Great Possessions

Ray Stannard Baker (April 17, 1870 in Lansing, Michigan – July 12, 1946 in Amherst, Massachusetts)(also known by his pen name David Grayson) was an American journalist, historian, biographer, and author. Great Possessions "Good God, how sweet are all things here! How beautiful the fields appear! How cleanly do we feed and lie! Lord, what good hours do we keep! How quietly we sleep!" CHARLES COTTON (a friend of Izaak Walton) April 29th. I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods. I came out with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from me. ... As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of frogs from the swamp so steady and monotonous that it scarcely arrests attention. Of odours, a-plenty! Just behind me, so that by turning my head I can see into their cool green depths, are a number of hemlock trees, the breath of which is incalculably sweet. All the earth the very earth itself has a good rich growing odour, pleasant to smell.