Chapter 3

Sir Thomas Dale was on the whole the most efficient and discreet Governor the colony had had. One element of his success was no doubt the change in the charter. By the first charter everything had been held in common by the company, and there had been no division of property or allotment of land among the colonists. Under the new regime land was held in severalty, and the spur of individual interest began at once to improve the condition of the settlement. The character of the colonists was also gradually improving. They had not been of a sort to fulfill the earnest desire of the London promoter's to spread vital piety in the New World. A zealous defense of Virginia and Maryland, against "scandalous imputation," entitled "Leah and Rachel; or, The Two Fruitful Sisters," by Mr John Hammond, London, considers the charges that Virginia "is an unhealthy place, a nest of rogues, abandoned women, dissolut and rookery persons; a place of intolerable labour, bad usage and hard diet"; and admits that "at the first settling, and for many years after, it deserved most of these aspersions, nor were they then aspersions but truths. There were jails supplied, youth seduced, infamous women drilled in, the provision all brought out of England, and that embezzled by the Trustees."

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH [CW#34][cwcjs10.txt]3130

After fifteen years Smith is able to remember more details Assertion in an insecure position Cheaper credited than confuted Entertaining if one did not see too much of him Knew not the secret of having his own way Long stick and began to make notches in it for the people he saw Making religion their color Peculiarly subject to such coincidences Prince's mind imprisoned in a poor man's purse Progressive memory Somewhat damaging to an estimate of his originality Thames had no bridges Those that did not work should not eat Tobacco-selling Wanted advancement but were unwilling to adventure their ease Would if he could Writ too much, and done too little

SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND [CW#35][cwsne10.txt]3131

Then follows a day of bright sun and blue sky. The birds open the morning with a lively chorus. In spite of Auster, Euroclydon, low pressure, and the government bureau, things have gone forward. By the roadside, where the snow has just melted, the grass is of the color of emerald. The heart leaps to see it. On the lawn there are twenty robins, lively, noisy, worm-seeking. Their yellow breasts contrast with the tender green of the newly-springing clover and herd's-grass. If they would only stand still, we might think the dandelions had blossomed. On an evergreen-bough, looking at them, sits a graceful bird, whose back is bluer than the sky. There is a red tint on the tips of the boughs of the hard maple. With Nature, color is life. See, already, green, yellow, blue, red! In a few days--is it not so?--through the green masses of the trees will flash the orange of the oriole, the scarlet of the tanager; perhaps tomorrow.

But, in fact, the next day opens a little sourly. It is almost clear overhead: but the clouds thicken on the horizon; they look leaden; they threaten rain. It certainly will rain: the air feels like rain, or snow. By noon it begins to snow, and you hear the desolate cry of the phoebe- bird. It is a fine snow, gentle at first; but it soon drives in swerving lines, for the wind is from the southwest, from the west, from the northeast, from the zenith (one of the ordinary winds of New England), from all points of the compass. The fine snow becomes rain; it becomes large snow; it melts as it falls; it freezes as it falls. At last a storm sets in, and night shuts down upon the bleak scene.

During the night there is a change. It thunders and lightens. Toward morning there is a brilliant display of aurora borealis. This is a sign of colder weather.

The gardener is in despair; so is the sportsman. The trout take no pleasure in biting in such weather.

Paragraphs appear in the newspapers, copied from the paper of last year, saying that this is the most severe spring in thirty years. Every one, in fact, believes that it is, and also that next year the spring will be early. Man is the most gullible of creatures.

And with reason: he trusts his eyes, and not his instinct. During this most sour weather of the year, the anemone blossoms; and, almost immediately after, the fairy pencil, the spring beauty, the dog-tooth violet, and the true violet. In clouds and fog, and rain and snow, and all discouragement, Nature pushes on her forces with progressive haste and rapidity. Before one is aware, all the lawns and meadows are deeply green, the trees are opening their tender leaves. In a burst of sunshine the cherry-trees are white, the Judas-tree is pink, the hawthorns give a sweet smell. The air is full of sweetness; the world, of color.

In the midst of a chilling northeast storm the ground is strewed with the white-and-pink blossoms from the apple-trees. The next day the mercury stands at eighty degrees. Summer has come.

There was no Spring.

The winter is over. You think so? Robespierre thought the Revolution was over in the beginning of his last Thermidor. He lost his head after that.

When the first buds are set, and the corn is up, and the cucumbers have four leaves, a malicious frost steals down from the north and kills them in a night.

That is the last effort of spring. The mercury then mounts to ninety degrees. The season has been long, but, on the whole, successful. Many people survive it.

IN THE WILDERNESS [CW#36][cwitw10.txt]3132

According to the compass, the Lord only knew where I was Business of civilization to tame or kill Canopy of mosquitoes Caricature of a road Compass, which was made near Greenwich, was wrong Democrats became as scarce as moose in the Adirondacks Everlasting dress-parade of our civilization Grand intentions and weak vocabulary How lightly past hardship sits upon us! I hain't no business here; but here I be! Kept its distance, as only a mountain can Man's noblest faculty, his imagination, or credulity. Marriage is mostly for discipline Misery, unheroic and humiliating Near-sighted man, whose glasses the rain rendered useless No conceit like that of isolation No nervousness, but simply a reasonable desire to get there Not lost, but gone before Posthumous fear Procession of unattainable meals stretched before me Sense to shun the doctor; to lie down in some safe place Solitude and every desirable discomfort Stumbled against an ill-placed tree Suffering when unaccompanied by resignation Ten times harder to unlearn anything than it is to learn it There is an impassive, stolid brutality about the woods

BADDECK [CW#37][cwbdk10.txt]3133

Best part of going to sea is keeping close to the shore Can leave it without regret Dependent upon imagination and memory Great part of the enjoyment of life Luxury of his romantic grief Picturesque sort of dilapidation Rest is never complete--unless he can see somebody else at work Won't see Mt. Desert till midnight, and then you won't

BACKLOG STUDIES [CW#38][cwbls10.txt]3134

A good many things have gone out with the fire on the hearth Abatement of a snow-storm that grows to exceptional magnitude Anywhere a happier home than ours? I am glad of it! Associate ourselves to make everybody else behave as we do. Chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables Crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire Don't know what success is Each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance Enjoyed poor health Enthusiasm is a sign of inexperience, of ignorance Fallen into the days of conformity Few people know how to make a wood-fire Finding the world disagreeable to themselves Have almost succeeded in excluding pure air Just as good as the real Lived himself out of the world Long score of personal flattery to pay off Not half so reasonable as my prejudices Pathos overcomes one's sense of the absurdity of such people Permit the freedom of silence Poetical reputation of the North American Indian Point of breeding never to speak of anything in your house Reformers manage to look out for themselves tolerably well Refuge of mediocrity Rest beyond the grave will not be much change for him Said, or if I have not, I say it again Severe attack of spiritism Shares none of their uneasiness about getting on in life Silence is unnoticed when people sit before a fire Some men you always prefer to have on your left hand Sort of busy idleness among men There are no impossibilities to youth and inexperience Things are apt to remain pretty much the same Think the world they live in is the central one To-day is like yesterday, Usual effect of an anecdote on conversation Women know how to win by losing World owes them a living because they are philanthropists

SUMMER IN A GARDEN [CW#39][cwsig10.txt]3135

But I found him, one Sunday morning,--a day when it would not do to get angry, tying his cow at the foot of the hill; the beast all the time going on in that abominable voice. I told the man that I could not have the cow in the grounds. He said, "All right, boss;" but he did not go away. I asked him to clear out. The man, who is a French sympathizer from the Republic of Ireland, kept his temper perfectly. He said he wasn't doing anything, just feeding his cow a bit: he wouldn't make me the least trouble in the world. I reminded him that he had been told again and again not to come here; that he might have all the grass, but he should not bring his cow upon the premises. The imperturbable man assented to everything that I said, and kept on feeding his cow. Before I got him to go to fresh scenes and pastures new, the Sabbath was almost broken; but it was saved by one thing: it is difficult to be emphatic when no one is emphatic on the other side. The man and his cow have taught me a great lesson, which I shall recall when I keep a cow. I can recommend this cow, if anybody wants one, as a steady boarder, whose keeping will cost the owner little; but, if her milk is at all like her voice, those who drink it are on the straight road to lunacy.

Moral Truth. --I have no doubt that grapes taste best in other people's mouths. It is an old notion that it is easier to be generous than to be stingy. I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity. Philosophical Observation. --Nothing shows one who his friends are like prosperity and ripe fruit. I had a good friend in the country, whom I almost never visited except in cherry-time. By your fruits you shall know them.

Pretending to reflect upon these things, but in reality watching the blue-jays, who are pecking at the purple berries of the woodbine on the south gable, I approach the house. Polly is picking up chestnuts on the sward, regardless of the high wind which rattles them about her head and upon the glass roof of her winter-garden. The garden, I see, is filled with thrifty plants, which will make it always summer there. The callas about the fountain will be in flower by Christmas: the plant appears to keep that holiday in her secret heart all summer. I close the outer windows as we go along, and congratulate myself that we are ready for winter. For the winter-garden I have no responsibility: Polly has entire charge of it. I am only required to keep it heated, and not too hot either; to smoke it often for the death of the bugs; to water it once a day; to move this and that into the sun and out of the sun pretty constantly: but she does all the work. We never relinquish that theory.

I have been digging my potatoes, if anybody cares to know it. I planted them in what are called "Early Rose," --the rows a little less than three feet apart; but the vines came to an early close in the drought. Digging potatoes is a pleasant, soothing occupation, but not poetical. It is good for the mind, unless they are too small (as many of mine are), when it begets a want of gratitude to the bountiful earth. What small potatoes we all are, compared with what we might be! We don't plow deep enough, any of us, for one thing. I shall put in the plow next year, and give the tubers room enough. I think they felt the lack of it this year: many of them seemed ashamed to come out so small. There is great pleasure in turning out the brown-jacketed fellows into the sunshine of a royal September day, and seeing them glisten as they lie thickly strewn on the warm soil. Life has few such moments. But then they must be picked up. The picking-up, in this world, is always the unpleasant part of it.

Nature is "awful smart." I intend to be complimentary in saying so. She shows it in little things. I have mentioned my attempt to put in a few modest turnips, near the close of the season. I sowed the seeds, by the way, in the most liberal manner. Into three or four short rows I presume I put enough to sow an acre; and they all came up,--came up as thick as grass, as crowded and useless as babies in a Chinese village. Of course, they had to be thinned out; that is, pretty much all pulled up; and it took me a long time; for it takes a conscientious man some time to decide which are the best and healthiest plants to spare. After all, I spared too many. That is the great danger everywhere in this world (it may not be in the next): things are too thick; we lose all in grasping for too much. The Scotch say, that no man ought to thin out his own turnips, because he will not sacrifice enough to leave room for the remainder to grow: he should get his neighbor, who does not care for the plants, to do it. But this is mere talk, and aside from the point: if there is anything I desire to avoid in these agricultural papers, it is digression. I did think that putting in these turnips so late in the season, when general activity has ceased, and in a remote part of the garden, they would pass unnoticed. But Nature never even winks, as I can see. The tender blades were scarcely out of the ground when she sent a small black fly, which seemed to have been born and held in reserve for this purpose,--to cut the leaves. They speedily made lace-work of the whole bed. Thus everything appears to have its special enemy,--except, perhaps, p----y: nothing ever troubles that.