Almost every day, instead of going to school when I ought to have gone, I usually made for the fields, where I spent the day.

To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.

There is the morass, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, whereby one treads down the forests of Labrador; and the unexpected bunting or sylvia which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the ground creeping plant.

Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.

The Fur Company may be called the exterminating medium of these wild and almost uninhabitable regions, which cupidity or the love of money alone would induce man to venture into. Where can I now go and find nature undisturbed?

Almost every day, instead of going to school when I ought to have gone, I usually made for the fields, where I spent the day.

During all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.