See America First

Hiestand, Orville O.

To Mr. and Mrs. Chas. J. Herr whose kind beneficence and interest in the Great Out-of-Doors made this book possible; these Wayside Sketches are affectionately dedicated

"I see the spectacle of morning from the hill tops over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long, slender bars of cloud float like golden fishes in the crimson light. From the earth, as from a shore, I look out into the silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. Give me health and a day and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

"To the body and mind which have been cramped by anxious work or company, Nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din and craft of the street and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In the eternal calm he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough."

—EMERSON.