The splendid spectacle of a morning as new and wonderful as if there had never been another, drew his thoughts away from himself and his cares.  The dew was sparkling on the grass; the meadow larks were singing from every quarter of the fields through which he was passing; the great limbs of the trees were tossed by the fresh breezes of June.  Everywhere were color, music, fragrance, motion.  The burden rolled from his heart; remorse and guilt faded like dreams; the sad past lost its hold; the present and the future were radiant!  To even the worst of men, in such surroundings, there come moments of exemption from the ennui and shame of life, and to this deep soul which had issued, purified, from the fires through which it had passed, they lengthened into glorious hours, hours such as kindled on the lips of the poet those exultant and exquisite words: 

     “The year’s at the spring
     And day’s at the morn;
     Morning’s at seven;
     The hillside’s dew-pearled;

     “The lark’s on the wing;
     The snail’s on the thorn;
     God’s in his heaven—­
     All’s right with the world!”

He climbed a steep hillside, descended into a secluded and beautiful valley, pressed his way through dense underbrush, and while the day was still young stood on the spot where he had determined to lay the foundation of his cabin.

Two ranges of hills came together and enclosed it as if in giant arms.  Two pure crystal springs issued from clefts in the bases of these hills, and after flowing towards each other for perhaps a quarter of a mile, mingled their waters in a brawling brook.  It was at the point of their junction that David had determined to erect that primitive structure which has afforded a home to so many families in our American wildernesses.  He threw his bundle down and gazed with admiration on the scene.

Here was the virgin and unprofaned loveliness of Nature.  He felt her charm and prostrated himself before her shrine.  But he rendered to that invisible spirit of which these forms were only an imperfect manifestation, a worship deeper still, and by an instinct of pure adoration lifted his face toward the sky.

Having refreshed his soul by this communion, he drank a deep draught of the sparkling water at the point where the rivulets met.  Then he threw off his coat, took his axe in hand and selected a tree on which to begin his attack.

It was an enormous oak which, with roots struck deep into the soil and branches lifted high and spread wide in the air, had maintained itself successfully against innumerable foes for perhaps a thousand years.  He reflected long before he struck, for to him as to all lovers of nature there is a certain inviolable sacredness about a tree.

“Should you see me at the point of death,” said Rousseau, “carry me under the shade of an oak and I am persuaded I shall recover.”