The quality of a writer can best be judged by reading a whole chapter, or two or three, of his book, but sometimes he reveals a phase of himself in a single paragraph. Read, for instance, this brief extract from Roosevelt's "Through the Brazilian Wilderness," if you would understand some of the traits which I have just alluded to. It comes at the end of his long and dismaying exploration of the River of Doubt, when the party was safe at last, and the terrible river was about to flow into the broad, lakelike Amazon, and Manaos was almost in sight, where civilization could be laid hold on again, Manaos, whence the swift ships went steaming towards the Atlantic and the Atlantic opened a clear path home. He says: 'The North was calling strongly the three men of the North--Rocky Dell Farm to Cherrie, Sagamore Hill to me; and to Kermit the call was stronger still. After nightfall we could now see the Dipper well above the horizon--upside down with the two pointers pointing to a North Star below the world's rim; but the Dipper, with all its stars. In our home country spring had now come, the wonderful Northern spring of long, glorious days, of brooding twilight, of cool, delightful nights. Robin and bluebird, meadow-lark and song-sparrow were singing in the mornings at home; the maple buds were red; windflowers and bloodroot were blooming while the last patches of snow still lingered; the rapture of the hermit thrush in Vermont, the serene golden melody of the wood thrush on Long Island, would be heard before we were there to listen. Each was longing for the homely things that were so dear to him, for the home people who were dearer still, and for the one who was dearest of all.' * * Through the Brazilian Wilderness, 320. CHAPTER VI. APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS I have said that Roosevelt devoted the two years after he came back to New York to writing, but it would be a mistake to imagine that writing alone busied him. He was never a man who did or would do only one thing at a time. His immense energy craved variety, and in variety he found recreation. Now that the physical Roosevelt had caught up in relative strength with the intellectual, he could take what holidays requiring exhaustless bodily vigor he chose. The year seldom passed now when he did not go West for a month or two. Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow were established with their families on the Elkhorn Ranch, which Roosevelt continued to own, although, I believe, like many ranches at that period, it ceased to be a good investment. Sometimes he made a hurried dash to southern Texas, or to the Selkirks, or to Montana in search of new sorts of game. In the mountains he indulged in climbing, but this was not a favorite with him because it offered less sport in proportion to the fatigue. While he was still a young man he had gone up the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, feats which still required endurance, although they did not involve danger.