilization, into that limitless wilderness.  He was glad to see us, inquired the news from the outer world, talked about York State, Vermont, the Bay State, and then, after an hour’s converse, as if his social instincts and sympathies had been satisfied, he shouldered his rifle and started off across the plain, towards a belt of timber lying dim and shadowy, like a low cloud, upon the distant horizon.  I watched him for an hour or more, as he trudged away over the rolling prairie, growing less and less to the view, until he became like a speck in the distance, and then vanished from my sight.  There was a solemn sort of feeling stole over me, as this lonely hunter wended his way into the deep solitudes of the prairies, to be alone with nature, communing only with himself and the things scattered around him by the great Creator.  He seemed to be contented and happy.  How different were his tastes from yours or mine, my friends; and yet I felt as though it would have been easy for me to have been like him, an isolated and solitary man, had circumstances in early life thrown me into a position to have followed the original bent of my nature.”