November 11, 2002

To a certain party who complained of the flowery terms in which I ocassionally couch my writing and to any others who wish an explanation:

Let he that scoffs walk alone in my beloved fields and the new woods which I have today explored, and see the ancient, friendly trees reaching for the red-golden sunlight, and there let him drink in the Presence of God, and if he is not moved to speak of greater beauty than I can express, he has a heart of stone and refuses to look on the truth when it is presented to him.

For I have today gleefully trespassed in wide forests cut by the old wagon roads, and I hope that the owners of that land (can one own such glory?) walk in it often, for it is not willed that beauty of that immensity should be wasted on an eye that will not see.

In closing I will remind those that read this that it is to me a joy to write, but none compells them to read.

~Ashley