This reading had an unexpected effect upon me.
I could not seem to keep my mind down upon the printed page; it kept bounding away at the sight of the distant hills, at the sound of a woodpecker on a dead stub which stood near me, and at the thousand and one faint rustlings, creepings, murmurings, tappings, which animate the mystery of the forest.

How dull indeed appeared the printed page in comparison with the book of life, how shut-in its atmosphere, how tinkling and distant the sound of its voices.

Suddenly I shut my book with a snap.
"Musty coaches and Latin quotations!" I exclaimed.

"Montaigne's no writer for the open air.

He belongs at a study fire on a quiet evening!" I had anticipated, when I started out, many a pleasant hour by the roadside or in the woods with my books, but this was almost the first opportunity I had found for reading (as it was almost the last), so full was the present world of stirring events.