A few years ago, while recovering from an illness, I conceived the idea of writing some reminiscent lines on country life in the Wayne Highlands. And during the interval of a few days I produced some five hundred couplets,—a few good, some bad and many indifferent—and such speed would of necessity invite the indifferent. A portion of these lines were published in 1907. However, I had hoped to revise and republish them, with additions of the same type, at a later date as a souvenir volume of verses for those who spend the summer months among these hills—as well as for the home-fast inhabitants. But in substituting the following collection of verses I hope my judgment will be confirmed by those who chance to read these simple stanzas of one, who—

"Loves not man the less, but Nature more
From those our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal."

(Summary by Irving Sydney Dix)