There is as much exhilaration in being out in a big rain and getting really rained through, as there is in being out in surf. It has nothing in common with the sensations that arise when, umbrellaed and mackintoshed and rubber-overshoed, we pick our way gingerly along the street, wondering how much we can keep dry, hoping everything is "up" all round, wishing the wind wouldn't keep changing and blowing the umbrella so, and fancying how we shall look when we "get there." But when you don't care--when you want to get wet, and do--there is a physical glow that is delightful, a sense of being washed through and through, of losing one's identity almost, and being washed away into the great swirl of nature where one doesn't count much, but is glad to be taken in as a part. I fancy this is true with any of the elements--earth, air, water. The tale of Antaeus was no mere legend; there is real strength for us in close contact with the earth. There is a purifying and uplifting potency in the winds, a potency in the waters--ocean and river and great rain. Our civilization has dealt with all these so successfully that we are apt to think of them as docile servants, or perhaps as petty annoyances, and we lose the sense of their power unless we deliberately go out to meet them in their own domain and let them have their way with us. Then, indeed, they sweep us out of ourselves for a season, and that is good. We came out from the thickets on a high, brushy field, sheeted in fine rain that dimmed even the near wood edges. Blackberries grew thick, and we made our way carefully among the briers, following the narrow and devious cow-paths. Suddenly we both stopped. Just ahead of us, under a blackberry bush, was a huge snapping-turtle. He was standing on his hind legs, with his fore legs resting on a branch loaded with fruit, his narrow dark head stretched far up and out, while he quietly ate berry after berry. He was a handsome fellow, with his big black shell all brilliant in the wetness of the rain. As he worked we could see his under side, and notice how it shaded to yellow along the sutures. It was a scene of contentment, and the berries, dripping with fresh raindrops, looked luscious indeed as he feasted. We stood and watched him for a while, and I got an entirely new idea of turtles. Turtles usually have too much reserve, too much self-consciousness, too little _abandon_, and I had never seen one so "come out of himself," literally and figuratively, as this fellow did. It made me want to follow up the acquaintance, this happy chance of finding him, so to speak, in his cups; but I repressed the desire, feeling that he might not share it, and we carefully backed away and went around by another path so as not to disturb the reveler. He never knew how much pleasure he had given as well as received. Into the woods again-- "Look out!" said Jonathan. "Don't step on the lizards!"