CHAPTER V

THE SCENERY OF QUEBEC; AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

About twelve o'clock this day, being in the Lower Town, I looked up at the signal-gun by the flagstaff on Cape Diamond, and saw a soldier up in the heavens there making preparations to fire it,--both he and the gun in bold relief against the sky. Soon after, being warned by the boom of the gun to look up again, there was only the cannon in the sky, the smoke just blowing away from it, as if the soldier, having touched it off, had concealed himself for effect, leaving the sound to echo grandly from shore to shore, and far up and down the river. This answered the purpose of a dinner-horn.

There are no such restaurants in Quebec or Montreal as there are in Boston. I hunted an hour or two in vain in this town to find one, till I lost my appetite. In one house, called a restaurant, where lunches were advertised, I found only tables covered with bottles and glasses innumerable, containing apparently a sample of every liquid that has been known since the earth dried up after the flood, but no scent of solid food did I perceive gross enough to excite a hungry mouse. In short, I saw nothing to tempt me there, but a large map of Canada against the wall. In another place I once more got as far as the bottles, and then asked for a bill of fare; was told to walk up stairs; had no bill of fare, nothing but fare. "Have you any pies or puddings?" I inquired, for I am obliged to keep my savageness in check by a low diet. "No, sir; we've nice mutton-chop, roast beef, beefsteak, cutlets," and so on. A burly Englishman, who was in the midst of the siege of a piece of roast beef, and of whom I have never had a front view to this day, turned half round, with his mouth half full, and remarked, "You'll find no pies nor puddings in Quebec, sir; they don't make any here." I found that it was even so, and therefore bought some musty cake and some fruit in the open market-place. This market-place by the waterside, where the old women sat by their tables in the open air, amid a dense crowd jabbering all languages, was the best place in Quebec to observe the people; and the ferry-boats, continually coming and going with their motley crews and cargoes, added much to the entertainment. I also saw them getting water from the river, for Quebec is supplied with water by cart and barrel. This city impressed me as wholly foreign and French, for I scarcely heard the sound of the English language in the streets. More than three fifths of the inhabitants are of French origin; and if the traveler did not visit the fortifications particularly, he might not be reminded that the English have any foothold here; and, in any case, if he looked no farther than Quebec, they would appear to have planted themselves in Canada only as they have in Spain at Gibraltar; and he who plants upon a rock cannot expect much increase. The novel sights and sounds by the waterside made me think of such ports as Boulogne, Dieppe, Rouen, and Havre-de-Grâce, which I have never seen; but I have no doubt that they present similar scenes. I was much amused from first to last with the sounds made by the charette and caleche drivers. It was that part of their foreign language that you heard the most of,--the French they talked to their horses,--and which they talked the loudest. It was a more novel sound to me than the French of conversation. The streets resounded with the cries, "_Qui donc!_" "_Marche tôt!_" I suspect that many of our horses which came from Canada would prick up their ears at these sounds. Of the shops, I was most attracted by those where furs and Indian works were sold, as containing articles of genuine Canadian manufacture. I have been told that two townsmen of mine, who were interested in horticulture, traveling once in Canada, and being in Quebec, thought it would be a good opportunity to obtain seeds of the real Canada crookneck squash. So they went into a shop where such things were advertised, and inquired for the same. The shopkeeper had the very thing they wanted. "But are you sure," they asked, "that these are the genuine Canada crookneck?" "Oh, yes, gentlemen," answered he, "they are a lot which I have received directly from Boston." I resolved that my Canada crookneck seeds should be such as had grown in Canada.

Too much has not been said about the scenery of Quebec. The fortifications of Cape Diamond are omnipresent. They preside, they frown over the river and surrounding country. You travel ten, twenty, thirty miles up or down the river's banks, you ramble fifteen miles amid the hills on either side, and then, when you have long since forgotten them, perchance slept on them by the way, at a turn of the road or of your body, there they are still, with their geometry against the sky. The child that is born and brought up thirty miles distant, and has never traveled to the city, reads his country's history, sees the level lines of the citadel amid the cloud-built citadels in the western horizon, and is told that that is Quebec. No wonder if Jacques Cartier's pilot exclaimed in Norman French, "Que bec!" (What a beak!) when he saw this cape, as some suppose. Every modern traveler involuntarily uses a similar expression. Particularly it is said that its sudden apparition on turning Point Levi makes a memorable impression on him who arrives by water. The view from Cape Diamond has been compared by European travelers with the most remarkable views of a similar kind in Europe, such as from Edinburgh Castle, Gibraltar, Cintra, and others, and preferred by many. A main peculiarity in this, compared with other views which I have beheld, is that it is from the ramparts of a fortified city, and not from a solitary and majestic river cape alone, that this view is obtained. I associate the beauty of Quebec with the steel-like and flashing air, which may be peculiar to that season of the year, in which the blue flowers of the succory and some late goldenrods and buttercups on the summit of Cape Diamond were almost my only companions,--the former bluer than the heavens they faced. Yet even I yielded in some degree to the influence of historical associations, and found it hard to attend to the geology of Cape Diamond or the botany of the Plains of Abraham. I still remember the harbor far beneath me, sparkling like silver in the sun, the answering highlands of Point Levi on the southeast, the frowning Cap Tourmente abruptly bounding the seaward view far in the northeast, the villages of Lorette and Charlesbourg on the north, and, further west, the distant Val Cartier, sparkling with white cottages, hardly removed by distance through the clear air,--not to mention a few blue mountains along the horizon in that direction. You look out from the ramparts of the citadel beyond the frontiers of civilization. Yonder small group of hills, according to the guide-book, forms "the portal of the wilds which are trodden only by the feet of the Indian hunters as far as Hudson's Bay." It is but a few years since Bouchette declared that the country ten leagues north of the British capital of North America was as little known as the middle of Africa. Thus the citadel under my feet, and all historical associations, were swept away again by an influence from the wilds and from Nature, as if the beholder had read her history,--an influence which, like the Great River itself, flowed from the Arctic fastnesses and Western forests with irresistible tide over all.

The most interesting object in Canada to me was the River St. Lawrence, known far and wide, and for centuries, as the Great River. Cartier, its discoverer, sailed up it as far as Montreal in 1535,--nearly a century before the coming of the Pilgrims; and I have seen a pretty accurate map of it so far, containing the city of "Hochelaga" and the river "Saguenay," in Ortelius's _Theatrum Orbis Terrarum_, printed at Antwerp in 1575,--the first edition having appeared in 1570,--in which the famous cities of "Norumbega" and "Orsinora" stand on the rough-blocked continent where New England is to-day, and the fabulous but unfortunate Isle of Demons, and Frislant, and others, lie off and on in the unfrequented sea, some of them prowling near what is now the course of the Cunard steamers. In this ponderous folio of the "Ptolemy of his age," said to be the first general atlas published after the revival of the sciences in Europe, only one page of which is devoted to the topography of the _Novus Orbis_, the St. Lawrence is the only large river, whether drawn from fancy or from observation, on the east side of North America. It was famous in Europe before the other rivers of North America were heard of, notwithstanding that the mouth of the Mississippi is said to have been discovered first, and its stream was reached by Soto not long after; but the St. Lawrence had attracted settlers to its cold shores long before the Mississippi, or even the Hudson, was known to the world. Schoolcraft was misled by Gallatin into saying that Narvaez discovered the Mississippi. De Vega does _not_ say so. The first explorers declared that the summer in that country was as warm as France, and they named one of the bays in the Gulf of St. Lawrence the Bay of Chaleur, or of warmth; but they said nothing about the winter being as cold as Greenland. In the manuscript account of Cartier's second voyage, attributed by some to that navigator himself, it is called "the greatest river, without comparison, that is known to have ever been seen." The savages told him that it was the "chemin du Canada,"--the highway to Canada,--"which goes so far that no man had ever been to the end that they had heard." The Saguenay, one of its tributaries, which the panorama has made known to New England within three years, is described by Cartier, in 1535, and still more particularly by Jean Alphonse, in 1542, who adds, "I think that this river comes from the sea of Cathay, for in this place there issues a strong current, and there runs there a terrible tide." The early explorers saw many whales and other sea-monsters far up the St. Lawrence. Champlain, in his map, represents a whale spouting in the harbor of Quebec, three hundred and sixty miles from what is called the mouth of the river; and Charlevoix takes his reader to the summit of Cape Diamond to see the "porpoises, white as snow," sporting on the surface of the harbor of Quebec. And Boucher says in 1664, "from there [Tadoussac] to Montreal is found a great quantity of _Marsouins blancs_." Several whales have been taken pretty high up the river since I was there. P. A. Gosse, in his "Canadian Naturalist," p. 171 (London, 1840), speaks of "the white dolphin of the St. Lawrence (_Delphinus Canadensis_)," as considered different from those of the sea. "The Natural History Society of Montreal offered a prize, a few years ago, for an essay on the _Cetacea_ of the St. Lawrence, which was, I believe, handed in." In Champlain's day it was commonly called "the Great River of Canada." More than one nation has claimed it. In Ogilby's "America of 1670," in the map _Novi Belgii_, it is called "De Groote River van Niew Nederlandt." It bears different names in different parts of its course, as it flows through what were formerly the territories of different nations. From the Gulf to Lake Ontario it is called at present the St. Lawrence; from Montreal to the same place it is frequently called the Cateraqui; and higher up it is known successively as the Niagara, Detroit, St. Clair, St. Mary's, and St. Louis rivers. Humboldt, speaking of the Orinoco, says that this name is unknown in the interior of the country; so likewise the tribes that dwell about the sources of the St. Lawrence have never heard the name which it bears in the lower part of its course. It rises near another father of waters,--the Mississippi,--issuing from a remarkable spring far up in the woods, called Lake Superior, fifteen hundred miles in circumference; and several other springs there are thereabouts which feed it. It makes such a noise in its tumbling down at one place as is heard all round the world. Bouchette, the Surveyor-General of the Canadas, calls it "the most splendid river on the globe;" says that it is two thousand statute miles long (more recent geographers make it four or five hundred miles longer); that at the Rivière du Sud it is eleven miles wide; at the Traverse, thirteen; at the Paps of Matane, twenty-five; at the Seven Islands, seventy-three; and at its mouth, from Cape Rosier to the Mingan Settlements in Labrador, near one hundred and five (?) miles wide. According to Captain Bayfield's recent chart it is about _ninety-six_ geographical miles wide at the latter place, measuring at right angles with the stream. It has much the largest estuary, regarding both length and breadth, of any river on the globe. Humboldt says that the River Plate, which has the broadest estuary of the South American rivers, is ninety-two geographical miles wide at its mouth; also he found the Orinoco to be more than three miles wide at five hundred and sixty miles from its mouth; but he does not tell us that ships of six hundred tons can sail up it so far, as they can up the St. Lawrence to Montreal,--an equal distance. If he had described a fleet of such ships at anchor in a city's port so far inland, we should have got a very different idea of the Orinoco. Perhaps Charlevoix describes the St. Lawrence truly as the most _navigable_ river in the world. Between Montreal and Quebec it averages about two miles wide. The tide is felt as far up as Three Rivers, four hundred and thirty-two miles, which is as far as from Boston to Washington. As far up as Cap aux Oyes, sixty or seventy miles below Quebec, Kalm found a great part of the plants near the shore to be marine, as glasswort (_Salicornia_), seaside pease (_Pisum maritimum_), sea-milkwort (_Glaux_), beach-grass (_Psamma arenaria_), seaside plantain (_Plantago maritima_), the sea-rocket (_Bunias cakile_), etc.

The geographer Guyot observes that the Marañon is three thousand miles long, and gathers its waters from a surface of a million and a half square miles; that the Mississippi is also three thousand miles long, but its basin covers only from eight to nine hundred thousand square miles; that the St. Lawrence is eighteen hundred miles long, and its basin covers more than a million square miles (Darby says five hundred thousand); and speaking of the lakes, he adds, "These vast fresh-water seas, together with the St. Lawrence, cover a surface of nearly one hundred thousand square miles, and it has been calculated that they contain about one half of all the fresh water on the surface of our planet." But all these calculations are necessarily very rude and inaccurate. Its tributaries, the Ottawa, St. Maurice, and Saguenay, are great rivers themselves. The latter is said to be more than one thousand (?) feet deep at its mouth, while its cliffs rise perpendicularly an equal distance above its surface. Pilots say there are no soundings till one hundred and fifty miles up the St. Lawrence. The greatest sounding in the river, given on Bayfield's chart of the gulf and river, is two hundred and twenty-eight fathoms. McTaggart, an engineer, observes that "the Ottawa is larger than all the rivers in Great Britain, were they running in one." The traveler Grey writes: "A dozen Danubes, Rhines, Taguses, and Thameses would be nothing to twenty miles of fresh water in breadth [as where he happened to be], from ten to forty fathoms in depth." And again: "There is not perhaps in the whole extent of this immense continent so fine an approach to it as by the river St. Lawrence. In the Southern States you have, in general, a level country for many miles inland; here you are introduced at once into a majestic scenery, where everything is on a grand scale,--mountains, woods, lakes, rivers, precipices, waterfalls."

We have not yet the data for a minute comparison of the St. Lawrence with the South American rivers; but it is obvious that, taking it in connection with its lakes, its estuary, and its falls, it easily bears off the palm from all the rivers on the globe; for though, as Bouchette observes, it may not carry to the ocean a greater volume of water than the Amazon and Mississippi, its surface and cubic mass are far greater than theirs. But, unfortunately, this noble river is closed by ice from the beginning of December to the middle of April. The arrival of the first vessel from England when the ice breaks up is, therefore, a great event, as when the salmon, shad, and alewives come up a river in the spring to relieve the famishing inhabitants on its banks. Who can say what would have been the history of this continent if, as has been suggested, this river had emptied into the sea where New York stands!

After visiting the Museum and taking one more look at the wall, I made haste to the Lord Sydenham steamer, which at five o'clock was to leave for Montreal. I had already taken a seat on deck, but finding that I had still an hour and a half to spare, and remembering that large map of Canada which I had seen in the parlor of the restaurant in my search after pudding, and realizing that I might never see the like out of the country, I returned thither, asked liberty to look at the map, rolled up the mahogany table, put my handkerchief on it, stood on it, and copied all I wanted before the maid came in and said to me standing on the table, "Some gentlemen want the room, sir;" and I retreated without having broken the neck of a single bottle, or my own, very thankful and willing to pay for all the solid food I had got. We were soon abreast of Cap Rouge, eight miles above Quebec, after we got under weigh. It was in this place, then called _Fort du France Roy_, that the Sieur de Roberval with his company, having sent home two of his three ships, spent the winter of 1542-43. It appears that they fared in the following manner (I translate from the original): "Each mess had only two loaves, weighing each a pound, and half a pound of beef. They ate pork for dinner, with half a pound of butter, and beef for supper, with about two handfuls of beans without butter. Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays they ate salted cod, and sometimes green, for dinner, with butter; and porpoise and beans for supper. Monsieur Roberval administered good justice, and punished each according to his offense. One, named Michel Gaillon, was hung for theft; John of Nantes was put in irons and imprisoned for his fault; and others were likewise put in irons; and many were whipped, both men and women; by which means they lived in peace and tranquillity." In an account of a voyage up this river, printed in the Jesuit Relations in the year 1664, it is said: "It was an interesting navigation for us in ascending the river from Cap Tourmente to Quebec, to see on this side and on that, for the space of eight leagues, the farms and the houses of the company, built by our French, all along these shores. On the right, the seigniories of Beauport, of Notre Dame des Anges; and on the left, this beautiful Isle of Orleans." The same traveler names among the fruits of the country observed at the Isles of Richelieu, at the head of Lake St. Peter, "kinds (_des espèces_) of little apples or haws (_senelles_), and of pears, which only ripen with the frost."

Night came on before we had passed the high banks. We had come from Montreal to Quebec in one night. The return voyage, against the stream, takes but an hour longer. Jacques Cartier, the first white man who is known to have ascended this river, thus speaks of his voyage from what is now Quebec to the foot of Lake St. Peter, or about half-way to Montreal: "From the said day, the 19th, even to the 28th of the said month [September, 1535], we had been navigating up the said river without losing hour or day, during which time we had seen and found as much country and lands as level as we could desire, full of the most beautiful trees in the world," which he goes on to describe. But we merely slept and woke again to find that we had passed through all that country which he was eight days in sailing through. He must have had a troubled sleep. We were not long enough on the river to realize that it had length; we got only the impression of its breadth, as if we had passed over a lake a mile or two in breadth and several miles long, though we might thus have slept through a European kingdom. Being at the head of Lake St. Peter, on the above-mentioned 28th of September, dealing with the natives, Cartier says: "We inquired of them by signs if this was the route to Hochelaga [Montreal]; and they answered that it was, and that there were yet three days' journeys to go there." He finally arrived at Hochelaga on the 2d of October.

When I went on deck at dawn we had already passed through Lake St. Peter, and saw islands ahead of us. Our boat advancing with a strong and steady pulse over the calm surface, we felt as if we were permitted to be awake in the scenery of a dream. Many vivacious Lombardy poplars along the distant shores gave them a novel and lively, though artificial, look, and contrasted strangely with the slender and graceful elms on both shores and islands. The church of Varennes, fifteen miles from Montreal, was conspicuous at a great distance before us, appearing to belong to, and rise out of, the river; and now, and before, Mount Royal indicated where the city was. We arrived about seven o'clock, and set forth immediately to ascend the mountain, two miles distant, going across lots in spite of numerous signs threatening the severest penalties to trespassers, past an old building known as the MacTavish property,--Simon MacTavish, I suppose, whom Silliman refers to as "in a sense the founder of the Northwestern Company." His tomb was behind in the woods, with a remarkably high wall and higher monument. The family returned to Europe. He could not have imagined how dead he would be in a few years, and all the more dead and forgotten for being buried under such a mass of gloomy stone, where not even memory could get at him without a crowbar. Ah! poor man, with that last end of his! However, he may have been the worthiest of mortals for aught that I know. From the mountain-top we got a view of the whole city; the flat, fertile, extensive island; the noble sea of the St. Lawrence swelling into lakes; the mountains about St. Hyacinthe, and in Vermont and New York; and the mouth of the Ottawa in the west, overlooking that St. Anne's where the voyageur sings his "parting hymn," and bids adieu to civilization,--a name, thanks to Moore's verses, the most suggestive of poetic associations of any in Canada. We, too, climbed the hill which Cartier, first of white men, ascended, and named Mont-real (the 3d of October, O. S., 1535), and, like him, "we saw the said river as far as we could see, _grand_, _large_, _et spacieux_, going to the southwest," toward that land whither Donnacona had told the discoverer that he had been a month's journey from Canada, where there grew "_force Canelle et Girofle_," much cinnamon and cloves, and where also, as the natives told him, were three great lakes and afterward _une mer douce_,--a sweet sea,--_de laquelle n'est mention avoir vu le bout_, of which there is no mention to have seen the end. But instead of an Indian town far in the interior of a new world, with guides to show us where the river came from, we found a splendid and bustling stone-built city of white men, and only a few squalid Indians offered to sell us baskets at the Lachine Railroad Depot, and Hochelaga is, perchance, but the fancy name of an engine company or an eating-house.

We left Montreal Wednesday, the 2d of October, late in the afternoon. In the La Prairie cars the Yankees made themselves merry, imitating the cries of the charette-drivers to perfection, greatly to the amusement of some French-Canadian travelers, and they kept it up all the way to Boston. I saw one person on board the boat at St. Johns, and one or two more elsewhere in Canada, wearing homespun gray greatcoats, or capotes, with conical and comical hoods, which fell back between their shoulders like small bags, ready to be turned up over the head when occasion required, though a hat usurped that place now. They looked as if they would be convenient and proper enough as long as the coats were new and tidy, but would soon come to have a beggarly and unsightly look, akin to rags and dust-holes. We reached Burlington early in the morning, where the Yankees tried to pass off their Canada coppers, but the newsboys knew better. Returning through the Green Mountains, I was reminded that I had not seen in Canada such brilliant autumnal tints as I had previously seen in Vermont. Perhaps there was not yet so great and sudden a contrast with the summer heats in the former country as in these mountain valleys. As we were passing through Ashburnham, by a new white house which stood at some distance in a field, one passenger exclaimed, so that all in the car could hear him, "There, there's not so good a house as that in all Canada!" I did not much wonder at his remark, for there is a neatness, as well as evident prosperity, a certain elastic easiness of circumstances, so to speak, when not rich, about a New England house, as if the proprietor could at least afford to make repairs in the spring, which the Canadian houses do not suggest. Though of stone, they are no better constructed than a stone barn would be with us; the only building, except the château, on which money and taste are expended, being the church. In Canada an ordinary New England house would be mistaken for the château, and while every village here contains at least several gentlemen or "squires," _there_ there is but one to a seigniory.

I got home this Thursday evening, having spent just one week in Canada and traveled eleven hundred miles. The whole expense of this journey, including two guide-books and a map, which cost one dollar twelve and a half cents, was twelve dollars seventy-five cents. I do not suppose that I have seen all British America; that could not be done by a cheap excursion, unless it were a cheap excursion to the Icy Sea, as seen by Hearne or Mackenzie, and then, no doubt, some interesting features would be omitted. I wished to go a little way behind the word _Canadense_, of which naturalists make such frequent use; and I should like still right well to make a longer excursion on foot through the wilder parts of Canada, which perhaps might be called _Iter Canadense_.

NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS[3]

Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea-breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.

Within the circuit of this plodding life, There enter moments of an azure hue, Untarnished fair as is the violet Or anemone, when the spring strews them By some meandering rivulet, which make The best philosophy untrue that aims But to console man for his grievances. I have remembered, when the winter came, High in my chamber in the frosty nights, When in the still light of the cheerful moon, On every twig and rail and jutting spout, The icy spears were adding to their length Against the arrows of the coming sun, How in the shimmering noon of summer past Some unrecorded beam slanted across The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew; Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind, The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill, Which now through all its course stands still and dumb, Its own memorial,--purling at its play Along the slopes, and through the meadows next, Until its youthful sound was hushed at last In the staid current of the lowland stream; Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned, And where the fieldfare followed in the rear, When all the fields around lay bound and hoar Beneath a thick integument of snow. So by God's cheap economy made rich To go upon my winter's task again.

I am singularly refreshed in winter when I hear of service-berries, poke-weed, juniper. Is not heaven made up of these cheap summer glories? There is a singular health in those words, Labrador and East Main, which no desponding creed recognizes. How much more than Federal are these States! If there were no other vicissitudes than the seasons, our interest would never tire. Much more is adoing than Congress wots of. What journal do the persimmon and the buckeye keep, and the sharp-shinned hawk? What is transpiring from summer to winter in the Carolinas, and the Great Pine Forest, and the Valley of the Mohawk? The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization. On this side all lands present only the symptoms of decay. I see but Bunker Hill and Sing-Sing, the District of Columbia and Sullivan's Island, with a few avenues connecting them. But paltry are they all beside one blast of the east or the south wind which blows over them.

In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would be pale and livid. Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so. There is no scent in it so wholesome as that of the pines, nor any fragrance so penetrating and restorative as the life-everlasting in high pastures. I would keep some book of natural history always by me as a sort of elixir, the reading of which should restore the tone of the system. To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health. To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty no harm nor disappointment can come. The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature. Surely good courage will not flag here on the Atlantic border, as long as we are flanked by the Fur Countries. There is enough in that sound to cheer one under any circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock, and the pine will not countenance despair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the Esquimaux sledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the northern night the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who would toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's consolation. What is any man's discourse to me, if I am not sensible of something in it as steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? In it the woods must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am not constantly greeted and refreshed as by the flux of sparkling streams. Surely joy is the condition of life. Think of the young fry that leap in ponds, the myriads of insects ushered into being on a summer evening, the incessant note of the hyla with which the woods ring in the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly carrying accident and change painted in a thousand hues upon its wings, or the brook minnow stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of whose scales, worn bright by the attrition, is reflected upon the bank!

We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle; but if a man sleep soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn. It is the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cupboard, which the great pulse of nature vibrates by and through each instant. When we lift our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears with smoke and rattle like the cars on a railroad. When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life,--how silent and unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses must be considered from the holiest, quietest nook. What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior. I am pleased to learn that Thales was up and stirring by night not unfrequently, as his astronomical discoveries prove. Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird, quadruped and biped. Science is always brave; for to know is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts that follow in her train. But cowardice is unscientific; for there cannot be a science of ignorance. There may be a science of bravery, for that advances; but a retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is, then is it an orderly advance in the face of circumstances.

But to draw a little nearer to our promised topics. Entomology extends the limits of being in a new direction, so that I walk in nature with a sense of greater space and freedom. It suggests besides, that the universe is not rough-hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will bear the closest inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; every part is full of life. I explore, too, with pleasure, the sources of the myriad sounds which crowd the summer noon, and which seem the very grain and stuff of which eternity is made. Who does not remember the shrill roll-call of the harvest-fly? There were ears for these sounds in Greece long ago, as Anacreon's ode will show.

"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada, For on the tops of the trees, Drinking a little dew, Like any king thou singest, For thine are they all, Whatever thou seest in the fields, And whatever the woods bear. Thou art the friend of the husbandmen, In no respect injuring any one; And thou art honored among men, Sweet prophet of summer. The Muses love thee, And Phœbus himself loves thee, And has given thee a shrill song; Age does not wrack thee, Thou skillful, earthborn, song-loving, Unsuffering, bloodless one; Almost thou art like the gods."

In the autumn days, the creaking of crickets is heard at noon over all the land, and as in summer they are heard chiefly at nightfall, so then by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of the year. Nor can all the vanities that vex the world alter one whit the measure that night has chosen. Every pulse-beat is in exact time with the cricket's chant and the tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate with these if you can.

About two hundred and eighty birds either reside permanently in the State, or spend the summer only, or make us a passing visit. Those which spend the winter with us have obtained our warmest sympathy. The nuthatch and chickadee flitting in company through the dells of the wood, the one harshly scolding at the intruder, the other with a faint lisping note enticing him on; the jay screaming in the orchard; the crow cawing in unison with the storm; the partridge, like a russet link extended over from autumn to spring, preserving unbroken the chain of summers; the hawk with warrior-like firmness abiding the blasts of winter; the robin[4] and lark lurking by warm springs in the woods; the familiar snowbird culling a few seeds in the garden or a few crumbs in the yard; and occasionally the shrike, with heedless and unfrozen melody bringing back summer again:--

His steady sails he never furls At any time o' year, And perching now on Winter's curls, He whistles in his ear.

As the spring advances, and the ice is melting in the river, our earliest and straggling visitors make their appearance. Again does the old Teian poet sing as well for New England as for Greece, in the

RETURN OF SPRING

Behold, how, Spring appearing, The Graces send forth roses; Behold, how the wave of the sea Is made smooth by the calm; Behold, how the duck dives; Behold, how the crane travels; And Titan shines constantly bright. The shadows of the clouds are moving; The works of man shine; The earth puts forth fruits; The fruit of the olive puts forth. The cup of Bacchus is crowned, Along the leaves, along the branches, The fruit, bending them down, flourishes.

The ducks alight at this season in the still water, in company with the gulls, which do not fail to improve an east wind to visit our meadows, and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves, and diving to peck at the root of the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has not loosened. The first flock of geese is seen beating to north, in long harrows and waving lines; the jingle of the song sparrow salutes us from the shrubs and fences; the plaintive note of the lark comes clear and sweet from the meadow; and the bluebird, like an azure ray, glances past us in our walk. The fish hawk, too, is occasionally seen at this season sailing majestically over the water, and he who has once observed it will not soon forget the majesty of its flight. It sails the air like a ship of the line, worthy to struggle with the elements, falling back from time to time like a ship on its beam ends, and holding its talons up as if ready for the arrows, in the attitude of the national bird. It is a great presence, as of the master of river and forest. Its eye would not quail before the owner of the soil, but make him feel like an intruder on its domains. And then its retreat, sailing so steadily away, is a kind of advance. I have by me one of a pair of ospreys, which have for some years fished in this vicinity, shot by a neighboring pond, measuring more than two feet in length, and six in the stretch of its wings. Nuttall mentions that "the ancients, particularly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys taught their young to gaze at the sun, and those who were unable to do so were destroyed. Linnæus even believed, on ancient authority, that one of the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while the other was partly webbed, so that it could swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the other." But that educated eye is now dim, and those talons are nerveless. Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over Parnassus.

The booming of the bittern, described by Goldsmith and Nuttall, is frequently heard in our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding like a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty morning in some distant farm-yard. The manner in which this sound is produced I have not seen anywhere described. On one occasion, the bird has been seen by one of my neighbors to thrust its bill into the water, and suck up as much as it could hold, then, raising its head, it pumped it out again with four or five heaves of the neck, throwing it two or three feet, and making the sound each time.

At length the summer's eternity is ushered in by the cackle of the flicker among the oaks on the hillside, and a new dynasty begins with calm security.

In May and June the woodland quire is in full tune, and, given the immense spaces of hollow air, and this curious human ear, one does not see how the void could be better filled.

Each summer sound Is a summer round.

As the season advances, and those birds which make us but a passing visit depart, the woods become silent again, and but few feathers ruffle the drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may still find a response and expression for every mood in the depths of the wood.

Sometimes I hear the veery's[5] clarion, Or brazen trump of the impatient jay, And in secluded woods the chickadee Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise Of heroes, and set forth the loveliness Of virtue evermore.

The phœbe still sings in harmony with the sultry weather by the brink of the pond, nor are the desultory hours of noon in the midst of the village without their minstrel.

Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays The vireo rings the changes sweet, During the trivial summer days, Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.

With the autumn begins in some measure a new spring. The plover is heard whistling high in the air over the dry pastures, the finches flit from tree to tree, the bobolinks and flickers fly in flocks, and the goldfinch rides on the earliest blast, like a winged hyla peeping amid the rustle of the leaves. The crows, too, begin now to congregate; you may stand and count them as they fly low and straggling over the landscape, singly or by twos and threes, at intervals of half a mile, until a hundred have passed.

I have seen it suggested somewhere that the crow was brought to this country by the white man; but I shall as soon believe that the white man planted these pines and hemlocks. He is no spaniel to follow our steps; but rather flits about the clearings like the dusky spirit of the Indian, reminding me oftener of Philip and Powhatan than of Winthrop and Smith. He is a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight, by just so lasting a tenure does superstition hold the world ever; there is the rook in England, and the crow in New England.

Thou dusky spirit of the wood, Bird of an ancient brood, Flitting thy lonely way, A meteor in the summer's day, From wood to wood, from hill to hill, Low over forest, field, and rill, What wouldst thou say? Why shouldst thou haunt the day? What makes thy melancholy float? What bravery inspires thy throat, And bears thee up above the clouds, Over desponding human crowds, Which far below Lay thy haunts low?

The late walker or sailor, in the October evenings, may hear the murmurings of the snipe, circling over the meadows, the most spirit-like sound in nature; and still later in the autumn, when the frosts have tinged the leaves, a solitary loon pays a visit to our retired ponds, where he may lurk undisturbed till the season of moulting is passed, making the woods ring with his wild laughter. This bird, the Great Northern Diver, well deserves its name; for when pursued with a boat, it will dive, and swim like a fish under water, for sixty rods or more, as fast as a boat can be paddled, and its pursuer, if he would discover his game again, must put his ear to the surface to hear where it comes up. When it comes to the surface, it throws the water off with one shake of its wings, and calmly swims about until again disturbed.

These are the sights and sounds which reach our senses oftenest during the year. But sometimes one hears a quite new note, which has for background other Carolinas and Mexicos than the books describe, and learns that his ornithology has done him no service.

It appears from the Report that there are about forty quadrupeds belonging to the State, and among these one is glad to hear of a few bears, wolves, lynxes, and wildcats.

When our river overflows its banks in the spring, the wind from the meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far off then. I am affected by the sight of the cabins of the muskrat, made of mud and grass, and raised three or four feet along the river, as when I read of the barrows of Asia. The muskrat is the beaver of the settled States. Their number has even increased within a few years in this vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the Merrimack, the Concord is known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The Indians are said to have called it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its current being much more sluggish and its water more muddy than the rest, it abounds more in fish and game of every kind. According to the History of the town, "The fur-trade was here once very important. As early as 1641, a company was formed in the colony, of which Major Willard of Concord was superintendent, and had the exclusive right to trade with the Indians in furs and other articles; and for this right they were obliged to pay into the public treasury one twentieth of all the furs they obtained." There are trappers in our midst still, as well as on the streams of the far West, who night and morning go the round of their traps, without fear of the Indian. One of these takes from one hundred and fifty to two hundred muskrats in a year, and even thirty-six have been shot by one man in a day. Their fur, which is not nearly as valuable as formerly, is in good condition in the winter and spring only; and upon the breaking up of the ice, when they are driven out of their holes by the water, the greatest number is shot from boats, either swimming or resting on their stools, or slight supports of grass and reeds, by the side of the stream. Though they exhibit considerable cunning at other times, they are easily taken in a trap, which has only to be placed in their holes, or wherever they frequent, without any bait being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with their musk. In the winter the hunter cuts holes in the ice, and shoots them when they come to the surface. Their burrows are usually in the high banks of the river, with the entrance under water, and rising within to above the level of high water. Sometimes their nests, composed of dried meadow-grass and flags, may be discovered where the bank is low and spongy, by the yielding of the ground under the feet. They have from three to seven or eight young in the spring.

Frequently, in the morning or evening, a long ripple is seen in the still water, where a muskrat is crossing the stream, with only its nose above the surface, and sometimes a green bough in its mouth to build its house with. When it finds itself observed, it will dive and swim five or six rods under water, and at length conceal itself in its hole, or the weeds. It will remain under water for ten minutes at a time, and on one occasion has been seen, when undisturbed, to form an air-bubble under the ice, which contracted and expanded as it breathed at leisure. When it suspects danger on shore, it will stand erect like a squirrel, and survey its neighborhood for several minutes, without moving.

In the fall, if a meadow intervene between their burrows and the stream, they erect cabins of mud and grass, three or four feet high, near its edge. These are not their breeding-places, though young are sometimes found in them in late freshets, but rather their hunting-lodges, to which they resort in the winter with their food, and for shelter. Their food consists chiefly of flags and fresh-water mussels, the shells of the latter being left in large quantities around their lodges in the spring.

The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin of a muskrat, with the legs and tail dangling, and the head caught under his girdle, for a pouch, into which he puts his fishing-tackle, and essences to scent his traps with.

The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the mink is less common than formerly.

Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation, from the time of Pilpay and Æsop to the present day. His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair. I am curious to know what has determined its graceful curvatures, and how surely they were coincident with the fluctuations of some mind. I know which way a mind wended, what horizon it faced, by the setting of these tracks, and whether it moved slowly or rapidly, by their greater or less intervals and distinctness; for the swiftest step leaves yet a lasting trace. Sometimes you will see the trails of many together, and where they have gamboled and gone through a hundred evolutions, which testify to a singular listlessness and leisure in nature.

When I see a fox run across the pond on the snow, with the carelessness of freedom, or at intervals trace his course in the sunshine along the ridge of a hill, I give up to him sun and earth as to their true proprietor. He does not go in the sun, but it seems to follow him, and there is a visible sympathy between him and it. Sometimes, when the snow lies light and but five or six inches deep, you may give chase and come up with one on foot. In such a case he will show a remarkable presence of mind, choosing only the safest direction, though he may lose ground by it. Notwithstanding his fright, he will take no step which is not beautiful. His pace is a sort of leopard canter, as if he were in no wise impeded by the snow, but were husbanding his strength all the while. When the ground is uneven, the course is a series of graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put his fore feet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so softly that you would hardly hear it from any nearness, and yet with such expression that it would not be quite inaudible at any distance.

Of fishes, seventy-five genera and one hundred and seven species are described in the Report. The fisherman will be startled to learn that there are but about a dozen kinds in the ponds and streams of any inland town; and almost nothing is known of their habits. Only their names and residence make one love fishes. I would know even the number of their fin-rays, and how many scales compose the lateral line. I am the wiser in respect to all knowledges, and the better qualified for all fortunes, for knowing that there is a minnow in the brook. Methinks I have need even of his sympathy, and to be his fellow in a degree.

I have experienced such simple delight in the trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly, as might have inspired the muse of Homer or Shakespeare; and now, when I turn the pages and ponder the plates of the Angler's Souvenir, I am fain to exclaim,--

"Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud?"

Next to nature, it seems as if man's actions were the most natural, they so gently accord with her. The small seines of flax stretched across the shallow and transparent parts of our river are no more intrusion than the cobweb in the sun. I stay my boat in mid-current, and look down in the sunny water to see the civil meshes of his nets, and wonder how the blustering people of the town could have done this elvish work. The twine looks like a new river-weed, and is to the river as a beautiful memento of man's presence in nature, discovered as silently and delicately as a footprint in the sand.

When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain! The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again.

Early in the spring, after the ice has melted, is the time for spearing fish. Suddenly the wind shifts from northeast and east to west and south, and every icicle, which has tinkled on the meadow grass so long, trickles down its stem, and seeks its level unerringly with a million comrades. The steam curls up from every roof and fence.

I see the civil sun drying earth's tears, Her tears of joy, which only faster flow.

In the brooks is heard the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice, floating with various speed, full of content and promise, and where the water gurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts hold conversation in an undertone. Every rill is a channel for the juices of the meadow. In the ponds the ice cracks with a merry and inspiriting din, and down the larger streams is whirled grating hoarsely, and crashing its way along, which was so lately a highway for the woodman's team and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees anxiously inspect the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye-force to intercede with the ice and save the treasury.

The river swelleth more and more, Like some sweet influence stealing o'er The passive town; and for a while Each tussock makes a tiny isle, Where, on some friendly Ararat, Resteth the weary water-rat.

No ripple shows Musketaquid, Her very current e'en is hid, As deepest souls do calmest rest When thoughts are swelling in the breast, And she that in the summer's drought Doth make a rippling and a rout, Sleeps from Nahshawtuck to the Cliff, Unruffled by a single skiff. But by a thousand distant hills The louder roar a thousand rills, And many a spring which now is dumb, And many a stream with smothered hum, Doth swifter well and faster glide, Though buried deep beneath the tide. Our village shows a rural Venice, Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is; As lovely as the Bay of Naples Yon placid cove amid the maples; And in my neighbor's field of corn I recognize the Golden Horn.

Here Nature taught from year to year, When only red men came to hear,-- Methinks 't was in this school of art Venice and Naples learned their part; But still their mistress, to my mind, Her young disciples leaves behind.

The fisherman now repairs and launches his boat. The best time for spearing is at this season, before the weeds have begun to grow, and while the fishes lie in the shallow water, for in summer they prefer the cool depths, and in the autumn they are still more or less concealed by the grass. The first requisite is fuel for your crate; and for this purpose the roots of the pitch pine are commonly used, found under decayed stumps, where the trees have been felled eight or ten years.

With a crate, or jack, made of iron hoops, to contain your fire, and attached to the bow of your boat about three feet from the water, a fish-spear with seven tines and fourteen feet long, a large basket or barrow to carry your fuel and bring back your fish, and a thick outer garment, you are equipped for a cruise. It should be a warm and still evening; and then, with a fire crackling merrily at the prow, you may launch forth like a cucullo into the night. The dullest soul cannot go upon such an expedition without some of the spirit of adventure; as if he had stolen the boat of Charon and gone down the Styx on a midnight expedition into the realms of Pluto. And much speculation does this wandering star afford to the musing night-walker, leading him on and on, jack-o'-lantern-like, over the meadows; or, if he is wiser, he amuses himself with imagining what of human life, far in the silent night, is flitting moth-like round its candle. The silent navigator shoves his craft gently over the water, with a smothered pride and sense of benefaction, as if he were the phosphor, or light-bringer, to these dusky realms, or some sister moon, blessing the spaces with her light. The waters, for a rod or two on either hand and several feet in depth, are lit up with more than noonday distinctness, and he enjoys the opportunity which so many have desired, for the roofs of a city are indeed raised, and he surveys the midnight economy of the fishes. There they lie in every variety of posture; some on their backs, with their white bellies uppermost, some suspended in mid-water, some sculling gently along with a dreamy motion of the fins, and others quite active and wide awake,--a scene not unlike what the human city would present. Occasionally he will encounter a turtle selecting the choicest morsels, or a muskrat resting on a tussock. He may exercise his dexterity, if he sees fit, on the more distant and active fish, or fork the nearer into his boat, as potatoes out of a pot, or even take the sound sleepers with his hands. But these last accomplishments he will soon learn to dispense with, distinguishing the real object of his pursuit, and find compensation in the beauty and never-ending novelty of his position. The pines growing down to the water's edge will show newly as in the glare of a conflagration; and as he floats under the willows with his light, the song sparrow will often wake on her perch, and sing that strain at midnight which she had meditated for the morning. And when he has done, he may have to steer his way home through the dark by the north star, and he will feel himself some degrees nearer to it for having lost his way on the earth.

The fishes commonly taken in this way are pickerel, suckers, perch, eels, pouts, breams, and shiners,--from thirty to sixty weight in a night. Some are hard to be recognized in the unnatural light, especially the perch, which, his dark bands being exaggerated, acquires a ferocious aspect. The number of these transverse bands, which the Report states to be seven, is, however, very variable, for in some of our ponds they have nine and ten even.

It appears that we have eight kinds of tortoises, twelve snakes,--but one of which is venomous,--nine frogs and toads, nine salamanders, and one lizard, for our neighbors.

I am particularly attracted by the motions of the serpent tribe. They make our hands and feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the fish seem very superfluous, as if Nature had only indulged her fancy in making them. The black snake will dart into a bush when pursued, and circle round and round with an easy and graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs, five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits from bough to bough, or hang in festoons between the forks. Elasticity and flexibleness in the simpler forms of animal life are equivalent to a complex system of limbs in the higher; and we have only to be as wise and wily as the serpent, to perform as difficult feats without the vulgar assistance of hands and feet.

In May, the snapping turtle (_Emysaurus serpentina_) is frequently taken on the meadows and in the river. The fisherman, taking sight over the calm surface, discovers its snout projecting above the water, at the distance of many rods, and easily secures his prey through its unwillingness to disturb the water by swimming hastily away, for, gradually drawing its head under, it remains resting on some limb or clump of grass. Its eggs, which are buried at a distance from the water, in some soft place, as a pigeon-bed, are frequently devoured by the skunk. It will catch fish by daylight, as a toad catches flies, and is said to emit a transparent fluid from its mouth to attract them.

Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in the bower. When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor has been there before me; my most delicate experience is typified there. I am struck with the pleasing friendships and unanimities of nature, as when the lichen on the trees takes the form of their leaves. In the most stupendous scenes you will see delicate and fragile features, as slight wreaths of vapor, dew-lines, feathery sprays, which suggest a high refinement, a noble blood and breeding, as it were. It is not hard to account for elves and fairies; they represent this light grace, this ethereal gentility. Bring a spray from the wood, or a crystal from the brook, and place it on your mantel, and your household ornaments will seem plebeian beside its nobler fashion and bearing. It will wave superior there, as if used to a more refined and polished circle. It has a salute and a response to all your enthusiasm and heroism.

In the winter, I stop short in the path to admire how the trees grow up without forethought, regardless of the time and circumstances. They do not wait as man does, but now is the golden age of the sapling. Earth, air, sun, and rain are occasion enough; they were no better in primeval centuries. The "winter of _their_ discontent" never comes. Witness the buds of the native poplar standing gayly out to the frost on the sides of its bare switches. They express a naked confidence. With cheerful heart one could be a sojourner in the wilderness, if he were sure to find there the catkins of the willow or the alder. When I read of them in the accounts of northern adventurers, by Baffin's Bay or Mackenzie's River, I see how even there, too, I could dwell. They are our little vegetable redeemers. Methinks our virtue will hold out till they come again. They are worthy to have had a greater than Minerva or Ceres for their inventor. Who was the benignant goddess that bestowed them on mankind?

Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as art. Having a pilgrim's cup to make, she gives to the whole--stem, bowl, handle, and nose--some fantastic shape, as if it were to be the car of some fabulous marine deity, a Nereus or Triton.

In the winter, the botanist need not confine himself to his books and herbarium, and give over his outdoor pursuits, but may study a new department of vegetable physiology, what may be called crystalline botany, then. The winter of 1837 was unusually favorable for this. In December of that year, the Genius of vegetation seemed to hover by night over its summer haunts with unusual persistency. Such a hoar-frost as is very uncommon here or anywhere, and whose full effects can never be witnessed after sunrise, occurred several times. As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow. The river, viewed from the high bank, appeared of a yellowish-green color, though all the landscape was white. Every tree, shrub, and spire of grass, that could raise its head above the snow, was covered with a dense ice-foliage, answering, as it were, leaf for leaf to its summer dress. Even the fences had put forth leaves in the night. The centre, diverging, and more minute fibres were perfectly distinct, and the edges regularly indented. These leaves were on the side of the twig or stubble opposite to the sun, meeting it for the most part at right angles, and there were others standing out at all possible angles upon these and upon one another, with no twig or stubble supporting them. When the first rays of the sun slanted over the scene, the grasses seemed hung with innumerable jewels, which jingled merrily as they were brushed by the foot of the traveler, and reflected all the hues of the rainbow, as he moved from side to side. It struck me that these ghost leaves, and the green ones whose forms they assume, were the creatures of but one law; that in obedience to the same law the vegetable juices swell gradually into the perfect leaf, on the one hand, and the crystalline particles troop to their standard in the same order, on the other. As if the material were indifferent, but the law one and invariable, and every plant in the spring but pushed up into and filled a permanent and eternal mould, which, summer and winter forever, is waiting to be filled.

This foliate structure is common to the coral and the plumage of birds, and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same independence of law on matter is observable in many other instances, as in the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor has its counterpart in some vegetable. As, indeed, all rhymes imply an eternal melody, independent of any particular sense.

As confirmation of the fact that vegetation is but a kind of crystallization, every one may observe how, upon the edge of the melting frost on the window, the needle-shaped particles are bundled together so as to resemble fields waving with grain, or shocks rising here and there from the stubble; on one side the vegetation of the torrid zone, high-towering palms and wide-spread banyans, such as are seen in pictures of oriental scenery; on the other, arctic pines stiff frozen, with downcast branches.

Vegetation has been made the type of all growth; but as in crystals the law is more obvious, their material being more simple, and for the most part more transient and fleeting, would it not be as philosophical as convenient to consider all growth, all filling up within the limits of nature, but a crystallization more or less rapid?

On this occasion, in the side of the high bank of the river, wherever the water or other cause had formed a cavity, its throat and outer edge, like the entrance to a citadel, bristled with a glistening ice-armor. In one place you might see minute ostrich-feathers, which seemed the waving plumes of the warriors filing into the fortress; in another, the glancing, fan-shaped banners of the Lilliputian host; and in another, the needle-shaped particles collected into bundles, resembling the plumes of the pine, might pass for a phalanx of spears. From the under side of the ice in the brooks, where there was a thicker ice below, depended a mass of crystallization, four or five inches deep, in the form of prisms, with their lower ends open, which, when the ice was laid on its smooth side, resembled the roofs and steeples of a Gothic city, or the vessels of a crowded haven under a press of canvas. The very mud in the road, where the ice had melted, was crystallized with deep rectilinear fissures, and the crystalline masses in the sides of the ruts resembled exactly asbestos in the disposition of their needles. Around the roots of the stubble and flower-stalks, the frost was gathered into the form of irregular conical shells, or fairy rings. In some places the ice-crystals were lying upon granite rocks, directly over crystals of quartz, the frostwork of a longer night, crystals of a longer period, but, to some eye unprejudiced by the short term of human life, melting as fast as the former.

In the Report on the Invertebrate Animals, this singular fact is recorded, which teaches us to put a new value on time and space: "The distribution of the marine shells is well worthy of notice as a geological fact. Cape Cod, the right arm of the Commonwealth, reaches out into the ocean, some fifty or sixty miles. It is nowhere many miles wide; but this narrow point of land has hitherto proved a barrier to the migrations of many species of Mollusca. Several genera and numerous species, which are separated by the intervention of only a few miles of land, are effectually prevented from mingling by the Cape, and do not pass from one side to the other.... Of the one hundred and ninety-seven marine species, eighty-three do not pass to the south shore, and fifty are not found on the north shore of the Cape."

That common mussel, the _Unio complanatus_, or more properly _fluviatilis_, left in the spring by the muskrat upon rocks and stumps, appears to have been an important article of food with the Indians. In one place, where they are said to have feasted, they are found in large quantities, at an elevation of thirty feet above the river, filling the soil to the depth of a foot, and mingled with ashes and Indian remains.

The works we have placed at the head of our chapter, with as much license as the preacher selects his text, are such as imply more labor than enthusiasm. The State wanted complete catalogues of its natural riches, with such additional facts merely as would be directly useful.

The reports on Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, and Invertebrate Animals, however, indicate labor and research, and have a value independent of the object of the legislature.

Those on Herbaceous Plants and Birds cannot be of much value, as long as Bigelow and Nuttall are accessible. They serve but to indicate, with more or less exactness, what species are found in the State. We detect several errors ourselves, and a more practiced eye would no doubt expand the list.

The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and instructive report than they have obtained.

These volumes deal much in measurements and minute descriptions, not interesting to the general reader, with only here and there a colored sentence to allure him, like those plants growing in dark forests, which bear only leaves without blossoms. But the ground was comparatively unbroken, and we will not complain of the pioneer, if he raises no flowers with his first crop. Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written. Men are knowing enough after their fashion. Every countryman and dairy-maid knows that the coats of the fourth stomach of the calf will curdle milk, and what particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious diet. You cannot go into any field or wood, but it will seem as if every stone had been turned, and the bark on every tree ripped up. But, after all, it is much easier to discover than to see when the cover is off. It has been well said that "the attitude of inspection is prone." Wisdom does not inspect, but behold. We must look a long time before we can see. Slow are the beginnings of philosophy. He has something demoniacal in him, who can discern a law or couple two facts. We can imagine a time when "Water runs down hill" may have been taught in the schools. The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience. We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. It is with science as with ethics,--we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _Reports--on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds; the Herbaceous Plants and Quadrupeds; the Insects Injurious to Vegetation; and the Invertebrate Animals of Massachusetts._ Published agreeably to an Order of the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the Zoölogical and Botanical Survey of the State.

[4] A white robin and a white quail have occasionally been seen. It is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should be found on the ground; but this bird seems to be less particular than most in the choice of a building-spot. I have seen its nest placed under the thatched roof of a deserted barn, and in one instance, where the adjacent country was nearly destitute of trees, together with two of the phœbe, upon the end of a board in the loft of a sawmill, but a few feet from the saw, which vibrated several inches with the motion of the machinery.

[5] This bird, which is so well described by Nuttall, but is apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it "yorrick," from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the traveler through the underwood. The cowbird's egg is occasionally found in its nest, as mentioned by Audubon.

A WALK TO WACHUSETT

CONCORD, July 19, 1842.

The needles of the pine All to the west incline.

Summer and winter our eyes had rested on the dim outline of the mountains in our horizon, to which distance and indistinctness lent a grandeur not their own, so that they served equally to interpret all the allusions of poets and travelers; whether with Homer, on a spring morning, we sat down on the many-peaked Olympus, or with Virgil and his compeers roamed the Etrurian and Thessalian hills, or with Humboldt measured the more modern Andes and Teneriffe. Thus we spoke our mind to them, standing on the Concord cliffs:--

With frontier strength ye stand your ground, With grand content ye circle round, Tumultuous silence for all sound, Ye distant nursery of rills, Monadnock, and the Peterboro' hills; Like some vast fleet, Sailing through rain and sleet, Through winter's cold and summer's heat; Still holding on, upon your high emprise, Until ye find a shore amid the skies; Not skulking close to land, With cargo contraband, For they who sent a venture out by ye Have set the sun to see Their honesty. Ships of the line, each one, Ye to the westward run, Always before the gale, Under a press of sail, With weight of metal all untold. I seem to feel ye, in my firm seat here, Immeasurable depth of hold, And breadth of beam, and length of running gear.

Methinks ye take luxurious pleasure In your novel western leisure; So cool your brows, and freshly blue, As Time had nought for ye to do; For ye lie at your length, An unappropriated strength, Unhewn primeval timber, For knees so stiff, for masts so limber; The stock of which new earths are made One day to be our western trade, Fit for the stanchions of a world Which through the seas of space is hurled.

While we enjoy a lingering ray, Ye still o'ertop the western day, Reposing yonder, on God's croft, Like solid stacks of hay. Edged with silver, and with gold, The clouds hang o'er in damask fold, And with such depth of amber light The west is dight, Where still a few rays slant, That even heaven seems extravagant. On the earth's edge mountains and trees Stand as they were on air graven, Or as the vessels in a haven Await the morning breeze. I fancy even Through your defiles windeth the way to heaven; And yonder still, in spite of history's page, Linger the golden and the silver age; Upon the laboring gale The news of future centuries is brought, And of new dynasties of thought, From your remotest vale.

But special I remember thee, Wachusett, who like me Standest alone without society. Thy far blue eye, A remnant of the sky, Seen through the clearing or the gorge Or from the windows of the forge, Doth leaven all it passes by. Nothing is true, But stands 'tween me and you, Thou western pioneer, Who know'st not shame nor fear By venturous spirit driven, Under the eaves of heaven. And canst expand thee there, And breathe enough of air? Upholding heaven, holding down earth, Thy pastime from thy birth, Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other; May I approve myself thy worthy brother!

At length, like Rasselas, and other inhabitants of happy valleys, we resolved to scale the blue wall which bounded the western horizon, though not without misgivings that thereafter no visible fairyland would exist for us. But we will not leap at once to our journey's end, though near, but imitate Homer, who conducts his reader over the plain, and along the resounding sea, though it be but to the tent of Achilles. In the spaces of thought are the reaches of land and water, where men go and come. The landscape lies far and fair within, and the deepest thinker is the farthest traveled.

At a cool and early hour on a pleasant morning in July, my companion and I passed rapidly through Acton and Stow, stopping to rest and refresh us on the bank of a small stream, a tributary of the Assabet, in the latter town. As we traversed the cool woods of Acton, with stout staves in our hands, we were cheered by the song of the red-eye, the thrushes, the phœbe, and the cuckoo; and as we passed through the open country, we inhaled the fresh scent of every field, and all nature lay passive, to be viewed and traveled. Every rail, every farmhouse, seen dimly in the twilight, every tinkling sound told of peace and purity, and we moved happily along the dank roads, enjoying not such privacy as the day leaves when it withdraws, but such as it has not profaned. It was solitude with light; which is better than darkness. But anon, the sound of the mower's rifle was heard in the fields, and this, too, mingled with the lowing of kine.

This part of our route lay through the country of hops, which plant perhaps supplies the want of the vine in American scenery, and may remind the traveler of Italy and the South of France, whether he traverses the country when the hop-fields, as then, present solid and regular masses of verdure, hanging in graceful festoons from pole to pole, the cool coverts where lurk the gales which refresh the wayfarer; or in September, when the women and children, and the neighbors from far and near, are gathered to pick the hops into long troughs; or later still, when the poles stand piled in vast pyramids in the yards, or lie in heaps by the roadside.

The culture of the hop, with the processes of picking, drying in the kiln, and packing for the market, as well as the uses to which it is applied, so analogous to the culture and uses of the grape, may afford a theme for future poets.

The mower in the adjacent meadow could not tell us the name of the brook on whose banks we had rested, or whether it had any, but his younger companion, perhaps his brother, knew that it was Great Brook. Though they stood very near together in the field, the things they knew were very far apart; nor did they suspect each other's reserved knowledge, till the stranger came by. In Bolton, while we rested on the rails of a cottage fence, the strains of music which issued from within, probably in compliment to us, sojourners, reminded us that thus far men were fed by the accustomed pleasures. So soon did we, wayfarers, begin to learn that man's life is rounded with the same few facts, the same simple relations everywhere, and it is vain to travel to find it new. The flowers grow more various ways than he. But coming soon to higher land, which afforded a prospect of the mountains, we thought we had not traveled in vain, if it were only to hear a truer and wilder pronunciation of their names from the lips of the inhabitants; not _Way_-tatic, _Way_-chusett, but _Wor_-tatic, _Wor_-chusett. It made us ashamed of our tame and civil pronunciation, and we looked upon them as born and bred farther west than we. Their tongues had a more generous accent than ours, as if breath was cheaper where they wagged. A countryman, who speaks but seldom, talks copiously, as it were, as his wife sets cream and cheese before you without stint. Before noon we had reached the highlands overlooking the valley of Lancaster (affording the first fair and open prospect into the west), and there, on the top of a hill, in the shade of some oaks, near to where a spring bubbled out from a leaden pipe, we rested during the heat of the day, reading Virgil and enjoying the scenery. It was such a place as one feels to be on the outside of the earth; for from it we could, in some measure, see the form and structure of the globe. There lay Wachusett, the object of our journey, lowering upon us with unchanged proportions, though with a less ethereal aspect than had greeted our morning gaze, while further north, in successive order, slumbered its sister mountains along the horizon.

We could get no further into the Æneid than

-- atque altae moenia Romae, -- and the wall of high Rome,

before we were constrained to reflect by what myriad tests a work of genius has to be tried; that Virgil, away in Rome, two thousand years off, should have to unfold his meaning, the inspiration of Italian vales, to the pilgrim on New England hills. This life so raw and modern, that so civil and ancient; and yet we read Virgil mainly to be reminded of the identity of human nature in all ages, and, by the poet's own account, we are both the children of a late age, and live equally under the reign of Jupiter.

"He shook honey from the leaves, and removed fire, And stayed the wine, everywhere flowing in rivers; That experience, by meditating, might invent various arts By degrees, and seek the blade of corn in furrows, And strike out hidden fire from the veins of the flint."

The old world stands serenely behind the new, as one mountain yonder towers behind another, more dim and distant. Rome imposes her story still upon this late generation. The very children in the school we had that morning passed had gone through her wars, and recited her alarms, ere they had heard of the wars of neighboring Lancaster. The roving eye still rests inevitably on her hills, and she still holds up the skirts of the sky on that side, and makes the past remote.

The lay of the land hereabouts is well worthy the attention of the traveler. The hill on which we were resting made part of an extensive range, running from southwest to northeast, across the country, and separating the waters of the Nashua from those of the Concord, whose banks we had left in the morning, and by bearing in mind this fact, we could easily determine whither each brook was bound that crossed our path. Parallel to this, and fifteen miles further west, beyond the deep and broad valley in which lie Groton, Shirley, Lancaster, and Boylston, runs the Wachusett range, in the same general direction. The descent into the valley on the Nashua side is by far the most sudden; and a couple of miles brought us to the southern branch of the Nashua, a shallow but rapid stream, flowing between high and gravelly banks. But we soon learned that these were no _gelidae valles_ into which we had descended, and, missing the coolness of the morning air, feared it had become the sun's turn to try his power upon us.

"The sultry sun had gained the middle sky, And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh,"

and with melancholy pleasure we echoed the melodious plaint of our fellow-traveler, Hassan, in the desert,--

"Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way."

The air lay lifeless between the hills, as in a seething caldron, with no leaf stirring, and instead of the fresh odor of grass and clover, with which we had before been regaled, the dry scent of every herb seemed merely medicinal. Yielding, therefore, to the heat, we strolled into the woods, and along the course of a rivulet, on whose banks we loitered, observing at our leisure the products of these new fields. He who traverses the woodland paths, at this season, will have occasion to remember the small, drooping, bell-like flowers and slender red stem of the dogsbane, and the coarser stem and berry of the poke, which are both common in remoter and wilder scenes; and if "the sun casts such a reflecting heat from the sweet-fern" as makes him faint, when he is climbing the bare hills, as they complained who first penetrated into these parts, the cool fragrance of the swamp-pink restores him again, when traversing the valleys between.

As we went on our way late in the afternoon, we refreshed ourselves by bathing our feet in every rill that crossed the road, and anon, as we were able to walk in the shadows of the hills, recovered our morning elasticity. Passing through Sterling, we reached the banks of the Stillwater, in the western part of the town, at evening, where is a small village collected. We fancied that there was already a certain western look about this place, a smell of pines and roar of water, recently confined by dams, belying its name, which were exceedingly grateful. When the first inroad has been made, a few acres leveled, and a few houses erected, the forest looks wilder than ever. Left to herself, nature is always more or less civilized, and delights in a certain refinement; but where the axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest, the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which she had concealed with green banks of verdure, are exposed to sight. This village had, as yet, no post-office, nor any settled name. In the small villages which we entered, the villagers gazed after us, with a complacent, almost compassionate look, as if we were just making our _début_ in the world at a late hour. "Nevertheless," did they seem to say, "come and study us, and learn men and manners." So is each one's world but a clearing in the forest, so much open and inclosed ground. The landlord had not yet returned from the field with his men, and the cows had yet to be milked. But we remembered the inscription on the wall of the Swedish inn, "You will find at Trolhate excellent bread, meat, and wine, provided you bring them with you," and were contented. But I must confess it did somewhat disturb our pleasure, in this withdrawn spot, to have our own village newspaper handed us by our host, as if the greatest charm the country offered to the traveler was the facility of communication with the town. Let it recline on its own everlasting hills, and not be looking out from their summits for some petty Boston or New York in the horizon.

At intervals we heard the murmuring of water, and the slumberous breathing of crickets, throughout the night; and left the inn the next morning in the gray twilight, after it had been hallowed by the night air, and when only the innocent cows were stirring, with a kind of regret. It was only four miles to the base of the mountain, and the scenery was already more picturesque. Our road lay along the course of the Stillwater, which was brawling at the bottom of a deep ravine, filled with pines and rocks, tumbling fresh from the mountains, so soon, alas! to commence its career of usefulness. At first, a cloud hung between us and the summit, but it was soon blown away. As we gathered the raspberries, which grew abundantly by the roadside, we fancied that that action was consistent with a lofty prudence; as if the traveler who ascends into a mountainous region should fortify himself by eating of such light ambrosial fruits as grow there, and drinking of the springs which gush out from the mountain-sides, as he gradually inhales the subtler and purer atmosphere of those elevated places, thus propitiating the mountain gods by a sacrifice of their own fruits. The gross products of the plains and valleys are for such as dwell therein; but it seemed to us that the juices of this berry had relation to the thin air of the mountain-tops.

In due time we began to ascend the mountain, passing, first, through a grand sugar maple wood, which bore the marks of the auger, then a denser forest, which gradually became dwarfed, till there were no trees whatever. We at length pitched our tent on the summit. It is but nineteen hundred feet above the village of Princeton, and three thousand above the level of the sea; but by this slight elevation it is infinitely removed from the plain, and when we reached it we felt a sense of remoteness, as if we had traveled into distant regions, to Arabia Petræa, or the farthest East. A robin upon a staff was the highest object in sight. Swallows were flying about us, and the chewink and cuckoo were heard near at hand. The summit consists of a few acres, destitute of trees, covered with bare rocks, interspersed with blueberry bushes, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, moss, and a fine, wiry grass. The common yellow lily and dwarf cornel grow abundantly in the crevices of the rocks. This clear space, which is gently rounded, is bounded a few feet lower by a thick shrubbery of oaks, with maples, aspens, beeches, cherries, and occasionally a mountain-ash intermingled, among which we found the bright blue berries of the Solomon's-seal, and the fruit of the pyrola. From the foundation of a wooden observatory, which was formerly erected on the highest point, forming a rude, hollow structure of stone, a dozen feet in diameter, and five or six in height, we could see Monadnock, in simple grandeur, in the northwest, rising nearly a thousand feet higher, still the "far blue mountain," though with an altered profile. The first day the weather was so hazy that it was in vain we endeavored to unravel the obscurity. It was like looking into the sky again, and the patches of forest here and there seemed to flit like clouds over a lower heaven. As to voyagers of an aerial Polynesia, the earth seemed like a larger island in the ether; on every side, even as low as we, the sky shutting down, like an unfathomable deep, around it, a blue Pacific island, where who knows what islanders inhabit? and as we sail near its shores we see the waving of trees and hear the lowing of kine.

We read Virgil and Wordsworth in our tent, with new pleasure there, while waiting for a clearer atmosphere, nor did the weather prevent our appreciating the simple truth and beauty of Peter Bell:--

"And he had lain beside his asses, On lofty Cheviot Hills:

"And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales, Among the rocks and winding _scars_; Where deep and low the hamlets lie Beneath their little patch of sky And little lot of stars."

Who knows but this hill may one day be a Helvellyn, or even a Parnassus, and the Muses haunt here, and other Homers frequent the neighboring plains?

Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head Above the field, so late from nature won, With patient brow reserved, as one who read New annals in the history of man.

The blueberries which the mountain afforded, added to the milk we had brought, made our frugal supper, while for entertainment the even-song of the wood thrush rang along the ridge. Our eyes rested on no painted ceiling nor carpeted hall, but on skies of Nature's painting, and hills and forests of her embroidery. Before sunset, we rambled along the ridge to the north, while a hawk soared still above us. It was a place where gods might wander, so solemn and solitary, and removed from all contagion with the plain. As the evening came on, the haze was condensed in vapor, and the landscape became more distinctly visible, and numerous sheets of water were brought to light.

"Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant, Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae."

And now the tops of the villas smoke afar off, And the shadows fall longer from the high mountains.

As we stood on the stone tower while the sun was setting, we saw the shades of night creep gradually over the valleys of the east; and the inhabitants went into their houses, and shut their doors, while the moon silently rose up, and took possession of that part. And then the same scene was repeated on the west side, as far as the Connecticut and the Green Mountains, and the sun's rays fell on us two alone, of all New England men.

It was the night but one before the full of the moon, so bright that we could see to read distinctly by moonlight, and in the evening strolled over the summit without danger. There was, by chance, a fire blazing on Monadnock that night, which lighted up the whole western horizon, and, by making us aware of a community of mountains, made our position seem less solitary. But at length the wind drove us to the shelter of our tent, and we closed its door for the night, and fell asleep.

It was thrilling to hear the wind roar over the rocks, at intervals when we waked, for it had grown quite cold and windy. The night was, in its elements, simple even to majesty in that bleak place,--a bright moonlight and a piercing wind. It was at no time darker than twilight within the tent, and we could easily see the moon through its transparent roof as we lay; for there was the moon still above us, with Jupiter and Saturn on either hand, looking down on Wachusett, and it was a satisfaction to know that they were our fellow-travelers still, as high and out of our reach as our own destiny. Truly the stars were given for a consolation to man. We should not know but our life were fated to be always groveling, but it is permitted to behold them, and surely they are deserving of a fair destiny. We see laws which never fail, of whose failure we never conceived; and their lamps burn all the night, too, as well as all day,--so rich and lavish is that nature which can afford this superfluity of light.

The morning twilight began as soon as the moon had set, and we arose and kindled our fire, whose blaze might have been seen for thirty miles around. As the daylight increased, it was remarkable how rapidly the wind went down. There was no dew on the summit, but coldness supplied its place. When the dawn had reached its prime, we enjoyed the view of a distinct horizon line, and could fancy ourselves at sea, and the distant hills the waves in the horizon, as seen from the deck of a vessel. The cherry-birds flitted around us, the nuthatch and flicker were heard among the bushes, the titmouse perched within a few feet, and the song of the wood thrush again rang along the ridge. At length we saw the run rise up out of the sea, and shine on Massachusetts; and from this moment the atmosphere grew more and more transparent till the time of our departure, and we began to realize the extent of the view, and how the earth, in some degree, answered to the heavens in breadth, the white villages to the constellations in the sky. There was little of the sublimity and grandeur which belong to mountain scenery, but an immense landscape to ponder on a summer's day. We could see how ample and roomy is nature. As far as the eye could reach there was little life in the landscape; the few birds that flitted past did not crowd. The travelers on the remote highways, which intersect the country on every side, had no fellow-travelers for miles, before or behind. On every side, the eye ranged over successive circles of towns, rising one above another, like the terraces of a vineyard, till they were lost in the horizon. Wachusett is, in fact, the observatory of the State. There lay Massachusetts, spread out before us in its length and breadth, like a map. There was the level horizon which told of the sea on the east and south, the well-known hills of New Hampshire on the north, and the misty summits of the Hoosac and Green Mountains, first made visible to us the evening before, blue and unsubstantial, like some bank of clouds which the morning wind would dissipate, on the northwest and west. These last distant ranges, on which the eye rests unwearied, commence with an abrupt boulder in the north, beyond the Connecticut, and travel southward, with three or four peaks dimly seen. But Monadnock, rearing its masculine front in the northwest, is the grandest feature. As we beheld it, we knew that it was the height of land between the two rivers, on this side the valley of the Merrimack, on that of the Connecticut, fluctuating with their blue seas of air,--these rival vales, already teeming with Yankee men along their respective streams, born to what destiny who shall tell? Watatic and the neighboring hills, in this State and in New Hampshire, are a continuation of the same elevated range on which we were standing. But that New Hampshire bluff,--that promontory of a State,--lowering day and night on this our State of Massachusetts, will longest haunt our dreams.

We could at length realize the place mountains occupy on the land, and how they come into the general scheme of the universe. When first we climb their summits and observe their lesser irregularities, we do not give credit to the comprehensive intelligence which shaped them; but when afterward we behold their outlines in the horizon, we confess that the hand which moulded their opposite slopes, making one to balance the other, worked round a deep centre, and was privy to the plan of the universe. So is the least part of nature in its bearings referred to all space. These lesser mountain ranges, as well as the Alleghanies, run from northeast to southwest, and parallel with these mountain streams are the more fluent rivers, answering to the general direction of the coast, the bank of the great ocean stream itself. Even the clouds, with their thin bars, fall into the same direction by preference, and such even is the course of the prevailing winds, and the migration of men and birds. A mountain chain determines many things for the statesman and philosopher. The improvements of civilization rather creep along its sides than cross its summit. How often is it a barrier to prejudice and fanaticism! In passing over these heights of land, through their thin atmosphere, the follies of the plain are refined and purified; and as many species of plants do not scale their summits, so many species of folly, no doubt, do not cross the Alleghanies; it is only the hardy mountain-plant that creeps quite over the ridge, and descends into the valley beyond.

We get a dim notion of the flight of birds, especially of such as fly high in the air, by having ascended a mountain. We can now see what landmarks mountains are to their migrations; how the Catskills and Highlands have hardly sunk to them, when Wachusett and Monadnock open a passage to the northeast; how they are guided, too, in their course by the rivers and valleys; and who knows but by the stars, as well as the mountain ranges, and not by the petty landmarks which we use. The bird whose eye takes in the Green Mountains on the one side, and the ocean on the other, need not be at a loss to find its way.

At noon we descended the mountain, and, having returned to the abodes of men, turned our faces to the east again; measuring our progress, from time to time, by the more ethereal hues which the mountain assumed. Passing swiftly through Stillwater and Sterling, as with a downward impetus, we found ourselves almost at home again in the green meadows of Lancaster, so like our own Concord, for both are watered by two streams which unite near their centres, and have many other features in common. There is an unexpected refinement about this scenery; level prairies of great extent, interspersed with elms and hop-fields and groves of trees, give it almost a classic appearance. This, it will be remembered, was the scene of Mrs. Rowlandson's capture, and of other events in the Indian wars, but from this July afternoon, and under that mild exterior, those times seemed as remote as the irruption of the Goths. They were the dark age of New England. On beholding a picture of a New England village as it then appeared, with a fair open prospect, and a light on trees and river, as if it were broad noon, we find we had not thought the sun shone in those days, or that men lived in broad daylight then. We do not imagine the sun shining on hill and valley during Philip's war, nor on the war-path of Paugus, or Standish, or Church, or Lovell, with serene summer weather, but a dim twilight or night did those events transpire in. They must have fought in the shade of their own dusky deeds.

At length, as we plodded along the dusty roads, our thoughts became as dusty as they; all thought indeed stopped, thinking broke down, or proceeded only passively in a sort of rhythmical cadence of the confused material of thought, and we found ourselves mechanically repeating some familiar measure which timed with our tread; some verse of the Robin Hood ballads, for instance, which one can recommend to travel by:--

"Sweavens are swift, sayd lyttle John, As the wind blows over the hill; For if it be never so loud this night, To-morrow it may be still."

And so it went, up-hill and down, till a stone interrupted the line, when a new verse was chosen:--

"His shoote it was but loosely shott, Yet flewe not the arrowe in vaine, For it mett one of the sheriffe's men, And William a Trent was slaine."

There is, however, this consolation to the most wayworn traveler, upon the dustiest road, that the path his feet describe is so perfectly symbolical of human life,--now climbing the hills, now descending into the vales. From the summits he beholds the heavens and the horizon, from the vales he looks up to the heights again. He is treading his old lessons still, and though he may be very weary and travel-worn, it is yet sincere experience.

Leaving the Nashua, we changed our route a little, and arrived at Stillriver Village, in the western part of Harvard, just as the sun was setting. From this place, which lies to the northward, upon the western slope of the same range of hills on which we had spent the noon before, in the adjacent town, the prospect is beautiful, and the grandeur of the mountain outlines unsurpassed. There was such a repose and quiet here at this hour, as if the very hillsides were enjoying the scene; and as we passed slowly along, looking back over the country we had traversed, and listening to the evening song of the robin, we could not help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. His words and actions presume always a crisis near at hand, but she is forever silent and unpretending.

And now that we have returned to the desultory life of the plain, let us endeavor to import a little of that mountain grandeur into it. We will remember within what walls we lie, and understand that this level life too has its summit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest valleys have a tinge of blue; that there is elevation in every hour, as no part of the earth is so low that the heavens may not be seen from, and we have only to stand on the summit of our hour to command an uninterrupted horizon.

We rested that night at Harvard, and the next morning, while one bent his steps to the nearer village of Groton, the other took his separate and solitary way to the peaceful meadows of Concord; but let him not forget to record the brave hospitality of a farmer and his wife, who generously entertained him at their board, though the poor wayfarer could only congratulate the one on the continuance of hay weather, and silently accept the kindness of the other. Refreshed by this instance of generosity, no less than by the substantial viands set before him, he pushed forward with new vigor, and reached the banks of the Concord before the sun had climbed many degrees into the heavens.

THE LANDLORD

Under the one word "house" are included the schoolhouse, the almshouse, the jail, the tavern, the dwelling-house; and the meanest shed or cave in which men live contains the elements of all these. But nowhere on the earth stands the entire and perfect house. The Parthenon, St. Peter's, the Gothic minster, the palace, the hovel, are but imperfect executions of an imperfect idea. Who would dwell in them? Perhaps to the eye of the gods the cottage is more holy than the Parthenon, for they look down with no especial favor upon the shrines formally dedicated to them, and that should be the most sacred roof which shelters most of humanity. Surely, then, the gods who are most interested in the human race preside over the Tavern, where especially men congregate. Methinks I see the thousand shrines erected to Hospitality shining afar in all countries, as well Mahometan and Jewish as Christian, khans and caravansaries and inns, whither all pilgrims without distinction resort.

Likewise we look in vain, east or west over the earth, to find the perfect man; but each represents only some particular excellence. The Landlord is a man of more open and general sympathies, who possesses a spirit of hospitality which is its own reward, and feeds and shelters men from pure love of the creatures. To be sure, this profession is as often filled by imperfect characters, and such as have sought it from unworthy motives, as any other, but so much the more should we prize the true and honest Landlord when we meet with him.

Who has not imagined to himself a country inn, where the traveler shall really feel _in_, and at home, and at his public house, who was before at his private house?--whose host is indeed a _host_, and a _lord_ of the _land_, a self-appointed brother of his race; called to his place, beside, by all the winds of heaven and his good genius, as truly as the preacher is called to preach; a man of such universal sympathies, and so broad and genial a human nature, that he would fain sacrifice the tender but narrow ties of private friendship to a broad, sunshiny, fair-weather-and-foul friendship for his race; who loves men, not as a philosopher, with philanthropy, nor as an overseer of the poor, with charity, but by a necessity of his nature, as he loves dogs and horses; and standing at his open door from morning till night would fain see more and more of them come along the highway, and is never satiated. To him the sun and moon are but travelers, the one by day and the other by night; and they too patronize his house. To his imagination all things travel save his sign-post and himself; and though you may be his neighbor for years, he will show you only the civilities of the road. But on the other hand, while nations and individuals are alike selfish and exclusive, he loves all men equally; and if he treats his nearest neighbor as a stranger, since he has invited all nations to share his hospitality, the farthest-traveled is in some measure kindred to him who takes him into the bosom of his family.

He keeps a house of entertainment at the sign of the Black Horse or the Spread Eagle, and is known far and wide, and his fame travels with increasing radius every year. All the neighborhood is in his interest, and if the traveler ask how far to a tavern, he receives some such answer as this: "Well, sir, there's a house about three miles from here, where they haven't taken down their sign yet; but it's only ten miles to Slocum's, and that's a capital house, both for man and beast." At three miles he passes a cheerless barrack, standing desolate behind its sign-post, neither public nor private, and has glimpses of a discontented couple who have mistaken their calling. At ten miles see where the Tavern stands,--really an _entertaining_ prospect,--so public and inviting that only the rain and snow do not enter. It is no gay pavilion, made of bright stuffs, and furnished with nuts and gingerbread, but as plain and sincere as a caravansary; located in no Tarrytown, where you receive only the civilities of commerce, but far in the fields it exercises a primitive hospitality, amid the fresh scent of new hay and raspberries, if it be summer-time, and the tinkling of cow-bells from invisible pastures; for it is a land flowing with milk and honey, and the newest milk courses in a broad, deep stream across the premises.

In these retired places the tavern is first of all a house,--elsewhere, last of all, or never,--and warms and shelters its inhabitants. It is as simple and sincere in its essentials as the caves in which the first men dwelt, but it is also as open and public. The traveler steps across the threshold, and lo! he too is master, for he only can be called proprietor of the house here who behaves with most propriety in it. The Landlord stands clear back in nature, to my imagination, with his axe and spade felling trees and raising potatoes with the vigor of a pioneer; with Promethean energy making nature yield her increase to supply the wants of so many; and he is not so exhausted, nor of so short a stride, but that he comes forward even to the highway to this wide hospitality and publicity. Surely, he has solved some of the problems of life. He comes in at his back door, holding a log fresh cut for the hearth upon his shoulder with one hand, while he greets the newly arrived traveler with the other.

Here at length we have free range, as not in palaces, nor cottages, nor temples, and intrude nowhere. All the secrets of housekeeping are exhibited to the eyes of men, above and below, before and behind. This is the necessary way to live, men have confessed, in these days, and shall he skulk and hide? And why should we have any serious disgust at kitchens? Perhaps they are the holiest recess of the house. There is the hearth, after all,--and the settle, and the fagots, and the kettle, and the crickets. We have pleasant reminiscences of these. They are the heart, the left ventricle, the very vital part of the house. Here the real and sincere life which we meet in the streets was actually fed and sheltered. Here burns the taper that cheers the lonely traveler by night, and from this hearth ascend the smokes that populate the valley to his eyes by day. On the whole, a man may not be so little ashamed of any other part of his house, for here is his sincerity and earnest, at least. It may not be here that the besoms are plied most,--it is not here that they need to be, for dust will not settle on the kitchen floor more than in nature.

Hence it will not do for the Landlord to possess too fine a nature. He must have health above the common accidents of life, subject to no modern fashionable diseases; but no taste, rather a vast relish or appetite. His sentiments on all subjects will be delivered as freely as the wind blows; there is nothing private or individual in them, though still original, but they are public, and of the hue of the heavens over his house,--a certain out-of-door obviousness and transparency not to be disputed. What he does, his manners are not to be complained of, though abstractly offensive, for it is what man does, and in him the race is exhibited. When he eats, he is liver and bowels and the whole digestive apparatus to the company, and so all admit the thing is done. He must have no idiosyncrasies, no particular bents or tendencies to this or that, but a general, uniform, and healthy development, such as his portly person indicates, offering himself equally on all sides to men. He is not one of your peaked and inhospitable men of genius, with particular tastes, but, as we said before, has one uniform relish, and taste which never aspires higher than a tavern-sign, or the cut of a weather-cock. The man of genius, like a dog with a bone, or the slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a patient with the gravel, sits afar and retired, off the road, hangs out no sign of refreshment for man and beast, but says, by all possible hints and signs, I wish to be alone,--good-by,--farewell. But the Landlord can afford to live without privacy. He entertains no private thought, he cherishes no solitary hour, no Sabbath-day, but thinks,--enough to assert the dignity of reason,--and talks, and reads the newspaper. What he does not tell to one traveler he tells to another. He never wants to be alone, but sleeps, wakes, eats, drinks, sociably, still remembering his race. He walks abroad through the thoughts of men, and the Iliad and Shakespeare are tame to him, who hears the rude but homely incidents of the road from every traveler. The mail might drive through his brain in the midst of his most lonely soliloquy without disturbing his equanimity, provided it brought plenty of news and passengers. There can be no _pro_fanity where there is no fane behind, and the whole world may see quite round him. Perchance his lines have fallen to him in dustier places, and he has heroically sat down where two roads meet, or at the Four Corners or the Five Points, and his life is sublimely trivial for the good of men. The dust of travel blows ever in his eyes, and they preserve their clear, complacent look. The hourlies and half-hourlies, the dailies and weeklies, whirl on well-worn tracks, round and round his house, as if it were the goal in the stadium, and still he sits within in unruffled serenity, with no show of retreat. His neighbor dwells timidly behind a screen of poplars and willows, and a fence with sheaves of spears at regular intervals, or defended against the tender palms of visitors by sharp spikes,--but the traveler's wheels rattle over the door-step of the tavern, and he cracks his whip in the entry. He is truly glad to see you, and sincere as the bull's-eye over his door. The traveler seeks to find, wherever he goes, some one who will stand in this broad and catholic relation to him, who will be an inhabitant of the land to him a stranger, and represent its human nature, as the rock stands for its inanimate nature; and this is he. As his crib furnishes provender for the traveler's horse, and his larder provisions for his appetite, so his conversation furnishes the necessary aliment to his spirits. He knows very well what a man wants, for he is a man himself, and as it were the farthest-traveled, though he has never stirred from his door. He understands his needs and destiny. He would be well fed and lodged, there can be no doubt, and have the transient sympathy of a cheerful companion, and of a heart which always prophesies fair weather. And after all the greatest men, even, want much more the sympathy which every honest fellow can give, than that which the great only can impart. If he is not the most upright, let us allow him this praise, that he is the most downright of men. He has a hand to shake and to be shaken, and takes a sturdy and unquestionable interest in you, as if he had assumed the care of you, but if you will break your neck, he will even give you the best advice as to the method.

The great poets have not been ungrateful to their landlords. Mine host of the Tabard Inn, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, was an honor to his profession:--

"A semely man our Hoste was, with alle, For to han been a marshal in an halle. A large man he was, with eyen stepe; A fairer burgeis was ther non in Chepe: Bold of his speche, and wise, and well ytaught, And of manhood him lacked righte naught. Eke thereto was he right a mery man, And after souper plaien he began, And spake of mirthe amonges other thinges, Whan that we hadden made our reckoninges."

He is the true house-band, and centre of the company,--of greater fellowship and practical social talent than any. He it is that proposes that each shall tell a tale to while away the time to Canterbury, and leads them himself, and concludes with his own tale,--

"Now, by my fader's soule that is ded, But ye be mery, smiteth of my hed: Hold up your hondes withouten more speche."

If we do not look up to the Landlord, we look round for him on all emergencies, for he is a man of infinite experience, who unites hands with wit. He is a more public character than a statesman,--a publican, and not consequently a sinner; and surely, he, if any, should be exempted from taxation and military duty.

Talking with our host is next best and instructive to talking with one's self. It is a more conscious soliloquy; as it were, to speak generally, and try what we would say provided we had an audience. He has indulgent and open ears, and does not require petty and particular statements. "Heigh-ho!" exclaims the traveler. Them's my sentiments, thinks mine host, and stands ready for what may come next, expressing the purest sympathy by his demeanor. "Hot as blazes!" says the other. "Hard weather, sir,--not much stirring nowadays," says he. He is wiser than to contradict his guest in any case; he lets him go on; he lets him travel.

The latest sitter leaves him standing far in the night, prepared to live right on, while suns rise and set, and his "good-night" has as brisk a sound as his "good-morning;" and the earliest riser finds him tasting his liquors in the bar ere flies begin to buzz, with a countenance fresh as the morning star over the sanded floor,--and not as one who had watched all night for travelers. And yet, if beds be the subject of conversation, it will appear that no man has been a sounder sleeper in his time.

Finally, as for his moral character, we do not hesitate to say that he has no grain of vice or meanness in him, but represents just that degree of virtue which all men relish without being obliged to respect. He is a good man, as his bitters are good,--an unquestionable goodness. Not what is called a good man,--good to be considered, as a work of art in galleries and museums,--but a good fellow, that is, good to be associated with. Who ever thought of the religion of an innkeeper,--whether he was joined to the Church, partook of the sacrament, said his prayers, feared God, or the like? No doubt he has had his experiences, has felt a change, and is a firm believer in the perseverance of the saints. In this last, we suspect, does the peculiarity of his religion consist. But he keeps an inn, and not a conscience. How many fragrant charities and sincere social virtues are implied in this daily offering of himself to the public! He cherishes good-will to all, and gives the wayfarer as good and honest advice to direct him on his road as the priest.

To conclude, the tavern will compare favorably with the church. The church is the place where prayers and sermons are delivered, but the tavern is where they are to take effect, and if the former are good, the latter cannot be bad.

A WINTER WALK

The wind has gently murmured through the blinds, or puffed with feathery softness against the windows, and occasionally sighed like a summer zephyr lifting the leaves along, the livelong night. The meadow mouse has slept in his snug gallery in the sod, the owl has sat in a hollow tree in the depth of the swamp, the rabbit, the squirrel, and the fox have all been housed. The watch-dog has lain quiet on the hearth, and the cattle have stood silent in their stalls. The earth itself has slept, as it were its first, not its last sleep, save when some street-sign or wood-house door has faintly creaked upon its hinge, cheering forlorn nature at her midnight work,--the only sound awake 'twixt Venus and Mars,--advertising us of a remote inward warmth, a divine cheer and fellowship, where gods are met together, but where it is very bleak for men to stand. But while the earth has slumbered, all the air has been alive with feathery flakes descending, as if some northern Ceres reigned, showering her silvery grain over all the fields.

We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive. The floor creaks under our feet as we move toward the window to look abroad through some clear space over the fields. We see the roofs stand under their snow burden. From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites covering some concealed core. The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side; and where were walls and fences, we see fantastic forms stretching in frolic gambols across the dusky landscape, as if Nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man's art.

Silently we unlatch the door, letting the drift fall in, and step abroad to face the cutting air. Already the stars have lost some of their sparkle, and a dull, leaden mist skirts the horizon. A lurid brazen light in the east proclaims the approach of day, while the western landscape is dim and spectral still, and clothed in a sombre Tartarean light, like the shadowy realms. They are Infernal sounds only that you hear,--the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, the chopping of wood, the lowing of kine, all seem to come from Pluto's barnyard and beyond the Styx,--not for any melancholy they suggest, but their twilight bustle is too solemn and mysterious for earth. The recent tracks of the fox or otter, in the yard, remind us that each hour of the night is crowded with events, and the primeval nature is still working and making tracks in the snow. Opening the gate, we tread briskly along the lone country road, crunching the dry and crisped snow under our feet, or aroused by the sharp, clear creak of the wood-sled, just starting for the distant market, from the early farmer's door, where it has lain the summer long, dreaming amid the chips and stubble; while far through the drifts and powdered windows we see the farmer's early candle, like a paled star, emitting a lonely beam, as if some severe virtue were at its matins there. And one by one the smokes begin to ascend from the chimneys amid the trees and snows.

The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell, The stiffened air exploring in the dawn, And making slow acquaintance with the day Delaying now upon its heavenward course, In wreathèd loiterings dallying with itself, With as uncertain purpose and slow deed As its half-wakened master by the hearth, Whose mind still slumbering and sluggish thoughts Have not yet swept into the onward current Of the new day;--and now it streams afar, The while the chopper goes with step direct, And mind intent to swing the early axe. First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad His early scout, his emissary, smoke, The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof, To feel the frosty air, inform the day; And while he crouches still beside the hearth, Nor musters courage to unbar the door, It has gone down the glen with the light wind, And o'er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath, Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill, And warmed the pinions of the early bird; And now, perchance, high in the crispy air, Has caught sight of the day o'er the earth's edge, And greets its master's eye at his low door, As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.

We hear the sound of wood-chopping at the farmers' doors, far over the frozen earth, the baying of the house-dog, and the distant clarion of the cock,--though the thin and frosty air conveys only the finer particles of sound to our ears, with short and sweet vibrations, as the waves subside soonest on the purest and lightest liquids, in which gross substances sink to the bottom. They come clear and bell-like, and from a greater distance in the horizon, as if there were fewer impediments than in summer to make them faint and ragged. The ground is sonorous, like seasoned wood, and even the ordinary rural sounds are melodious, and the jingling of the ice on the trees is sweet and liquid. There is the least possible moisture in the atmosphere, all being dried up or congealed, and it is of such extreme tenuity and elasticity that it becomes a source of delight. The withdrawn and tense sky seems groined like the aisles of a cathedral, and the polished air sparkles as if there were crystals of ice floating in it. As they who have resided in Greenland tell us that when it freezes "the sea smokes like burning turf-land, and a fog or mist arises, called frost-smoke," which "cutting smoke frequently raises blisters on the face and hands, and is very pernicious to the health." But this pure, stinging cold is an elixir to the lungs, and not so much a frozen mist as a crystallized midsummer haze, refined and purified by cold.

The sun at length rises through the distant woods, as if with the faint clashing, swinging sound of cymbals, melting the air with his beams, and with such rapid steps the morning travels, that already his rays are gilding the distant western mountains. Meanwhile we step hastily along through the powdery snow, warmed by an inward heat, enjoying an Indian summer still, in the increased glow of thought and feeling. Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but find her our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds. If our bodies were fed with pure and simple elements, and not with a stimulating and heating diet, they would afford no more pasture for cold than a leafless twig, but thrive like the trees, which find even winter genial to their expansion.

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness and purity are visible to the eye, and we would fain stay out long and late, that the gales may sigh through us, too, as through the leafless trees, and fit us for the winter,--as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, which will stead us in all seasons.

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill. It finally melts the great snow, and in January or July is only buried under a thicker or thinner covering. In the coldest day it flows somewhere, and the snow melts around every tree. This field of winter rye, which sprouted late in the fall, and now speedily dissolves the snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered. We feel warmed by it. In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue, and we resort in thought to a trickling rill, with its bare stones shining in the sun, and to warm springs in the woods, with as much eagerness as rabbits and robins. The steam which rises from swamps and pools is as dear and domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day, when the meadow mice come out by the wall-sides, and the chickadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our backs as we are treading some snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which has followed us into that by-place.

This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast; for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveler cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart. There is the south. Thither have all birds and insects migrated, and around the warm springs in his breast are gathered the robin and the lark.

At length, having reached the edge of the woods, and shut out the gadding town, we enter within their covert as we go under the roof of a cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in summer. As we stand in the midst of the pines in the flickering and checkered light which straggles but little way into their maze, we wonder if the towns have ever heard their simple story. It seems to us that no traveler has ever explored them, and notwithstanding the wonders which science is elsewhere revealing every day, who would not like to hear their annals? Our humble villages in the plain are their contribution. We borrow from the forest the boards which shelter and the sticks which warm us. How important is their evergreen to the winter, that portion of the summer which does not fade, the permanent year, the unwithered grass! Thus simply, and with little expense of altitude, is the surface of the earth diversified. What would human life be without forests, those natural cities? From the tops of mountains they appear like smooth-shaven lawns, yet whither shall we walk but in this taller grass?

In this glade covered with bushes of a year's growth, see how the silvery dust lies on every seared leaf and twig, deposited in such infinite and luxurious forms as by their very variety atone for the absence of color. Observe the tiny tracks of mice around every stem, and the triangular tracks of the rabbit. A pure elastic heaven hangs over all, as if the impurities of the summer sky, refined and shrunk by the chaste winter's cold, had been winnowed from the heavens upon the earth.

Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.

How much more living is the life that is in nature, the furred life which still survives the stinging nights, and, from amidst fields and woods covered with frost and snow, sees the sun rise!

"The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants."

The gray squirrel and rabbit are brisk and playful in the remote glens, even on the morning of the cold Friday. Here is our Lapland and Labrador, and for our Esquimaux and Knistenaux, Dog-ribbed Indians, Novazemblaites, and Spitzbergeners, are there not the ice-cutter and woodchopper, the fox, muskrat, and mink?

Still, in the midst of the arctic day, we may trace the summer to its retreats, and sympathize with some contemporary life. Stretched over the brooks, in the midst of the frost-bound meadows, we may observe the submarine cottages of the caddis-worms, the larvæ of the Plicipennes; their small cylindrical cases built around themselves, composed of flags, sticks, grass, and withered leaves, shells, and pebbles, in form and color like the wrecks which strew the bottom,--now drifting along over the pebbly bottom, now whirling in tiny eddies and dashing down steep falls, or sweeping rapidly along with the current, or else swaying to and fro at the end of some grass-blade or root. Anon they will leave their sunken habitations, and, crawling up the stems of plants, or to the surface, like gnats, as perfect insects henceforth, flutter over the surface of the water, or sacrifice their short lives in the flame of our candles at evening. Down yonder little glen the shrubs are drooping under their burden, and the red alderberries contrast with the white ground. Here are the marks of a myriad feet which have already been abroad. The sun rises as proudly over such a glen as over the valley of the Seine or the Tiber, and it seems the residence of a pure and self-subsistent valor, such as they never witnessed,--which never knew defeat nor fear. Here reign the simplicity and purity of a primitive age, and a health and hope far remote from towns and cities. Standing quite alone, far in the forest, while the wind is shaking down snow from the trees, and leaving the only human tracks behind us, we find our reflections of a richer variety than the life of cities. The chickadee and nuthatch are more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more vulgar companions. In this lonely glen, with its brook draining the slopes, its creased ice and crystals of all hues, where the spruces and hemlocks stand up on either side, and the rush and sere wild oats in the rivulet itself, our lives are more serene and worthy to contemplate.

As the day advances, the heat of the sun is reflected by the hillsides, and we hear a faint but sweet music, where flows the rill released from its fetters, and the icicles are melting on the trees; and the nuthatch and partridge are heard and seen. The south wind melts the snow at noon, and the bare ground appears with its withered grass and leaves, and we are invigorated by the perfume which exhales from it, as by the scent of strong meats.

Let us go into this deserted woodman's hut, and see how he has passed the long winter nights and the short and stormy days. For here man has lived under this south hillside, and it seems a civilized and public spot. We have such associations as when the traveler stands by the ruins of Palmyra or Hecatompolis. Singing birds and flowers perchance have begun to appear here, for flowers as well as weeds follow in the footsteps of man. These hemlocks whispered over his head, these hickory logs were his fuel, and these pitch pine roots kindled his fire; yonder fuming rill in the hollow, whose thin and airy vapor still ascends as busily as ever, though he is far off now, was his well. These hemlock boughs, and the straw upon this raised platform, were his bed, and this broken dish held his drink. But he has not been here this season, for the phœbes built their nest upon this shelf last summer. I find some embers left as if he had but just gone out, where he baked his pot of beans; and while at evening he smoked his pipe, whose stemless bowl lies in the ashes, chatted with his only companion, if perchance he had any, about the depth of the snow on the morrow, already falling fast and thick without, or disputed whether the last sound was the screech of an owl, or the creak of a bough, or imagination only; and through his broad chimney-throat, in the late winter evening, ere he stretched himself upon the straw, he looked up to learn the progress of the storm, and, seeing the bright stars of Cassiopeia's Chair shining brightly down upon him, fell contentedly asleep.

See how many traces from which we may learn the chopper's history! From this stump we may guess the sharpness of his axe, and from the slope of the stroke, on which side he stood, and whether he cut down the tree without going round it or changing hands; and, from the flexure of the splinters, we may know which way it fell. This one chip contains inscribed on it the whole history of the woodchopper and of the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine and the genial warmth of the sun around the door is somewhat kind and human.

After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not deform the scene. Already the birds resort to it, to build their nests, and you may track to its door the feet of many quadrupeds. Thus, for a long time, nature overlooks the encroachment and profanity of man. The wood still cheerfully and unsuspiciously echoes the strokes of the axe that fells it, and while they are few and seldom, they enhance its wildness, and all the elements strive to naturalize the sound.

Now our path begins to ascend gradually to the top of this high hill, from whose precipitous south side we can look over the broad country of forest and field and river, to the distant snowy mountains. See yonder thin column of smoke curling up through the woods from some invisible farmhouse, the standard raised over some rural homestead. There must be a warmer and more genial spot there below, as where we detect the vapor from a spring forming a cloud above the trees. What fine relations are established between the traveler who discovers this airy column from some eminence in the forest and him who sits below! Up goes the smoke as silently and naturally as the vapor exhales from the leaves, and as busy disposing itself in wreaths as the housewife on the hearth below. It is a hieroglyphic of man's life, and suggests more intimate and important things than the boiling of a pot. Where its fine column rises above the forest, like an ensign, some human life has planted itself,--and such is the beginning of Rome, the establishment of the arts, and the foundation of empires, whether on the prairies of America or the steppes of Asia.

And now we descend again, to the brink of this woodland lake, which lies in a hollow of the hills, as if it were their expressed juice, and that of the leaves which are annually steeped in it. Without outlet or inlet to the eye, it has still its history, in the lapse of its waves, in the rounded pebbles on its shore, and in the pines which grow down to its brink. It has not been idle, though sedentary, but, like Abu Musa, teaches that "sitting still at home is the heavenly way; the going out is the way of the world." Yet in its evaporation it travels as far as any. In summer it is the earth's liquid eye, a mirror in the breast of nature. The sins of the wood are washed out in it. See how the woods form an amphitheatre about it, and it is an arena for all the genialness of nature. All trees direct the traveler to its brink, all paths seek it out, birds fly to it, quadrupeds flee to it, and the very ground inclines toward it. It is nature's saloon, where she has sat down to her toilet. Consider her silent economy and tidiness; how the sun comes with his evaporation to sweep the dust from its surface each morning, and a fresh surface is constantly welling up; and annually, after whatever impurities have accumulated herein, its liquid transparency appears again in the spring. In summer a hushed music seems to sweep across its surface. But now a plain sheet of snow conceals it from our eyes, except where the wind has swept the ice bare, and the sere leaves are gliding from side to side, tacking and veering on their tiny voyages. Here is one just keeled up against a pebble on shore, a dry beech leaf, rocking still, as if it would start again. A skillful engineer, methinks, might project its course since it fell from the parent stem. Here are all the elements for such a calculation. Its present position, the direction of the wind, the level of the pond, and how much more is given. In its scarred edges and veins is its log rolled up.

We fancy ourselves in the interior of a larger house. The surface of the pond is our deal table or sanded floor, and the woods rise abruptly from its edge, like the walls of a cottage. The lines set to catch pickerel through the ice look like a larger culinary preparation, and the men stand about on the white ground like pieces of forest furniture. The actions of these men, at the distance of half a mile over the ice and snow, impress us as when we read the exploits of Alexander in history. They seem not unworthy of the scenery, and as momentous as the conquest of kingdoms.

Again we have wandered through the arches of the wood, until from its skirts we hear the distant booming of ice from yonder bay of the river, as if it were moved by some other and subtler tide than oceans know. To me it has a strange sound of home, thrilling as the voice of one's distant and noble kindred. A mild summer sun shines over forest and lake, and though there is but one green leaf for many rods, yet nature enjoys a serene health. Every sound is fraught with the same mysterious assurance of health, as well now the creaking of the boughs in January, as the soft sough of the wind in July.

When Winter fringes every bough With his fantastic wreath, And puts the seal of silence now Upon the leaves beneath;

When every stream in its penthouse Goes gurgling on its way, And in his gallery the mouse Nibbleth the meadow hay;

Methinks the summer still is nigh, And lurketh underneath, As that same meadow mouse doth lie Snug in that last year's heath.

And if perchance the chickadee Lisp a faint note anon, The snow is summer's canopy, Which she herself put on.

Fair blossoms deck the cheerful trees, And dazzling fruits depend; The north wind sighs a summer breeze, The nipping frosts to fend,

Bringing glad tidings unto me, The while I stand all ear, Of a serene eternity, Which need not winter fear.

Out on the silent pond straightway The restless ice doth crack, And pond sprites merry gambols play Amid the deafening rack.

Eager I hasten to the vale, As if I heard brave news, How nature held high festival, Which it were hard to lose.

I gambol with my neighbor ice, And sympathizing quake, As each new crack darts in a trice Across the gladsome lake.

One with the cricket in the ground, And fagot on the hearth, Resounds the rare domestic sound Along the forest path.

Before night we will take a journey on skates along the course of this meandering river, as full of novelty to one who sits by the cottage fire all the winter's day, as if it were over the polar ice, with Captain Parry or Franklin; following the winding of the stream, now flowing amid hills, now spreading out into fair meadows, and forming a myriad coves and bays where the pine and hemlock overarch. The river flows in the rear of the towns, and we see all things from a new and wilder side. The fields and gardens come down to it with a frankness, and freedom from pretension, which they do not wear on the highway. It is the outside and edge of the earth. Our eyes are not offended by violent contrasts. The last rail of the farmer's fence is some swaying willow bough, which still preserves its freshness, and here at length all fences stop, and we no longer cross any road. We may go far up within the country now by the most retired and level road, never climbing a hill, but by broad levels ascending to the upland meadows. It is a beautiful illustration of the law of obedience, the flow of a river; the path for a sick man, a highway down which an acorn cup may float secure with its freight. Its slight occasional falls, whose precipices would not diversify the landscape, are celebrated by mist and spray, and attract the traveler from far and near. From the remote interior, its current conducts him by broad and easy steps, or by one gentler inclined plane, to the sea. Thus by an early and constant yielding to the inequalities of the ground it secures itself the easiest passage.

No domain of nature is quite closed to man at all times, and now we draw near to the empire of the fishes. Our feet glide swiftly over unfathomed depths, where in summer our line tempted the pout and perch, and where the stately pickerel lurked in the long corridors formed by the bulrushes. The deep, impenetrable marsh, where the heron waded and bittern squatted, is made pervious to our swift shoes, as if a thousand railroads had been made into it. With one impulse we are carried to the cabin of the muskrat, that earliest settler, and see him dart away under the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to his hole in the bank; and we glide rapidly over meadows where lately "the mower whet his scythe," through beds of frozen cranberries mixed with meadow-grass. We skate near to where the blackbird, the pewee, and the kingbird hung their nests over the water, and the hornets builded from the maple in the swamp. How many gay warblers, following the sun, have radiated from this nest of silver birch and thistle-down! On the swamp's outer edge was hung the supermarine village, where no foot penetrated. In this hollow tree the wood duck reared her brood, and slid away each day to forage in yonder fen.

In winter, nature is a cabinet of curiosities, full of dried specimens, in their natural order and position. The meadows and forests are a _hortus siccus_. The leaves and grasses stand perfectly pressed by the air without screw or gum, and the birds' nests are not hung on an artificial twig, but where they builded them. We go about dry-shod to inspect the summer's work in the rank swamp, and see what a growth have got the alders, the willows, and the maples; testifying to how many warm suns, and fertilizing dews and showers. See what strides their boughs took in the luxuriant summer,--and anon these dormant buds will carry them onward and upward another span into the heavens.

Occasionally we wade through fields of snow, under whose depths the river is lost for many rods, to appear again to the right or left, where we least expected; still holding on its way underneath, with a faint, stertorous, rumbling sound, as if, like the bear and marmot, it too had hibernated, and we had followed its faint summer trail to where it earthed itself in snow and ice. At first we should have thought that rivers would be empty and dry in midwinter, or else frozen solid till the spring thawed them; but their volume is not diminished even, for only a superficial cold bridges their surfaces. The thousand springs which feed the lakes and streams are flowing still. The issues of a few surface springs only are closed, and they go to swell the deep reservoirs. Nature's wells are below the frost. The summer brooks are not filled with snow-water, nor does the mower quench his thirst with that alone. The streams are swollen when the snow melts in the spring, because nature's work has been delayed, the water being turned into ice and snow, whose particles are less smooth and round, and do not find their level so soon.

Far over the ice, between the hemlock woods and snow-clad hills, stands the pickerel-fisher, his lines set in some retired cove, like a Finlander, with his arms thrust into the pouches of his dreadnaught; with dull, snowy, fishy thoughts, himself a finless fish, separated a few inches from his race; dumb, erect, and made to be enveloped in clouds and snows, like the pines on shore. In these wild scenes, men stand about in the scenery, or move deliberately and heavily, having sacrificed the sprightliness and vivacity of towns to the dumb sobriety of nature. He does not make the scenery less wild, more than the jays and muskrats, but stands there as a part of it, as the natives are represented in the voyages of early navigators, at Nootka Sound, and on the Northwest coast, with their furs about them, before they were tempted to loquacity by a scrap of iron. He belongs to the natural family of man, and is planted deeper in nature and has more root than the inhabitants of towns. Go to him, ask what luck, and you will learn that he too is a worshiper of the unseen. Hear with what sincere deference and waving gesture in his tone he speaks of the lake pickerel, which he has never seen, his primitive and ideal race of pickerel. He is connected with the shore still, as by a fish-line, and yet remembers the season when he took fish through the ice on the pond, while the peas were up in his garden at home.

But now, while we have loitered, the clouds have gathered again, and a few straggling snowflakes are beginning to descend. Faster and faster they fall, shutting out the distant objects from sight. The snow falls on every wood and field, and no crevice is forgotten; by the river and the pond, on the hill and in the valley. Quadrupeds are confined to their coverts and the birds sit upon their perches this peaceful hour. There is not so much sound as in fair weather, but silently and gradually every slope, and the gray walls and fences, and the polished ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried before, are concealed, and the tracks of men and beasts are lost. With so little effort does nature reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men. Hear how Homer has described the same: "The snowflakes fall thick and fast on a winter's day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls incessant, covering the tops of the mountains, and the hills, and the plains where the lotus-tree grows, and the cultivated fields, and they are falling by the inlets and shores of the foaming sea, but are silently dissolved by the waves." The snow levels all things, and infolds them deeper in the bosom of nature, as, in the slow summer, vegetation creeps up to the entablature of the temple, and the turrets of the castle, and helps her to prevail over art.

The surly night-wind rustles through the wood, and warns us to retrace our steps, while the sun goes down behind the thickening storm, and birds seek their roosts, and cattle their stalls.

"Drooping the lab'rer ox Stands covered o'er with snow, and _now_ demands The fruit of all his toil."

Though winter is represented in the almanac as an old man, facing the wind and sleet, and drawing his cloak about him, we rather think of him as a merry woodchopper, and warm-blooded youth, as blithe as summer. The unexplored grandeur of the storm keeps up the spirits of the traveler. It does not trifle with us, but has a sweet earnestness. In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which the house affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chimney-top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney-side, or feeling our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a skillful physician could determine our health by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected us. We enjoy now, not an Oriental, but a Boreal leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and watch the shadow of motes in the sunbeams.

Sometimes our fate grows too homely and familiarly serious ever to be cruel. Consider how for three months the human destiny is wrapped in furs. The good Hebrew Revelation takes no cognizance of all this cheerful snow. Is there no religion for the temperate and frigid zones? We know of no scripture which records the pure benignity of the gods on a New England winter night. Their praises have never been sung, only their wrath deprecated. The best scripture, after all, records but a meagre faith. Its saints live reserved and austere. Let a brave, devout man spend the year in the woods of Maine or Labrador, and see if the Hebrew Scriptures speak adequately to his condition and experience, from the setting in of winter to the breaking up of the ice.

Now commences the long winter evening around the farmer's hearth, when the thoughts of the indwellers travel far abroad, and men are by nature and necessity charitable and liberal to all creatures. Now is the happy resistance to cold, when the farmer reaps his reward, and thinks of his preparedness for winter, and, through the glittering panes, sees with equanimity "the mansion of the northern bear," for now the storm is over,--

"The full ethereal round, Infinite worlds disclosing to the view, Shines out intensely keen; and all one cope Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole."

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES[6]

Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a transcendentalist; and for my part I am more interested in the men than in the cattle. I wish to see once more those old familiar faces, whose names I do not know, which for me represent the Middlesex country, and come as near being indigenous to the soil as a white man can; the men who are not above their business, whose coats are not too black, whose shoes do not shine very much, who never wear gloves to conceal their hands. It is true, there are some queer specimens of humanity attracted to our festival, but all are welcome. I am pretty sure to meet once more that weak-minded and whimsical fellow, generally weak-bodied too, who prefers a crooked stick for a cane; perfectly useless, you would say, only _bizarre_, fit for a cabinet, like a petrified snake. A ram's horn would be as convenient, and is yet more curiously twisted. He brings that much indulged bit of the country with him, from some town's end or other, and introduces it to Concord groves, as if he had promised it so much sometime. So some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler. Or why choose a man to do plain work who is distinguished for his oddity? However, I do not know but you will think that they have committed this mistake who invited me to speak to you to-day.

In my capacity of surveyor, I have often talked with some of you, my employers, at your dinner-tables, after having gone round and round and behind your farming, and ascertained exactly what its limits were. Moreover, taking a surveyor's and a naturalist's liberty, I have been in the habit of going across your lots much oftener than is usual, as many of you, perhaps to your sorrow, are aware. Yet many of you, to my relief, have seemed not to be aware of it; and, when I came across you in some out-of-the-way nook of your farms, have inquired, with an air of surprise, if I were not lost, since you had never seen me in that part of the town or county before; when, if the truth were known, and it had not been for betraying my secret, I might with more propriety have inquired if _you_ were not lost, since I had never seen _you_ there before. I have several times shown the proprietor the shortest way out of his wood-lot.

Therefore, it would seem that I have some title to speak to you to-day; and considering what that title is, and the occasion that has called us together, I need offer no apology if I invite your attention, for the few moments that are allotted me, to a purely scientific subject.

At those dinner-tables referred to, I have often been asked, as many of you have been, if I could tell how it happened, that when a pine wood was cut down an oak one commonly sprang up, and _vice versa_. To which I have answered, and now answer, that I can tell,--that it is no mystery to me. As I am not aware that this has been clearly shown by any one, I shall lay the more stress on this point. Let me lead you back into your wood-lots again.

When, hereabouts, a single forest tree or a forest springs up naturally where none of its kind grew before, I do not hesitate to say, though in some quarters still it may sound paradoxical, that it came from a seed. Of the various ways by which trees are _known_ to be propagated,--by transplanting, cuttings, and the like,--this is the only supposable one under these circumstances. No such tree has ever been known to spring from anything else. If any one asserts that it sprang from something else, or from nothing, the burden of proof lies with him.

It remains, then, only to show how the seed is transported from where it grows to where it is planted. This is done chiefly by the agency of the wind, water, and animals. The lighter seeds, as those of pines and maples, are transported chiefly by wind and water; the heavier, as acorns and nuts, by animals.

In all the pines, a very thin membrane, in appearance much like an insect's wing, grows over and around the seed, and independent of it, while the latter is being developed within its base. Indeed this is often perfectly developed, though the seed is abortive; nature being, you would say, more sure to provide the means of transporting the seed, than to provide the seed to be transported. In other words, a beautiful thin sack is woven around the seed, with a handle to it such as the wind can take hold of, and it is then committed to the wind, expressly that it may transport the seed and extend the range of the species; and this it does, as effectually as when seeds are sent by mail in a different kind of sack from the Patent Office. There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.

There is, then, no necessity for supposing that the pines have sprung up from nothing, and I am aware that I am not at all peculiar in asserting that they come from seeds, though the mode of their propagation _by nature_ has been but little attended to. They are very extensively raised from the seed in Europe, and are beginning to be here.

When you cut down an oak wood, a pine wood will not _at once_ spring up there unless there are, or have been quite recently, seed-bearing pines near enough for the seeds to be blown from them. But, adjacent to a forest of pines, if you prevent other crops from growing there, you will surely have an extension of your pine forest, provided the soil is suitable.

As for the heavy seeds and nuts which are not furnished with wings, the notion is still a very common one that, when the trees which bear these spring up where none of their kind were noticed before, they have come from seeds or other principles spontaneously generated there in an unusual manner, or which have lain dormant in the soil for centuries, or perhaps been called into activity by the heat of a burning. I do not believe these assertions, and I will state some of the ways in which, according to my observation, such forests are planted and raised.

Every one of these seeds, too, will be found to be winged or legged in another fashion. Surely it is not wonderful that cherry trees of all kinds are widely dispersed, since their fruit is well known to be the favorite food of various birds. Many kinds are called bird cherries, and they appropriate many more kinds, which are not so called. Eating cherries is a bird-like employment, and unless we disperse the seeds occasionally, as they do, I shall think that the birds have the best right to them. See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it,--in the very midst of a tempting pericarp, so that the creature that would devour this must commonly take the stone also into its mouth or bill. If you ever ate a cherry, and did not make two bites of it, you must have perceived it,--right in the centre of the luscious morsel, a large earthy residuum left on the tongue. We thus take into our mouths cherry-stones as big as peas, a dozen at once, for Nature can persuade us to do almost anything when she would compass her ends. Some wild men and children instinctively swallow these, as the birds do when in a hurry, it being the shortest way to get rid of them. Thus, though these seeds are not provided with vegetable wings, Nature has impelled the thrush tribe to take them into their bills and fly away with them; and they are winged in another sense, and more effectually than the seeds of pines, for these are carried even against the wind. The consequence is, that cherry trees grow not only here but there. The same is true of a great many other seeds.

But to come to the observation which suggested these remarks. As I have said, I suspect that I can throw some light on the fact that when hereabouts a dense pine wood is cut down, oaks and other hard woods may at once take its place. I have got only to show that the acorns and nuts, provided they are grown in the neighborhood, are regularly planted in such woods; for I assert that if an oak tree has not grown within ten miles, and man has not carried acorns thither, then an oak wood will not spring up _at once_, when a pine wood is cut down.

Apparently, there were only pines there before. They are cut off, and after a year or two you see oaks and other hard woods springing up there, with scarcely a pine amid them, and the wonder commonly is, how the seed could have lain in the ground so long without decaying. But the truth is, that it has not lain in the ground so long, but is regularly planted each year by various quadrupeds and birds.

In this neighborhood, where oaks and pines are about equally dispersed, if you look through the thickest pine wood, even the seemingly unmixed pitch pine ones, you will commonly detect many little oaks, birches, and other hard woods, sprung from seeds carried into the thicket by squirrels and other animals, and also blown thither, but which are overshadowed and choked by the pines. The denser the evergreen wood, the more likely it is to be well planted with these seeds, because the planters incline to resort with their forage to the closest covert. They also carry it into birch and other woods. This planting is carried on annually, and the oldest seedlings annually die; but when the pines are cleared off, the oaks, having got just the start they want, and now secured favorable conditions, immediately spring up to trees.

The shade of a dense pine wood is more unfavorable to the springing up of pines of the same species than of oaks within it, though the former may come up abundantly when the pines are cut, if there chance to be sound seed in the ground.

But when you cut off a lot of hard wood, very often the little pines mixed with it have a similar start, for the squirrels have carried off the nuts to the pines, and not to the more open wood, and they commonly make pretty clean work of it; and moreover, if the wood was old, the sprouts will be feeble or entirely fail; to say nothing about the soil being, in a measure, exhausted for this kind of crop.

If a pine wood is surrounded by a white oak one chiefly, white oaks may be expected to succeed when the pines are cut. If it is surrounded instead by an edging of shrub oaks, then you will probably have a dense shrub oak thicket.

I have no time to go into details, but will say, in a word, that while the wind is conveying the seeds of pines into hard woods and open lands, the squirrels and other animals are conveying the seeds of oaks and walnuts into the pine woods, and thus a rotation of crops is kept up.

I affirmed this confidently many years ago, and an occasional examination of dense pine woods confirmed me in my opinion. It has long been known to observers that squirrels bury nuts in the ground, but I am not aware that any one has thus accounted for the regular succession of forests.

On the 24th of September, in 1857, as I was paddling down the Assabet, in this town, I saw a red squirrel run along the bank under some herbage, with something large in its mouth. It stopped near the foot of a hemlock, within a couple of rods of me, and, hastily pawing a hole with its fore feet, dropped its booty into it, covered it up, and retreated part way up the trunk of the tree. As I approached the shore to examine the deposit, the squirrel, descending part way, betrayed no little anxiety about its treasure, and made two or three motions to recover it before it finally retreated. Digging there, I found two green pignuts joined together, with the thick husks on, buried about an inch and a half under the reddish soil of decayed hemlock leaves,--just the right depth to plant it. In short, this squirrel was then engaged in accomplishing two objects, to wit, laying up a store of winter food for itself, and planting a hickory wood for all creation. If the squirrel was killed, or neglected its deposit, a hickory would spring up. The nearest hickory tree was twenty rods distant. These nuts were there still just fourteen days later, but were gone when I looked again, November 21st, or six weeks later still.

I have since examined more carefully several dense woods, which are said to be, and are apparently, exclusively pine, and always with the same result. For instance, I walked the same day to a small but very dense and handsome white pine grove, about fifteen rods square, in the east part of this town. The trees are large for Concord, being from ten to twenty inches in diameter, and as exclusively pine as any wood that I know. Indeed, I selected this wood because I thought it the least likely to contain anything else. It stands on an open plain or pasture, except that it adjoins another small pine wood, which has a few little oaks in it, on the southeast side. On every other side, it was at least thirty rods from the nearest woods. Standing on the edge of this grove and looking through it, for it is quite level and free from underwood, for the most part bare, red-carpeted ground, you would have said that there was not a hardwood tree in it, young or old. But on looking carefully along over its floor I discovered, though it was not till my eye had got used to the search, that, alternating with thin ferns, and small blueberry bushes, there was, not merely here and there, but as often as every five feet and with a degree of regularity, a little oak, from three to twelve inches high, and in one place I found a green acorn dropped by the base of a pine.

I confess I was surprised to find my theory so perfectly proved in this case. One of the principal agents in this planting, the red squirrels, were all the while curiously inspecting me, while I was inspecting their plantation. Some of the little oaks had been browsed by cows, which resorted to this wood for shade.

After seven or eight years, the hard woods evidently find such a locality unfavorable to their growth, the pines being allowed to stand. As an evidence of this, I observed a diseased red maple twenty-five feet long, which had been recently prostrated, though it was still covered with green leaves, the only maple in any position in the wood.

But although these oaks almost invariably die if the pines are not cut down, it is probable that they do better for a few years under their shelter than they would anywhere else.

The very extensive and thorough experiments of the English have at length led them to adopt a method of raising oaks almost precisely like this which somewhat earlier had been adopted by Nature and her squirrels here; they have simply rediscovered the value of pines as nurses for oaks. The English experimenters seem, early and generally, to have found out the importance of using trees of some kind as nurse-plants for the young oaks. I quote from Loudon what he describes as "the ultimatum on the subject of planting and sheltering oaks,"--"an abstract of the practice adopted by the government officers in the national forests" of England, prepared by Alexander Milne.

At first some oaks had been planted by themselves, and others mixed with Scotch pines; "but in all cases," says Mr. Milne, "where oaks were planted actually among the pines and surrounded by them [though the soil might be inferior], the oaks were found to be much the best." "For several years past, the plan pursued has been to plant the inclosures with Scotch pines only [a tree very similar to our pitch pine], and when the pines have got to the height of five or six feet, then to put in good strong oak plants of about four or five years' growth among the pines,--not cutting away any pines at first, unless they happen to be so strong and thick as to overshadow the oaks. In about two years it becomes necessary to shred the branches of the pines, to give light and air to the oaks, and in about two or three more years to begin gradually to remove the pines altogether, taking out a certain number each year, so that, at the end of twenty or twenty-five years, not a single Scotch pine shall be left; although, for the first ten or twelve years, the plantation may have appeared to contain nothing else but pine. The advantage of this mode of planting has been found to be that the pines dry and ameliorate the soil, destroying the coarse grass and brambles which frequently choke and injure oaks; and that no mending over is necessary, as scarcely an oak so planted is found to fail."

Thus much the English planters have discovered by patient experiment, and, for aught I know, they have taken out a patent for it; but they appear not to have discovered that it was discovered before, and that they are merely adopting the method of Nature, which she long ago made patent to all. She is all the while planting the oaks amid the pines without our knowledge, and at last, instead of government officers, we send a party of woodchoppers to cut down the pines, and so rescue an oak forest, at which we wonder as if it had dropped from the skies.

As I walk amid hickories, even in August, I hear the sound of green pignuts falling from time to time, cut off by the chickaree over my head. In the fall, I notice on the ground, either within or in the neighborhood of oak woods, on all sides of the town, stout oak twigs three or four inches long, bearing half a dozen empty acorn-cups, which twigs have been gnawed off by squirrels, on both sides of the nuts, in order to make them more portable. The jays scream and the red squirrels scold while you are clubbing and shaking the chestnut trees, for they are there on the same errand, and two of a trade never agree. I frequently see a red or gray squirrel cast down a green chestnut bur, as I am going through the woods, and I used to think, sometimes, that they were cast at me. In fact, they are so busy about it, in the midst of the chestnut season, that you cannot stand long in the woods without hearing one fall. A sportsman told me that he had, the day before,--that was in the middle of October,--seen a green chestnut bur dropped on our great river meadow, fifty rods from the nearest wood, and much further from the nearest chestnut tree, and he could not tell how it came there. Occasionally, when chestnutting in midwinter, I find thirty or forty nuts in a pile, left in its gallery, just under the leaves, by the common wood mouse (_Mus leucopus_).

But especially, in the winter, the extent to which this transportation and planting of nuts is carried on is made apparent by the snow. In almost every wood, you will see where the red or gray squirrels have pawed down through the snow in a hundred places, sometimes two feet deep, and almost always directly to a nut or a pine cone, as directly as if they had started from it and bored upward,--which you and I could not have done. It would be difficult for us to find one before the snow falls. Commonly, no doubt, they had deposited them there in the fall. You wonder if they remember the localities, or discover them by the scent. The red squirrel commonly has its winter abode in the earth under a thicket of evergreens, frequently under a small clump of evergreens in the midst of a deciduous wood. If there are any nut trees which still retain their nuts standing at a distance without the wood, their paths often lead directly to and from them. We therefore need not suppose an oak standing here and there _in_ the wood in order to seed it, but if a few stand within twenty or thirty rods of it, it is sufficient.

I think that I may venture to say that every white pine cone that falls to the earth naturally in this town, before opening and losing its seeds, and almost every pitch pine one that falls at all, is cut off by a squirrel, and they begin to pluck them long before they are ripe, so that when the crop of white pine cones is a small one, as it commonly is, they cut off thus almost every one of these before it fairly ripens. I think, moreover, that their design, if I may so speak, in cutting them off green, is, partly, to prevent their opening and losing their seeds, for these are the ones for which they dig through the snow, and the only white pine cones which contain anything then. I have counted in one heap, within a diameter of four feet, the cores of 239 pitch pine cones which had been cut off and stripped by the red squirrel the previous winter.

The nuts thus left on the surface, or buried just beneath it, are placed in the most favorable circumstances for germinating. I have sometimes wondered how those which merely fell on the surface of the earth got planted; but, by the end of December, I find the chestnut of the same year partially mixed with the mould, as it were, under the decaying and mouldy leaves, where there is all the moisture and manure they want, for the nuts fall fast. In a plentiful year, a large proportion of the nuts are thus covered loosely an inch deep, and are, of course, somewhat concealed from squirrels. One winter, when the crop had been abundant, I got, with the aid of a rake, many quarts of these nuts as late as the tenth of January, and though some bought at the store the same day were more than half of them mouldy, I did not find a single mouldy one among these which I picked from under the wet and mouldy leaves, where they had been snowed on once or twice. Nature knows how to pack them best. They were still plump and tender. Apparently, they do not heat there, though wet. In the spring they were all sprouting.

Loudon says that "when the nut [of the common walnut of Europe] is to be preserved through the winter for the purpose of planting in the following spring, it should be laid in a rot-heap, as soon as gathered, with the husk on, and the heap should be turned over frequently in the course of the winter."

Here, again, he is stealing Nature's "thunder." How can a poor mortal do otherwise? for it is she that finds fingers to steal with, and the treasure to be stolen. In the planting of the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no more than follow Nature, though they may not know it. Generally, both large and small ones are most sure to germinate, and succeed best, when only beaten into the earth with the back of a spade, and then covered with leaves or straw. These results to which planters have arrived remind us of the experience of Kane and his companions at the north, who, when learning to live in that climate, were surprised to find themselves steadily adopting the customs of the natives, simply becoming Esquimaux. So, when we experiment in planting forests, we find ourselves at last doing as Nature does. Would it not be well to consult with Nature in the outset? for she is the most extensive and experienced planter of us all, not excepting the Dukes of Athol.

In short, they who have not attended particularly to this subject are but little aware to what an extent quadrupeds and birds are employed, especially in the fall, in collecting, and so disseminating and planting, the seeds of trees. It is the almost constant employment of the squirrels at that season, and you rarely meet with one that has not a nut in its mouth, or is not just going to get one. One squirrel-hunter of this town told me that he knew of a walnut tree which bore particularly good nuts, but that on going to gather them one fall, he found that he had been anticipated by a family of a dozen red squirrels. He took out of the tree, which was hollow, one bushel and three pecks by measurement, without the husks, and they supplied him and his family for the winter. It would be easy to multiply instances of this kind. How commonly in the fall you see the cheek-pouches of the striped squirrel distended by a quantity of nuts! This species gets its scientific name, _Tamias_, or the steward, from its habit of storing up nuts and other seeds. Look under a nut tree a month after the nuts have fallen, and see what proportion of sound nuts to the abortive ones and shells you will find ordinarily. They have been already eaten, or dispersed far and wide. The ground looks like a platform before a grocery, where the gossips of the village sit to crack nuts and less savory jokes. You have come, you would say, after the feast was over, and are presented with the shells only.

Occasionally, when threading the woods in the fall, you will hear a sound as if some one had broken a twig, and, looking up, see a jay pecking at an acorn, or you will see a flock of them at once about it, in the top of an oak, and hear them break them off. They then fly to a suitable limb, and placing the acorn under one foot, hammer away at it busily, making a sound like a woodpecker's tapping, looking round from time to time to see if any foe is approaching, and soon reach the meat, and nibble at it, holding up their heads to swallow, while they hold the remainder very firmly with their claws. Nevertheless it often drops to the ground before the bird has done with it. I can confirm what William Bartram wrote to Wilson, the ornithologist, that "the jay is one of the most useful agents in the economy of nature, for disseminating forest trees and other nuciferous and hard-seeded vegetables on which they feed. Their chief employment during the autumnal season is foraging to supply their winter stores. In performing this necessary duty they drop abundance of seed in their flight over fields, hedges, and by fences, where they alight to deposit them in the post-holes, etc. It is remarkable what numbers of young trees rise up in fields and pastures after a wet winter and spring. These birds alone are capable, in a few years' time, to replant all the cleared lands."

I have noticed that squirrels also frequently drop their nuts in open land, which will still further account for the oaks and walnuts which spring up in pastures, for, depend on it, every new tree comes from a seed. When I examine the little oaks, one or two years old, in such places, I invariably find the empty acorn from which they sprung.

So far from the seed having lain dormant in the soil since oaks grew there before, as many believe, it is well known that it is difficult to preserve the vitality of acorns long enough to transport them to Europe; and it is recommended in Loudon's "Arboretum," as the safest course, to sprout them in pots on the voyage. The same authority states that "very few acorns of any species will germinate after having been kept a year," that beech mast "only retains its vital properties one year," and the black walnut "seldom more than six months after it has ripened." I have frequently found that in November almost every acorn left on the ground had sprouted or decayed. What with frost, drouth, moisture, and worms, the greater part are soon destroyed. Yet it is stated by one botanical writer that "acorns that have lain for centuries, on being ploughed up, have soon vegetated."

Mr. George B. Emerson, in his valuable Report on the Trees and Shrubs of this State, says of the pines: "The tenacity of life of the seeds is remarkable. They will remain for many years unchanged in the ground, protected by the coolness and deep shade of the forest above them. But when the forest is removed, and the warmth of the sun admitted, they immediately vegetate." Since he does not tell us on what observation his remark is founded, I must doubt its truth. Besides, the experience of nursery-men makes it the more questionable.

The stories of wheat raised from seed buried with an ancient Egyptian, and of raspberries raised from seed found in the stomach of a man in England, who is supposed to have died sixteen or seventeen hundred years ago, are generally discredited, simply because the evidence is not conclusive.

Several men of science, Dr. Carpenter among them, have used the statement that beach plums sprang up in sand which was dug up forty miles inland in Maine, to prove that the seed had lain there a very long time, and some have inferred that the coast has receded so far. But it seems to me necessary to their argument to show, first, that beach plums grow only on a beach. They are not uncommon here, which is about half that distance from the shore; and I remember a dense patch a few miles north of us, twenty-five miles inland, from which the fruit was annually carried to market. How much further inland they grow, I know not. Dr. Charles T. Jackson speaks of finding "beach plums" (perhaps they were this kind) more than one hundred miles inland in Maine.

It chances that similar objections lie against all the more notorious instances of the kind on record.

Yet I am prepared to believe that some seeds, especially small ones, may retain their vitality for centuries under favorable circumstances. In the spring of 1859, the old Hunt house, so called, in this town, whose chimney bore the date 1703, was taken down. This stood on land which belonged to John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, and a part of the house was evidently much older than the above date, and belonged to the Winthrop family. For many years I have ransacked this neighborhood for plants, and I consider myself familiar with its productions. Thinking of the seeds which are said to be sometimes dug up at an unusual depth in the earth, and thus to reproduce long extinct plants, it occurred to me last fall that some new or rare plants might have sprung up in the cellar of this house, which had been covered from the light so long. Searching there on the 22d of September, I found, among other rank weeds, a species of nettle (_Urtica urens_) which I had not found before; dill, which I had not seen growing spontaneously; the Jerusalem oak (_Chenopodium Botrys_), which I had seen wild in but one place; black nightshade (_Solanum nigrum_), which is quite rare hereabouts, and common tobacco, which, though it was often cultivated here in the last century, has for fifty years been an unknown plant in this town, and a few months before this not even I had heard that one man, in the north part of the town, was cultivating a few plants for his own use. I have no doubt that some or all of these plants sprang from seeds which had long been buried under or about that house, and that that tobacco is an additional evidence that the plant was formerly cultivated here. The cellar has been filled up this year, and four of those plants, including the tobacco, are now again extinct in that locality.

It is true, I have shown that the animals consume a great part of the seeds of trees, and so, at least, effectually prevent their becoming trees; but in all these cases, as I have said, the consumer is compelled to be at the same time the disperser and planter, and this is the tax which he pays to Nature. I think it is Linnæus who says that while the swine is rooting for acorns he is planting acorns.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,--a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders. I shall even believe that the millennium is at hand, and that the reign of justice is about to commence, when the Patent Office, or Government, begins to distribute, and the people to plant, the seeds of these things.

In the spring of 1857 I planted six seeds sent to me from the Patent Office, and labeled, I think, _Poitrine jaune grosse_, large yellow squash. Two came up, and one bore a squash which weighed 123½ pounds, the other bore four, weighing together 186¼ pounds. Who would have believed that there was 310 pounds of _poitrine jaune grosse_ in that corner of my garden? These seeds were the bait I used to catch it, my ferrets which I sent into its burrow, my brace of terriers which unearthed it. A little mysterious hoeing and manuring was all the _abracadabra presto-change_ that I used, and lo! true to the label, they found for me 310 pounds of _poitrine jaune grosse_ there, where it never was known to be, nor was before. These talismans had perchance sprung from America at first, and returned to it with unabated force. The big squash took a premium at your fair that fall, and I understood that the man who bought it, intended to sell the seeds for ten cents apiece. (Were they not cheap at that?) But I have more hounds of the same breed. I learn that one which I despatched to a distant town, true to its instincts, points to the large yellow squash there, too, where no hound ever found it before, as its ancestors did here and in France.

Other seeds I have which will find other things in that corner of my garden, in like fashion, almost any fruit you wish, every year for ages, until the crop more than fills the whole garden. You have but little more to do than throw up your cap for entertainment these American days. Perfect alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end, and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value which gold merely represents; and there is no Signor Blitz about it. Yet farmers' sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] An Address read to the Middlesex Agricultural Society in Concord, September, 1860.

WALKING

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,--to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

* * * * *

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,--who had a genius, so to speak, for _sauntering_, which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going _à la Sainte Terre_," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a _Sainte-Terrer_," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from _sans terre_, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return,--prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,--if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.

To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order,--not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,--not the Knight, but Walker, Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of Church and State and People.

We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced this noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least if their own assertions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. _Ambulator nascitur, non fit._ Some of my townsmen, it is true, can remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they were foresters and outlaws.

"When he came to grene wode, In a mery mornynge, There he herde the notes small Of byrdes mery syngynge.

"It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn, That I was last here; Me lyste a lytell for to shote At the donne dere."

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more than that--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them,--as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon,--I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour, or four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for,--I confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and years almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are of,--sitting there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o'clock in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, but it is nothing to the courage which can sit down cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over against one's self whom you have known all the morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound by such strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the morning papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a general explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a legion of antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four winds for an airing,--and so the evil cure itself.

How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do not _stand_ it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon, we have been shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making haste past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that probably about these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that I appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself never turns in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping watch over the slumberers.

No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do with it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as the evening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour.

But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours,--as the swinging of dumbbells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumbbells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him!

Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's study, she answered, "Here is his library, but his study is out of doors."

Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness of character,--will cause a thicker cuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps we should be more susceptible to some influences important to our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will fall off fast enough,--that the natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, thought to experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some sects of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to themselves, since they did not go to the woods. "They planted groves and walks of Platanes," where they took _subdiales ambulationes_ in porticos open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is,--I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good works,--for this may sometimes happen.

My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours' walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle of ten miles' radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite familiar to you.

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand! I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the middle of a boggy Stygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven, and looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor.

I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow and the woodside. There are square miles in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can see civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarming of them all,--I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower highway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveler thither. If you would go to the political world, follow the great road,--follow that market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I pass from it as from a bean-field into the forest, and it is forgotten. In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion of the earth's surface where a man does not stand from one year's end to another, and there, consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the cigar-smoke of a man.

The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion of the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads are the arms and legs,--a trivial or quadrivial place, the thoroughfare and ordinary of travelers. The word is from the Latin _villa_, which together with _via_, a way, or more anciently _ved_ and _vella_, Varro derives from _veho_, to carry, because the villa is the place to and from which things are carried. They who got their living by teaming were said _vellaturam facere_. Hence, too, the Latin word _vilis_ and our vile, also _villain_. This suggests what kind of degeneracy villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by the travel that goes by and over them, without traveling themselves.

Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead. I am a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not make that use of my figure. I walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America; neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer account of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, that I have seen.

However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as if they led somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not go to Marlborough now, methinks, unless that is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the bolder to speak of it here, because I presume that there are one or two such roads in every town.

THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD

Where they once dug for money, But never found any; Where sometimes Martial Miles Singly files, And Elijah Wood, I fear for no good: No other man, Save Elisha Dugan,-- O man of wild habits, Partridges and rabbits, Who hast no cares Only to set snares, Who liv'st all alone, Close to the bone, And where life is sweetest Constantly eatest. When the spring stirs my blood With the instinct to travel, I can get enough gravel On the Old Marlborough Road. Nobody repairs it, For nobody wears it; It is a living way, As the Christians say. Not many there be Who enter therein, Only the guests of the Irishman Quin. What is it, what is it, But a direction out there, And the bare possibility Of going somewhere? Great guide-boards of stone, But travelers none; Cenotaphs of the towns Named on their crowns. It is worth going to see Where you _might_ be. What king Did the thing, I am still wondering; Set up how or when, By what selectmen, Gourgas or Lee, Clark or Darby? They're a great endeavor To be something forever; Blank tablets of stone, Where a traveler might groan, And in one sentence Grave all that is known; Which another might read, In his extreme need. I know one or two Lines that would do, Literature that might stand All over the land, Which a man could remember Till next December, And read again in the spring, After the thawing. If with fancy unfurled You leave your abode, You may go round the world By the Old Marlborough Road.

At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only,--when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the _public_ road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come.

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What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.

When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to settle,--varies a few degrees, and does not always point due southwest, it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for a thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun, and there are no towns nor cities in it of enough consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much stress on this fact, if I did not believe that something like this is the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. "The world ends there," say they; "beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea." It is unmitigated East where they live.

We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to forget the Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed this time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before it arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the Pacific, which is three times as wide.

I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of singularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest walk with the general movement of the race; but I know that something akin to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds,--which, in some instances, is known to have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them to a general and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say some, crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with its tail raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with their dead,--that something like the _furor_ which affects the domestic cattle in the spring, and which is referred to a worm in their tails, affects both nations and individuals, either perennially or from time to time. Not a flock of wild geese cackles over our town, but it to some extent unsettles the value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker, I should probably take that disturbance into account.

"Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken strange strondes."

Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a West as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islands and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those fables?

Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon. The herd of men in those days scented fresh pastures from afar.

"And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropped into the western bay; At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue; To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."

Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and varied in its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as this is? Michaux, who knew but part of them, says that "the species of large trees are much more numerous in North America than in Europe; in the United States there are more than one hundred and forty species that exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirty that attain this size." Later botanists more than confirm his observations. Humboldt came to America to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, and he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the primitive forests of the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which he has so eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes farther,--farther than I am ready to follow him; yet not when he says: "As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is made for the animal world, America is made for the man of the Old World.... The man of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving the highlands of Asia, he descends from station to station towards Europe. Each of his steps is marked by a new civilization superior to the preceding, by a greater power of development. Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore of this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he knows not, and turns upon his footprints for an instant." When he has exhausted the rich soil of Europe, and reinvigorated himself, "then recommences his adventurous career westward as in the earliest ages." So far Guyot.

From this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The younger Michaux, in his "Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802," says that the common inquiry in the newly settled West was, "'From what part of the world have you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions would naturally be the place of meeting and common country of all the inhabitants of the globe."

To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, _Ex Oriente lux; ex Occidente_ FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit.

Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a Governor-General of Canada, tells us that "in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New World, Nature has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader." This statement will do at least to set against Buffon's account of this part of the world and its productions.

Linnæus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies _laeta_, _glabra_ plantis Americanis" (I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect of American plants); and I think that in this country there are no, or at most very few, _Africanae bestiae_, African beasts, as the Romans called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the centre of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants are annually carried off by tigers; but the traveler can lie down in the woods at night almost anywhere in North America without fear of wild beasts.

These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than in Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I believe that climate does thus react on man,--as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky,--our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains,--our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests,--and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will appear to the traveler something, he knows not what, of _laeta_ and _glabra_, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does the world go on, and why was America discovered?

To Americans I hardly need to say,--

"Westward the star of empire takes its way."

As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country.

Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize with the West. There is the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took to the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of to-day.

Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like a dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in something more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans, and repaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names were music to my ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend. There were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew only in history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic age, and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry.

Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked my way up the river in the light of to-day, and saw the steamboats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as before I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff,--still thinking more of the future than of the past or present,--I saw that this was a Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations of castles were yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the river; and I felt that _this was the heroic age itself_, though we know it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.

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The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock spruce or arbor-vitæ in our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course. Some of our northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, as well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers, as long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the fire. This is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house pork to make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure,--as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw.

There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood thrush, to which I would migrate,--wild lands where no settler has squatted; to which, methinks, I am already acclimated.

The African hunter Cumming tells us that the skin of the eland, as well as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most delicious perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild antelope, so much a part and parcel of nature, that his very person should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence, and remind us of those parts of nature which he most haunts. I feel no disposition to be satirical, when the trapper's coat emits the odor of musquash even; it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales from the merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go into their wardrobes and handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains and flowery meads which they have frequented, but of dusty merchants' exchanges and libraries rather.

A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than white for a man,--a denizen of the woods. "The pale white man!" I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the naturalist says, "A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like a plant bleached by the gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark green one, growing vigorously in the open fields."

Ben Jonson exclaims,--

"How near to good is what is fair!"

So I would say,--

How near to good is what is _wild_!

Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest-trees.

Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog,--a natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda (_Cassandra calyculata_) which cover these tender places on the earth's surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs which grow there,--the high blueberry, panicled andromeda, lambkill, azalea, and rhodora,--all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often think that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull red bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce and trim box, even graveled walks,--to have this fertile spot under my windows, not a few imported barrowfuls of soil only to cover the sand which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my parlor, behind this plot, instead of behind that meagre assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and Art, which I call my front yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a decent appearance when the carpenter and mason have departed, though done as much for the passer-by as the dweller within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was never an agreeable object of study to me; the most elaborate ornaments, acorn tops, or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills up to the very edge of the swamp, then (though it may not be the best place for a dry cellar), so that there be no access on that side to citizens. Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human art contrived, or else of a Dismal Swamp, I should certainly decide for the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me!

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure air and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveler Burton says of it: "Your _morale_ improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituous liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal existence." They who have been traveling long on the steppes of Tartary say, "On reëntering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia." When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a _sanctum sanctorum_. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature. The wildwood covers the virgin mould, and the same soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck. There are the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.

To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years ago they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very aspect of those primitive and rugged trees there was, methinks, a tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good thickness, and we no longer produce tar and turpentine.

The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones.

It is said to be the task of the American "to work the virgin soil," and that "agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown everywhere else." I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a single straight line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp at whose entrance might have been written the words which Dante read over the entrance to the infernal regions, "Leave all hope, ye that enter,"--that is, of ever getting out again; where at one time I saw my employer actually up to his neck and swimming for his life in his property, though it was still winter. He had another similar swamp which I could not survey at all, because it was completely under water, and nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, which I did _survey_ from a distance, he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not part with it for any consideration, on account of the mud which it contained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by the magic of his spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class.

The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bushwhack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's corn-field into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench himself in the land than a clamshell. But the farmer is armed with plow and spade.

In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the scriptures and mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild--the mallard--thought, which 'mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself,--and not a taper lighted at the hearth-stone of the race, which pales before the light of common day.

English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included,--breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. Her wilderness is a greenwood, her wild man a Robin Hood. There is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. Her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild man in her, became extinct.

The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer.

Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as often as he used them,--transplanted them to his page with earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring, though they lay half smothered between two musty leaves in a library,--aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature.

I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is tame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or modern, any account which contents me of that Nature with which even I am acquainted. You will perceive that I demand something which no Augustan nor Elizabethan age, which no _culture_, in short, can give. Mythology comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature! Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight; and which it still bears, wherever its pristine vigor is unabated. All other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses; but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as old as mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives.

The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine having yielded their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past,--as it is to some extent a fiction of the present,--the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology.

The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are reminiscent,--others merely _sensible_, as the phrase is,--others prophetic. Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. The geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins, flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have their prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct before man was created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." The Hindoos dreamed that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an unimportant coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state, that a fossil tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough to support an elephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild fancies, which transcend the order of time and development. They are the sublimest recreation of the intellect. The partridge loves peas, but not those that go with her into the pot.

In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the human voice,--take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for instance,--which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.

I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights,--any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks out of her pasture early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, gray tide, twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. It is the buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This exploit confers some dignity on the herd in my eyes,--already dignified. The seeds of instinct are preserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, like seeds in the bowels of the earth, an indefinite period.

Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldy sport, like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook their heads, raised their tails, and rushed up and down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as well as by their activity, their relation to the deer tribe. But, alas! a sudden loud _Whoa!_ would have damped their ardor at once, reduced them from venison to beef, and stiffened their sides and sinews like the locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried "Whoa!" to mankind? Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, is meeting the horse and the ox half-way. Whatever part the whip has touched is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a _side_ of any of the supple cat tribe, as we speak of a _side_ of beef?

I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. Any man can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says, "The skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the skins of the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use to which they can be put.

* * * * *

When looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language, as of military officers, or of authors who have written on a particular subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The name Menschikoff, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more human than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. It is as if they had been named by the child's rigmarole, _Iery wiery ichery van, tittle-tol-tan_. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in his own dialect. The names of men are, of course, as cheap and meaningless as _Bose_ and _Tray_, the names of dogs.

Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,--because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.

At present our only true names are nicknames. I knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some travelers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame.

I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William or Edwin, takes it off with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or in anger, or aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or else melodious tongue.

* * * * *

Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,--a sort of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy limit.

In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,--not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved implements and modes of culture only!

Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very late, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance.

There may be an excess even of informing light. Niepce, a Frenchman, discovered "actinism," that power in the sun's rays which produces a chemical effect; that granite rocks, and stone structures, and statues of metal "are all alike destructively acted upon during the hours of sunshine, and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful, would soon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtile of the agencies of the universe." But he observed that "those bodies which underwent this change during the daylight possessed the power of restoring themselves to their original conditions during the hours of night, when this excitement was no longer influencing them." Hence it has been inferred that "the hours of darkness are as necessary to the inorganic creation as we know night and sleep are to the organic kingdom." Not even does the moon shine every night, but gives place to darkness.

I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.

There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knowledge, _Gramática parda_, tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to which I have referred.

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of the newspapers,--for what are the libraries of science but files of newspapers?--a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a horse and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,--Go to grass. You have eaten hay long enough. The spring has come with its green crop. The very cows are driven to their country pastures before the end of May; though I have heard of one unnatural farmer who kept his cow in the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So, frequently, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its cattle.

A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful,--while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with,--he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?

My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,--a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot _know_ in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun: Ὡς τὶ νοῶν, οὐ κεῖνον νοήσεις, "You will not perceive that, as perceiving a particular thing," say the Chaldean Oracles.

There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist,--and with respect to knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the lawmaker. "That is active duty," says the Vishnu Purana, "which is not for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation: all other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the cleverness of an artist."

* * * * *

It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories, how little exercised we have been in our minds, how few experiences we have had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,--though it be with struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would be well if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others appear to have been exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a kind of culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate. Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more to live for, aye, and to die for, than they have commonly.

When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is walking on a railroad, then, indeed, the cars go by without his hearing them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars return.

"Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen, And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms, Traveler of the windy glens, Why hast thou left my ear so soon?"

While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are attracted strongly to Nature. In their reaction to Nature men appear to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than the animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of the animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world Κόσμος, Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact.

For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor firefly has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features. The walker in the familiar fields which stretch around my native town sometimes finds himself in another land than is described in their owners' deeds, as it were in some faraway field on the confines of the actual Concord, where her jurisdiction ceases, and the idea which the word Concord suggests ceases to be suggested. These farms which I have myself surveyed, these bounds which I have set up, appear dimly still as through a mist; but they have no chemistry to fix them; they fade from the surface of the glass, and the picture which the painter painted stands out dimly from beneath. The world with which we are commonly acquainted leaves no trace, and it will have no anniversary.

* * * * *

I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me,--to whom the sun was servant,--who had not gone into society in the village,--who had not been called on. I saw their park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. Their house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it. I do not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directly through their hall, does not in the least put them out, as the muddy bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their neighbor,--notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Their coat-of-arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,--as of a distant hive in May,--which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry was not as in knots and excrescences embayed.

But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out of my mind even now while I speak, and endeavor to recall them and recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I should move out of Concord.

* * * * *

We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons visit us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the grove in our minds is laid waste,--sold to feed unnecessary fires of ambition, or sent to mill,--and there is scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of the mind, cast by the _wings_ of some thought in its vernal or autumnal migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry. They no longer soar, and they attain only to a Shanghai and Cochin-China grandeur. Those _gra-a-ate thoughts_, those _gra-a-ate men_ you hear of!

* * * * *

We hug the earth,--how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found my account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before,--so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have walked about the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainly should never have seen them. But, above all, I discovered around me,--it was near the end of June,--on the ends of the topmost branches only, a few minute and delicate red cone-like blossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. I carried straightway to the village the topmost spire, and showed it to stranger jurymen who walked the streets,--for it was court week,--and to farmers and lumber-dealers and woodchoppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the like before, but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of ancient architects finishing their works on the tops of columns as perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts! Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows. The pines have developed their delicate blossoms on the highest twigs of the wood every summer for ages, as well over the heads of Nature's red children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or hunter in the land has ever seen them.

* * * * *

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,--the gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and soundness of Nature, a brag for all the world,--healthiness as of a spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who has not betrayed his master many times since last he heard that note?

The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a cockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, "There is one of us well, at any rate,"--and with a sudden gush return to my senses.

* * * * *

We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold, gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever, an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as it has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.

AUTUMNAL TINTS

Europeans coming to America are surprised by the brilliancy of our autumnal foliage. There is no account of such a phenomenon in English poetry, because the trees acquire but few bright colors there. The most that Thomson says on this subject in his "Autumn" is contained in the lines,--

"But see the fading many-colored woods Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun, Of every hue, from wan declining green To sooty dark;"

and in the line in which he speaks of

"Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods."

The autumnal change of our woods has not made a deep impression on our own literature yet. October has hardly tinged our poetry.

A great many, who have spent their lives in cities, and have never chanced to come into the country at this season, have never seen this, the flower, or rather the ripe fruit, of the year. I remember riding with one such citizen, who, though a fortnight too late for the most brilliant tints, was taken by surprise, and would not believe that there had been any brighter. He had never heard of this phenomenon before. Not only many in our towns have never witnessed it, but it is scarcely remembered by the majority from year to year.

Most appear to confound changed leaves with withered ones, as if they were to confound ripe apples with rotten ones. I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and perfect maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits. It is generally the lowest and oldest leaves which change first. But as the perfect-winged and usually bright-colored insect is short-lived, so the leaves ripen but to fall.

Generally, every fruit, on ripening, and just before it falls, when it commences a more independent and individual existence, requiring less nourishment from any source, and that not so much from the earth through its stem as from the sun and air, acquires a bright tint. So do leaves. The physiologist says it is "due to an increased absorption of oxygen." That is the scientific account of the matter,--only a reassertion of the fact. But I am more interested in the rosy cheek than I am to know what particular diet the maiden fed on. The very forest and herbage, the pellicle of the earth, must acquire a bright color, an evidence of its ripeness,--as if the globe itself were a fruit on its stem, with ever a cheek toward the sun.

Flowers are but colored leaves, fruits but ripe ones. The edible part of most fruits is, as the physiologist says, "the parenchyma or fleshy tissue of the leaf," of which they are formed.

Our appetites have commonly confined our views of ripeness and its phenomena, color, mellowness, and perfectness, to the fruits which we eat, and we are wont to forget that an immense harvest which we do not eat, hardly use at all, is annually ripened by Nature. At our annual cattle-shows and horticultural exhibitions, we make, as we think, a great show of fair fruits, destined, however, to a rather ignoble end, fruits not valued for their beauty chiefly. But round about and within our towns there is annually another show of fruits, on an infinitely grander scale, fruits which address our taste for beauty alone.

October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.

I formerly thought that it would be worth the while to get a specimen leaf from each changing tree, shrub, and herbaceous plant, when it had acquired its brightest characteristic color, in its transition from the green to the brown state, outline it, and copy its color exactly, with paint, in a book, which should be entitled "October, or Autumnal Tints,"--beginning with the earliest reddening woodbine and the lake of radical leaves, and coming down through the maples, hickories, and sumachs, and many beautifully freckled leaves less generally known, to the latest oaks and aspens. What a memento such a book would be! You would need only to turn over its leaves to take a ramble through the autumn woods whenever you pleased. Or if I could preserve the leaves themselves, unfaded, it would be better still. I have made but little progress toward such a book, but I have endeavored, instead, to describe all these bright tints in the order in which they present themselves. The following are some extracts from my notes.

THE PURPLE GRASSES

By the twentieth of August, everywhere in woods and swamps we are reminded of the fall, both by the richly spotted sarsaparilla leaves and brakes, and the withering and blackened skunk-cabbage and hellebore, and, by the riverside, the already blackening pontederia.

The purple grass (_Eragrostis pectinacea_) is now in the height of its beauty. I remember still when I first noticed this grass particularly. Standing on a hillside near our river, I saw, thirty or forty rods off, a stripe of purple half a dozen rods long, under the edge of a wood, where the ground sloped toward a meadow. It was as high-colored and interesting, though not quite so bright, as the patches of rhexia, being a darker purple, like a berry's stain laid on close and thick. On going to and examining it, I found it to be a kind of grass in bloom, hardly a foot high, with but few green blades, and a fine spreading panicle of purple flowers, a shallow, purplish mist trembling around me. Close at hand it appeared but a dull purple, and made little impression on the eye; it was even difficult to detect; and if you plucked a single plant, you were surprised to find how thin it was, and how little color it had. But viewed at a distance in a favorable light, it was of a fine lively purple, flower-like, enriching the earth. Such puny causes combine to produce these decided effects. I was the more surprised and charmed because grass is commonly of a sober and humble color.

With its beautiful purple blush it reminds me, and supplies the place, of the rhexia, which is now leaving off, and it is one of the most interesting phenomena of August. The finest patches of it grow on waste strips or selvages of land at the base of dry hills, just above the edge of the meadows, where the greedy mower does not deign to swing his scythe; for this is a thin and poor grass, beneath his notice. Or, it may be, because it is so beautiful he does not know that it exists; for the same eye does not see this and timothy. He carefully gets the meadow-hay and the more nutritious grasses which grow next to that, but he leaves this fine purple mist for the walker's harvest,--fodder for his fancy stock. Higher up the hill, perchance, grow also blackberries, John's-wort, and neglected, withered, and wiry June-grass. How fortunate that it grows in such places, and not in the midst of the rank grasses which are annually cut! Nature thus keeps use and beauty distinct. I know many such localities, where it does not fail to present itself annually, and paint the earth with its blush. It grows on the gentle slopes, either in a continuous patch or in scattered and rounded tufts a foot in diameter, and it lasts till it is killed by the first smart frosts.

In most plants the corolla or calyx is the part which attains the highest color, and is the most attractive; in many it is the seed-vessel or fruit; in others, as the red maple, the leaves; and in others still it is the very culm itself which is the principal flower or blooming part.

The last is especially the case with the poke or garget (_Phytolacca decandra_). Some which stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their purple stems now and early in September. They are as interesting to me as most flowers, and one of the most important fruits of our autumn. Every part is flower (or fruit), such is its superfluity of color,--stem, branch, peduncle, pedicel, petiole, and even the at length yellowish, purple-veined leaves. Its cylindrical racemes of berries of various hues, from green to dark purple, six or seven inches long, are gracefully drooping on all sides, offering repasts to the birds; and even the sepals from which the birds have picked the berries are a brilliant lake red, with crimson flame-like reflections, equal to anything of the kind,--all on fire with ripeness. Hence the _lacca_, from _lac_, lake. There are at the same time flower-buds, flowers, green berries, dark-purple or ripe ones, and these flower-like sepals, all on the same plant.

We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood. It asks a bright sun on it to make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season of the year. On warm hillsides its stems are ripe by the twenty-third of August. At that date I walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or seven feet high, on the side of one of our cliffs, where they ripen early. Quite to the ground they were a deep, brilliant purple, with a bloom contrasting with the still clear green leaves. It appears a rare triumph of Nature to have produced and perfected such a plant, as if this were enough for a summer. What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the poke! I confess that it excites me to behold them. I cut one for a cane, for I would fain handle and lean on it. I love to press the berries between my fingers, and see their juice staining my hand. To walk amid these upright, branching casks of purple wine, which retain and diffuse a sunset glow, tasting each one with your eye, instead of counting the pipes on a London dock, what a privilege! For Nature's vintage is not confined to the vine. Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants had no juice in them more than the singers. Indeed, this has been called by some the American grape, and, though a native of America, its juices are used in some foreign countries to improve the color of the wine; so that the poetaster may be celebrating the virtues of the poke without knowing it. Here are berries enough to paint afresh the western sky, and play the bacchanal with, if you will. And what flutes its ensanguined stems would make, to be used in such a dance! It is truly a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems. And perchance amid these groves might arise at last a new school of philosophy or poetry. It lasts all through September.

At the same time with this, or near the end of August, a to me very interesting genus of grasses, andropogons, or beard-grasses, is in its prime: _Andropogon furcatus_, forked beard-grass, or call it purple-fingered grass; _Andropogon scoparius_, purple wood-grass; and _Andropogon_ (now called _Sorghum_) _nutans_, Indian-grass. The first is a very tall and slender-culmed grass, three to seven feet high, with four or five purple finger-like spikes raying upward from the top. The second is also quite slender, growing in tufts two feet high by one wide, with culms often somewhat curving, which, as the spikes go out of bloom, have a whitish, fuzzy look. These two are prevailing grasses at this season on dry and sandy fields and hillsides. The culms of both, not to mention their pretty flowers, reflect a purple tinge, and help to declare the ripeness of the year. Perhaps I have the more sympathy with them because they are despised by the farmer, and occupy sterile and neglected soil. They are high-colored, like ripe grapes, and express a maturity which the spring did not suggest. Only the August sun could have thus burnished these culms and leaves. The farmer has long since done his upland haying, and he will not condescend to bring his scythe to where these slender wild grasses have at length flowered thinly; you often see spaces of bare sand amid them. But I walk encouraged between the tufts of purple wood-grass over the sandy fields, and along the edge of the shrub oaks, glad to recognize these simple contemporaries. With thoughts cutting a broad swathe I "get" them, with horse-raking thoughts I gather them into windrows. The fine-eared poet may hear the whetting of my scythe. These two were almost the first grasses that I learned to distinguish, for I had not known by how many friends I was surrounded; I had seen them simply as grasses standing. The purple of their culms also excites me like that of the poke-weed stems.

Think what refuge there is for one, before August is over, from college commencements and society that isolates! I can skulk amid the tufts of purple wood-grass on the borders of the "Great Fields." Wherever I walk these afternoons, the purple-fingered grass also stands like a guide-board, and points my thoughts to more poetic paths than they have lately traveled.

A man shall perhaps rush by and trample down plants as high as his head, and cannot be said to know that they exist, though he may have cut many tons of them, littered his stables with them, and fed them to his cattle for years. Yet, if he ever favorably attends to them, he may be overcome by their beauty. Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of ours; and yet how long it stands in vain! I had walked over those Great Fields so many Augusts, and never yet distinctly recognized these purple companions that I had there. I had brushed against them and trodden on them, forsooth; and now, at last, they, as it were, rose up and blessed me. Beauty and true wealth are always thus cheap and despised. Heaven might be defined as the place which men avoid. Who can doubt that these grasses, which the farmer says are of no account to him, find some compensation in your appreciation of them? I may say that I never saw them before; though, when I came to look them face to face, there did come down to me a purple gleam from previous years; and now, wherever I go, I see hardly anything else. It is the reign and presidency of the andropogons.

Almost the very sands confess the ripening influence of the August sun, and methinks, together with the slender grasses waving over them, reflect a purple tinge. The impurpled sands! Such is the consequence of all this sunshine absorbed into the pores of plants and of the earth. All sap or blood is now wine-colored. At last we have not only the purple sea, but the purple land.

The chestnut beard-grass, Indian-grass, or wood-grass, growing here and there in waste places, but more rare than the former (from two to four or five feet high), is still handsomer and of more vivid colors than its congeners, and might well have caught the Indian's eye. It has a long, narrow, one-sided, and slightly nodding panicle of bright purple and yellow flowers, like a banner raised above its reedy leaves. These bright standards are now advanced on the distant hillsides, not in large armies, but in scattered troops or single file, like the red men. They stand thus fair and bright, representative of the race which they are named after, but for the most part unobserved as they. The expression of this grass haunted me for a week, after I first passed and noticed it, like the glance of an eye. It stands like an Indian chief taking a last look at his favorite hunting-grounds.

THE RED MAPLE

By the twenty-fifth of September, the red maples generally are beginning to be ripe. Some large ones have been conspicuously changing for a week, and some single trees are now very brilliant. I notice a small one, half a mile off across a meadow, against the green woodside there, a far brighter red than the blossoms of any tree in summer, and more conspicuous. I have observed this tree for several autumns invariably changing earlier than its fellows, just as one tree ripens its fruit earlier than another. It might serve to mark the season, perhaps. I should be sorry if it were cut down. I know of two or three such trees in different parts of our town, which might, perhaps, be propagated from, as early ripeners or September trees, and their seed be advertised in the market, as well as that of radishes, if we cared as much about them.

At present these burning bushes stand chiefly along the edge of the meadows, or I distinguish them afar on the hillsides here and there. Sometimes you will see many small ones in a swamp turned quite crimson when all other trees around are still perfectly green, and the former appear so much the brighter for it. They take you by surprise, as you are going by on one side, across the fields, thus early in the season, as if it were some gay encampment of the red men, or other foresters, of whose arrival you had not heard.

Some single trees, wholly bright scarlet, seen against others of their kind still freshly green, or against evergreens, are more memorable than whole groves will be by and by. How beautiful, when a whole tree is like one great scarlet fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if you look toward the sun! What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape? Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity, and get into the mythology at last.

The whole tree thus ripening in advance of its fellows attains a singular preëminence, and sometimes maintains it for a week or two. I am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its scarlet standard for the regiment of green-clad foresters around, and I go half a mile out of my way to examine it. A single tree becomes thus the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale, and the expression of the whole surrounding forest is at once more spirited for it.

A small red maple has grown, perchance, far away at the head of some retired valley, a mile from any road, unobserved. It has faithfully discharged the duties of a maple there, all winter and summer, neglected none of its economies, but added to its stature in the virtue which belongs to a maple, by a steady growth for so many months, never having gone gadding abroad, and is nearer heaven than it was in the spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap, and afforded a shelter to the wandering bird, has long since ripened its seeds and committed them to the winds, and has the satisfaction of knowing, perhaps, that a thousand little well-behaved maples are already settled in life somewhere. It deserves well of Mapledom. Its leaves have been asking it from time to time, in a whisper, "When shall we redden?" And now, in this month of September, this month of traveling, when men are hastening to the seaside, or the mountains, or the lakes, this modest maple, still without budging an inch, travels in its reputation,--runs up its scarlet flag on that hillside, which shows that it has finished its summer's work before all other trees, and withdraws from the contest. At the eleventh hour of the year, the tree which no scrutiny could have detected here when it was most industrious is thus, by the tint of its maturity, by its very blushes, revealed at last to the careless and distant traveler, and leads his thoughts away from the dusty road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits. It flashes out conspicuous with all the virtue and beauty of a maple,--_Acer rubrum_. We may now read its title, or _rubric_, clear. Its _virtues_, not its sins, are as scarlet.

Notwithstanding the red maple is the most intense scarlet of any of our trees, the sugar maple has been the most celebrated, and Michaux in his "Sylva" does not speak of the autumnal color of the former. About the second of October, these trees, both large and small, are most brilliant, though many are still green. In "sprout-lands" they seem to vie with one another, and ever some particular one in the midst of the crowd will be of a peculiarly pure scarlet, and by its more intense color attract our eye even at a distance, and carry off the palm. A large red maple swamp, when at the height of its change, is the most obviously brilliant of all tangible things, where I dwell, so abundant is this tree with us. It varies much both in form and color. A great many are merely yellow; more, scarlet; others, scarlet deepening into crimson, more red than common. Look at yonder swamp of maples mixed with pines, at the base of a pine-clad hill, a quarter of a mile off, so that you get the full effect of the bright colors, without detecting the imperfections of the leaves, and see their yellow, scarlet, and crimson fires, of all tints, mingled and contrasted with the green. Some maples are yet green, only yellow or crimson-tipped on the edges of their flakes, like the edges of a hazelnut bur; some are wholly brilliant scarlet, raying out regularly and finely every way, bilaterally, like the veins of a leaf; others, of more irregular form, when I turn my head slightly, emptying out some of its earthiness and concealing the trunk of the tree, seem to rest heavily flake on flake, like yellow and scarlet clouds, wreath upon wreath, or like snow-drifts driving through the air, stratified by the wind. It adds greatly to the beauty of such a swamp at this season, that, even though there may be no other trees interspersed, it is not seen as a simple mass of color, but, different trees being of different colors and hues, the outline of each crescent treetop is distinct, and where one laps on to another. Yet a painter would hardly venture to make them thus distinct a quarter of a mile off.

As I go across a meadow directly toward a low rising ground this bright afternoon, I see, some fifty rods off toward the sun, the top of a maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny russet edge of the hill, a stripe apparently twenty rods long by ten feet deep, of the most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits, or any tints ever painted. As I advance, lowering the edge of the hill which makes the firm foreground or lower frame of the picture, the depth of the brilliant grove revealed steadily increases, suggesting that the whole of the inclosed valley is filled with such color. One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and exuberance of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at this season, when the maples blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round with horse-sheds for.

THE ELM

Now too, the first of October, or later, the elms are at the height of their autumnal beauty,--great brownish-yellow masses, warm from their September oven, hanging over the highway. Their leaves are perfectly ripe. I wonder if there is any answering ripeness in the lives of the men who live beneath them. As I look down our street, which is lined with them, they remind me both by their form and color of yellowing sheaves of grain, as if the harvest had indeed come to the village itself, and we might expect to find some maturity and _flavor_ in the thoughts of the villagers at last. Under those bright rustling yellow piles just ready to fall on the heads of the walkers, how can any crudity or greenness of thought or act prevail? When I stand where half a dozen large elms droop over a house, it is as if I stood within a ripe pumpkin-rind, and I feel as mellow as if I were the pulp, though I may be somewhat stringy and seedy withal. What is the late greenness of the English elm, like a cucumber out of season, which does not know when to have done, compared with the early and golden maturity of the American tree? The street is the scene of a great harvest-home. It would be worth the while to set out these trees, if only for their autumnal value. Think of these great yellow canopies or parasols held over our heads and houses by the mile together, making the village all one and compact,--an _ulmarium_, which is at the same time a nursery of men! And then how gently and unobserved they drop their burden and let in the sun when it is wanted, their leaves not heard when they fall on our roofs and in our streets; and thus the village parasol is shut up and put away! I see the market-man driving into the village, and disappearing under its canopy of elm-tops, with _his_ crop, as into a great granary or barn-yard. I am tempted to go thither as to a husking of thoughts, now dry and ripe, and ready to be separated from their integuments; but, alas! I foresee that it will be chiefly husks and little thought, blasted pig-corn, fit only for cob-meal,--for, as you sow, so shall you reap.

FALLEN LEAVES

By the sixth of October the leaves generally begin to fall, in successive showers, after frost or rain; but the principal leaf-harvest, the acme of the _Fall_, is commonly about the sixteenth. Some morning at that date there is perhaps a harder frost than we have seen, and ice formed under the pump, and now, when the morning wind rises, the leaves come down in denser showers than ever. They suddenly form thick beds or carpets on the ground, in this gentle air, or even without wind, just the size and form of the tree above. Some trees, as small hickories, appear to have dropped their leaves instantaneously, as a soldier grounds arms at a signal; and those of the hickory, being bright yellow still, though withered, reflect a blaze of light from the ground where they lie. Down they have come on all sides, at the first earnest touch of autumn's wand, making a sound like rain.

Or else it is after moist and rainy weather that we notice how great a fall of leaves there has been in the night, though it may not yet be the touch that loosens the rock maple leaf. The streets are thickly strewn with the trophies, and fallen elm leaves make a dark brown pavement under our feet. After some remarkably warm Indian-summer day or days, I perceive that it is the unusual heat which, more than anything, causes the leaves to fall, there having been, perhaps, no frost nor rain for some time. The intense heat suddenly ripens and wilts them, just as it softens and ripens peaches and other fruits, and causes them to drop.

The leaves of late red maples, still bright, strew the earth, often crimson-spotted on a yellow ground, like some wild apples,--though they preserve these bright colors on the ground but a day or two, especially if it rains. On causeways I go by trees here and there all bare and smoke-like, having lost their brilliant clothing; but there it lies, nearly as bright as ever, on the ground on one side, and making nearly as regular a figure as lately on the tree. I would rather say that I first observe the trees thus flat on the ground like a permanent colored shadow, and they suggest to look for the boughs that bore them. A queen might be proud to walk where these gallant trees have spread their bright cloaks in the mud. I see wagons roll over them as a shadow or a reflection, and the drivers heed them just as little as they did their shadows before.

Birds' nests, in the huckleberry and other shrubs, and in trees, are already being filled with the withered leaves. So many have fallen in the woods that a squirrel cannot run after a falling nut without being heard. Boys are raking them in the streets, if only for the pleasure of dealing with such clean, crisp substances. Some sweep the paths scrupulously neat, and then stand to see the next breath strew them with new trophies. The swamp floor is thickly covered, and the _Lycopodium lucidulum_ looks suddenly greener amid them. In dense woods they half cover pools that are three or four rods long. The other day I could hardly find a well-known spring, and even suspected that it had dried up, for it was completely concealed by freshly fallen leaves; and when I swept them aside and revealed it, it was like striking the earth, with Aaron's rod, for a new spring. Wet grounds about the edges of swamps look dry with them. At one swamp, where I was surveying, thinking to step on a leafy shore from a rail, I got into the water more than a foot deep.

When I go to the river the day after the principal fall of leaves, the sixteenth, I find my boat all covered, bottom and seats, with the leaves of the golden willow under which it is moored, and I set sail with a cargo of them rustling under my feet. If I empty it, it will be full again to-morrow. I do not regard them as litter, to be swept out, but accept them as suitable straw or matting for the bottom of my carriage. When I turn up into the mouth of the Assabet, which is wooded, large fleets of leaves are floating on its surface, as it were getting out to sea, with room to tack; but next the shore, a little farther up, they are thicker than foam, quite concealing the water for a rod in width, under and amid the alders, button-bushes, and maples, still perfectly light and dry, with fibre unrelaxed; and at a rocky bend where they are met and stopped by the morning wind, they sometimes form a broad and dense crescent quite across the river. When I turn my prow that way, and the wave which it makes strikes them, list what a pleasant rustling from these dry substances getting on one another! Often it is their undulation only which reveals the water beneath them. Also every motion of the wood turtle on the shore is betrayed by their rustling there. Or even in mid-channel, when the wind rises, I hear them blown with a rustling sound. Higher up they are slowly moving round and round in some great eddy which the river makes, as that at the "Leaning Hemlocks," where the water is deep, and the current is wearing into the bank.

Perchance, in the afternoon of such a day, when the water is perfectly calm and full of reflections, I paddle gently down the main stream, and, turning up the Assabet, reach a quiet cove, where I unexpectedly find myself surrounded by myriads of leaves, like fellow-voyagers, which seem to have the same purpose, or want of purpose, with myself. See this great fleet of scattered leaf-boats which we paddle amid, in this smooth river-bay, each one curled up on every side by the sun's skill, each nerve a stiff spruce knee,--like boats of hide, and of all patterns,--Charon's boat probably among the rest,--and some with lofty prows and poops, like the stately vessels of the ancients, scarcely moving in the sluggish current,--like the great fleets, the dense Chinese cities of boats, with which you mingle on entering some great mart, some New York or Canton, which we are all steadily approaching together. How gently each has been deposited on the water! No violence has been used towards them yet, though, perchance, palpitating hearts were present at the launching. And painted ducks, too, the splendid wood duck among the rest, often come to sail and float amid the painted leaves,--barks of a nobler model still!

What wholesome herb drinks are to be had in the swamps now! What strong medicinal but rich scents from the decaying leaves! The rain falling on the freshly dried herbs and leaves, and filling the pools and ditches into which they have dropped thus clean and rigid, will soon convert them into tea,--green, black, brown, and yellow teas, of all degrees of strength, enough to set all Nature a-gossiping. Whether we drink them or not, as yet, before their strength is drawn, these leaves, dried on great Nature's coppers, are of such various pure and delicate tints as might make the fame of Oriental teas.

How they are mixed up, of all species, oak and maple and chestnut and birch! But Nature is not cluttered with them; she is a perfect husbandman; she stores them all. Consider what a vast crop is thus annually shed on the earth! This, more than any mere grain or seed, is the great harvest of the year. The trees are now repaying the earth with interest what they have taken from it. They are discounting. They are about to add a leaf's thickness to the depth of the soil. This is the beautiful way in which Nature gets her muck, while I chaffer with this man and that, who talks to me about sulphur and the cost of carting. We are all the richer for their decay. I am more interested in this crop than in the English grass alone or in the corn. It prepares the virgin mould for future corn-fields and forests, on which the earth fattens. It keeps our homestead in good heart.

For beautiful variety no crop can be compared with this. Here is not merely the plain yellow of the grains, but nearly all the colors that we know, the brightest blue not excepted: the early blushing maple, the poison sumach blazing its sins as scarlet, the mulberry ash, the rich chrome yellow of the poplars, the brilliant red huckleberry, with which the hills' backs are painted, like those of sheep. The frost touches them, and, with the slightest breath of returning day or jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down! The ground is all parti-colored with them. But they still live in the soil, whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years, by subtle chemistry, climbing by the sap in the trees; and the sapling's first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after years, it has become the monarch of the forest.

It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves. How beautifully they go to their graves! how gently lay themselves down and turn to mould!--painted of a thousand hues, and fit to make the beds of us living. So they troop to their last resting-place, light and frisky. They put on no weeds, but merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting the spot, choosing a lot, ordering no iron fence, whispering all through the woods about it,--some choosing the spot where the bodies of men are mouldering beneath, and meeting them half-way. How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when men, with their boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and as ripe,--with such an Indian-summer serenity will shed their bodies, as they do their hair and nails.

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. What though you own no lot at Mount Auburn? Your lot is surely cast somewhere in this vast cemetery, which has been consecrated from of old. You need attend no auction to secure a place. There is room enough here. The loosestrife shall bloom and the huckleberry-bird sing over your bones. The woodman and hunter shall be your sextons, and the children shall tread upon the borders as much as they will. Let us walk in the cemetery of the leaves; this is your true Greenwood Cemetery.

THE SUGAR MAPLE

But think not that the splendor of the year is over; for as one leaf does not make a summer, neither does one falling leaf make an autumn. The smallest sugar maples in our streets make a great show as early as the fifth of October, more than any other trees there. As I look up the main street, they appear like painted screens standing before the houses; yet many are green. But now, or generally by the seventeenth of October, when almost all red maples and some white maples are bare, the large sugar maples also are in their glory, glowing with yellow and red, and show unexpectedly bright and delicate tints. They are remarkable for the contrast they often afford of deep blushing red on one half and green on the other. They become at length dense masses of rich yellow with a deep scarlet blush, or more than blush, on the exposed surfaces. They are the brightest trees now in the street.

The large ones on our Common are particularly beautiful. A delicate but warmer than golden yellow is now the prevailing color, with scarlet cheeks. Yet, standing on the east side of the Common just before sundown, when the western light is transmitted through them, I see that their yellow even, compared with the pale lemon yellow of an elm close by, amounts to a scarlet, without noticing the bright scarlet portions. Generally, they are great regular oval masses of yellow and scarlet. All the sunny warmth of the season, the Indian summer, seems to be absorbed in their leaves. The lowest and inmost leaves next the bole are, as usual, of the most delicate yellow and green, like the complexion of young men brought up in the house. There is an auction on the Common to-day, but its red flag is hard to be discerned amid this blaze of color.

Little did the fathers of the town anticipate this brilliant success, when they caused to be imported from farther in the country some straight poles with their tops cut off, which they called sugar maples; and, as I remember, after they were set out, a neighboring merchant's clerk, by way of jest, planted beans about them. Those which were then jestingly called bean-poles are to-day far the most beautiful objects noticeable in our streets. They are worth all and more than they have cost,--though one of the selectmen, while setting them out, took the cold which occasioned his death,--if only because they have filled the open eyes of children with their rich color unstintedly so many Octobers. We will not ask them to yield us sugar in the spring, while they afford us so fair a prospect in the autumn. Wealth indoors may be the inheritance of few, but it is equally distributed on the Common. All children alike can revel in this golden harvest.

Surely trees should be set in our streets with a view to their October splendor, though I doubt whether this is ever considered by the "Tree Society." Do you not think it will make some odds to these children that they were brought up under the maples? Hundreds of eyes are steadily drinking in this color, and by these teachers even the truants are caught and educated the moment they step abroad. Indeed, neither the truant nor the studious is at present taught color in the schools. These are instead of the bright colors in apothecaries' shops and city windows. It is a pity that we have no more _red_ maples, and some hickories, in our streets as well. Our paint-box is very imperfectly filled. Instead of, or beside, supplying such paint-boxes as we do, we might supply these natural colors to the young. Where else will they study color under greater advantages? What School of Design can vie with this? Think how much the eyes of painters of all kinds, and of manufacturers of cloth and paper, and paper-stainers, and countless others, are to be educated by these autumnal colors. The stationer's envelopes may be of very various tints, yet not so various as those of the leaves of a single tree. If you want a different shade or tint of a particular color, you have only to look farther within or without the tree or the wood. These leaves are not many dipped in one dye, as at the dye-house, but they are dyed in light of infinitely various degrees of strength and left to set and dry there.

Shall the names of so many of our colors continue to be derived from those of obscure foreign localities, as Naples yellow, Prussian blue, raw Sienna, burnt Umber, Gamboge? (surely the Tyrian purple must have faded by this time), or from comparatively trivial articles of commerce,--chocolate, lemon, coffee, cinnamon, claret? (shall we compare our hickory to a lemon, or a lemon to a hickory?) or from ores and oxides which few ever see? Shall we so often, when describing to our neighbors the color of something we have seen, refer them, not to some natural object in our neighborhood, but perchance to a bit of earth fetched from the other side of the planet, which possibly they may find at the apothecary's, but which probably neither they nor we ever saw? Have we not an _earth_ under our feet,--aye, and a sky over our heads? Or is the last _all_ ultramarine? What do we know of sapphire, amethyst, emerald, ruby, amber, and the like,--most of us who take these names in vain? Leave these precious words to cabinet-keepers, virtuosos, and maids-of-honor,--to the Nabobs, Begums, and Chobdars of Hindostan, or wherever else. I do not see why, since America and her autumn woods have been discovered, our leaves should not compete with the precious stones in giving names to colors; and, indeed, I believe that in course of time the names of some of our trees and shrubs, as well as flowers, will get into our popular chromatic nomenclature.

But of much more importance than a knowledge of the names and distinctions of color is the joy and exhilaration which these colored leaves excite. Already these brilliant trees throughout the street, without any more variety, are at least equal to an annual festival and holiday, or a week of such. These are cheap and innocent gala-days, celebrated by one and all without the aid of committees or marshals, such a show as may safely be licensed, not attracting gamblers or rum-sellers, not requiring any special police to keep the peace. And poor indeed must be that New England village's October which has not the maple in its streets. This October festival costs no powder, nor ringing of bells, but every tree is a living liberty-pole on which a thousand bright flags are waving.

No wonder that we must have our annual cattle-show, and fall training, and perhaps cornwallis, our September courts, and the like. Nature herself holds her annual fair in October, not only in the streets, but in every hollow and on every hillside. When lately we looked into that red maple swamp all ablaze, where the trees were clothed in their vestures of most dazzling tints, did it not suggest a thousand gypsies beneath,--a race capable of wild delight,--or even the fabled fauns, satyrs, and wood-nymphs come back to earth? Or was it only a congregation of wearied woodchoppers, or of proprietors come to inspect their lots, that we thought of? Or, earlier still, when we paddled on the river through that fine-grained September air, did there not appear to be something new going on under the sparkling surface of the stream, a shaking of props, at least, so that we made haste in order to be up in time? Did not the rows of yellowing willows and button-bushes on each side seem like rows of booths, under which, perhaps, some fluviatile egg-pop equally yellow was effervescing? Did not all these suggest that man's spirits should rise as high as Nature's,--should hang out their flag, and the routine of his life be interrupted by an analogous expression of joy and hilarity?

No annual training or muster of soldiery, no celebration with its scarfs and banners, could import into the town a hundredth part of the annual splendor of our October. We have only to set the trees, or let them stand, and Nature will find the colored drapery,--flags of all her nations, some of whose private signals hardly the botanist can read,--while we walk under the triumphal arches of the elms. Leave it to Nature to appoint the days, whether the same as in neighboring States or not, and let the clergy read her proclamations, if they can understand them. Behold what a brilliant drapery is her woodbine flag! What public-spirited merchant, think you, has contributed this part of the show? There is no handsomer shingling and paint than this vine, at present covering a whole side of some houses. I do not believe that the ivy _never sere_ is comparable to it. No wonder it has been extensively introduced into London. Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting. Let us have willows for spring, elms for summer, maples and walnuts and tupeloes for autumn, evergreens for winter, and oaks for all seasons. What is a gallery in a house to a gallery in the streets, which every market-man rides through, whether he will or not? Of course, there is not a picture-gallery in the country which would be worth so much to us as is the western view at sunset under the elms of our main street. They are the frame to a picture which is daily painted behind them. An avenue of elms as large as our largest and three miles long would seem to lead to some admirable place, though only C---- were at the end of it.

A village needs these innocent stimulants of bright and cheering prospects to keep off melancholy and superstition. Show me two villages, one embowered in trees and blazing with all the glories of October, the other a merely trivial and treeless waste, or with only a single tree or two for suicides, and I shall be sure that in the latter will be found the most starved and bigoted religionists and the most desperate drinkers. Every wash-tub and milk-can and gravestone will be exposed. The inhabitants will disappear abruptly behind their barns and houses, like desert Arabs amid their rocks, and I shall look to see spears in their hands. They will be ready to accept the most barren and forlorn doctrine,--as that the world is speedily coming to an end, or has already got to it, or that they themselves are turned wrong side outward. They will perchance crack their dry joints at one another and call it a spiritual communication.

But to confine ourselves to the maples. What if we were to take half as much pains in protecting them as we do in setting them out,--not stupidly tie our horses to our dahlia stems?

What meant the fathers by establishing this _perfectly living_ institution before the church,--this institution which needs no repairing nor repainting, which is continually enlarged and repaired by its growth? Surely they

"Wrought in a sad sincerity; Themselves from God they could not free; They _planted_ better than they knew;-- The conscious _trees_ to beauty grew."

Verily these maples are cheap preachers, permanently settled, which preach their half-century, and century, aye, and century-and-a-half sermons, with constantly increasing unction and influence, ministering to many generations of men; and the least we can do is to supply them with suitable colleagues as they grow infirm.

THE SCARLET OAK

Belonging to a genus which is remarkable for the beautiful form of its leaves, I suspect that some scarlet oak leaves surpass those of all other oaks in the rich and wild beauty of their outlines. I judge from an acquaintance with twelve species, and from drawings which I have seen of many others.

Stand under this tree and see how finely its leaves are cut against the sky,--as it were, only a few sharp points extending from a midrib. They look like double, treble, or quadruple crosses. They are far more ethereal than the less deeply scalloped oak leaves. They have so little leafy _terra firma_ that they appear melting away in the light, and scarcely obstruct our view. The leaves of very young plants are, like those of full-grown oaks of other species, more entire, simple, and lumpish in their outlines, but these, raised high on old trees, have solved the leafy problem. Lifted higher and higher, and sublimated more and more, putting off some earthiness and cultivating more intimacy with the light each year, they have at length the least possible amount of earthy matter, and the greatest spread and grasp of skyey influences. There they dance, arm in arm with the light,--tripping it on fantastic points, fit partners in those aerial halls. So intimately mingled are they with it, that, what with their slenderness and their glossy surfaces, you can hardly tell at last what in the dance is leaf and what is light. And when no zephyr stirs, they are at most but a rich tracery to the forest windows.

I am again struck with their beauty, when, a month later, they thickly strew the ground in the woods, piled one upon another under my feet. They are then brown above, but purple beneath. With their narrow lobes and their bold, deep scallops reaching almost to the middle, they suggest that the material must be cheap, or else there has been a lavish expense in their creation, as if so much had been cut out. Or else they seem to us the remnants of the stuff out of which leaves have been cut with a die. Indeed, when they lie thus one upon another, they remind me of a pile of scrap-tin.

Or bring one home, and study it closely at your leisure, by the fireside. It is a type, not from any Oxford font, not in the Basque nor the arrow-headed character, not found on the Rosetta Stone, but destined to be copied in sculpture one day, if they ever get to whittling stone here. What a wild and pleasing outline, a combination of graceful curves and angles! The eye rests with equal delight on what is not leaf and on what is leaf,--on the broad, free, open sinuses, and on the long, sharp, bristle-pointed lobes. A simple oval outline would include it all, if you connected the points of the leaf; but how much richer is it than that, with its half-dozen deep scallops, in which the eye and thought of the beholder are embayed! If I were a drawing-master, I would set my pupils to copying these leaves, that they might learn to draw firmly and gracefully.

Regarded as water, it is like a pond with half a dozen broad rounded promontories extending nearly to its middle, half from each side, while its watery bays extend far inland, like sharp friths, at each of whose heads several fine streams empty in,--almost a leafy archipelago.

But it oftener suggests land, and, as Dionysius and Pliny compared the form of the Morea to that of the leaf of the Oriental plane tree, so this leaf reminds me of some fair wild island in the ocean, whose extensive coast, alternate rounded bays with smooth strands, and sharp-pointed rocky capes, mark it as fitted for the habitation of man, and destined to become a centre of civilization at last. To the sailor's eye, it is a much indented shore. Is it not, in fact, a shore to the aerial ocean, on which the windy surf beats? At sight of this leaf we are all mariners,--if not vikings, buccaneers, and filibusters. Both our love of repose and our spirit of adventure are addressed. In our most casual glance, perchance, we think that if we succeed in doubling those sharp capes we shall find deep, smooth, and secure havens in the ample bays. How different from the white oak leaf, with its rounded headlands, on which no lighthouse need be placed! That is an England, with its long civil history, that may be read. This is some still unsettled New-found Island or Celebes. Shall we go and be rajahs there?

By the twenty-sixth of October the large scarlet oaks are in their prime, when other oaks are usually withered. They have been kindling their fires for a week past, and now generally burst into a blaze. This alone of _our_ indigenous deciduous trees (excepting the dogwood, of which I do not know half a dozen, and they are but large bushes) is now in its glory. The two aspens and the sugar maple come nearest to it in date, but they have lost the greater part of their leaves. Of evergreens, only the pitch pine is still commonly bright.

But it requires a particular alertness, if not devotion to these phenomena, to appreciate the wide-spread, but late and unexpected glory of the scarlet oaks. I do not speak here of the small trees and shrubs, which are commonly observed, and which are now withered, but of the large trees. Most go in and shut their doors, thinking that bleak and colorless November has already come, when some of the most brilliant and memorable colors are not yet lit.

This very perfect and vigorous one, about forty feet high, standing in an open pasture, which was quite glossy green on the twelfth, is now, the twenty-sixth, completely changed to bright dark-scarlet,--every leaf, between you and the sun, as if it had been dipped into a scarlet dye. The whole tree is much like a heart in form, as well as color. Was not this worth waiting for? Little did you think, ten days ago, that that cold green tree would assume such color as this. Its leaves are still firmly attached, while those of other trees are falling around it. It seems to say: "I am the last to blush, but I blush deeper than any of ye. I bring up the rear in my red coat. We scarlet ones, alone of oaks, have not given up the fight."

The sap is now, and even far into November, frequently flowing fast in these trees, as in maples in the spring; and apparently their bright tints, now that most other oaks are withered, are connected with this phenomenon. They are full of life. It has a pleasantly astringent, acorn-like taste, this strong oak wine, as I find on tapping them with my knife.

Looking across this woodland valley, a quarter of a mile wide, how rich those scarlet oaks embosomed in pines, their bright red branches intimately intermingled with them! They have their full effect there. The pine boughs are the green calyx to their red petals. Or, as we go along a road in the woods, the sun striking endwise through it, and lighting up the red tents of the oaks, which on each side are mingled with the liquid green of the pines, makes a very gorgeous scene. Indeed, without the evergreens for contrast, the autumnal tints would lose much of their effect.

The scarlet oak asks a clear sky and the brightness of late October days. These bring out its colors. If the sun goes into a cloud they become comparatively indistinct. As I sit on a cliff in the southwest part of our town, the sun is now getting low, and the woods in Lincoln, south and east of me, are lit up by its more level rays; and in the scarlet oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, there is brought out a more brilliant redness than I had believed was in them. Every tree of this species which is visible in those directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red. Some great ones lift their red backs high above the woods, in the next town, like huge roses with a myriad of fine petals; and some more slender ones, in a small grove of white pines on Pine Hill in the east, on the very verge of the horizon, alternating with the pines on the edge of the grove, and shouldering them with their red coats, look like soldiers in red amid hunters in green. This time it is Lincoln green, too. Till the sun got low, I did not believe that there were so many redcoats in the forest army. Theirs is an intense, burning red, which would lose some of its strength, methinks, with every step you might take toward them; for the shade that lurks amid their foliage does not report itself at this distance, and they are unanimously red. The focus of their reflected color is in the atmosphere far on this side. Every such tree becomes a nucleus of red, as it were, where, with the declining sun, that color grows and glows. It is partly borrowed fire, gathering strength from the sun on its way to your eye. It has only some comparatively dull red leaves for a rallying-point, or kindling-stuff, to start it, and it becomes an intense scarlet or red mist, or fire, which finds fuel for itself in the very atmosphere. So vivacious is redness. The very rails reflect a rosy light at this hour and season. You see a redder tree than exists.

If you wish to count the scarlet oaks, do it now. In a clear day stand thus on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high, and every one within range of your vision, excepting in the west, will be revealed. You might live to the age of Methuselah and never find a tithe of them, otherwise. Yet sometimes even in a dark day I have thought them as bright as I ever saw them. Looking westward, their colors are lost in a blaze of light; but in other directions the whole forest is a flower-garden, in which these late roses burn, alternating with green, while the so-called "gardeners," walking here and there, perchance, beneath, with spade and water-pot, see only a few little asters amid withered leaves.

These are _my_ China-asters, _my_ late garden-flowers. It costs me nothing for a gardener. The falling leaves, all over the forest, are protecting the roots of my plants. Only look at what is to be seen, and you will have garden enough, without deepening the soil in your yard. We have only to elevate our view a little, to see the whole forest as a garden. The blossoming of the scarlet oak,--the forest-flower, surpassing all in splendor (at least since the maple)! I do not know but they interest me more than the maples, they are so widely and equally dispersed throughout the forest; they are so hardy, a nobler tree on the whole; our chief November flower, abiding the approach of winter with us, imparting warmth to early November prospects. It is remarkable that the latest bright color that is general should be this deep, dark scarlet and red, the intensest of colors. The ripest fruit of the year; like the cheek of a hard, glossy red apple, from the cold Isle of Orleans, which will not be mellow for eating till next spring! When I rise to a hilltop, a thousand of these great oak roses, distributed on every side, as far as the horizon! I admire them four or five miles off! This my unfailing prospect for a fortnight past! This late forest-flower surpasses all that spring or summer could do. Their colors were but rare and dainty specks comparatively (created for the near-sighted, who walk amid the humblest herbs and underwoods), and made no impression on a distant eye. Now it is an extended forest or a mountain-side, through or along which we journey from day to day, that bursts into bloom. Comparatively, our gardening is on a petty scale,--the gardener still nursing a few asters amid dead weeds, ignorant of the gigantic asters and roses which, as it were, overshadow him, and ask for none of his care. It is like a little red paint ground on a saucer, and held up against the sunset sky. Why not take more elevated and broader views, walk in the great garden; not skulk in a little "debauched" nook of it? consider the beauty of the forest, and not merely of a few impounded herbs?

Let your walks now be a little more adventurous; ascend the hills. If, about the last of October, you ascend any hill in the outskirts of our town, and probably of yours, and look over the forest, you may see--well, what I have endeavored to describe. All this you surely _will_ see, and much more, if you are prepared to see it,--if you _look_ for it. Otherwise, regular and universal as this phenomenon is, whether you stand on the hilltop or in the hollow, you will think for threescore years and ten that all the wood is, at this season, sere and brown. Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them; for there is no power to see in the eye itself, any more than in any other jelly. We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of Nature are for this reason concealed from us all our lives. The gardener sees only the gardener's garden. Here, too, as in political economy, the supply answers to the demand. Nature does not cast pearls before swine. There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate,--not a grain more. The actual objects which one man will see from a particular hilltop are just as different from those which another will see as the beholders are different. The scarlet oak must, in a sense, be in your eye when you go forth. We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads,--and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that, first, the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may seem very foreign to this locality,--no nearer than Hudson's Bay,--and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it, and expecting it, unconsciously, and at length I surely see it. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name. A man sees only what concerns him. A botanist absorbed in the study of grasses does not distinguish the grandest pasture oaks. He, as it were, tramples down oaks unwittingly in his walk, or at most sees only their shadows. I have found that it required a different intention of the eye, in the same locality, to see different plants, even when they were closely allied, as _Juncaceae_ and _Gramineae_: when I was looking for the former, I did not see the latter in the midst of them. How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!

Take a New England selectman, and set him on the highest of our hills, and tell him to look,--sharpening his sight to the utmost, and putting on the glasses that suit him best (aye, using a spy-glass, if he likes),--and make a full report. What, probably, will he _spy_?--what will he _select_ to look at? Of course, he will see a Brocken spectre of himself. He will see several meeting-houses, at least, and, perhaps, that somebody ought to be assessed higher than he is, since he has so handsome a wood-lot. Now take Julius Cæsar, or Emanuel Swedenborg, or a Fiji-Islander, and set him up there. Or suppose all together, and let them compare notes afterward. Will it appear that they have enjoyed the same prospect? What they will see will be as different as Rome was from heaven or hell, or the last from the Fiji Islands. For aught we know, as strange a man as any of these is always at our elbow.

Why, it takes a sharpshooter to bring down even such trivial game as snipes and woodcocks; he must take very particular aim, and know what he is aiming at. He would stand a very small chance, if he fired at random into the sky, being told that snipes were flying there. And so is it with him that shoots at beauty; though he wait till the sky falls, he will not bag any, if he does not already know its seasons and haunts, and the color of its wing,--if he has not dreamed of it, so that he can _anticipate_ it; then, indeed, he flushes it at every step, shoots double and on the wing, with both barrels, even in corn-fields. The sportsman trains himself, dresses, and watches unweariedly, and loads and primes for his particular game. He prays for it, and offers sacrifices, and so he gets it. After due and long preparation, schooling his eye and hand, dreaming awake and asleep, with gun and paddle and boat, he goes out after meadow-hens, which most of his townsmen never saw nor dreamed of, and paddles for miles against a head wind, and wades in water up to his knees, being out all day without his dinner, and _therefore_ he gets them. He had them half-way into his bag when he started, and has only to shove them down. The true sportsman can shoot you almost any of his game from his windows: what else has he windows or eyes for? It comes and perches at last on the barrel of his gun; but the rest of the world never see it _with the feathers on_. The geese fly exactly under his zenith, and honk when they get there, and he will keep himself supplied by firing up his chimney; twenty musquash have the refusal of each one of his traps before it is empty. If he lives, and his game spirit increases, heaven and earth shall fail him sooner than game; and when he dies, he will go to more extensive and, perchance, happier hunting-grounds. The fisherman, too, dreams of fish, sees a bobbing cork in his dreams, till he can almost catch them in his sink-spout. I knew a girl who, being sent to pick huckleberries, picked wild gooseberries by the quart, where no one else knew that there were any, because she was accustomed to pick them up-country where she came from. The astronomer knows where to go star-gathering, and sees one clearly in his mind before any have seen it with a glass. The hen scratches and finds her food right under where she stands; but such is not the way with the hawk.

* * * * *

These bright leaves which I have mentioned are not the exception, but the rule; for I believe that all leaves, even grasses and mosses, acquire brighter colors just before their fall. When you come to observe faithfully the changes of each humblest plant, you find that each has, sooner or later, its peculiar autumnal tint; and if you undertake to make a complete list of the bright tints, it will be nearly as long as a catalogue of the plants in your vicinity.

WILD APPLES

THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE TREE

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man. The geologist tells us that the order of the _Rosaceae_, which includes the apple, also the true grasses, and the _Labiatae_, or mints, were introduced only a short time previous to the appearance of man on the globe.

It appears that apples made a part of the food of that unknown primitive people whose traces have lately been found at the bottom of the Swiss lakes, supposed to be older than the foundation of Rome, so old that they had no metallic implements. An entire black and shriveled crab-apple has been recovered from their stores.

Tacitus says of the ancient Germans that they satisfied their hunger with wild apples (_agrestia poma_), among other things.

Niebuhr observes that "the words for a house, a field, a plow, plowing, wine, oil, milk, sheep, apples, and others relating to agriculture and the gentler way of life, agree in Latin and Greek, while the Latin words for all objects pertaining to war or the chase are utterly alien from the Greek." Thus the apple tree may be considered a symbol of peace no less than the olive.

The apple was early so important, and generally distributed, that its name traced to its root in many languages signifies fruit in general. Μῆλον, in Greek, means an apple, also the fruit of other trees, also a sheep and any cattle, and finally riches in general.

The apple tree has been celebrated by the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians. Some have thought that the first human pair were tempted by its fruit. Goddesses are fabled to have contended for it, dragons were set to watch it, and heroes were employed to pluck it.

The tree is mentioned in at least three places in the Old Testament, and its fruit in two or three more. Solomon sings, "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons." And again, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples." The noblest part of man's noblest feature is named from this fruit, "the apple of the eye."

The apple tree is also mentioned by Homer and Herodotus. Ulysses saw in the glorious garden of Alcinoûs "pears and pomegranates, and apple trees bearing beautiful fruit" (καὶ μηλέαι ἀγλαόκαρποι). And according to Homer, apples were among the fruits which Tantalus could not pluck, the wind ever blowing their boughs away from him. Theophrastus knew and described the apple tree as a botanist.

According to the Prose Edda, "Iduna keeps in a box the apples which the gods, when they feel old age approaching, have only to taste of to become young again. It is in this manner that they will be kept in renovated youth until Ragnarôk" (or the destruction of the gods).

I learn from Loudon that "the ancient Welsh bards were rewarded for excelling in song by the token of the apple-spray;" and "in the Highlands of Scotland the apple-tree is the badge of the clan Lamont."

The apple tree (_Pyrus malus_) belongs chiefly to the northern temperate zone. Loudon says that "it grows spontaneously in every part of Europe except the frigid zone, and throughout Western Asia, China, and Japan." We have also two or three varieties of the apple indigenous in North America. The cultivated apple tree was first introduced into this country by the earliest settlers, and is thought to do as well or better here than anywhere else. Probably some of the varieties which are now cultivated were first introduced into Britain by the Romans.

Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophrastus, says, "Of trees there are some which are altogether wild (_sylvestres_), some more civilized (_urbaniores_)." Theophrastus includes the apple among the last; and, indeed, it is in this sense the most civilized of all trees. It is as harmless as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, and as valuable as flocks and herds. It has been longer cultivated than any other, and so is more humanized; and who knows but, like the dog, it will at length be no longer traceable to its wild original? It migrates with man, like the dog and horse and cow: first, perchance, from Greece to Italy, thence to England, thence to America; and our Western emigrant is still marching steadily toward the setting sun with the seeds of the apple in his pocket, or perhaps a few young trees strapped to his load. At least a million apple trees are thus set farther westward this year than any cultivated ones grew last year. Consider how the Blossom Week, like the Sabbath, is thus annually spreading over the prairies; for when man migrates, he carries with him not only his birds, quadrupeds, insects, vegetables, and his very sward, but his orchard also.

The leaves and tender twigs are an agreeable food to many domestic animals, as the cow, horse, sheep, and goat; and the fruit is sought after by the first, as well as by the hog. Thus there appears to have existed a natural alliance between these animals and this tree from the first. "The fruit of the crab in the forests of France" is said to be "a great resource for the wild boar."

Not only the Indian, but many indigenous insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple tree to these shores. The tent caterpillar saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was formed, and it has since shared her affections with the wild cherry; and the canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it. As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, kingbird, and many more came with haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied more than ever. It was an era in the history of their race. The downy woodpecker found such a savory morsel under its bark that he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree, before he left it,--a thing which he had never done before, to my knowledge. It did not take the partridge long to find out how sweet its buds were, and every winter eve she flew, and still flies, from the wood, to pluck them, much to the farmer's sorrow. The rabbit, too, was not slow to learn the taste of its twigs and bark; and when the fruit was ripe, the squirrel half rolled, half carried it to his hole; and even the musquash crept up the bank from the brook at evening, and greedily devoured it, until he had worn a path in the grass there; and when it was frozen and thawed, the crow and the jay were glad to taste it occasionally. The owl crept into the first apple tree that became hollow, and fairly hooted with delight, finding it just the place for him; so, settling down into it, he has remained there ever since.

My theme being the Wild Apple, I will merely glance at some of the seasons in the annual growth of the cultivated apple, and pass on to my special province.

The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree's, so copious and so delicious to both sight and scent. The walker is frequently tempted to turn and linger near some more than usually handsome one, whose blossoms are two-thirds expanded. How superior it is in these respects to the pear, whose blossoms are neither colored nor fragrant!

By the middle of July, green apples are so large as to remind us of coddling, and of the autumn. The sward is commonly strewed with little ones which fall stillborn, as it were,--Nature thus thinning them for us. The Roman writer Palladius said, "If apples are inclined to fall before their time, a stone placed in a split root will retain them." Some such notion, still surviving, may account for some of the stones which we see placed, to be overgrown, in the forks of trees. They have a saying in Suffolk, England,--

"At Michaelmas time, or a little before, Half an apple goes to the core."

Early apples begin to be ripe about the first of August; but I think that none of them are so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth more to scent your handkerchief with than any perfume which they sell in the shops. The fragrance of some fruits is not to be forgotten, along with that of flowers. Some gnarly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona,--carrying me forward to those days when they will be collected in golden and ruddy heaps in the orchards and about the cider-mills.

A week or two later, as you are going by orchards or gardens, especially in the evenings, you pass through a little region possessed by the fragrance of ripe apples, and thus enjoy them without price, and without robbing anybody.

There is thus about all natural products a certain volatile and ethereal quality which represents their highest value, and which cannot be vulgarized, or bought and sold. No mortal has ever enjoyed the perfect flavor of any fruit, and only the godlike among men begin to taste its ambrosial qualities. For nectar and ambrosia are only those fine flavors of every earthly fruit which our coarse palates fail to perceive,--just as we occupy the heaven of the gods without knowing it. When I see a particularly mean man carrying a load of fair and fragrant early apples to market, I seem to see a contest going on between him and his horse, on the one side, and the apples on the other, and, to my mind, the apples always gain it. Pliny says that apples are the heaviest of all things, and that the oxen begin to sweat at the mere sight of a load of them. Our driver begins to lose his load the moment he tries to transport them to where they do not belong, that is, to any but the most beautiful. Though he gets out from time to time, and feels of them, and thinks they are all there, I see the stream of their evanescent and celestial qualities going to heaven from his cart, while the pulp and skin and core only are going to market. They are not apples, but pomace. Are not these still Iduna's apples, the taste of which keeps the gods forever young? and think you that they will let Loki or Thjassi carry them off to Jötunheim, while they grow wrinkled and gray? No, for Ragnarök, or the destruction of the gods, is not yet.

There is another thinning of the fruit, commonly near the end of August or in September, when the ground is strewn with windfalls; and this happens especially when high winds occur after rain. In some orchards you may see fully three quarters of the whole crop on the ground, lying in a circular form beneath the trees, yet hard and green, or, if it is a hillside, rolled far down the hill. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. All the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls, and this will make them cheap for early apple pies.

In October, the leaves falling, the apples are more distinct on the trees. I saw one year in a neighboring town some trees fuller of fruit than I remember to have ever seen before, small yellow apples hanging over the road. The branches were gracefully drooping with their weight, like a barberry bush, so that the whole tree acquired a new character. Even the topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions; and there were so many poles supporting the lower ones that they looked like pictures of banyan trees. As an old English manuscript says, "The mo appelen the tree bereth the more sche boweth to the folk."

Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits. Let the most beautiful or the swiftest have it. That should be the "going" price of apples.

Between the 5th and 20th of October I see the barrels lie under the trees. And perhaps I talk with one who is selecting some choice barrels to fulfill an order. He turns a specked one over many times before he leaves it out. If I were to tell what is passing in my mind, I should say that every one was specked which he had handled; for he rubs off all the bloom, and those fugacious ethereal qualities leave it. Cool evenings prompt the farmers to make haste, and at length I see only the ladders here and there left leaning against the trees.

It would be well, if we accepted these gifts with more joy and gratitude, and did not think it enough simply to put a fresh load of compost about the tree. Some old English customs are suggestive at least. I find them described chiefly in Brand's "Popular Antiquities." It appears that "on Christmas Eve the farmers and their men in Devonshire take a large bowl of cider, with a toast in it, and carrying it in state to the orchard, they salute the apple-trees with much ceremony, in order to make them bear well the next season." This salutation consists in "throwing some of the cider about the roots of the tree, placing bits of the toast on the branches," and then, "encircling one of the best bearing trees in the orchard, they drink the following toast three several times:--

'Here's to thee, old apple tree, Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow, And whence thou mayst bear apples enow! Hats-full! caps-full! Bushel, bushel, sacks-full! And my pockets full, too! Hurra!'"

Also what was called "apple-howling" used to be practiced in various counties of England on New Year's Eve. A troop of boys visited the different orchards, and, encircling the apple trees, repeated the following words:--

"Stand fast, root! bear well, top! Pray God send us a good howling crop: Every twig, apples big; Every bough, apples enow!"

"They then shout in chorus, one of the boys accompanying them on a cow's horn. During this ceremony they rap the trees with their sticks." This is called "wassailing" the trees, and is thought by some to be "a relic of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona."

Herrick sings,--

"Wassaile the trees that they may beare You many a plum and many a peare; For more or less fruits they will bring As you so give them wassailing."

Our poets have as yet a better right to sing of cider than of wine; but it behooves them to sing better than English Phillips did, else they will do no credit to their Muse.

THE WILD APPLE

So much for the more civilized apple trees (_urbaniores_, as Pliny calls them). I love better to go through the old orchards of ungrafted apple trees, at what ever season of the year,--so irregularly planted: sometimes two trees standing close together; and the rows so devious that you would think that they not only had grown while the owner was sleeping, but had been set out by him in a somnambulic state. The rows of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander amid them like these. But I now, alas, speak rather from memory than from any recent experience, such ravages have been made!

Some soils, like a rocky tract called the Easterbrooks Country in my neighborhood, are so suited to the apple, that it will grow faster in them without any care, or if only the ground is broken up once a year, than it will in many places with any amount of care. The owners of this tract allow that the soil is excellent for fruit, but they say that it is so rocky that they have not patience to plow it, and that, together with the distance, is the reason why it is not cultivated. There are, or were recently, extensive orchards there standing without order. Nay, they spring up wild and bear well there in the midst of pines, birches, maples, and oaks. I am often surprised to see rising amid these trees the rounded tops of apple trees glowing with red or yellow fruit, in harmony with the autumnal tints of the forest.

Going up the side of a cliff about the first of November, I saw a vigorous young apple tree, which, planted by birds or cows, had shot up amid the rocks and open woods there, and had now much fruit on it, uninjured by the frosts, when all cultivated apples were gathered. It was a rank, wild growth, with many green leaves on it still, and made an impression of thorniness. The fruit was hard and green, but looked as if it would be palatable in the winter. Some was dangling on the twigs, but more half buried in the wet leaves under the tree, or rolled far down the hill amid the rocks. The owner knows nothing of it. The day was not observed when it first blossomed, nor when it first bore fruit, unless by the chickadee. There was no dancing on the green beneath it in its honor, and now there is no hand to pluck its fruit,--which is only gnawed by squirrels, as I perceive. It has done double duty,--not only borne this crop, but each twig has grown a foot into the air. And this is _such_ fruit! bigger than many berries, we must admit, and carried home will be sound and palatable next spring. What care I for Iduna's apples so long as I can get these?

When I go by this shrub thus late and hardy, and see its dangling fruit, I respect the tree, and I am grateful for Nature's bounty, even though I cannot eat it. Here on this rugged and woody hillside has grown an apple tree, not planted by man, no relic of a former orchard, but a natural growth, like the pines and oaks. Most fruits which we prize and use depend entirely on our care. Corn and grain, potatoes, peaches, melons, etc., depend altogether on our planting; but the apple emulates man's independence and enterprise. It is not simply carried, as I have said, but, like him, to some extent, it has migrated to this New World, and is even, here and there, making its way amid the aboriginal trees; just as the ox and dog and horse sometimes run wild and maintain themselves.

Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, growing in the most unfavorable position, suggests such thoughts as these, it is so noble a fruit.

THE CRAB

Nevertheless, _our_ wild apple is wild only like myself, perchance, who belong not to the aboriginal race here, but have strayed into the woods from the cultivated stock. Wilder still, as I have said, there grows elsewhere in this country a native and aboriginal crab-apple, _Malus coronaria_, "whose nature has not yet been modified by cultivation." It is found from western New York to Minnesota, and southward. Michaux says that its ordinary height "is fifteen or eighteen feet, but it is sometimes found twenty-five or thirty feet high," and that the large ones "exactly resemble the common apple tree." "The flowers are white mingled with rose color, and are collected in corymbs." They are remarkable for their delicious odor. The fruit, according to him, is about an inch and a half in diameter, and is intensely acid. Yet they make fine sweetmeats and also cider of them. He concludes that "if, on being cultivated, it does not yield new and palatable varieties, it will at least be celebrated for the beauty of its flowers, and for the sweetness of its perfume."

I never saw the crab-apple till May, 1861. I had heard of it through Michaux, but more modern botanists, so far as I know, have not treated it as of any peculiar importance. Thus it was a half-fabulous tree to me. I contemplated a pilgrimage to the "Glades," a portion of Pennsylvania where it was said to grow to perfection. I thought of sending to a nursery for it, but doubted if they had it, or would distinguish it from European varieties. At last I had occasion to go to Minnesota, and on entering Michigan I began to notice from the cars a tree with handsome rose-colored flowers. At first I thought it some variety of thorn; but it was not long before the truth flashed on me, that this was my long-sought crab-apple. It was the prevailing flowering shrub or tree to be seen from the cars at that season of the year,--about the middle of May. But the cars never stopped before one, and so I was launched on the bosom of the Mississippi without having touched one, experiencing the fate of Tantalus. On arriving at St. Anthony's Falls, I was sorry to be told that I was too far north for the crab-apple. Nevertheless I succeeded in finding it about eight miles west of the Falls; touched it and smelled it, and secured a lingering corymb of flowers for my herbarium. This must have been near its northern limit.

HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS

But though these are indigenous, like the Indians, I doubt whether they are any hardier than those backwoodsmen among the apple trees, which, though descended from cultivated stocks, plant themselves in distant fields and forests, where the soil is favorable to them. I know of no trees which have more difficulties to contend with, and which more sturdily resist their foes. These are the ones whose story we have to tell. It oftentimes reads thus:--

Near the beginning of May, we notice little thickets of apple trees just springing up in the pastures where cattle have been,--as the rocky ones of our Easterbrooks Country, or the top of Nobscot Hill, in Sudbury. One or two of these, perhaps, survive the drought and other accidents,--their very birthplace defending them against the encroaching grass and some other dangers, at first.

In two years' time 't had thus Reached the level of the rocks, Admired the stretching world, Nor feared the wandering flocks.

But at this tender age Its sufferings began: There came a browsing ox And cut it down a span.

This time, perhaps, the ox does not notice it amid the grass; but the next year, when it has grown more stout, he recognizes it for a fellow-emigrant from the old country, the flavor of whose leaves and twigs he well knows; and though at first he pauses to welcome it, and express his surprise, and gets for answer, "The same cause that brought you here brought me," he nevertheless browses it again, reflecting, it may be, that he has some title to it.

Thus cut down annually, it does not despair; but, putting forth two short twigs for every one cut off, it spreads out low along the ground in the hollows or between the rocks, growing more stout and scrubby, until it forms, not a tree as yet, but a little pyramidal, stiff, twiggy mass, almost as solid and impenetrable as a rock. Some of the densest and most impenetrable clumps of bushes that I have ever seen, as well on account of the closeness and stubbornness of their branches as of their thorns, have been these wild apple scrubs. They are more like the scrubby fir and black spruce on which you stand, and sometimes walk, on the tops of mountains, where cold is the demon they contend with, than anything else. No wonder they are prompted to grow thorns at last, to defend themselves against such foes. In their thorniness, however, there is no malice, only some malic acid.

The rocky pastures of the tract I have referred to--for they maintain their ground best in a rocky field--are thickly sprinkled with these little tufts, reminding you often of some rigid gray mosses or lichens, and you see thousands of little trees just springing up between them, with the seed still attached to them.

Being regularly clipped all around each year by the cows, as a hedge with shears, they are often of a perfect conical or pyramidal form, from one to four feet high, and more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was six feet in diameter.

No doubt many of these are already old trees, if you reckon from the day they were planted, but infants still when you consider their development and the long life before them. I counted the annual rings of some which were just one foot high, and as wide as high, and found that they were about twelve years old, but quite sound and thrifty! They were so low that they were unnoticed by the walker, while many of their contemporaries from the nurseries were already bearing considerable crops. But what you gain in time is perhaps in this case, too, lost in power,--that is, in the vigor of the tree. This is their pyramidal state.

The cows continue to browse them thus for twenty years or more, keeping them down and compelling them to spread, until at last they are so broad that they become their own fence, when some interior shoot, which their foes cannot reach, darts upward with joy: for it has not forgotten its high calling, and bears its own peculiar fruit in triumph.

Such are the tactics by which it finally defeats its bovine foes. Now, if you have watched the progress of a particular shrub, you will see that it is no longer a simple pyramid or cone, but that out of its apex there rises a sprig or two, growing more lustily perchance than an orchard-tree, since the plant now devotes the whole of its repressed energy to these upright parts. In a short time these become a small tree, an inverted pyramid resting on the apex of the other, so that the whole has now the form of a vast hour-glass. The spreading bottom, having served its purpose, finally disappears, and the generous tree permits the now harmless cows to come in and stand in its shade, and rub against and redden its trunk, which has grown in spite of them, and even to taste a part of its fruit, and so disperse the seed.

Thus the cows create their own shade and food; and the tree, its hour-glass being inverted, lives a second life, as it were.

It is an important question with some nowadays, whether you should trim young apple trees as high as your nose or as high as your eyes. The ox trims them up as high as he can reach, and that is about the right height, I think.

In spite of wandering kine, and other adverse circumstances, that despised shrub, valued only by small birds as a covert and shelter from hawks, has its blossom week at last, and in course of time its harvest, sincere, though small.

By the end of some October, when its leaves have fallen, I frequently see such a central sprig, whose progress I have watched, when I thought it had forgotten its destiny, as I had, bearing its first crop of small green or yellow or rosy fruit, which the cows cannot get at over the bushy and thorny hedge which surrounds it, and I make haste to taste the new and undescribed variety. We have all heard of the numerous varieties of fruit invented by Van Mons and Knight. This is the system of Van Cow, and she has invented far more and more memorable varieties than both of them.

Through what hardships it may attain to bear a sweet fruit! Though somewhat small, it may prove equal, if not superior, in flavor to that which has grown in a garden,--will perchance be all the sweeter and more palatable for the very difficulties it has had to contend with. Who knows but this chance wild fruit, planted by a cow or a bird on some remote and rocky hillside, where it is as yet unobserved by man, may be the choicest of all its kind, and foreign potentates shall hear of it, and royal societies seek to propagate it, though the virtues of the perhaps truly crabbed owner of the soil may never be heard of,--at least, beyond the limits of his village? It was thus the Porter and the Baldwin grew.

Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.

Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean labor to pluck them.

This is one, and the most remarkable way in which the wild apple is propagated; but commonly it springs up at wide intervals in woods and swamp, and by the sides of roads, as the soil may suit it, and grows with comparative rapidity. Those which grow in dense woods are very tall and slender. I frequently pluck from these trees a perfectly mild and tamed fruit. As Palladius says, "_Et injussu consternitur ubere mali_:" And the ground is strewn with the fruit of an unbidden apple tree.

It is an old notion that, if these wild trees do not bear a valuable fruit of their own, they are the best stocks by which to transmit to posterity the most highly prized qualities of others. However, I am not in search of stocks, but the wild fruit itself, whose fierce gust has suffered no "inteneration." It is not my

"highest plot To plant the Bergamot."

THE FRUIT, AND ITS FLAVOR

The time for wild apples is the last of October and the first of November. They then get to be palatable, for they ripen late, and they are still perhaps as beautiful as ever. I make a great account of these fruits, which the farmers do not think it worth the while to gather,--wild flavors of the Muse, vivacious and inspiriting. The farmer thinks that he has better in his barrels, but he is mistaken, unless he has a walker's appetite and imagination, neither of which can he have.

Such as grow quite wild, and are left out till the first of November, I presume that the owner does not mean to gather. They belong to children as wild as themselves,--to certain active boys that I know,--to the wild-eyed woman of the fields, to whom nothing comes amiss, who gleans after all the world, and, moreover, to us walkers. We have met with them, and they are ours. These rights, long enough insisted upon, have come to be an institution in some old countries, where they have learned how to live. I hear that "the custom of grippling, which may be called apple-gleaning, is, or was formerly, practiced in Herefordshire. It consists in leaving a few apples, which are called the gripples, on every tree, after the general gathering, for the boys, who go with climbing-poles and bags to collect them."

As for those I speak of, I pluck them as a wild fruit, native to this quarter of the earth,--fruit of old trees that have been dying ever since I was a boy and are not yet dead, frequented only by the woodpecker and the squirrel, deserted now by the owner, who has not faith enough to look under their boughs. From the appearance of the tree-top, at a little distance, you would expect nothing but lichens to drop from it, but your faith is rewarded by finding the ground strewn with spirited fruit,--some of it, perhaps, collected at squirrel-holes, with the marks of their teeth by which they carried them,--some containing a cricket or two silently feeding within, and some, especially in damp days, a shell-less snail. The very sticks and stones lodged in the tree-top might have convinced you of the savoriness of the fruit which has been so eagerly sought after in past years.

I have seen no account of these among the "Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America," though they are more memorable to my taste than the grafted kinds; more racy and wild American flavors do they possess when October and November, when December and January, and perhaps February and March even, have assuaged them somewhat. An old farmer in my neighborhood, who always selects the right word, says that "they have a kind of bow-arrow tang."

Apples for grafting appear to have been selected commonly, not so much for their spirited flavor, as for their mildness, their size, and bearing qualities,--not so much for their beauty, as for their fairness and soundness. Indeed, I have no faith in the selected lists of pomological gentlemen. Their "Favorites" and "None-suches" and "Seek-no-farthers," when I have fruited them, commonly turn out very tame and forgettable. They are eaten with comparatively little zest, and have no real _tang_ nor _smack_ to them.

What if some of these wildings are acrid and puckery, genuine _verjuice_, do they not still belong to the _Pomaceæ_, which are uniformly innocent and kind to our race? I still begrudge them to the cider-mill. Perhaps they are not fairly ripe yet.

No wonder that these small and high-colored apples are thought to make the best cider. Loudon quotes from the "Herefordshire Report," that "apples of a small size are always, if equal in quality, to be preferred to those of a larger size, in order that the rind and kernel may bear the greatest proportion to the pulp, which affords the weakest and most watery juice." And he says that, "to prove this, Dr. Symonds, of Hereford, about the year 1800, made one hogshead of cider entirely from the rinds and cores of apples, and another from the pulp only, when the first was found of extraordinary strength and flavor, while the latter was sweet and insipid."

Evelyn says that the "Red-strake" was the favorite cider-apple in his day; and he quotes one Dr. Newburg as saying, "In Jersey 'tis a general observation, as I hear, that the more of red any apple has in its rind, the more proper it is for this use. Pale-faced apples they exclude as much as may be from their cider-vat." This opinion still prevails.

All apples are good in November. Those which the farmer leaves out as unsalable and unpalatable to those who frequent the markets are choicest fruit to the walker. But it is remarkable that the wild apple, which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields or woods, being brought into the house has frequently a harsh and crabbed taste. The Saunterer's Apple not even the saunterer can eat in the house. The palate rejects it there, as it does haws and acorns, and demands a tamed one; for there you miss the November air, which is the sauce it is to be eaten with. Accordingly, when Tityrus, seeing the lengthening shadows, invites Melibœus to go home and pass the night with him, he promises him _mild_ apples and soft chestnuts,--_mitia poma_, _castaneæ molles_. I frequently pluck wild apples of so rich and spicy a flavor that I wonder all orchardists do not get a scion from that tree, and I fail not to bring home my pockets full. But perchance, when I take one out of my desk and taste it in my chamber, I find it unexpectedly crude,--sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream.

These apples have hung in the wind and frost and rain till they have absorbed the qualities of the weather or season, and thus are highly _seasoned_, and they _pierce_ and _sting_ and _permeate_ us with their spirit. They must be eaten in _season_, accordingly,--that is, out-of-doors.

To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. The outdoor air and exercise which the walker gets give a different tone to his palate, and he craves a fruit which the sedentary would call harsh and crabbed. They must be eaten in the fields, when your system is all aglow with exercise, when the frosty weather nips your fingers, the wind rattles the bare boughs or rustles the few remaining leaves, and the jay is heard screaming around. What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labeled, "To be eaten in the wind."

Of course no flavors are thrown away; they are intended for the taste that is up to them. Some apples have two distinct flavors, and perhaps one half of them must be eaten in the house, the other outdoors. One Peter Whitney wrote from Northborough in 1782, for the Proceedings of the Boston Academy, describing an apple tree in that town "producing fruit of opposite qualities, part of the same apple being frequently sour and the other sweet;" also some all sour, and others all sweet, and this diversity on all parts of the tree.

There is a wild apple on Nawshawtuct Hill in my town which has to me a peculiarly pleasant bitter tang, not perceived till it is three-quarters tasted. It remains on the tongue. As you eat it, it smells exactly like a squash-bug. It is a sort of triumph to eat and relish it.

I hear that the fruit of a kind of plum tree in Provence is "called _Prunes sibarelles_, because it is impossible to whistle after having eaten them, from their sourness." But perhaps they were only eaten in the house and in summer, and if tried out-of-doors in a stinging atmosphere, who knows but you could whistle an octave higher and clearer?

In the fields only are the sours and bitters of Nature appreciated; just as the woodchopper eats his meal in a sunny glade, in the middle of a winter day, with content, basks in a sunny ray there, and dreams of summer in a degree of cold which, experienced in a chamber, would make a student miserable. They who are at work abroad are not cold, but rather it is they who sit shivering in houses. As with temperatures, so with flavors; as with cold and heat, so with sour and sweet. This natural raciness, the sours and bitters which the diseased palate refuses, are the true condiments.

Let your condiments be in the condition of your senses. To appreciate the flavor of these wild apples requires vigorous and healthy senses, _papillæ_ firm and erect on the tongue and palate, not easily flattened and tamed.

From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit.

What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes to relish the apple of life, the apple of the world, then!

"Nor is it every apple I desire, Nor that which pleases every palate best; 'Tis not the lasting Deuxan I require, Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request, Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife, Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife: No, no! bring me an apple from the tree of life."

So there is one _thought_ for the field, another for the house. I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house.

THEIR BEAUTY

Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye. You will discover some evening redness dashed or sprinkled on some protuberance or in some cavity. It is rare that the summer lets an apple go without streaking or spotting it on some part of its sphere. It will have some red stains, commemorating the mornings and evenings it has witnessed; some dark and rusty blotches, in memory of the clouds and foggy, mildewy days that have passed over it; and a spacious field of green reflecting the general face of nature,--green even as the fields; or a yellow ground, which implies a milder flavor,--yellow as the harvest, or russet as the hills.

Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair,--apples not of Discord, but of Concord! Yet not so rare but that the homeliest may have a share. Painted by the frosts, some a uniform clear bright yellow, or red, or crimson, as if their spheres had regularly revolved, and enjoyed the influence of the sun on all sides alike,--some with the faintest pink blush imaginable,--some brindled with deep red streaks like a cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays running regularly from the stem-dimple to the blossom end, like meridional lines, on a straw-colored ground,--some touched with a greenish rust, like a fine lichen, here and there, with crimson blotches or eyes more or less confluent and fiery when wet,--and others gnarly, and freckled or peppered all over on the stem side with fine crimson spots on a white ground, as if accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him who paints the autumn leaves. Others, again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,--apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells and pebbles on the seashore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and faded in the house.

THE NAMING OF THEM

It would be a pleasant pastime to find suitable names for the hundred varieties which go to a single heap at the cider-mill. Would it not tax a man's invention,--no one to be named after a man, and all in the _lingua vernacula_? Who shall stand godfather at the christening of the wild apples? It would exhaust the Latin and Greek languages, if they were used, and make the _lingua vernacula_ flag. We should have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the rainbow and the autumn woods and the wild-flowers, and the woodpecker and the purple finch and the squirrel and the jay and the butterfly, the November traveler and the truant boy, to our aid.

In 1836 there were in the garden of the London Horticultural Society more than fourteen hundred distinct sorts. But here are species which they have not in their catalogue, not to mention the varieties which our crab might yield to cultivation.

Let us enumerate a few of these. I find myself compelled, after all, to give the Latin names of some for the benefit of those who live where English is not spoken,--for they are likely to have a world-wide reputation.

There is, first of all, the Wood Apple (_Malus sylvatica_); the Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods (_sylvestrivallis_), also in Hollows in Pastures (_campestrivallis_); the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-Hole (_Malus cellaris_); the Meadow Apple; the Partridge Apple; the Truant's Apple (_cessatoris_), which no boy will ever go by without knocking off some, however _late_ it may be; the Saunterer's Apple,--you must lose yourself before you can find the way to that; the Beauty of the Air (_decus aëris_); December-Eating; the Frozen-Thawed (_gelato-soluta_), good only in that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the same with the _Musketaquidensis_; the Assabet Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple (_Malus viridis_),--this has many synonyms: in an imperfect state, it is the _choleramorbifera aut dysenterifera_, _puerulis dilectissima_; the Apple which Atalanta stopped to pick up; the Hedge Apple (_Malus sepium_); the Slug Apple (_limacea_); the Railroad Apple, which perhaps came from a core thrown out of the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in our Youth; our Particular Apple, not to be found in any catalogue; _pedestrium solatium_; also the Apple where hangs the Forgotten Scythe; Iduna's Apples, and the Apples which Loki found in the Wood; and a great many more I have on my list, too numerous to mention,--all of them good. As Bodæus exclaims, referring to the cultivated kinds, and adapting Virgil to his case, so I, adapting Bodæus,--

"Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, An iron voice, could I describe all the forms And reckon up all the names of these _wild apples_."

THE LAST GLEANING

By the middle of November the wild apples have lost some of their brilliancy, and have chiefly fallen. A great part are decayed on the ground, and the sound ones are more palatable than before. The note of the chickadee sounds now more distinct, as you wander amid the old trees, and the autumnal dandelion is half closed and tearful. But still, if you are a skillful gleaner, you may get many a pocketful even of grafted fruit, long after apples are supposed to be gone out-of-doors. I know a Blue Pearmain tree, growing within the edge of a swamp, almost as good as wild. You would not suppose that there was any fruit left there, on the first survey, but you must look according to system. Those which lie exposed are quite brown and rotten now, or perchance a few still show one blooming cheek here and there amid the wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the huckleberry bushes and the withered sedge, and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under the fallen and decaying ferns, which, with apple and alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know that they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself,--a proper kind of packing. From these lurking-places, anywhere within the circumference of the tree, I draw forth the fruit, all wet and glossy, maybe nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out by crickets, and perhaps with a leaf or two cemented to it (as Curzon an old manuscript from a monastery's mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on it, and at least as ripe and well-kept, if not better than those in barrels, more crisp and lively than they. If these resources fail to yield anything, I have learned to look between the bases of the suckers which spring thickly from some horizontal limb, for now and then one lodges there, or in the very midst of an alder-clump, where they are covered by leaves, safe from cows which may have smelled them out. If I am sharp-set, for I do not refuse the Blue Pearmain, I fill my pockets on each side; and as I retrace my steps in the frosty eve, being perhaps four or five miles from home, I eat one first from this side, and then from that, to keep my balance.

I learn from Topsell's Gesner, whose authority appears to be Albertus, that the following is the way in which the hedgehog collects and carries home his apples. He says,--"His meat is apples, worms, or grapes: when he findeth apples or grapes on the earth, he rolleth himself upon them, until he have filled all his prickles, and then carrieth them home to his den, never bearing above one in his mouth; and if it fortune that one of them fall off by the way, he likewise shaketh off all the residue, and walloweth upon them afresh, until they be all settled upon his back again. So, forth he goeth, making a noise like a cart-wheel; and if he have any young ones in his nest, they pull off his load wherewithal he is loaded, eating thereof what they please, and laying up the residue for the time to come."

THE "FROZEN-THAWED" APPLE

Toward the end of November, though some of the sound ones are yet more mellow and perhaps more edible, they have generally, like the leaves, lost their beauty, and are beginning to freeze. It is finger-cold, and prudent farmers get in their barreled apples, and bring you the apples and cider which they have engaged; for it is time to put them into the cellar. Perhaps a few on the ground show their red cheeks above the early snow, and occasionally some even preserve their color and soundness under the snow throughout the winter. But generally at the beginning of the winter they freeze hard, and soon, though undecayed, acquire the color of a baked apple.

Before the end of December, generally, they experience their first thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the civilized taste, such at least as were frozen while sound, let a warmer sun come to thaw them,--for they are extremely sensitive to its rays,--are found to be filled with a rich, sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I know of, and with which I am better acquainted than with wine. All apples are good in this state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Others, which have more substance, are a sweet and luscious food,--in my opinion of more worth than the pineapples which are imported from the West Indies. Those which lately even I tasted only to repent of it,--for I am semicivilized,--which the farmer willingly left on the tree, I am now glad to find have the property of hanging on like the leaves of the young oaks. It is a way to keep cider sweet without boiling. Let the frost come to freeze them first, solid as stones, and then the rain or a warm winter day to thaw them, and they will seem to have borrowed a flavor from heaven through the medium of the air in which they hang. Or perchance you find, when you get home, that those which rattled in your pocket have thawed, and the ice is turned to cider. But after the third or fourth freezing and thawing they will not be found so good.

What are the imported half-ripe fruits of the torrid south, to this fruit matured by the cold of the frigid north? These are those crabbed apples with which I cheated my companion, and kept a smooth face that I might tempt him to eat. Now we both greedily fill our pockets with them,--bending to drink the cup and save our lappets from the overflowing juice,--and grow more social with their wine. Was there one that hung so high and sheltered by the tangled branches that our sticks could not dislodge it?

It is a fruit never carried to market, that I am aware of,--quite distinct from the apple of the markets, as from dried apple and cider,--and it is not every winter that produces it in perfection.

The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New England. You may still wander through old orchards of native fruit of great extent, which for the most part went to the cider-mill, now all gone to decay. I have heard of an orchard in a distant town, on the side of a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay four feet deep against a wall on the lower side, and this the owner cut down for fear they should be made into cider. Since the temperance reform and the general introduction of grafted fruit, no native apple trees, such as I see everywhere in deserted pastures, and where the woods have grown up around them, are set out. I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know! Notwithstanding the prevalence of the Baldwin and the Porter, I doubt if so extensive orchards are set out to-day in my town as there were a century ago, when those vast straggling cider-orchards were planted, when men both ate and drank apples, when the pomace-heap was the only nursery, and trees cost nothing but the trouble of setting them out. Men could afford then to stick a tree by every wall-side and let it take its chance. I see nobody planting trees to-day in such out of the way places, along the lonely roads and lanes, and at the bottom of dells in the wood. Now that they have grafted trees, and pay a price for them, they collect them into a plat by their houses, and fence them in,--and the end of it all will be that we shall be compelled to look for our apples in a barrel.

This is "The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

"Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land! Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?...

"That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.

"Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

"For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.

"He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white....

"Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers....

"The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men."

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

Chancing to take a memorable walk by moonlight some years ago, I resolved to take more such walks, and make acquaintance with another side of nature: I have done so.

According to Pliny, there is a stone in Arabia called Selenites, "wherein is a white, which increases and decreases with the moon." My journal for the last year or two has been _selenitic_ in this sense.

Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it,--to penetrate to the shores of its Lake Tchad, and discover the source of its Nile, perchance the Mountains of the Moon? Who knows what fertility and beauty, moral and natural, are there to be found? In the Mountains of the Moon, in the Central Africa of the night, there is where all Niles have their hidden heads. The expeditions up the Nile as yet extend but to the Cataracts, or perchance to the mouth of the White Nile; but it is the Black Nile that concerns us.

I shall be a benefactor if I conquer some realms from the night, if I report to the gazettes anything transpiring about us at that season worthy of their attention,--if I can show men that there is some beauty awake while they are asleep,--if I add to the domains of poetry.

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day. I soon discovered that I was acquainted only with its complexion, and as for the moon, I had seen her only as it were through a crevice in a shutter, occasionally. Why not walk a little way in her light?

Suppose you attend to the suggestions which the moon makes for one month, commonly in vain, will it not be very different from anything in literature or religion? But why not study this Sanskrit? What if one moon has come and gone with its world of poetry, its weird teachings, its oracular suggestions,--so divine a creature freighted with hints for me, and I have not used her? One moon gone by unnoticed?

I think it was Dr. Chalmers who said, criticising Coleridge, that for his part he wanted ideas which he could see all round, and not such as he must look at away up in the heavens. Such a man, one would say, would never look at the moon, because she never turns her other side to us. The light which comes from ideas which have their orbit as distant from the earth, and which is no less cheering and enlightening to the benighted traveler than that of the moon and stars, is naturally reproached or nicknamed as moonshine by such. They are moonshine, are they? Well, then, do your night traveling when there is no moon to light you; but I will be thankful for the light that reaches me from the star of least magnitude. Stars are lesser or greater only as they appear to us so. I will be thankful that I see so much as one side of a celestial idea, one side of the rainbow and the sunset sky.

Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities very well, and despised them; as owls might talk of sunshine,--none of your sunshine!--but this word commonly means merely something which they do not understand,--which they are abed and asleep to, however much it may be worth their while to be up and awake to it.

It must be allowed that the light of the moon, sufficient though it is for the pensive walker, and not disproportionate to the inner light we have, is very inferior in quality and intensity to that of the sun. But the moon is not to be judged alone by the quantity of light she sends to us, but also by her influence on the earth and its inhabitants. "The moon gravitates toward the earth, and the earth reciprocally toward the moon." The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence. I will endeavor to separate the tide in my thoughts from the current distractions of the day. I would warn my hearers that they must not try my thoughts by a daylight standard, but endeavor to realize that I speak out of the night. All depends on your point of view. In Drake's "Collection of Voyages," Wafer says of some albinos among the Indians of Darien: "They are quite white, but their whiteness is like that of a horse, quite different from the fair or pale European, as they have not the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion.... Their eyebrows are milk-white, as is likewise the hair of their heads, which is very fine.... They seldom go abroad in the daytime, the sun being disagreeable to them, and causing their eyes, which are weak and poring, to water, especially if it shines towards them, yet they see very well by moonlight, from which we call them moon-eyed."

Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight walks, methinks, is there "the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion," but we are intellectually and morally albinos, children of Endymion, such is the effect of conversing much with the moon.

I complain of arctic voyagers that they do not enough remind us of the constant peculiar dreariness of the scenery, and the perpetual twilight of the arctic night. So he whose theme is moonlight, though he may find it difficult, must, as it were, illustrate it with the light of the moon alone.

Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season. Take a July night, for instance. About ten o'clock,--when man is asleep, and day fairly forgotten,--the beauty of moonlight is seen over lonely pastures where cattle are silently feeding. On all sides novelties present themselves. Instead of the sun there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush there is the whip-poor-will; instead of butterflies in the meadows, fireflies, winged sparks of fire! who would have believed it? What kind of cool deliberate life dwells in those dewy abodes associated with a spark of fire? So man has fire in his eyes, or blood, or brain. Instead of singing birds, the half-throttled note of a cuckoo flying over, the croaking of frogs, and the intenser dream of crickets. But above all, the wonderful trump of the bullfrog, ringing from Maine to Georgia. The potato vines stand upright, the corn grows apace, the bushes loom, the grain-fields are boundless. On our open river terraces once cultivated by the Indian, they appear to occupy the ground like an army, their heads nodding in the breeze. Small trees and shrubs are seen in the midst overwhelmed as by an inundation. The shadows of rocks and trees, and shrubs and hills, are more conspicuous than the objects themselves. The slightest irregularities in the ground are revealed by the shadows, and what the feet find comparatively smooth appears rough and diversified in consequence. For the same reason the whole landscape is more variegated and picturesque than by day. The smallest recesses in the rocks are dim and cavernous; the ferns in the wood appear of tropical size. The sweet-fern and indigo in overgrown wood-paths wet you with dew up to your middle. The leaves of the shrub oak are shining as if a liquid were flowing over them. The pools seen through the trees are as full of light as the sky. "The light of the day takes refuge in their bosoms," as the Purana says of the ocean. All white objects are more remarkable than by day. A distant cliff looks like a phosphorescent space on a hillside. The woods are heavy and dark. Nature slumbers. You see the moonlight reflected from particular stumps in the recesses of the forest, as if she selected what to shine on. These small fractions of her light remind one of the plant called moonseed,--as if the moon were sowing it in such places.

In the night the eyes are partly closed or retire into the head. Other senses take the lead. The walker is guided as well by the sense of smell. Every plant and field and forest emits its odor now, swamp-pink in the meadow and tansy in the road; and there is the peculiar dry scent of corn which has begun to show its tassels. The senses both of hearing and smelling are more alert. We hear the tinkling of rills which we never detected before. From time to time, high up on the sides of hills, you pass through a stratum of warm air, a blast which has come up from the sultry plains of noon. It tells of the day, of sunny noontide hours and banks, of the laborer wiping his brow and the bee humming amid flowers. It is an air in which work has been done,--which men have breathed. It circulates about from woodside to hillside like a dog that has lost its master, now that the sun is gone. The rocks retain all night the warmth of the sun which they have absorbed. And so does the sand. If you dig a few inches into it you find a warm bed. You lie on your back on a rock in a pasture on the top of some bare hill at midnight, and speculate on the height of the starry canopy. The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show. A companion with whom I was sailing one very windy but bright moonlight night, when the stars were few and faint, thought that a man could get along with _them_, though he was considerably reduced in his circumstances,--that they were a kind of bread and cheese that never failed.

No wonder that there have been astrologers, that some have conceived that they were personally related to particular stars. Dubartas, as translated by Sylvester, says he'll

"not believe that the great architect With all these fires the heavenly arches decked Only for show, and with these glistering shields, T' awake poor shepherds, watching in the fields." He'll "not believe that the least flower which pranks Our garden borders, or our common banks, And the least stone, that in her warming lap Our mother earth doth covetously wrap, Hath some peculiar virtue of its own, And that the glorious stars of heav'n have none."

And Sir Walter Raleigh well says, "The stars are instruments of far greater use than to give an obscure light, and for men to gaze on after sunset;" and he quotes Plotinus as affirming that they "are significant, but not efficient;" and also Augustine as saying, "_Deus regit inferiora corpora per superiora_:" God rules the bodies below by those above. But best of all is this which another writer has expressed: "_Sapiens adjuvabit opus astrorum quemadmodum agricola terrae naturam_:" a wise man assisteth the work of the stars as the husbandman helpeth the nature of the soil.

It does not concern men who are asleep in their beds, but it is very important to the traveler, whether the moon shines brightly or is obscured. It is not easy to realize the serene joy of all the earth, when she commences to shine unobstructedly, unless you have often been abroad alone in moonlight nights. She seems to be waging continual war with the clouds in your behalf. Yet we fancy the clouds to be _her_ foes also. She comes on magnifying her dangers by her light, revealing, displaying them in all their hugeness and blackness, then suddenly casts them behind into the light concealed, and goes her way triumphant through a small space of clear sky.

In short, the moon traversing, or appearing to traverse, the small clouds which lie in her way, now obscured by them, now easily dissipating and shining through them, makes the drama of the moonlight night to all watchers and night-travelers. Sailors speak of it as the moon eating up the clouds. The traveler all alone, the moon all alone, except for his sympathy, overcoming with incessant victory whole squadrons of clouds above the forests and lakes and hills. When she is obscured he so sympathizes with her that he could whip a dog for her relief, as Indians do. When she enters on a clear field of great extent in the heavens, and shines unobstructedly, he is glad. And when she has fought her way through all the squadron of her foes, and rides majestic in a clear sky unscathed, and there are no more any obstructions in her path, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his way, and rejoices in his heart, and the cricket also seems to express joy in its song.

How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and darkness did not come to restore the drooping world. As the shades begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural prey of the intellect.

Richter says that "the earth is every day overspread with the veil of night for the same reason as the cages of birds are darkened, viz., that we may the more readily apprehend the higher harmonies of thought in the hush and quiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns into smoke and mist stand about us in the night as light and flames; even as the column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in the daytime appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar of fire."

There are nights in this climate of such serene and majestic beauty, so medicinal and fertilizing to the spirit, that methinks a sensitive nature would not devote them to oblivion, and perhaps there is no man but would be better and wiser for spending them out-of-doors, though he should sleep all the next day to pay for it,--should sleep an Endymion sleep, as the ancients expressed it,--nights which warrant the Grecian epithet ambrosial, when, as in the land of Beulah, the atmosphere is charged with dewy fragrance, and with music, and we take our repose and have our dreams awake,--when the moon, not secondary to the sun,--

"gives us his blaze again, Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day. Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop, Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime."

Diana still hunts in the New England sky.

"In Heaven queen she is among the spheres. She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure. Eternity in her oft change she bears; She Beauty is; by her the fair endure.

"Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide; Mortality below her orb is placed; By her the virtues of the stars down slide; By her is Virtue's perfect image cast."

The Hindoos compare the moon to a saintly being who has reached the last stage of bodily existence.

Great restorer of antiquity, great enchanter! In a mild night when the harvest or hunter's moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our village, whatever architect they may have had by day, acknowledge only a master. The village street is then as wild as the forest. New and old things are confounded. I know not whether I am sitting on the ruins of a wall, or on the material which is to compose a new one. Nature is an instructed and impartial teacher, spreading no crude opinions, and flattering none; she will be neither radical nor conservative. Consider the moonlight, so civil, yet so savage!

The light is more proportionate to our knowledge than that of day. It is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminated moments are.

"In such a night let me abroad remain Till morning breaks, and all's confused again."

Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.

When Ossian, in his address to the sun, exclaims,--

"Where has darkness its dwelling? Where is the cavernous home of the stars, When thou quickly followest their steps, Pursuing them like a hunter in the sky,-- Thou climbing the lofty hills, They descending on barren mountains?"

who does not in his thought accompany the stars to their "cavernous home," "descending" with them "on barren mountains"?

Nevertheless, even by night the sky is blue and not black, for we see through the shadow of the earth into the distant atmosphere of day, where the sunbeams are reveling.

TRANSLATIONS

THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ÆSCHYLUS

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

KRATOS _and_ BIA (Strength and Force). HEPHAISTUS (Vulcan). PROMETHEUS. CHORUS OF OCEAN NYMPHS. OCEANUS. IO, _Daughter of Inachus_. HERMES.

KRATOS _and_ BIA, HEPHAISTUS, PROMETHEUS.

_Kr._ We are come to the far-bounding plain of earth, To the Scythian way, to the unapproached solitude. Hephaistus, orders must have thy attention, Which the Father has enjoined on thee, this bold one To the high-hanging rocks to bind In indissoluble fetters of adamantine bonds. For thy flower, the splendor of fire useful in all arts, Stealing, he bestowed on mortals; and for such A crime 't is fit he should give satisfaction to the gods; That he may learn the tyranny of Zeus To love, and cease from his man-loving ways.

_Heph._ Kratos and Bia, your charge from Zeus Already has its end, and nothing further in the way; But I cannot endure to bind A kindred god by force to a bleak precipice,-- Yet absolutely there's necessity that I have courage for these things; For it is hard the Father's words to banish. High-plotting son of the right-counseling Themis, Unwilling thee unwilling in brazen fetters hard to be loosed I am about to nail to this inhuman hill, Where neither voice [you'll hear], nor form of any mortal See, but, scorched by the sun's clear flame, Will change your color's bloom; and to you glad The various-robed night will conceal the light, And sun disperse the morning frost again; And always the burden of the present ill Will wear you; for he that will relieve you has not yet been born. Such fruits you've reaped from your man-loving ways, For a god, not shrinking from the wrath of gods, You have bestowed honors on mortals more than just, For which this pleasureless rock you'll sentinel, Standing erect, sleepless, not bending a knee; And many sighs and lamentations to no purpose Will you utter; for the mind of Zeus is hard to be changed; And he is wholly rugged who may newly rule.

_Kr._ Well, why dost thou delay and pity in vain? Why not hate the god most hostile to gods, Who has betrayed thy prize to mortals?

_Heph._ The affinity indeed is appalling, and the familiarity.

_Kr._ I agree, but to disobey the Father's words How is it possible? Fear you not this more?

_Heph._ Ay, you are always without pity, and full of confidence.

_Kr._ For 't is no remedy to bewail this one; Cherish not vainly troubles which avail naught.

_Heph._ O much hated handicraft!

_Kr._ Why hatest it? for in simple truth, for these misfortunes Which are present now Art's not to blame.

_Heph._ Yet I would 't had fallen to another's lot.

_Kr._ All things were done but to rule the gods, For none is free but Zeus.

_Heph._ I knew it, and have naught to say against these things.

_Kr._ Will you not haste, then, to put the bonds about him, That the Father may not observe you loitering?

_Heph._ Already at hand the shackles you may see.

_Kr._ Taking them, about his hands with firm strength Strike with the hammer, and nail him to the rocks.

_Heph._ 'T is done, and not in vain this work.

_Kr._ Strike harder, tighten, nowhere relax, For he is skillful to find out ways e'en from the impracticable.

_Heph._ Ay, but this arm is fixed inextricably.

_Kr._ And this now clasp securely, that He may learn he is a duller schemer than is Zeus.

_Heph._ Except him would none justly blame me.

_Kr._ Now with an adamantine wedge's stubborn fang Through the breasts nail strongly.

_Heph._ Alas! alas! Prometheus, I groan for thy afflictions.

_Kr._ And do you hesitate? for Zeus' enemies Do you groan? Beware lest one day you yourself will pity.

_Heph._ You see a spectacle hard for eyes to behold.

_Kr._ I see him meeting his deserts; But round his sides put straps.

_Heph._ To do this is necessity, insist not much.

_Kr._ Surely I will insist and urge beside; Go downward, and the thighs surround with force.

_Heph._ Already it is done, the work, with no long labor.

_Kr._ Strongly now drive the fetters, through and through, For the critic of the works is difficult.

_Heph._ Like your form your tongue speaks.

_Kr._ Be thou softened, but for my stubbornness Of temper and harshness reproach me not.

_Heph._ Let us withdraw, for he has a net about his limbs.

_Kr._ There now insult, and the shares of gods Plundering on ephemerals bestow; what thee Can mortals in these ills relieve? Falsely thee the divinities Prometheus Call; for you yourself need one _foreseeing_ In what manner you will escape this fortune.

PROMETHEUS, _alone_.

O divine ether, and ye swift-winged winds, Fountains of rivers, and countless smilings Of the ocean waves, and earth, mother of all, And thou all-seeing orb of the sun I call. Behold me what a god I suffer at the hands of gods. See by what outrages Tormented the myriad-yeared Time I shall endure; such the new Ruler of the blessed has contrived for me, Unseemly bonds. Alas! alas! the present and the coming Woe I groan; where ever of these sufferings Must an end appear. But what say I? I know beforehand all, Exactly what will be, nor to me strange Will any evil come. The destined fate As easily as possible it behooves to bear, knowing Necessity's is a resistless strength. But neither to be silent nor unsilent about this Lot is possible for me; for a gift to mortals Giving, I wretched have been yoked to these necessities; Within a hollow reed by stealth I carry off fire's Stolen source, which seemed the teacher Of all art to mortals, and a great resource. For such crimes penalty I pay, Under the sky, riveted in chains. Ah! ah! alas! alas! What echo, what odor has flown to me obscure, Of god, or mortal, or else mingled,-- Came it to this terminal hill A witness of my sufferings, or wishing what? Behold bound me an unhappy god, The enemy of Zeus, fallen under The ill will of all the gods, as many as Enter into the hall of Zeus, Through too great love of mortals. Alas! alas! what fluttering do I hear Of birds near? for the air rustles With the soft rippling of wings. Everything to me is fearful which creeps this way.

PROMETHEUS _and_ CHORUS.

_Ch._ Fear nothing; for friendly this band Of wings with swift contention Drew to this hill, hardly Persuading the paternal mind. The swift-carrying breezes sent me; For the echo of beaten steel pierced the recesses Of the caves, and struck out from me reserved modesty; And I rushed unsandaled in a winged chariot.

_Pr._ Alas! alas! alas! alas! Offspring of the fruitful Tethys, And of him rolling around all The earth with sleepless stream children, Of Father Ocean; behold, look on me; By what bonds embraced On this cliff's topmost rocks I shall maintain unenvied watch.

_Ch._ I see, Prometheus; but to my eyes a fearful Mist has come surcharged With tears, looking upon thy body Shrunk to the rocks By these mischiefs of adamantine bonds; Indeed, new helmsmen rule Olympus; And with new laws Zeus strengthens himself, annulling the old, And the before great now makes unknown.

_Pr._ Would that under earth, and below Hades, Receptacle of dead, to impassable Tartarus he had sent me, to bonds indissoluble Cruelly conducting, that neither god Nor any other had rejoiced at this. But now the sport of winds, unhappy one, A source of pleasure to my foes, I suffer.

_Ch._ Who so hard-hearted Of the gods, to whom these things are pleasant? Who does not sympathize with thy Misfortunes, excepting Zeus? for he in wrath always Fixing his stubborn mind, Afflicts the heavenly race; Nor will he cease, until his heart is sated; Or with some palm some one may take the power hard to be taken.

_Pr._ Surely yet, though in strong Fetters I am now maltreated, The ruler of the blessed will have need of me, To show the new conspiracy by which He's robbed of sceptre and of honors, And not at all me with persuasion's honey-tongued Charms will he appease, nor ever, Shrinking from his firm threats, will I Declare this, till from cruel Bonds he may release, and to do justice For this outrage be willing.

_Ch._ You are bold; and to bitter Woes do nothing yield, But too freely speak. But my mind piercing fear disturbs; For I'm concerned about thy fortunes, Where at length arriving you may see An end to these afflictions. For manners Inaccessible, and a heart hard to be dissuaded has the son of Kronos.

_Pr._ I know, that--Zeus is stern and having Justice to himself. But after all Gentle-minded He will one day be, when thus he's crushed, And his stubborn wrath allaying, Into agreement with me and friendliness Earnest to me earnest he at length will come.

_Ch._ The whole account disclose and tell us plainly, In what crime taking you Zeus Thus disgracefully and bitterly insults; Inform us, if you are nowise hurt by the recital.

_Pr._ Painful indeed it is to me to tell these things, And a pain to be silent, and every way unfortunate. When first the divinities began their strife, And discord 'mong themselves arose, Some wishing to cast Kronos from his seat, That Zeus might reign, forsooth, others the contrary Striving, that Zeus might never rule the gods; Then I, the best advising, to persuade The Titans, sons of Uranus and Chthon, Unable was; but crafty stratagems Despising with rude minds, They thought without trouble to rule by force; But to me my mother not once only, Themis, And Gæa, of many names one form, How the future should be accomplished had foretold, That not by power nor by strength Would it be necessary, but by craft the victors should prevail. Such I in words expounding, They deigned not to regard at all. The best course, therefore, of those occurring then Appeared to be, taking my mother to me, Of my own accord to side with Zeus glad to receive me; And by my counsels Tartarus' black-pitted Depths conceals the ancient Kronos, With his allies. In such things by me The tyrant of the gods having been helped, With base rewards like these repays me; For there is somehow in kingship This disease, not to trust its friends. What then you ask, for what cause He afflicts me, this will I now explain. As soon as on his father's throne He sat, he straightway to the gods distributes honors, Some to one and to another some, and arranged The government; but of unhappy mortals account Had none; but blotting out the race Entire, wished to create another new. And these things none opposed but I, But I adventured; I rescued mortals From going destroyed to Hades. Therefore, indeed, with such afflictions am I bent, To suffer grievous, and piteous to behold, And, holding mortals up to pity, myself am not Thought worthy to obtain it; but without pity Am I thus corrected, a spectacle inglorious to Zeus.

_Ch._ Of iron heart and made of stone, Whoe'er, Prometheus, with thy sufferings Does not grieve; for I should not have wished to see These things, and having seen them I am grieved at heart.

_Pr._ Indeed to friends I'm piteous to behold.

_Ch._ Did you in no respect go beyond this?

_Pr._ True, mortals I made cease foreseeing fate.

_Ch._ Having found what remedy for this all?

_Pr._ Blind hopes in them I made to dwell.

_Ch._ A great advantage this you gave to men.

_Pr._ Beside these, too, I bestowed on them fire.

_Ch._ And have mortals flamy fire?

_Pr._ From which, indeed, they will learn many arts.

_Ch._ Upon such charges, then, does Zeus Maltreat you, and nowhere relax from ills? Is there no term of suffering lying before thee?

_Pr._ Nay, none at all, but when to him it may seem good.

_Ch._ And how will it seem good? What hope? See you not that You have erred? But how you've erred, for me to tell Not pleasant, and to you a pain. But these things Let us omit, and seek you some release from sufferings.

_Pr._ Easy, whoever out of trouble holds his Foot, to admonish and remind those faring Ill. But all these things I knew; Willing, willing I erred, I'll not deny; Mortals assisting I myself found trouble. Not indeed with penalties like these thought I That I should pine on lofty rocks, Gaining this drear unneighbored hill. But bewail not my present woes, But alighting, the fortunes creeping on Hear ye, that ye may learn all to the end. Obey me, obey, sympathize With him now suffering. Thus indeed affliction, Wandering round, sits now by one, then by another.

_Ch._ Not to unwilling ears do you urge This, Prometheus. And now with light foot the swift-rushing Seat leaving, and the pure ether, Path of birds, to this peaked Ground I come; for thy misfortunes I wish fully to hear.

PROMETHEUS, CHORUS, _and_ OCEANUS.

_Oc._ I come to the end of a long way Traveling to thee, Prometheus, By my will without bits directing This wing-swift bird; For at thy fortunes know I grieve. And, I think, affinity thus Impels me, but apart from birth, There's not to whom a higher rank I would assign than thee. And you will know these things as true, and not in vain To flatter with the tongue is in me. Come, therefore, Show how it is necessary to assist you; For never will you say, than Ocean There's a firmer friend to thee.

_Pr._ Alas! what now? And you, then, of my sufferings Come spectator? How didst thou dare, leaving The stream which bears thy name, and rock-roofed Caves self-built, to the iron-mother Earth to go? To behold my fate Hast come, and to compassionate my ills? Behold a spectacle, this, the friend of Zeus, Having with him stablished his tyranny, With what afflictions by himself I'm bent.

_Oc._ I see, Prometheus, and would admonish Thee the best, although of varied craft. Know thyself, and fit thy manners New; for new also the king among the gods. For if thus rude and whetted words Thou wilt hurl out, quickly may Zeus, though sitting Far above, hear thee, so that thy present wrath Of troubles child's play will seem to be. But, O wretched one, dismiss the indignation which thou hast, And seek deliverance from these woes. Like an old man, perhaps, I seem to thee to say these things; Such, however, are the wages Of the too lofty speaking tongue, Prometheus; But thou art not yet humble, nor dost yield to ills, And beside the present wish to receive others still. But thou wouldst not, with my counsel, Against the pricks extend your limbs, seeing that A stern monarch irresponsible reigns. And now I go, and will endeavor, If I can, to release thee from these sufferings. But be thou quiet, nor too rudely speak. Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?

_Pr._ I congratulate thee that thou art without blame, Having shared and dared all with me; And now leave off, and let it not concern thee. For altogether thou wilt not persuade him, for he's not easily persuaded, But take heed yourself lest you be injured by the way.

_Oc._ Far better thou art to advise those near Than thyself; by deed and not by word I judge. But me hastening by no means mayest thou detain, For I boast, I boast, this favor will Zeus Grant me, from these sufferings to release thee.

_Pr._ So far I praise thee, and will never cease; For zeal you nothing lack. But Strive not; for in vain, naught helping Me, thou 'lt strive, if aught to strive you wish. But be thou quiet, holding thyself aloof, For I would not, though I'm unfortunate, that on this account Evils should come to many.

_Oc._ Surely not, for me too the fortunes of thy brother Atlas grieve, who towards the evening-places Stands, the pillar of heaven and earth Upon his shoulders bearing, a load not easy to be borne. And the earth-born inhabitant of the Cilician Caves seeing, I pitied, the savage monster With a hundred heads, by force o'ercome, Typhon impetuous, who stood 'gainst all the gods, With frightful jaws hissing out slaughter; And from his eyes flashed a Gorgonian light, Utterly to destroy by force the sovereignty of Zeus; But there came to him Zeus' sleepless bolt, Descending thunder, breathing flame, Which struck him out from lofty Boastings. For, struck to his very heart, His strength was scorched and thundered out. And now a useless and extended carcass Lies he near a narrow passage of the sea, Pressed down under the roots of Ætna. And on the topmost summit seated, Hephaistus Hammers the ignited mass, whence will burst out at length Rivers of fire, devouring with wild jaws Fair-fruited Sicily's smooth fields; Such rage will Typhon make boil over With hot discharges of insatiable fire-breathing tempest, Though by the bolt of Zeus burnt to a coal.

_Pr._ Thou art not inexperienced, nor dost want My counsel; secure thyself as thou know'st how; And I against the present fortune will bear up, Until the thought of Zeus may cease from wrath.

_Oc._ Know'st thou not this, Prometheus, that Words are healers of distempered wrath?

_Pr._ If any seasonably soothe the heart, And swelling passion check not rudely.

_Oc._ In the consulting and the daring What harm seest thou existing? Teach me.

_Pr._ Trouble superfluous, and light-minded folly.

_Oc._ Be this my ail then, since it is Most profitable, being wise, not to seem wise.

_Pr._ This will seem to be my error.

_Oc._ Plainly homeward thy words remand me.

_Pr._ Aye, let not grief for me into hostility cast thee.

_Oc._ To the new occupant of the all-powerful seats?

_Pr._ Beware lest ever his heart be angered.

_Oc._ Thy fate, Prometheus, is my teacher.

_Pr._ Go thou, depart; preserve the present mind.

_Oc._ To me rushing this word you utter. For the smooth path of the air sweeps with his wings The four-legged bird; and gladly would In the stalls at home bend a knee.

PROMETHEUS _and_ CHORUS.

_Ch._ I mourn for thee thy ruinous Fate, Prometheus, And tear-distilling from my tender Eyes a stream has wet My cheeks with flowing springs; For these, unenvied, Zeus By his own laws enforcing, Haughty above the gods That were displays his sceptre. And every region now With groans resounds, Mourning the illustrious And ancient honor Of thee and of thy kindred; As many mortals as the habitable seat Of sacred Asia pasture, With thy lamentable Woes have sympathy; And of the Colchian land, virgin Inhabitants, in fight undaunted, And Scythia's multitude, who the last Place of earth, about Mæotis lake possess, And Arabia's martial flower, And who the high-hung citadels Of Caucasus inhabit near, A hostile army, raging With sharp-prowed spears. Only one other god before, in sufferings Subdued by injuries Of adamantine bonds, I've seen, Titanian Atlas, who always with superior strength The huge and heavenly globe On his back bears; And with a roar the sea waves Dashing, groans the deep, And the dark depth of Hades murmurs underneath The earth, and fountains of pure-running rivers Heave a pitying sigh.

_Pr._ Think not, indeed, through weakness or through pride That I am silent; for with the consciousness I gnaw my heart, Seeing myself thus basely used. And yet to these new gods their shares Who else than I wholly distributed? But of these things I am silent; for I should tell you What you know; the sufferings of mortals too You've heard, how I made intelligent And possessed of sense them ignorant before. But I will speak, not bearing any grudge to men, But showing in what I gave the good intention; At first, indeed, seeing they saw in vain, And hearing heard not; but like the forms Of dreams, for that long time, rashly confounded All, nor brick-woven dwellings Knew they, placed in the sun, nor woodwork; But digging down they dwelt, like puny Ants, in sunless nooks of caves. And there was naught to them, neither of winter sign, Nor of flower-giving spring, nor fruitful Summer, that was sure; but without knowledge Did they all, till I taught them the risings Of the stars, and goings down, hard to determine. And numbers, chief of inventions, I found out for them, and the assemblages of letters, And memory, Muse-mother, doer of all things; And first I joined in pairs wild animals Obedient to the yoke; and that they might be Alternate workers with the bodies of men In the severest toils, I harnessed the rein-loving horses To the car, the ornament of over-wealthy luxury. And none else than I invented the sea-wandering Flaxen-winged vehicles of sailors. Such inventions I wretched having found out For men, myself have not the ingenuity by which From the now present ill I may escape.

_Ch._ You suffer unseemly ill; deranged in mind You err; and as some bad physician, falling Sick you are dejected, and cannot find By what remedies you may be healed.

_Pr._ Hearing the rest from me more will you wonder What arts and what expedients I planned. That which was greatest, if any might fall sick, There was alleviation none, neither to eat, Nor to anoint, nor drink, but for the want Of medicines they were reduced to skeletons, till to them I showed the mingling of mild remedies, By which all ails they drive away. And many modes of prophecy I settled, And distinguished first of dreams what a real Vision is required to be, and omens hard to be determined I made known to them; and tokens by the way, And flight of crooked-taloned birds I accurately Defined, which lucky are, And unlucky, and what mode of life Have each, and to one another what Hostilities, attachments, and assemblings; The entrails' smoothness, and what color having They would be to the divinities acceptable; Of the gall and liver the various symmetry, And the limbs concealed in fat; and the long Flank burning, to an art hard to be guessed I showed the way to mortals; and flammeous signs Explained, before obscure. Such indeed these; and under ground Concealed the helps to men; Brass, iron, silver, gold, who Would affirm that he discovered before me? None, I well know, not wishing in vain to boast. But learn all in one word, _All arts to mortals from Prometheus_.

_Ch._ Assist not mortals now unseasonably, And neglect yourself unfortunate; for I Am of good hope that, from these bonds Released, you will yet have no less power than Zeus.

_Pr._ Never thus has Fate the Accomplisher Decreed to fulfill these things, but by a myriad ills And woes subdued, thus bonds I flee; For art 's far weaker than necessity.

_Ch._ Who, then, is helmsman of necessity?

_Pr._ The Fates three-formed, and the remembering Furies.

_Ch._ Than these, then, is Zeus weaker?

_Pr._ Ay, he could not escape what has been fated.

_Ch._ But what to Zeus is fated, except always to rule?

_Pr._ This thou wilt not learn; seek not to know.

_Ch._ Surely some awful thing it is which you withhold.

_Pr._ Remember other words, for this by no means Is it time to tell, but to be concealed As much as possible; for keeping this do I Escape unseemly bonds and woes.

_Ch._ Never may the all-ruling Zeus put into my mind Force antagonist to him. Nor let me cease drawing near The gods with holy sacrifices Of slain oxen, by Father Ocean's Ceaseless passage, Nor offend with words, But in me this remain And ne'er be melted out. 'Tis something sweet with bold Hopes the long life to Extend, in bright Cheerfulness the cherishing spirit. But I shudder, thee beholding By a myriad sufferings tormented.... For, not fearing Zeus, In thy private mind thou dost regard Mortals too much, Prometheus. Come, though a thankless Favor, friend, say where is any strength, From ephemerals any help? Saw you not The powerless inefficiency, Dream-like, in which the blind ... Race of mortals are entangled? Never counsels of mortals May transgress the harmony of Zeus. I learned these things looking on Thy destructive fate, Prometheus. For different to me did this strain come, And that which round thy baths And couch I hymned, With the design of marriage, when my father's child With bridal gifts persuading, thou didst lead Hesione the partner of thy bed.

PROMETHEUS, CHORUS, _and_ IO.

_Io._ What earth, what race, what being shall I is this I see in bridles of rock Exposed? By what crime's Penalty dost thou perish? Show, to what part Of earth I miserable have wandered. Ah! ah! alas! alas! Again some fly doth sting me wretched, Image of earth-born Argus, cover it, earth; I fear the myriad-eyed herdsman beholding; For he goes having a treacherous eye, Whom not e'en dead the earth conceals. But me, wretched from the Infernals passing, He pursues, and drives fasting along the seaside Sand, while low resounds a wax-compacted reed, Uttering sleep-giving law; alas! alas! O gods! Where, gods! where lead me far-wandering courses? In what sin, O son of Kronos, In what sin ever having taken, To these afflictions hast thou yoked me? alas! alas! With fly-driven fear a wretched Frenzied one dost thus afflict? With fire burn, or with earth cover, or To sea monsters give for food, nor Envy me my prayers, king. Enough much-wandered wanderings Have exercised me, nor can I learn where I shall escape from sufferings.

_Ch._ Hear'st thou the address of the cow-horned virgin?

_Pr._ And how not hear the fly-whirled virgin, Daughter of Inachus, who Zeus' heart warmed With love, and now the courses over long, By Here hated, forcedly performs?

_Io._ Whence utterest thou my father's name? Tell me, miserable, who thou art, That to me, O suffering one, me born to suffer, Thus true things dost address? The god-sent ail thou'st named, Which wastes me stinging With maddening goads, alas! alas! With foodless and unseemly leaps Rushing headlong, I came, By wrathful plots subdued. Who of the wretched, who, alas! alas! suffers like me? But to me clearly show What me awaits to suffer, What not necessary; what remedy of ill, Teach, if indeed thou know'st; speak out, Tell the ill-wandering virgin.

_Pr._ I'll clearly tell thee all you wish to learn. Not weaving in enigmas, but in simple speech, As it is just to open the mouth to friends. Thou seest the giver of fire to men, Prometheus.

_Io._ O thou who didst appear a common help to mortals, Wretched Prometheus, to atone for what do you endure this?

_Pr._ I have scarce ceased my sufferings lamenting.

_Io._ Would you not grant this favor to me?

_Pr._ Say what you ask; for you'd learn all from me.

_Io._ Say who has bound thee to the cliff.

_Pr._ The will, indeed, of Zeus, Hephaistus' hand.

_Io._ And penalty for what crimes dost thou pay?

_Pr._ Thus much only can I show thee.

_Io._ But beside this, declare what time will be To me unfortunate the limit of my wandering.

_Pr._ Not to learn is better for thee than to learn these things.

_Io._ Conceal not from me what I am to suffer.

_Pr._ Indeed, I grudge thee not this favor.

_Io._ Why, then, dost thou delay to tell the whole?

_Pr._ There's no unwillingness, but I hesitate to vex thy mind.

_Io._ Care not for me more than is pleasant to me.

_Pr._ Since you are earnest, it behooves to speak; hear then.

_Ch._ Not yet, indeed; but a share of pleasure also give to me. First we'll learn the malady of this one, Herself relating her destructive fortunes, And the remainder of her trials let her learn from thee.

_Pr._ 'T is thy part, Io, to do these a favor, As well for every other reason, and as they are sisters of thy father. Since to weep and to lament misfortunes, There where one will get a tear From those attending, is worthy the delay.

_Io._ I know not that I need distrust you, But in plain speech you shall learn All that you ask for; and yet e'en telling I lament The god-sent tempest, and dissolution Of my form--whence to me miserable it came. For always visions in the night, moving about My virgin chambers, enticed me With smooth words: "O greatly happy virgin, Why be a virgin long? is permitted to obtain The greatest marriage. For Zeus with love's dart Has been warmed by thee, and wishes to unite In love; but do thou, O child, spurn not the couch Of Zeus, but go out to Lerna's deep Morass, and stables of thy father's herds, That the divine eye may cease from desire." With such dreams every night Was I unfortunate distressed, till I dared tell My father of the night-wandering visions. And he to Pytho and Dodona frequent Prophets sent, that he might learn what it was necessary He should say or do, to do agreeably to the gods. And they came bringing ambiguous Oracles, darkly and indistinctly uttered. But finally a plain report came to Inachus, Clearly enjoining him and telling Out of my home and country to expel me, Discharged to wander to the earth's last bounds; And if he was not willing, from Zeus would come A fiery thunderbolt, which would annihilate all his race. Induced by such predictions of the Loxian, Against his will he drove me out, And shut me from the houses; but Zeus' rein Compelled him by force to do these things. Immediately my form and mind were Changed, and horned, as you behold, stung By a sharp-mouthed fly, with frantic leaping Rushed I to Cenchrea's palatable stream, And Lerna's source; but a herdsman born-of-earth Of violent temper, Argus, accompanied, with numerous Eyes my steps observing. But unexpectedly a sudden fate Robbed him of life; and I, fly-stung, By lash divine am driven from land to land. You hear what has been done; and if you have to say aught, What's left of labors, speak; nor pitying me Comfort with false words; for an ill The worst of all, I say, are made-up words.

_Ch._ Ah! ah! enough, alas! Ne'er, ne'er did I presume such cruel words Would reach my ears, nor thus unsightly And intolerable hurts, sufferings, fears with a two-edged Goad would chill my soul; Alas! alas! fate! fate! I shudder, seeing the state of Io.

_Pr._ Beforehand sigh'st thou, and art full of fears, Hold till the rest also thou learn'st.

_Ch._ Tell, teach; for to the sick 't is sweet To know the remaining pain beforehand clearly.

_Pr._ Your former wish ye got from me With ease; for first ye asked to learn from her Relating her own trials; The rest now hear, what sufferings 't is necessary This young woman should endure from Here. But do thou, offspring of Inachus, my words Cast in thy mind, that thou may'st learn the boundaries of the way. First, indeed, hence towards the rising of the sun Turning thyself, travel uncultivated lands, And to the Scythian nomads thou wilt come, who woven roofs On high inhabit, on well-wheeled carts, With far-casting bows equipped; Whom go not near, but to the sea-resounding cliffs Bending thy feet, pass from the region. On the left hand the iron-working Chalybes inhabit, whom thou must needs beware, For they are rude and inaccessible to strangers. And thou wilt come to the Hybristes river, not ill named, Which pass not, for not easy is 't to pass, Before you get to Caucasus itself, highest Of mountains, where the stream spurts out its tide From the very temples; and passing over The star-neighbored summits, 't is necessary to go The southern way, where thou wilt come to the man-hating Army of the Amazons, who Themiscyra one day Will inhabit, by the Thermedon, where's Salmydessia, rough jaw of the sea, Inhospitable to sailors, stepmother of ships; They will conduct thee on thy way, and very cheerfully. And to the Cimmerian isthmus thou wilt come, Just on the narrow portals of a lake, which leaving It behooves thee with stout heart to pass the Mœotic straits; And there will be to mortals ever a great fame Of thy passage, and Bosphorus from thy name 'T will be called. And leaving Europe's plain The continent of Asia thou wilt reach.--Seemeth to thee, forsooth, The tyrant of the gods in everything to be Thus violent? For he a god, with this mortal Wishing to unite, drove her to these wanderings. A bitter wooer didst thou find, O virgin, For thy marriage. For the words you now have heard Think not yet to be the prelude.

_Io._ Ah! me! me! alas! alas!

_Pr._ Again dost shriek and heave a sigh? What Wilt thou do when the remaining ills thou learn'st?

_Ch._ And hast thou any further suffering to tell her?

_Pr._ Ay, a tempestuous sea of baleful woe.

_Io._ What profit, then, for me to live, and not in haste To cast myself from this rough rock, That rushing down upon the plain I may be released From every trouble? For better once for all to die, Than all my days to suffer evilly.

_Pr._ Unhappily my trials would'st thou hear, To whom to die has not been fated; For this would be release from sufferings; But now there is no end of ills lying Before me, until Zeus falls from sovereignty.

_Io._ And is Zeus ever to fall from power?

_Pr._ Thou would'st be pleased, I think, to see this accident.

_Io._ How should I not, who suffer ill from Zeus?

_Pr._ That these things then are so, be thou assured.

_Io._ By what one will the tyrant's power be robbed?

_Pr._ Himself, by his own senseless counsels.

_Io._ In what way show, if there's no harm.

_Pr._ He will make such a marriage as one day he'll repent.

_Io._ Of god or mortal? If to be spoken, tell.

_Pr._ What matters which? For these things are not to be told.

_Io._ By a wife will he be driven from the throne?

_Pr._ Ay, she will bring forth a son superior to his father.

_Io._ Is there no refuge for him from this fate?

_Pr._ None, surely, till I may be released from bonds.

_Io._ Who, then, is to release thee, Zeus unwilling?

_Pr._ He must be some one of thy descendants.

_Io._ How sayest thou? that my child will deliver thee from ills?

_Pr._ Third of thy race after ten other births.

_Io._ This oracle is not yet easy to be guessed.

_Pr._ But do not seek to understand thy sufferings.

_Io._ First proffering gain to me, do not then withhold it.

_Pr._ I'll grant thee one of two relations.

_Io._ What two propose, and give to me my choice.

_Pr._ I give; choose whether thy remaining troubles I shall tell thee clearly, or him that will release me.

_Ch._ Consent to do her the one favor, Me the other, nor deem us undeserving of thy words; To her indeed tell what remains of wandering, And to me, who will release; for I desire this.

_Pr._ Since ye are earnest, I will not resist To tell the whole, as much as ye ask for. To thee first, Io, vexatious wandering I will tell, Which engrave on the remembering tablets of the mind. When thou hast passed the flood boundary of continents, Towards the flaming orient sun-traveled ... Passing through the tumult of the sea, until you reach The Gorgonian plains of Cisthene, where The Phorcides dwell, old virgins, Three, swan-shaped, having a common eye, One-toothed, whom neither the sun looks on With his beams, nor nightly moon ever. And near, their winged sisters three, Dragon-scaled Gorgons, odious to men, Whom no mortal beholding will have breath; Such danger do I tell thee. But hear another odious sight; Beware the gryphons, sharp-mouthed Dogs of Zeus, which bark not, and the one-eyed Arimaspian Host, going on horseback, who dwell about The golden-flowing flood of Pluto's channel; These go not near. But to a distant land Thou 'lt come, a dusky race, who near the fountains Of the sun inhabit, where is the Æthiopian river. Creep down the banks of this, until thou com'st To a descent, where from Byblinian mounts The Nile sends down its sacred palatable stream. This will conduct thee to the triangled land Nilean, where, Io, 't is decreed Thou and thy progeny shall form the distant colony. If aught of this is unintelligible to thee, and hard to be found out, Repeat thy questions, and learn clearly; For more leisure than I want is granted me.

_Ch._ If to her aught remaining or omitted Thou hast to tell of her pernicious wandering, Speak; but if thou hast said all, give us The favor which we ask, for surely thou remember'st.

_Pr._ The whole term of her traveling has she heard. But that she may know that not in vain she hears me, I'll tell what before coming hither she endured, Giving this as proof of my relations. The great multitude of words I will omit, And proceed unto the very limit of thy wanderings. When, then, you came to the Molossian ground, And near the high-ridged Dodona, where Oracle and seat is of Thesprotian Zeus, And prodigy incredible, the speaking oaks, By whom you clearly, and naught enigmatically, Were called the illustrious wife of Zeus About to be, if aught of these things soothes thee; Thence, driven by the fly, you came The seaside way to the great gulf of Rhea, From which by courses retrograde you are now tempest-tossed. But for time to come the sea gulf, Clearly know, will be called Ionian, Memorial of thy passage to all mortals. Proofs to thee are these of my intelligence, That it sees somewhat more than the apparent. But the rest to you and her in common I will tell, Having come upon the very track of former words. There is a city Canopus, last of the land, By Nile's very mouth and bank; There at length Zeus makes thee sane, Stroking with gentle hand, and touching only. And, named from Zeus' begetting, Thou wilt bear dark Epaphus, who will reap As much land as broad-flowing Nile doth water; And fifth from him, a band of fifty children Again to Argos shall unwilling come, Of female sex, avoiding kindred marriage Of their cousins; but they, with minds inflamed, Hawks by doves not far left behind, Will come pursuing marriages Not to be pursued, but heaven will take vengeance on their bodies; For them Pelasgia shall receive by Mars Subdued with woman's hand with night-watching boldness. For each wife shall take her husband's life, Staining a two-edged dagger in his throat. Such 'gainst my foes may Cypris come.-- But one of the daughters shall love soften Not to slay her bedfellow, but she will waver In her mind; and one of two things will prefer, To hear herself called timid, rather than stained with blood; She shall in Argos bear a royal race.-- Of a long speech is need this clearly to discuss. From this seed, however, shall be born a brave, Famed for his bow, who will release me From these sufferings. Such oracle my ancient Mother told me, Titanian Themis; But how and by what means, this needs long speech To tell, and nothing, learning, wilt thou gain.

_Io._ Ah me! ah wretched me! Spasms again and brain-struck Madness burn me within, and a fly's dart Stings me,--not wrought by fire. My heart with fear knocks at my breast, And my eyes whirl round and round, And from my course I'm borne by madness' Furious breath, unable to control my tongue; While confused words dash idly 'Gainst the waves of horrid woe.

_Ch._ Wise, wise indeed was he, Who first in mind This weighed, and with the tongue expressed, To marry according to one's degree is best by far; Nor, being a laborer with the hands, To woo those who are by wealth corrupted, Nor, those by birth made great. Never, never me Fates ... May you behold the sharer of Zeus' couch. Nor may I be brought near to any husband among those from heaven, For I fear, seeing the virginhood of Io, Not content with man, through marriage vexed With these distressful wanderings by Here. But for myself, since an equal marriage is without fear, I am not concerned lest the love of the almighty Gods cast its inevitable eye on me. Without war, indeed, this war, producing Troubles; nor do I know what would become of me; For I see not how I should escape the subtlety of Zeus.

_Pr._ Surely shall Zeus, though haughty now, Yet be humble, such marriage He prepares to make, which from sovereignty And the throne will cast him down obscure; and Father Kronos' Curse will then be all fulfilled, Which falling from the ancient seats he imprecated. And refuge from such ills none of the gods But I can show him clearly. I know these things, and in what manner. Now, therefore, Being bold, let him sit trusting to lofty Sounds, and brandishing with both hands his fire-breathing weapon, For naught will these avail him, not To fall disgracefully intolerable falls; Such wrestler does he now prepare, Himself against himself, a prodigy most hard to be withstood; Who, indeed, will invent a better flame than lightning, And a loud sound surpassing thunder; And shiver the trident, Neptune's weapon, The marine earth-shaking ail. Stumbling upon this ill he'll learn How different to govern and to serve.

_Ch._ Ay, as you hope you vent this against Zeus.

_Pr._ What will be done, and also what I hope, I say.

_Ch._ And are we to expect that any will rule Zeus?

_Pr._ Even than these more grievous ills he'll have.

_Ch._ How fear'st thou not, hurling such words?

_Pr._ What should I fear, to whom to die has not been fated?

_Ch._ But suffering more grievous still than this he may inflict.

_Pr._ Then let him do it; all is expected by me.

_Ch._ Those reverencing Adrastia are wise.

_Pr._ Revere, pray, flatter each successive ruler. Me less than nothing Zeus concerns. Let him do, let him prevail this short time As he will, for long he will not rule the gods,-- But I see here, indeed, Zeus' runner, The new tryant's drudge; Doubtless he brings some new message.

PROMETHEUS, CHORUS, _and_ HERMES.

_Her._ To thee, the sophist, the bitterly bitter, The sinner against gods, the giver of honors To ephemerals, the thief of fire, I speak; The Father commands thee to tell the marriage Which you boast, by which he falls from power; And that, too, not enigmatically, But each particular declare; nor cause me Double journeys, Prometheus; for thou see'st that Zeus is not appeased by such.

_Pr._ Solemn-mouthed and full of wisdom Is thy speech, as of the servant of the gods. Ye newly rule, and think forsooth To dwell in griefless citadels; have I not seen Two tyrants fallen from these? And third I shall behold him ruling now, Basest and speediest. Do I seem to thee To fear and shrink from the new gods? Nay, much and wholly I fall short of this. The way thou cam'st go through the dust again; For thou wilt learn naught which thou ask'st of me.

_Her._ Ay, by such insolence before You brought yourself into these woes.

_Pr._ Plainly know, I would not change My ill fortune for thy servitude, For better, I think, to serve this rock Than be the faithful messenger of Father Zeus. Thus to insult the insulting it is fit.

_Her._ Thou seem'st to enjoy thy present state.

_Pr._ I enjoy? Enjoying thus my enemies Would I see; and thee 'mong them I count.

_Her._ Dost thou blame me for aught of thy misfortunes?

_Pr._ In plain words, all gods I hate, As many as well treated wrong me unjustly.

_Her._ I hear thee raving, no slight ail.

_Pr._ Ay, I should ail, if ail one's foes to hate.

_Her._ If prosperous, thou couldst not be borne.

_Pr._ Ah me!

_Her._ This word Zeus does not know.

_Pr._ But time growing old teaches all things.

_Her._ And still thou know'st not yet how to be prudent.

_Pr._ For I should not converse with thee a servant.

_Her._ Thou seem'st to say naught which the Father wishes.

_Pr._ And yet his debtor I'd requite the favor.

_Her._ Thou mock'st me verily as if I were a child.

_Pr._ And art thou not a child, and simpler still than this, If thou expectest to learn aught from me? There is not outrage nor expedient, by which Zeus will induce me to declare these things, Before he loose these grievous bonds. Let there be hurled, then, flaming fire, And the white-winged snows, and thunders Of the earth, let him confound and mingle all. For none of these will bend me till I tell By whom 't is necessary he should fall from sovereignty.

_Her._ Consider now if these things seem helpful.

_Pr._ Long since these were considered and resolved.

_Her._ Venture, O vain one, venture, at length, In view of present sufferings to be wise.

_Pr._ In vain you vex me, as a wave, exhorting. Ne'er let it come into thy mind that I, fearing Zeus' anger, shall become woman-minded, And beg him, greatly hated, With womanish upturnings of the hands, To loose me from these bonds. I am far from it.

_Her._ Though saying much I seem in vain to speak; For thou art nothing softened nor appeased By prayers; but champing at the bit like a new-yoked Colt, thou strugglest and contend'st against the reins. But thou art violent with feeble wisdom. For stubbornness to him who is not wise, Itself alone, is less than nothing strong. But consider, if thou art not persuaded by my words, What storm and triple surge of ills Will come upon thee, not to be avoided; for first this rugged Cliff with thunder and lightning flame The Father'll rend, and hide Thy body, and a strong arm will bury thee. When thou hast spent a long length of time, Thou wilt come back to light; and Zeus' Winged dog, a bloodthirsty eagle, ravenously Shall tear the great rag of thy body, Creeping an uninvited guest all day, And banquet on thy liver black by eating. Of such suffering expect not any end, Before some god appear Succeeding to thy labors, and wish to go to rayless Hades, and the dark depths of Tartarus. Therefore deliberate; since this is not made Boasting, but in earnest spoken; For to speak falsely does not know the mouth Of Zeus, but every word he does. So Look about thee, and consider, nor ever think Obstinacy better than prudence.

_Ch._ To us indeed Hermes appears to say not unseasonable things, For he directs thee, leaving off Self-will, to seek prudent counsel. Obey; for it is base to err, for a wise man.

_Pr._ To me foreknowing these messages He has uttered, but for a foe to suffer ill From foes is naught unseemly. Therefore 'gainst me let there be hurled Fire's double-pointed curl, and air Be provoked with thunder, and a tumult Of wild winds; and earth from its foundations Let a wind rock, and its very roots, And with a rough surge mingle The sea waves with the passages Of the heavenly stars, and to black Tartarus let him quite cast down my Body, by necessity's strong eddies. Yet after all he will not kill me.

_Her._ Such words and counsels you may hear From the brain-struck. For what lacks he of being mad? And if prosperous, what does he cease from madness? Do you, therefore, who sympathize With this one's suffering, From these places quick withdraw somewhere, Lest the harsh bellowing thunder Stupefy your minds.

_Ch._ Say something else, and exhort me To some purpose; for surely Thou hast intolerably abused this word. How direct me to perform a baseness? I wish to suffer with him whate'er is necessary, For I have learned to hate betrayers; Nor is the pest Which I abominate more than this.

_Her._ Remember, then, what I foretell; Nor by calamity pursued Blame fortune, nor e'er say That Zeus into unforeseen Ill has cast you; surely not, but yourselves You yourselves; for knowing, And not suddenly nor clandestinely, You'll be entangled through your folly In an impassable net of woe.

_Pr._ Surely indeed, and no more in word, Earth is shaken; And a hoarse sound of thunder Bellows near; and wreaths of lightning Flash out fiercely blazing, and whirlwinds dust Whirl up; and leap the blasts Of all winds, 'gainst one another Blowing in opposite array; And air with sea is mingled; Such impulse against me from Zeus, Producing fear, doth plainly come. O revered Mother, O Ether Revolving common light to all, You see me, how unjust things I endure!

TRANSLATIONS FROM PINDAR

ELYSIUM

OLYMPIA II, 109-150

Equally by night always, And by day, having the sun, the good Lead a life without labor, not disturbing the earth With violent hands, nor the sea water, For a scanty living; but honored By the gods, who take pleasure in fidelity to oaths, They spend a tearless existence; While the others suffer unsightly pain. But as many as endured threefold Probation, keeping the mind from all Injustice, going the way of Zeus to Kronos' tower, Where the ocean breezes blow around The island of the blessed; and flowers of gold shine, Some on the land from dazzling trees, And the water nourishes others; With garlands of these they crown their hands and hair, According to the just decrees of Rhadamanthus, Whom Father Kronos, the husband of Rhea, Having the highest throne of all, has ready by himself as his assistant judge. Peleus and Kadmus are regarded among these; And his mother brought Achilles, when she had Persuaded the heart of Zeus with prayers, Who overthrew Hector, Troy's Unconquered, unshaken column, and gave Cycnus To death, and Morning's Æthiop son.

OLYMPIA V, 34-39

Always around virtues labor and expense strive toward a work Covered with danger; but those succeeding seem to be wise even to the citizens.

OLYMPIA VI, 14-17

Dangerless virtues, Neither among men, nor in hollow ships, Are honorable; but many remember if a fair deed is done.

ORIGIN OF RHODES

OLYMPIA VII, 100-129

Ancient sayings of men relate, That when Zeus and the Immortals divided earth, Rhodes was not yet apparent in the deep sea; But in salt depths the island was hid. And, Helios being absent, no one claimed for him his lot; So they left him without any region for his share, The pure god. And Zeus was about to make a second drawing of lots For him warned. But he did not permit him; For he said that within the white sea he had seen a certain land springing up from the bottom, Capable of feeding many men, and suitable for flocks. And straightway he commanded golden-filleted Lachesis To stretch forth her hands, and not contradict The great oath of the gods, but with the son of Kronos Assent that, to the bright air being sent by his nod, It should hereafter be his prize. And his words were fully performed, Meeting with truth. The island sprang from the watery Sea; and the genial Father of penetrating beams, Ruler of fire-breathing horses, has it.

OLYMPIA VIII, 95, 96

A man doing fit things Forgets Hades.

HERCULES NAMES THE HILL OF KRONOS

OLYMPIA X, 59-68

He named the Hill of Kronos, for before nameless, While Œnomaus ruled, it was moistened with much snow; And at this first rite the Fates stood by, And Time, who alone proves Unchanging truth.

OLYMPIA AT EVENING

OLYMPIA X, 85-92

With the javelin Phrastor struck the mark; And Eniceus cast the stone afar, Whirling his hand, above them all, And with applause it rushed Through a great tumult; And the lovely evening light Of the fair-faced moon shone on the scene.

FAME

OLYMPIA X, 109-117

When, having done fair things, O Agesidamus, Without the reward of song, a man may come To Hades' rest, vainly aspiring He obtains with toil some short delight. But the sweet-voiced lyre And the sweet flute bestow some favor; For Zeus' Pierian daughters Have wide fame.

TO ASOPICHUS OF ORCHOMENOS, ON HIS VICTORY IN THE STADIC COURSE

OLYMPIA XIV

O ye, who inhabit for your lot the seat of the Cephisian Streams, yielding fair steeds, renowned Graces, Ruling bright Orchomenos, Protectors of the ancient race of Minyæ, Hear, when I pray. For with you are all pleasant And sweet things to mortals; If wise, if fair, if noble, Any man. For neither do the gods, Without the august Graces, Rule the dance, Nor feasts; but stewards Of all works in heaven, Having placed their seats By golden-bowed Pythian Apollo, They reverence the eternal power Of the Olympian Father. August Aglaia and song-loving Euphrosyne, children of the mightiest god, Hear now, and Thalia loving song, Beholding this band, in favorable fortune Lightly dancing; for in Lydian Manner meditating, I come celebrating Asopichus, Since Minya by thy means is victor at the Olympic games. Now to Persephone's Black-walled house go, Echo, Bearing to his father the famous news; That seeing Cleodamus thou mayest say, That in renowned Pisa's vale His son crowned his young hair With plumes of illustrious contests.

TO THE LYRE

PYTHIA I, 8-11

Thou extinguishest even the spear-like bolt Of everlasting fire. And the eagle sleeps on the sceptre of Zeus, Drooping his swift wings on either side, The king of birds.

PYTHIA I, 25-28

Whatever things Zeus has not loved Are terrified, hearing The voice of the Pierians, On earth and the immeasurable sea.

PYTHIA II, 159-161

A plain-spoken man brings advantage to every government,-- To a monarchy, and when the Impetuous crowd, and when the wise, rule a city.

As a whole, the third Pythian Ode, to Hiero, on his victory in the single-horse race, is one of the most memorable. We extract first the account of

ÆSCULAPIUS

PYTHIA III, 83-110

As many, therefore, as came suffering From spontaneous ulcers, or wounded In their limbs with glittering steel, Or with the far-cast stone, Or by the summer's heat o'ercome in body, Or by winter, relieving he saved from Various ills; some cherishing With soothing strains, Others having drunk refreshing draughts, or applying Remedies to the limbs, others by cutting off he made erect. But even wisdom is bound by gain, And gold appearing in the hand persuaded even him, with its bright reward, To bring a man from death Already overtaken. But the Kronian, smiting With both hands, quickly took away The breath from his breasts; And the rushing thunderbolt hurled him to death. It is necessary for mortal minds To seek what is reasonable from the divinities, Knowing what is before the feet, of what destiny we are. Do not, my soul, aspire to the life Of the Immortals, but exhaust the practicable means.

In the conclusion of the ode, the poet reminds the victor, Hiero, that adversity alternates with prosperity in the life of man, as in the instance of

PELEUS AND CADMUS

PYTHIA III, 145-205

The Immortals distribute to men With one good two Evils. The foolish, therefore, Are not able to bear these with grace, But the wise, turning the fair outside.

But thee the lot of good fortune follows, or surely great Destiny Looks down upon a king ruling the people, If on any man. But a secure life Was not to Peleus, son of Æacus, Nor to godlike Cadmus, Who yet are said to have had The greatest happiness Of mortals, and who heard The song of the golden-filleted Muses, On the mountain, and in seven-gated Thebes, When the one married fair-eyed Harmonia, And the other Thetis, the illustrious daughter of wise-counseling Nereus. And the gods feasted with both; And they saw the royal children of Kronos On golden seats, and received Marriage gifts; and having exchanged Former toils for the favor of Zeus, They made erect the heart. But in course of time His three daughters robbed the one Of some of his serenity by acute Sufferings; when Father Zeus, forsooth, came To the lovely couch of white-armed Thyone. And the other's child, whom only the immortal Thetis bore in Phthia, losing His life in war by arrows, Being consumed by fire excited The lamentation of the Danaans. But if any mortal has in his Mind the way of truth, It is necessary to make the best Of what befalls from the blessed. For various are the blasts Of high-flying winds. The happiness of men stays not a long time, Though fast it follows rushing on.

Humble in humble estate, lofty in lofty, I will be; and the attending dæmon I will always reverence in my mind, Serving according to my means. But if Heaven extend to me kind wealth, I have hope to find lofty fame hereafter. Nestor and Lycian Sarpedon-- They are the fame of men-- From resounding words which skillful artists Sung, we know. For virtue through renowned Song is lasting. But for few is it easy to obtain.

APOLLO

PYTHIA V, 87-90

He bestowed the lyre, And he gives the muse to whom he wishes, Bringing peaceful serenity to the breast.

MAN

PYTHIA VIII, 136

The phantom of a shadow are men.

HYPSEUS' DAUGHTER CYRENE

PYTHIA IX, 31-44

He reared the white-armed child Cyrene, Who loved neither the alternating motion of the loom, Nor the superintendence of feasts, With the pleasures of companions; But, with javelins of steel And the sword contending, To slay wild beasts; Affording surely much And tranquil peace to her father's herds; Spending little sleep Upon her eyelids, As her sweet bedfellow, creeping on at dawn.

THE HEIGHT OF GLORY

PYTHIA X, 33-48

Fortunate and celebrated By the wise is that man Who, conquering by his hands or virtue Of his feet, takes the highest prizes Through daring and strength, And living still sees his youthful son Deservedly obtaining Pythian crowns. The brazen heaven is not yet accessible to him. But whatever glory we Of mortal race may reach, He goes beyond, even to the boundaries Of navigation. But neither in ships, nor going on foot, Couldst thou find the wonderful way to the contests of the Hyperboreans.

TO ARISTOCLIDES, VICTOR AT THE NEMEAN GAMES

NEMEA III, 32-37

If, being beautiful, And doing things like to his form, The child of Aristophanes Went to the height of manliness, no further Is it easy to go over the untraveled sea, Beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

THE YOUTH OF ACHILLES

NEMEA III, 69-90

One with native virtues Greatly prevails; but he who Possesses acquired talents, an obscure man, Aspiring to various things, never with fearless Foot advances, but tries A myriad virtues with inefficient mind. Yellow-haired Achilles, meanwhile, remaining in the house of Philyra, Being a boy played Great deeds; often brandishing Iron-pointed javelins in his hands, Swift as the winds, in fight he wrought death to savage lions; And he slew boars, and brought their bodies Palpitating to Kronian Centaurus, As soon as six years old. And all the while Artemis and bold Athene admired him, Slaying stags without dogs or treacherous nets; For he conquered them on foot.

NEMEA IV, 66-70

Whatever virtues sovereign destiny has given me, I well know that time, creeping on, Will fulfill what was fated.

NEMEA V, 1-8

The kindred of Pytheas, a victor in the Nemean games, had wished to procure an ode from Pindar for less than three drachmæ, asserting that they could purchase a statue for that sum. In the following lines he nobly reproves their meanness, and asserts the value of his labors, which, unlike those of the statuary, will bear the fame of the hero to the ends of the earth.

No image-maker am I, who being still make statues Standing on the same base. But on every Merchant-ship and in every boat, sweet song, Go from Ægina to announce that Lampo's son, Mighty Pytheas, Has conquered the pancratian crown at the Nemean games.

THE DIVINE IN MAN

NEMEA VI, 1-13

One the race of men and of gods; And from one mother We all breathe. But quite different power Divides us, so that the one is nothing, But the brazen heaven remains always A secure abode. Yet in some respect we are related, Either in mighty mind or form, to the Immortals; Although not knowing To what resting-place, By day or night, Fate has written that we shall run.

THE TREATMENT OF AJAX

NEMEA VIII, 44-51

In secret votes the Danaans aided Ulysses; And Ajax, deprived of golden arms, struggled with death. Surely, wounds of another kind they wrought In the warm flesh of their foes, waging war With the man-defending spear.

THE VALUE OF FRIENDS

NEMEA VIII, 68-75

Virtue increases, being sustained by wise men and just, As when a tree shoots up with gentle dews into the liquid air. There are various uses of friendly men; But chiefest in labors; and even pleasure Requires to place some pledge before the eyes.

DEATH OF AMPHIARAUS

NEMEA IX, 41-66

Once they led to seven-gated Thebes an army of men, not according To the lucky flight of birds. Nor did the Kronian, Brandishing his lightning, impel to march From home insane, but to abstain from the way. But to apparent destruction The host made haste to go, with brazen arms And horse equipments, and on the banks Of Ismenus, defending sweet return, Their white-flowered bodies fattened fire. For seven pyres devoured young-limbed Men. But to Amphiaraus Zeus rent the deep-bosomed earth With his mighty thunderbolt, And buried him with his horses, Ere, being struck in the back By the spear of Periclymenus, his warlike Spirit was disgraced. For in dæmonic fears Flee even the sons of gods.

CASTOR AND POLLUX

NEMEA X, 153-171

Pollux, son of Zeus, shared his immortality with his brother Castor, son of Tyndarus, and while one was in heaven, the other remained in the infernal regions, and they alternately lived and died every day, or, as some say, every six months. While Castor lies mortally wounded by Idas, Pollux prays to Zeus, either to restore his brother to life, or permit him to die with him, to which the god answers,--

Nevertheless, I give thee Thy choice of these: if, indeed, fleeing Death and odious age, You wish to dwell on Olympus, With Athene and black-speared Mars, Thou hast this lot; But if thou thinkest to fight For thy brother, and share All things with him, Half the time thou mayest breathe, being beneath the earth, And half in the golden halls of heaven. The god thus having spoken, he did not Entertain a double wish in his mind. And he released first the eye, and then the voice, Of brazen-mitred Castor.

TOIL

ISTHMIA I, 65-71

One reward of labors is sweet to one man, one to another,-- To the shepherd, and the plower, and the bird-catcher, And whom the sea nourishes. But every one is tasked to ward off Grievous famine from the stomach.

THE VENALITY OF THE MUSE

ISTHMIA II, 9-18

Then the Muse was not Fond of gain, nor a laboring woman; Nor were the sweet-sounding, Soothing strains Of Terpsichore sold, With silvered front. But now she directs to observe the saying Of the Argive, coming very near the truth, Who cried, "Money, money, man," Being bereft of property and friends.

HERCULES' PRAYER CONCERNING AJAX, SON OF TELAMON

ISTHMIA VI, 62-73

"If ever, O Father Zeus, thou hast heard My supplication with willing mind, Now I beseech thee, with prophetic Prayer, grant a bold son from Eribœa To this man, my fated guest; Rugged in body As the hide of this wild beast Which now surrounds me, which, first of all My contests, I slew once in Nemea; and let his mind agree." To him thus having spoken, Heaven sent A great eagle, king of birds, And sweet joy thrilled him inwardly.

THE FREEDOM OF GREECE

First at Artemisium The children of the Athenians laid the shining Foundation of freedom, And at Salamis and Mycale, And in Platæa, making it firm As adamant.

FROM STRABO[7]

APOLLO

Having risen he went Over land and sea, And stood over the vast summits of mountains, And threaded the recesses, penetrating to the foundations of the groves.

FROM PLUTARCH

Heaven being willing, even on an osier thou mayest sail. [Thus rhymed by the old translator of Plutarch:

"Were it the will of heaven, an osier bough Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough."]

FROM SEXTUS EMPIRICUS

Honors and crowns of the tempest-footed Horses delight one; Others live in golden chambers; And some even are pleased traversing securely The swelling of the sea in a swift ship.

FROM STOBÆUS

This I will say to thee: The lot of fair and pleasant things It behooves to show in public to all the people; But if any adverse calamity sent from heaven befall Men, this it becomes to bury in darkness.

* * * * *

Pindar said of the physiologists, that they "plucked the unripe fruit of wisdom."

* * * * *

Pindar said that "hopes were the dreams of those awake."

FROM CLEMENS OF ALEXANDRIA

To Heaven it is possible from black Night to make arise unspotted light, And with cloud-blackening darkness to obscure The pure splendor of day.

First, indeed, the Fates brought the wise-counseling Uranian Themis, with golden horses, By the fountains of Ocean to the awful ascent Of Olympus, along the shining way, To be the first spouse of Zeus the Deliverer. And she bore the golden-filleted, fair-wristed Hours, preservers of good things.

Equally tremble before God And a man dear to God.

FROM ÆLIUS ARISTIDES

Pindar used such exaggerations [in praise of poetry] as to say that even the gods themselves, when at his marriage Zeus asked if they wanted anything, "asked him to make certain gods for them who should celebrate these great works and all his creation with speech and song."

FOOTNOTE:

[7] [This and the following are fragments of Pindar found in ancient authors.]

POEMS

NATURE

O Nature! I do not aspire To be the highest in thy quire,-- To be a meteor in the sky, Or comet that may range on high; Only a zephyr that may blow Among the reeds by the river low; Give me thy most privy place Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead Let me sigh upon a reed, Or in the woods, with leafy din, Whisper the still evening in: Some still work give me to do,-- Only--be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child And pupil, in the forest wild, Than be the king of men elsewhere, And most sovereign slave of care: To have one moment of thy dawn, Than share the city's year forlorn.

INSPIRATION[8]

Whate'er we leave to God, God does, And blesses us; The work we choose should be our own, God leaves alone.

* * * * *

If with light head erect I sing, Though all the Muses lend their force, From my poor love of anything, The verse is weak and shallow as its source.

But if with bended neck I grope, Listening behind me for my wit, With faith superior to hope, More anxious to keep back than forward it,

Making my soul accomplice there Unto the flame my heart hath lit, Then will the verse forever wear,-- Time cannot bend the line which God hath writ.

Always the general show of things Floats in review before my mind, And such true love and reverence brings, That sometimes I forget that I am blind.

But now there comes unsought, unseen, Some clear divine electuary, And I, who had but sensual been, Grow sensible, and as God is, am wary.

I hearing get, who had but ears, And sight, who had but eyes before; I moments live, who lived but years, And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.

I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight, New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light.

A clear and ancient harmony Pierces my soul through all its din, As through its utmost melody,-- Farther behind than they, farther within.

More swift its bolt than lightning is. Its voice than thunder is more loud, It doth expand my privacies To all, and leave me single in the crowd.

It speaks with such authority, With so serene and lofty tone, That idle Time runs gadding by, And leaves me with Eternity alone.

Then chiefly is my natal hour, And only then my prime of life; Of manhood's strength it is the flower, 'T is peace's end, and war's beginning strife.

'T hath come in summer's broadest noon, By a gray wall or some chance place, Unseasoned time, insulted June, And vexed the day with its presuming face.

Such fragrance round my couch it makes, More rich than are Arabian drugs, That my soul scents its life and wakes The body up beneath its perfumed rugs.

Such is the Muse, the heavenly maid, The star that guides our mortal course, Which shows where life's true kernel's laid, Its wheat's fine flour, and its undying force.

She with one breath attunes the spheres, And also my poor human heart, With one impulse propels the years Around, and gives my throbbing pulse its start.

I will not doubt for evermore, Nor falter from a steadfast faith, For though the system be turned o'er, God takes not back the word which once he saith.

I will, then, trust the love untold Which not my worth nor want has bought, Which wooed me young, and wooes me old, And to this evening hath me brought.

My memory I'll educate To know the one historic truth, Remembering to the latest date The only true and sole immortal youth.

Be but thy inspiration given, No matter through what danger sought, I'll fathom hell or climb to heaven, And yet esteem that cheap which love has bought.

* * * * *

Fame cannot tempt the bard Who's famous with his God, Nor laurel him reward Who hath his Maker's nod.

THE AURORA OF GUIDO[9]

A FRAGMENT

The god of day his car rolls up the slopes, Reining his prancing steeds with steady hand; The lingering moon through western shadows gropes, While morning sheds its light o'er sea and land.

Castles and cities by the sounding main Resound with all the busy din of life; The fisherman unfurls his sails again; And the recruited warrior bides the strife.

The early breeze ruffles the poplar leaves; The curling waves reflect the unseen light; The slumbering sea with the day's impulse heaves, While o'er the western hill retires the drowsy night.

The seabirds dip their bills in Ocean's foam, Far circling out over the frothy waves,--

* * * * *

TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST[10]

Low in the eastern sky Is set thy glancing eye; And though its gracious light Ne'er riseth to my sight, Yet every star that climbs Above the gnarlèd limbs Of yonder hill, Conveys thy gentle will.

Believe I knew thy thought, And that the zephyrs brought Thy kindest wishes through, As mine they bear to you; That some attentive cloud Did pause amid the crowd Over my head, While gentle things were said.

Believe the thrushes sung, And that the flower-bells rung, That herbs exhaled their scent, And beasts knew what was meant, The trees a welcome waved, And lakes their margins laved, When thy free mind To my retreat did wind.

It was a summer eve, The air did gently heave While yet a low-hung cloud Thy eastern skies did shroud; The lightning's silent gleam, Startling my drowsy dream, Seemed like the flash Under thy dark eyelash.

From yonder comes the sun, But soon his course is run, Rising to trivial day Along his dusty way; But thy noontide completes Only auroral heats, Nor ever sets, To hasten vain regrets.

Direct thy pensive eye Into the western sky; And when the evening star Does glimmer from afar Upon the mountain line, Accept it for a sign That I am near, And thinking of thee here.

I'll be thy Mercury, Thou Cytherea to me, Distinguished by thy face The earth shall learn my place; As near beneath thy light Will I outwear the night, With mingled ray Leading the westward way.

Still will I strive to be As if thou wert with me; Whatever path I take, It shall be for thy sake, Of gentle slope and wide, As thou wert by my side, Without a root To trip thy gentle foot.

I'll walk with gentle pace, And choose the smoothest place, And careful dip the oar, And shun the winding shore, And gently steer my boat Where water-lilies float, And cardinal-flowers Stand in their sylvan bowers.

TO MY BROTHER

Brother, where dost thou dwell? What sun shines for thee now? Dost thou indeed fare well, As we wished thee here below?

What season didst thou find? 'Twas winter here. Are not the Fates more kind Than they appear?

Is thy brow clear again As in thy youthful years? And was that ugly pain The summit of thy fears?

Yet thou wast cheery still; They could not quench thy fire; Thou didst abide their will, And then retire.

Where chiefly shall I look To feel thy presence near? Along the neighboring brook May I thy voice still hear?

Dost thou still haunt the brink Of yonder river's tide? And may I ever think That thou art by my side?

What bird wilt thou employ To bring me word of thee? For it would give them joy-- 'T would give them liberty-- To serve their former lord With wing and minstrelsy.

A sadder strain mixed with their song, They've slowlier built their nests; Since thou art gone Their lively labor rests.

Where is the finch, the thrush, I used to hear? Ah, they could well abide The dying year.

Now they no more return, I hear them not; They have remained to mourn, Or else forgot.

GREECE[11]

When life contracts into a vulgar span, And human nature tires to be a man, I thank the gods for Greece, That permanent realm of peace. For as the rising moon far in the night Checkers the shade with her forerunning light, So in my darkest hour my senses seem To catch from her Acropolis a gleam.

Greece, who am I that should remember thee, Thy Marathon and thy Thermopylæ? Is my life vulgar, my fate mean, Which on such golden memories can lean?

THE FUNERAL BELL

One more is gone Out of the busy throng That tread these paths; The church-bell tolls, Its sad knell rolls To many hearths.

Flower-bells toll not, Their echoes roll not Upon my ear; There still, perchance, That gentle spirit haunts A fragrant bier.

Low lies the pall, Lowly the mourners all Their passage grope; No sable hue Mars the serene blue Of heaven's cope.

In distant dell Faint sounds the funeral bell; A heavenly chime; Some poet there Weaves the light-burthened air Into sweet rhyme.

THE MOON

Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide; Mortality below her orb is placed.

RALEIGH.

The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray Mounts up the eastern sky, Not doomed to these short nights for aye, But shining steadily.

She does not wane, but my fortune, Which her rays do not bless; My wayward path declineth soon, But she shines not the less.

And if she faintly glimmers here, And palèd is her light, Yet alway in her proper sphere She's mistress of the night.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF[12]

Thank God who seasons thus the year, And sometimes kindly slants his rays; For in his winter he's most near And plainest seen upon the shortest days.

Who gently tempers now his heats. And then his harsher cold, lest we Should surfeit on the summer's sweets, Or pine upon the winter's crudity.

A sober mind will walk alone, Apart from nature, if need be, And only its own seasons own: For nature leaving its humanity.

Sometimes a late autumnal thought Has crossed my mind in green July, And to its early freshness brought Late ripened fruits, and an autumnal sky.

The evening of the year draws on, The fields a later aspect wear; Since Summer's garishness is gone, Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.

Behold! the shadows of the trees Now circle wider 'bout their stem, Like sentries that by slow degrees Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.

And as the year doth decline, The sun allows a scantier light; Behind each needle of the pine There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.

I hear the cricket's slumbrous lay Around, beneath me, and on high; It rocks the night, it soothes the day, And everywhere is Nature's lullaby.

But most he chirps beneath the sod, When he has made his winter bed; His creak grown fainter but more broad, A film of autumn o'er the summer spread.

Small birds, in fleets migrating by, Now beat across some meadow's bay, And as they tack and veer on high, With faint and hurried click beguile the way.

Far in the woods, these golden days, Some leaf obeys its Maker's call; And through their hollow aisles it plays With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.

Gently withdrawing from its stem, It lightly lays itself along Where the same hand hath pillowed them, Resigned to sleep upon the old year's throng.

The loneliest birch is brown and sere, The farthest pool is strewn with leaves, Which float upon their watery bier, Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.

The jay screams through the chestnut wood; The crisped and yellow leaves around Are hue and texture of my mood, And these rough burs my heirlooms on the ground.

The threadbare trees, so poor and thin, They are no wealthier than I; But with as brave a core within They rear their boughs to the October sky.

Poor knights they are which bravely wait The charge of Winter's cavalry, Keeping a simple Roman state, Discumbered of their Persian luxury.

THE THAW

I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears, Her tears of joy that only faster flowed.[13]

Fain would I stretch me by the highway-side To thaw and trickle with the melting snow; That mingled, soul and body, with the tide, I too may through the pores of nature flow.

A WINTER SCENE[14]

The rabbit leaps, The mouse out-creeps, The flag out-peeps Beside the brook; The ferret weeps, The marmot sleeps, The owlet keeps In his snug nook.

The apples thaw, The ravens caw, The squirrels gnaw The frozen fruit. To their retreat I track the feet Of mice that eat The apple's root.

The snow-dust falls, The otter crawls, The partridge calls, Far in the wood. The traveler dreams, The tree-ice gleams, The blue jay screams In angry mood.

The willows droop, The alders stoop, The pheasants group Beneath the snow. The catkins green Cast o'er the scene A summer's sheen, A genial glow.

TO A STRAY FOWL

Poor bird! destined to lead thy life Far in the adventurous west, And here to be debarred to-night From thy accustomed nest; Must thou fall back upon old instinct now, Well-nigh extinct under man's fickle care? Did heaven bestow its quenchless inner light, So long ago, for thy small want to-night? Why stand'st upon thy toes to crow so late? The moon is deaf to thy low feathered fate; Or dost thou think so to possess the night, And people the drear dark with thy brave sprite? And now with anxious eye thou look'st about, While the relentless shade draws on its veil, For some sure shelter from approaching dews, And the insidious steps of nightly foes. I fear imprisonment has dulled thy wit, Or ingrained servitude extinguished it. But no; dim memory of the days of yore, By Brahmapootra and the Jumna's shore, Where thy proud race flew swiftly o'er the heath, And sought its food the jungle's shade beneath, Has taught thy wings to seek yon friendly trees, As erst by Indus' banks and far Ganges.

POVERTY

A FRAGMENT

If I am poor, It is that I am proud; If God has made me naked and a boor, He did not think it fit his work to shroud.

The poor man comes direct from heaven to earth, As stars drop down the sky, and tropic beams; The rich receives in our gross air his birth, As from low suns are slanted golden gleams.

Yon sun is naked, bare of satellite, Unless our earth and moon that office hold; Though his perpetual day feareth no night, And his perennial summer dreads no cold.

Mankind may delve, but cannot my wealth spend; If I no partial wealth appropriate, No armèd ships unto the Indies send, None robs me of my Orient estate.

PILGRIMS

"Have you not seen, In ancient times, Pilgrims pass by Toward other climes, With shining faces, Youthful and strong, Mounting this hill With speech and with song?"

"Ah, my good sir, I know not those ways; Little my knowledge, Tho' many my days. When I have slumbered, I have heard sounds As of travelers passing These my grounds.

"'T was a sweet music Wafted them by, I could not tell If afar off or nigh. Unless I dreamed it, This was of yore: I never told it To mortal before, Never remembered But in my dreams What to me waking A miracle seems."

THE DEPARTURE

In this roadstead I have ridden, In this covert I have hidden; Friendly thoughts were cliffs to me, And I hid beneath their lee.

This true people took the stranger, And warm-hearted housed the ranger; They received their roving guest, And have fed him with the best;

Whatsoe'er the land afforded To the stranger's wish accorded; Shook the olive, stripped the vine, And expressed the strengthening wine.

And by night they did spread o'er him What by day they spread before him;-- That good-will which was repast Was his covering at last.

The stranger moored him to their pier Without anxiety or fear; By day he walked the sloping land, By night the gentle heavens he scanned.

When first his bark stood inland To the coast of that far Finland, Sweet-watered brooks came tumbling to the shore The weary mariner to restore.

And still he stayed from day to day If he their kindness might repay; But more and more The sullen waves came rolling toward the shore.

And still the more the stranger waited, The less his argosy was freighted, And still the more he stayed, The less his debt was paid.

So he unfurled his shrouded mast To receive the fragrant blast; And that sane refreshing gale Which had wooed him to remain Again and again, It was that filled his sail And drove him to the main.

All day the low-hung clouds Dropt tears into the sea; And the wind amid the shrouds Sighed plaintively.

INDEPENDENCE[15]

My life more civil is and free Than any civil polity.

Ye princes, keep your realms And circumscribèd power, Not wide as are my dreams, Nor rich as is this hour.

What can ye give which I have not? What can ye take which I have got? Can ye defend the dangerless? Can ye inherit nakedness?

To all true wants Time's ear is deaf, Penurious states lend no relief Out of their pelf: But a free soul--thank God-- Can help itself.

Be sure your fate Doth keep apart its state, Not linked with any band, Even the noblest of the land;

In tented fields with cloth of gold No place doth hold, But is more chivalrous than they are, And sigheth for a nobler war; A finer strain its trumpet sings, A brighter gleam its armor flings.

The life that I aspire to live No man proposeth me; No trade upon the street[16] Wears its emblazonry.

DING DONG[17]

When the world grows old by the chimney-side Then forth to the youngling nooks I glide, Where over the water and over the land The bells are booming on either hand.

Now up they go ding, then down again dong, And awhile they ring to the same old song, For the metal goes round at a single bound, A-cutting the fields with its measured sound, While the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.

Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone, And seldom it is that one sound comes alone, For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng, And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along.

When the echo hath reached me in this lone vale, I am straightway a hero in coat of mail, I tug at my belt and I march on my post, And feel myself more than a match for a host.

OMNIPRESENCE

Who equaleth the coward's haste, And still inspires the faintest heart; Whose lofty fame is not disgraced, Though it assume the lowest part.

INSPIRATION

If thou wilt but stand by my ear, When through the field thy anthem's rung, When that is done I will not fear But the same power will abet my tongue.

MISSION

I've searched my faculties around, To learn why life to me was lent: I will attend the faintest sound, And then declare to man what God hath meant.

DELAY

No generous action can delay Or thwart our higher, steadier aims; But if sincere and true are they, It will arouse our sight, and nerve our frames.

PRAYER

Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself; That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye;

And next in value, which thy kindness lends, That I may greatly disappoint my friends, Howe'er they think or hope it that may be, They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished me;

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith, And my life practice more than my tongue saith; That my low conduct may not show, Nor my relenting lines, That I thy purpose did not know, Or overrated thy designs.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] [Eighteen lines of this poem appear in _Week_, pp. 181, 182, 351, 372.]

[9] ["Suggested by the print of Guido's 'Aurora' sent by Mrs. Carlyle as a wedding gift to Mrs. Emerson." (Note in _Poems of Nature_.)]

[10] [Five stanzas of this poem appear in _Week_, pp. 46, 47.]

[11] [The last four lines appear in _Week_, p. 54.]

[12] ["The first four of these stanzas (unnamed by Thoreau) were published in the Boston _Commonwealth_ in 1863, under the title of 'The Soul's Season,' the remainder as 'The Fall of the Leaf.' There can be little doubt that they are parts of one complete poem." (Note in _Poems of Nature_.)]

[13] [See p. 120.]

[14] ["These stanzas formed part of the original manuscript of the essay on 'A Winter Walk,' but were excluded by Emerson." (Note in _Poems of Nature_.)]

[15] ["First printed in full in the Boston _Commonwealth_, October 30, 1863. The last fourteen lines had appeared in _The Dial_ under the title of 'The Black Knight,' and are so reprinted in the Riverside Edition." (Note in _Poems of Nature_.)]

[16] [In _The Dial_ this line reads, "Only the promise of my heart."]

[17] ["A copy of this hitherto unpublished poem has been kindly furnished by Miss A. J. Ward." (Note in _Poems of Nature_.)]

A LIST OF THE POEMS AND BITS OF VERSE SCATTERED AMONG THOREAU'S PROSE WRITINGS EXCLUSIVE OF THE JOURNAL

* * * * *

A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS

"The respectable folks" PAGE 7

"Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din" 15

"But since we sailed" 16

"Here then an aged shepherd dwelt" 16

"On Ponkawtasset, since we took our way" 16

"Who sleeps by day and walks by night" 41

"An early unconverted Saint" 42

"Low in the eastern sky" (TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST) 46

"Dong, sounds the brass in the East" 50

"Greece, who am I that should remember thee" 54

"Some tumultuous little rill" 62

"I make ye an offer" 69

"Conscience is instinct bred in the house" (CONSCIENCE) 75

"Such water do the gods distill" 86

"That Phaeton of our day" 103

"Then spend an age in whetting thy desire" 111

"Though all the fates should prove unkind" 151

"With frontier strength ye stand your ground" (MOUNTAINS) 170

"The western wind came lumbering in" 180

"Then idle Time ran gadding by" 181

"Now chiefly is my natal hour" 182

RUMORS FROM AN ÆOLIAN HARP 184

"Away! away! away! away!" 186

"Ply the oars! away! away!" (RIVER SONG, part) 188

"Since that first 'Away! away!'" (RIVER SONG, part) 200

"Low-anchored cloud" (MIST) 201

"Man's little acts are grand" 224

"Our uninquiring corpses lie more low" 227

"The waves slowly beat" 229

"Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze" (HAZE) 229

"Where gleaming fields of haze" 234

TRANSLATIONS FROM ANACREON 240

"Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter" (BOAT SONG) 247

"My life is like a stroll upon the beach" (THE FISHER'S BOY) 255

"This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome" 267

"True kindness is a pure divine affinity" 275

"Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy" (SYMPATHY) 276

THE ATLANTIDES 278

"My love must be as free" (FREE LOVE) 297

"The Good how can we trust?" 298

"Nature doth have her dawn each day" 302

"Let such pure hate still underprop" (FRIENDSHIP) 305

"Men are by birth equal in this, that given" 311

The Inward Morning 313

"My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read" (THE SUMMER RAIN) 320

"My life has been the poem I would have writ" 365

THE POET'S DELAY 366

"I hearing get, who had but ears" 372

"Men dig and dive but cannot my wealth spend" 373

"Salmon Brook" 375

"Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o'er" 384

"I am the autumnal sun" (NATURE'S CHILD) 404

"A finer race and finer fed" 407

"I am a parcel of vain strivings tied" (SIC VITA) 410

"All things are current found" 415

WALDEN

"Men say they know many things" 46

"What's the railroad to me?" 135

"It is no dream of mine" 215

"Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird" (SMOKE) 279

THE MAINE WOODS

"Die and be buried who will" 88

EXCURSIONS

"Within the circuit of this plodding life" (WINTER MEMORIES) 103

"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada" (from Anacreon) 108

"His steady sails he never furls" 109

RETURN OF SPRING (from Anacreon) 109

"Each summer sound" 112

"Sometimes I hear the veery's clarion" 112

"Upon the lofty elm tree sprays" (THE VIREO) 112

"Thou dusky spirit of the wood" (THE CROW) 113

"I see the civil sun drying earth's tears" (THE THAW, part) 120

"The river swelleth more and more" (A RIVER SCENE) 120

"The needles of the pine" 133

"With frontier strength ye stand your ground" (MOUNTAINS) 133

"Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head" 144

"The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell" (SMOKE IN WINTER) 165

"When Winter fringes every bough" (STANZAS WRITTEN AT WALDEN) 176

THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD 214

"In two years' time 't had thus" 303

INDEX

Achilles, The Youth of, translation, 385.

Acre, an, as long measure, 60.

Acton (Mass.), 136.

Æschylus, The Prometheus Bound of, translation, 337-375.

Æsculapius, translation, 380.

Agriculture, the task of Americans, 229-231.

Ajax, The Treatment of, translation, 387.

Alphonse, Jean, and Falls of Montmorenci, 38, 39; quoted, 91.

America, superiorities of, 220-224.

American, money in Quebec, 24; the, and government, 82, 83.

Amphiaraus, The Death of, translation, 387.

Anacreon, quoted, 108, 109, 110.

Andropogons, or beard-grasses, 225-258.

Ange Gardien Parish, 42; church of, 46.

Angler's Souvenir, the, 119.

Apollo, translation, 383.

Apple, history of the tree, 290-298; the wild, 299, 300; the crab-, 301, 302; growth of the wild, 302-308; cropped by cattle, 303-307; the fruit and flavor of the, 308-314; beauty of the, 314, 315; naming of the, 315-317; last gleaning of the, 317-319; the frozen-thawed, 319, 320; dying out of the wild, 321, 322.

Apple-howling, 298.

Arpent, the, 60.

Ashburnham (Mass.), 3; with a better house than any in Canada, 100.

Ash trees, 6.

Assabet, the, 136.

Audubon, John James, reading, 103; 109, note; 112, note.

Aurora of Guido, The, verse, 399.

Autumn foliage, brightness of, 249-252.

AUTUMNAL TINTS, 249-289.

Bartram, William, quoted, 199.

Bathing feet in brooks, 140.

Beard-grasses, andropogons or, 255-258.

Beauport (Que.), and _le Chemin de_, 30; getting lodgings in, 35-38; church in, 69; Seigniory of, 96.

Beaupré, Seigniory of the Côte de, 41.

"Behold, how spring appearing," verse, 109.

Bellows Falls (Vt.), 5.

Birch, yellow, 6.

Birds and mountains, 149.

Bittern, booming of the, 111.

Black Knight, The, verse, 415, note.

Blueberries, and milk, supper of, 144.

Bluebird, the, 110.

Bobolink, the, 113.

Bodæus, quoted, 317.

Bolton (Mass.), 137.

Bonsecours Market (Montreal), 11.

Books on natural history, reading, 103-105.

Boots, Canadian, 51.

Boston (Mass.), 3, 7, 9.

Boucher, quoted, 91.

Boucherville (Que.), 20.

Bouchette, Topographical Description of the Canadas, quoted, 41, 42, 63, 64, 89, 92, 94, 95.

Bout de l'Isle, 20.

Brand's Popular Antiquities quoted, 297, 298.

Bravery of science, the, 106, 107.

"Brother, where dost thou dwell?" verse, 403.

Burlington (Vt.), 7, 99.

Burton, Sir Richard Francis, 228.

Butternut tree, 6.

Cabs, Montreal, 18; Quebec, 69, 70.

Caddis-worms, 170.

Caen, Emery de, quoted, 52.

Caleche, the (see Cabs), 69, 70.

Canada, apparently older than the United States, 80, 81; population of, 81, 82; the French in, a nation of peasants, 82.

_Canadense_, _Iter_, and the word, 101.

Canadian, French, 9; horses, 34; women, 34; atmosphere, 34; love of neighborhood, 42, 43; houses, 44, 59; clothes, 45; salutations, 47; vegetables and trees, 47, 48; boots, 51; tenures, 63, 64.

Cane, a straight and a twisted, 184, 185.

Cap aux Oyes, 93.

Cape Diamond, 22, 40; signal-gun on, 85; the view from, 88.

Cape Rosier, 92.

Cape Rouge, 21, 95.

Cape Tourmente, 41, 89, 96.

Cartier, Jacques, 7, and the St. Lawrence, 89-91; quoted, 97, 98, 99.

Castor and Pollux, translation, 388.

Cattle-show, men at, 184.

Cemetery of fallen leaves, 269, 270.

Chaleurs, the Bay of, 90.

Chalmers, Dr., in criticism of Coleridge, 324.

Chambly (Que.), 11.

Champlain, Samuel, quoted, 8; whales in map of, 91.

Charlevoix, quoted, 52, 91.

Château Richer, church of, 46, 49; lodgings at, 59.

Chaucer, quoted, 159, 160.

Chaudière River, the, 21; Falls of the, 69, 70.

Cheap men, 29, 30.

Cherry-stones, transported by birds, 188.

Chickadee, the, 108.

Chien, La Rivière au, 56.

Churches, Catholic and Protestant, 12-14; roadside, 46.

_Claire Fontaine, La_, 26.

Clothes, bad-weather, 28; Canadian, 45.

Colors, names and joy of, 273-275.

Concord (Mass.), 3, 6, 8; History of, quoted, 115, 133, 149, 152.

Concord River, the, 115, 139.

Connecticut River, 5, 145, 147.

_Coureurs de bois_, and _de risques_, 43.

Crickets, the creaking of, 108.

Crookneck squash seeds, Quebec, 87.

Crosses, roadside, 45, 46.

Crow, the, 108; not imported from Europe, 113.

Crystalline botany, 126, 127.

Culm, bloom in the, 253.

Darby, William, quoted, 93, 94.

Delay, verse, 418.

Departure, The, verse, 414.

Ding Dong, verse, 417.

Dogs in harness, 30.

Drake, Sir Francis, quoted, 325.

Dubartas, quoted, translation of Sylvester, 328, 329.

Ducks, 110.

"Each summer sound," verse, 112.

East Main, Labrador and, health in the words, 104.

Easterbrooks Country, the, 299, 303.

Edda, the Prose, quoted, 291.

Eggs, a master in cooking, 61, 62.

Elm, the, 263, 264, 276.

Elysium, translation, 375.

Emerson, George B., quoted, 200.

English and French in the New World, 66, 67.

Entomology, the study of, 107, 108.

Evelyn, John, quoted, 310, 311.

_Ex Oriente Lux; ex Occidente Frux_, 221.

Experiences, the paucity of men's, 241, 242.

Eyes, the sight of different men's 285-288.

Fall of the Leaf, The, verse, 407.

Fallen Leaves, 264-270.

Falls, a drug of, 58.

Fame, translation, 378.

Fish, spearing, 119, 121-123.

Fisher, the pickerel, 180, 181.

Fishes, described in Massachusetts Report, 118.

Fitchburg (Mass.), 3.

Fitzwilliam (N. H.), 4.

Foreign country, quickly in a, 31.

Forests, nations preserved by, 229.

Fortifications, ancient and modern, 77, 78.

Fox, the, 117.

French, difficulties in talking, 35-37, 47; strange, 50; pure, 52; in the New World, English and, 66-68; in Canada, 81, 82; the, spoken in Quebec streets, 86, 87.

Friends, The Value of, translation, 387.

Froissart, good place to read, 23.

Frost-smoke, 166.

Funeral Bell, The, verse, 405.

Fur Countries, inspiring neighborhood of the, 105.

Garget, poke or, 253-255.

Geese, first flock of, 110.

Gesner, Konrad von, quoted, 318.

Gosse, P. A., Canadian Naturalist, 91.

Great Brook, 137.

Great Fields, the, 257.

"Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf," verse, 418.

Great River, the, or St. Lawrence, 89, 90, 91, 92.

Greece, verse, 404.

Greece, The Freedom of, translation, 390.

Green Mountains, the, 6, 100, 145, 147.

Grey, the traveler, quoted, 94.

Grippling for apples, 309.

Gulls, 110.

Guyot, Arnold, 93; quoted, 93, 94, 220, 221.

Harvard (Mass.), 151, 152.

"Have you not seen," verse, 413.

Hawk, fish, 110.

Head, Sir Francis, quoted, 47, 221, 222.

Height of Glory, The, translation,384.

Hercules, names the Hill of Kronos, translation, 377.

Hercules' Prayer concerning Ajax, son of Telamon, translation, 390.

Herrick, Robert, 298.

Hickory, the, 264, 265.

Highlanders in Quebec, 25-27, 28, 29, 79.

"His steady sails he never furls," verse, 109.

Hoar-frost, 126, 127.

Hochelaga, 89, 97, 99.

Homer, quoted, 181.

Hoosac Mountains, 147.

Hop, culture of the, 136, 137.

Horses, Canadian, 34.

_Hortus siccus_, nature in winter a, 179.

House, the perfect, 153.

Houses, Canadian, 44, 59; American compared with Canadian, 100.

Humboldt, Alexander von, 92, 93.

Hunt House, the old, 201.

Hypseus' Daughter Cyrene, translation, 383.

"I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears," verse, 409.

"I see the civil sun drying earth's tears," verse, 120.

Ice, the booming of, 176.

Ice formations in a river-bank, 128, 129.

"If I am poor," verse, 412.

"If thou wilt but stand by my ear," verse, 418.

"If with light head erect I sing," verse, 396.

Ignorance, Society for the Diffusion of Useful, 239.

Imitations of Charette drivers, Yankee, 99.

"In this roadstead I have ridden," verse, 414.

"In two years' time 't had thus," verse, 303.

Independence, verse, 415.

Indoors, living, 207-209.

Inn, inscription on wall of Swedish, 141.

Inspiration, quatrain, 418.

Inspiration, verse, 396.

Invertebrate Animals, Report on, quoted, 129.

"I've searched my faculties around," verse, 418.

Jay, the, 108, 199.

Jesuit Relations, quoted, 96.

Jesuits' Barracks, the, in Quebec, 24.

Joel, the prophet, quoted, 322.

Jonson, Ben, quoted, 226.

Josselyn, John, quoted, 2.

Kalm, Swedish traveler, quoted, 21, 30, 39, 65; on sea-plants near Quebec, 93.

Keene (N. H.) Street, 4; heads like, 4.

Kent, the Duke of, property of, 38.

Killington Peak, 6.

Knowledge, the slow growth of, 181; Society for the Diffusion of Useful, 239; true, 240.

Labrador and East Main, health in the words, 104.

Lake, a woodland, in winter, 174, 175.

Lake Champlain, 6-8.

Lake St. Peter, 96, 97.

Lalement, Hierosme, quoted, 22.

Lancaster (Mass.), 138, 139, 149.

LANDLORD, THE, 153-162.

Landlord, qualities of the, 153-162.

La Prairie (Que.), 11, 18, 99.

Lark, the, 109, 110.

Lead, rain of, 26.

Leaves, fallen, 264-270; scarlet oak, 278-281.

Lincoln (Mass.), 282, 283.

Linnæus, quoted, 222.

Longueuil (Que.), 20.

Loudon, John Claudius, quoted, 197, 200, 291, 292, 310.

"Low in the eastern sky," verse, 400.

McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary, quoted, 49.

McTaggart, John, quoted, 94.

MacTavish, Simon, 98.

Man, translation, 383.

Man, The Divine in, translation, 386.

Map, drawing, on kitchen table, 60; of Canada, inspecting a, 95.

Maple, the red and sugar, 6; the red, 258-263, 265; the sugar, 261, 271-278.

Marañon, the river, 93.

Marlborough (Mass.), 214.

Merrimack River, the, 147.

Michaux, André, quoted, 269.

Michaux, François André, quoted, 220, 261, 301.

Midnight, exploring the, 323.

Miller, a crabbed, 69.

Milne, Alexander, quoted, 193, 194.

Mississippi, discovery of the, 90; extent of the, 93; a panorama of the, 224.

Mission, verse, 418.

Monadnock, 4, 143, 145, 147.

Montcalm, Wolfe and, monument to, 73, 74.

Montmorenci County, 62; the habitans of, 64-68.

Montmorenci, Falls of, 29, 37-39.

Montreal (Que.), 9, 11; described, 14-16; the mixed population of, 17, 18; from Quebec to, 96, 97; and its surroundings, beautiful view of, 98; the name of, 98.

Moon, The, verse, 406.

MOONLIGHT, NIGHT AND, 323-333.

Moonlight, reading by, 145.

Moonshine, 324, 325.

Moore, Thomas, 98.

Morning, winter, early, 163-166.

Morton, Thomas, 2.

Mount Royal (Montreal), 11.

Mountains, the use of, 148, 149; and plain, influence of the, 150, 151.

Muse, The Venality of the, translation, 389.

Musketaquid, Prairie, or Concord River, 115.

Muskrat, the, 114-117.

Mussel, the, 129.

"My life more civil is and free," verse, 415.

Names, poetry in, 20; of places, French, 56, 57; men's, 236, 237; of colors, 273, 274.

NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS, 103-131.

Natural history, reading books of, 103, 105.

Nature, health to be found in, 105; man's work the most natural, compared with that of, 119; the hand of, upon her children, 124, 125; different methods of work, 125; the civilized look of, 141; the winter purity of, 167; a _hortus siccus_ in, 179; men's relation to, 241, 242.

Nature, verse, 395.

Nawshawtuct Hill, 384.

New things to be seen near home, 211, 212.

Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, quoted, 290.

Niepce, Joseph Nicéphore, quoted, 238.

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT, 323-333.

Night, on Wachusett, 146; the senses in the, 327, 328.

"No generous action can delay," verse, 418.

Nobscot Hill, 303, 304.

Norumbega, 90.

"Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head," verse, 144.

Notre Dame (Montreal), 11; a visit to, 12-14.

Notre Dame des Anges, Seigniory of, 96.

Nurse-plants, 193.

Nuthatch, the, 108.

Nuttall, Thomas, quoted, 111, 112.

Oak, succeeding pine, and _vice versa_, 185, 187, 189; the scarlet, 278-281; leaves, scarlet, 278-280.

Ogilby, America of 1670, quoted, 91.

Old Marlborough Road, The, verse, 214.

Olympia at Evening, translation, 378.

Omnipresence, verse, 417.

"O Nature! I do not aspire," verse, 395.

"One more is gone," verse, 405.

Origin of Rhodes, translation, 376.

Orinoco, the river, 93.

Orleans, Isle of, 41, 42.

Orsinora, 90.

Ortelius, _Theatrum Orbis Terrarum_, 89.

Ossian, quoted, 332.

Ottawa River, the, 41, 94, 98.

_Oui_, the repeated, 60.

Palladius, quoted, 294, 308.

Patent office, seeds sent by the, 203.

Peleus and Cadmus, translation, 381.

Penobscot Indians, use of muskrat-skins by, 116, 117.

Perch, the, 123.

Phœbe, the, 112.

Pickerel-fisher, the, 180, 181.

Pies, no, in Quebec, 86.

Pilgrims, verse, 413.

_Pinbéna_, the, 48.

Pindar, Translations from, 375.

Pine, oak succeeding, and _vice versa_, 185, 187, 189; family, a, 243, 244.

Pine cone, stripped by squirrels, 196.

Plain and mountain, life of the, 151.

Plants on Cape Diamond, Quebec, 27.

Plicipennes, 170.

Pliny, the Elder, quoted, 292.

Plover, the, 112.

Plum, beach, 201.

POEMS, 393-419.

Point Levi, by ferry to, 70; a night at, 71; 89.

Pointe aux Trembles, 20, 21.

Poke, or garget, the, 253-255.

_Pommettes_, 39.

"Poor bird! destined to lead thy life," verse, 411.

Potherie, quoted, 52.

Poverty, verse, 412.

Prairie River, Musketaquid or, 115.

Prayer, verse, 418.

Prometheus Bound of Æschylus, The, translation, 337.

Purana, the, quoted, 327.

Purple Grasses, The, 252-258.

Quail, a white, 109, note.

Quebec (Que.), 3, 20, 21; approach to, 22; harbor and population of, 22; mediævalism of, 23, 26; the citadel, 27-30, 76-80; fine view of, 49; reëntering, through St. John's Gate, 69; lights in the lower town, 71; landing again at, 72; walk round the Upper Town, 72-76; the walls and gates, 74, 75; artillery barracks, 75; mounted guns, 76; restaurants, 85, 86; scenery of, 87-89; origin of word, 88; departure from, 95.

Rainbow in Falls of the Chaudière, 70, 71.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, quoted, 329.

Reports on the natural history of Massachusetts, 103, 114, 118, 123, 129, 130.

Return of Spring, verse, 109.

Rhexia, 252.

Richelieu, Isles of, 96.

Richelieu or St. John's River, 8.

Richelieu Rapids, the, 21.

Richter, Jean Paul, quoted, 330, 331.

River, the flow of a, 178.

River-bank, ice formations in a, 128, 129.

Rivière du Sud, the, 92.

Rivière more meandering than River, 56.

Roberval, Sieur de, 95, 96.

Robin, the, 109; a white, 109, note.

Robin Hood Ballads, quoted, 150, 207.

Rowlandson, Mrs., 149.

St. Anne, the Falls of, 40; Church of _La Bonne_, 49; lodgings in village of, 49-51; interior of the church of _La Bonne_, 51, 52; Falls of, described, 52-55.

St. Charles River, the, 30.

St. Helen's Island (Montreal), 11.

St. John's (Que.), 9, 10.

St. John's River, 8.

St. Lawrence River, 11; cottages along the, 21; banks of the, above Quebec, 40, 41; breadth of, 49; or Great River, 89-95; old maps of, 89, 90, 92; compared with other rivers, 90, 92-95.

St. Maurice River, 94.

Saguenay River, 91, 94.

Salutations, Canadian, 47.

Sault à la Puce, Rivière du, 48, 58.

Sault Norman, 11.

Sault St. Louis, 11.

Saunter, derivation of the word, 205, 206.

Scarlet Oak, The, 278-285.

Schoolhouse, a Canadian, 46.

Science, the bravery of, 106, 107.

Scotchman dissatisfied with Canada, a, 75.

Scriptures, Hebrew, inadequacy of regarding winter, 183.

Sea-plants near Quebec, 93.

Seeds, the transportation of, by wind, 186, 187; by birds, 187-189; by squirrels, 190-200; the vitality of, 200-203.

Seeing, individual, 285-288.

Selenites, 323.

Sign language, 61.

Sillery (Que.), 22.

Silliman, Benjamin, quoted, 98.

Skating, 177, 178.

Smoke, winter morning, 165; seen from a hilltop, 173, 174.

Snake, the, 123, 124.

Snipe-shooting grounds, 48.

Snow, 181, 182; not recognized in Hebrew Scriptures, 183.

Snowbird, the, 109.

Society, health not to be found in, 105.

Soldiers, English, in Canada, 9, 10, 16, 17; in Quebec, 24-27, 79, 80.

Solomon, quoted, 291.

"Sometimes I hear the veery's clarion," verse, 112.

Sounds, winter morning, 163, 164.

Sorel River, 8.

Sparrow, the song, 109.

Spaulding's farm, 243.

Spearing fish, 121-123.

Speech, country, 137.

Spring, on the Concord River, 119-121.

Squash, the large yellow, 203.

Squirrel, a red, burying nuts, 190, 191; with nuts under snow, 195; pine cones stripped by the, 196; with filled cheek-pouches, 198.

Stars, the, 328, 329.

Stillriver Village (Mass.), 151.

Stillwater, the, 140, 142.

Stow (Mass.), 136.

SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES, THE, 184-204.

Sudbury (Mass.), 303.

Sugar Maple, The, 271-278.

Sunset, a remarkable, 246-248.

Tamias, the steward squirrel, 198.

Tavern, the gods' interest in the, 153; compared with the church, the, 161, 162.

Tenures, Canadian, 63.

"Thank God, who seasons thus the year," verse, 407.

Thaw, The, verse, 409.

"The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray," verse, 406.

"The god of day his car rolls up the slopes," verse, 399.

"The needles of the pine," verse, 133.

"The rabbit leaps," verse, 410.

"The river swelleth more and more," verse, 120.

"The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell," verse, 165.

Theophrastus, 292.

Thomson, James, quoted, 249.

Thoreau, Henry David, leaves Concord for Canada, 25th September, 1850, 3; traveling outfit of, 31-34; leaves Quebec for Montreal on return trip, 95; leaves Montreal for Boston, 99; total expense of Canada excursion, 100, 101; walk from Concord to Wachusett and back, 133-152; observation of a red squirrel, 190, 191; experience with government squash-seed, 203.

"Thou dusky spirit of the wood," verse, 113.

Three Rivers (Que.), 21, 93.

Three-o'clock courage, 208, 209.

To a Stray Fowl, verse, 411.

To Aristoclides, Victor at the Nemean Games, translation, 384.

To Asopichus, or Orchomenos, on his Victory in the Stadic Course, translation, 378.

To My Brother, verse, 403.

To the Maiden in the East, verse, 400.

To the Lyre, translation, 379.

Toil, translation, 389.

TRANSLATIONS, 337-392.

Translations from Pindar, 375-392.

Trappers, 115.

Traverse, the, 92.

Traveling outfit, the best, 31-34.

Trees, Canadian, 48; the suggestions of, 125; the natural planting of, 186-202; a town's need of, 272-278; for seasons, 276.

Tree-tops, things seen and found on, 245, 246.

Troy (N. H.), 4.

Turtle, the snapping, 124.

"Upon the lofty elm tree sprays," verse, 112.

Val Cartier (Que.), 89.

Varennes, the church of, 97, 98.

Veery, the, 112.

Vegetation, the type of all growth, 128.

Vergennes (Vt.), 7.

Village, a continuous, 42, 43; the, 213; trees in a, 275-278.

Virgil, reading, 138, 143, 144.

Wachusett, a view of, 138; range, the, 139; ascent of, 142; birds or vegetation on summit of, 143; night on, 145, 146; an observatory, 147.

Walls, Quebec and other, 74.

WALK TO WACHUSETT, A, 133-152.

Walkers, the order of, 206, 207.

WALKING, 205-248.

Walks, not on beaten paths, 213, 214; the direction of, 216-219; adventurous, 285; by night, 326.

Watatic, 137, 147.

"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada," verse, 108.

West, walking towards the, 217-220; general tendency towards the, 219-224.

Westmoreland, etymology of, 6.

Whales in the St. Lawrence, 91.

"Whate'er we leave to God, God does," verse, 396.

"When life contracts into a vulgar span," verse, 404.

"When the world grows old by the chimney-side," verse, 417.

"When winter fringes every bough," verse, 176.

"Where they once dug for money," verse, 214.

Whitney, Peter, quoted, 312.

"Who equaleth the coward's haste," verse, 417.

"Whoa," the crying of, to mankind, 235.

WILD APPLES, 290-322.

Wildness, the necessity of, 224-236; in literature, 230-233; in domestic animals, 234-236.

Willow, golden, leaves, 266.

Winter Scene, A, verse, 410.

WINTER WALK, A, 163-183.

Winter, warmth in, 167, 168; the woods in, 168, 169; nature a _hortus siccus_ in, 179; as represented in the almanac, 182; ignored in Hebrew revelation, 183; evening, 183.

"With frontier strength ye stand your ground," verse, 133.

"Within the circuit of this plodding life," verse, 103.

Wolfe and Montcalm, monument to, 73.

Wolfe's Cove, 22.

Women, Canadian, 34.

Woodbine, 3, 4, 276.

Woodchopper, winter to be represented as a, 182.

Woodman, hut and work of a, 172, 173.

Woods in winter, the, 168, 169.

Wordsworth, reading, 143, 144.

YANKEE IN CANADA, A, 1-101.

"Yorrick," the, 112, note.

The Riverside Press H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS

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Transcriber's note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

On page 370, tryant's drudge should possibly be tyrant's drudge.