If, as to this matter, any one doubts me, and has the good luck to camp
out long, and to have a variety of books of verse and prose, very soon,
if dainty of taste, he will find that the artificial flavoring of some
books is unpleasantly felt; but, after all, one does not read very much
when living thus outside of houses. Books are then, of course, well to
have, but rather as giving one texts for thoughts and talk than as
preachers, counsellors, jesters, or friends.

In my own wood-life or canoe journeys I used to wonder how little I read
or cared to read. One has nowadays many resources. If you sketch, no
matter how badly, it teaches and even exacts that close observation of
nature which brings in its train much that is to be desired. Photography
is a means of record, now so cheaply available as to be at the disposal
of all, and there is a great charm of a winter evening in turning over
sketch or photograph to recall anew the pleasant summer days. Beyond all
this, there is botany. I knew a lady who combined it happily and
ingeniously with photography, and so preserved pictures of plants in
their flowering state. When you are out under starry skies with breadth
of heaven in view, astronomy with an opera-glass--and Galileo's
telescope was no better--is an agreeable temptation which the cheap and
neat charts of the skies now to be readily obtained make very
interesting.

I should advise any young woman, indeed, any one who has the good chance
to live a camp-life, or to be much in the country, to keep a diary, not
of events but of things. I find myself that I go back to my old
note-books with increasing pleasure.

To make this resource available something more than the will to do it is
necessary. Take any nice young girl, who is reasonably educated, afloat