storm through the Highlands. In this particular it resembles the Duyvel's Dans Kamer. Cruger's Island, on the contrary, enjoys the distinction of never having been visited by death, even down to the present day. Above the Highlands, on the western shore of the river, the northern slope of Storm King declines into a bluff that is broken by numerous ravines, each at some time the bed of a watercourse. It is here that the village of Cornwall, with its many literary asso- ciations, pursues the quiet and orderly tenor of life. It was a secluded and almost unknown hamlet till it secured for the trumpeter of its delights a poet and a nature lover. At Idlewild, now part of Cornwall, the poet settled down to a life of busy idleness. He had been driven back to Eden, to borrow Mr. Roe's phrase, and he pro- posed to make the most of it. He superintended the laying-out of paths, the building of roads and dams; he cultivated the acquaintance of trees and wild flowers, protected the birds, and evinced a kindly fel- lowship for the frogs. To many of those who have read Willis's work, no part of it seems more satisfac- tory than the chatty, personal chronicle of nature happenings, the unforced record of his surroundings, as they appeared in the old Home Journal. It is difficult to estimate our indebtedness to him for his Digitized by.Microsoft® 394 The Hudson River example of appreciation in a field where most of his countrymen were stolidly unappreciative. Bryant went into the woods with uncovered head and found them cathedrals. His trees were all gothic columns, that ranged themselves in dim, churchly aisles. Autumn was a holy festival, and a pool in the woods was a sort of stoup of holy water. Drake went into the woods to find a background for a fairy tale. But Willis bought a glen with a brook in it, built his dams and bridges, delighted to note that his chestnut fence-posts sprouted, scraped acquaintance with feath- ered or furry neighbours, and loved his hemlock trees as though they had been human friends. To a genera- tion whose eyes had not been educated to see, and who generally understood that the country was designed by Providence as the place in which to raise com and potatoes, his letters were a revelation. They were the better for being reportorial rather than philosophical. If, from some dusty shelf corner, you take down a copy of Out-Doors at Idlewild, blow the dust of years from it, and settle yourself to read, you may presently say, " Burroughs would have done this better, or Brad- ford Torrey that." Very possibly. Please to recol- lect that Willis did it first. To-day every man — ^lawyer, physician, clergyman, hack, storekeeper, or clerk — finds his way at least once a year into- the country, where he follows his patron prophet, who has pointed out what he should enjoy and appreciate. The beauties of nature are now as Digitized by Microsoft® The Fisher's Reach 395 completely labelled as the trees in Central Park, but half a century ago the man who could write those old letters to the Home Journal was a discoverer. Those who attempted at first to follow him went in patent- leather boots; they scrambled in broadcloth over the rocks, and knocked silk hats against the branches ; but it was a beginning. The enchanted glen that has been famous for half a century, under the name of Idlewild, has escaped with marvellous strange fortune the destroying influences that have assailed so many Meccas. The house which the poet owned is to-day unaltered in any essential feature. The present holder of its title-deeds deserves the gratitude of those who have frequent occasion to deplore the demolition of local shrines. He has mine. My cottage at Idlewild [wrote Willis] is a pretty type of the two lives they live who are wise — the life in full view, which the world thinks all, and the life out of sight, of which the world knows nothing. You see its front porch from the thronged thoroughfares of the Hudson, but the grove behind it overhangs a deep down glen, tracked but by my own tangled paths, and the wild torrent which by turns they avoid and follow. That description, which might have been written yes- terday, has been applicable for nearly fifty years. Other hands trim the lawns and repair the drives; other eyes enjoy the beauty of the successive years of growth and developmeiit, but the place is still "Wil- lis's Idlewild," as though its eariier tenant — held in mortmain still his old estate. Digitized by Microsoft® 396 The Hudson River The drives are probably better kept and the lawns better groomed than