If we would once in a while romp the fields, we would not have so many last year's rose leaves in our sermons, but those just plucked, dewy and redolent.
We cannot see the natural world through the books or the eyes of others.
All this talk about "babbling brooks" is a stereotyped humbug.

Brooks never "babble." To babble is to be unintelligent and imperfect of tongue.

But when the brooks speak, they utter lessons of beauty that the dullest ear can understand.

We have wandered from the Androscoggin in Maine to the Tombigbee in Alabama, and we never found a brook, that "babbled." The people babble who talk about them, not knowing what a brook is.

We have heard about the nightingale and the morning lark till we tire of them.
Catch for your next prayer meeting talk a chewink or a brown thresher.