No More Learning

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 wreathed 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 larvae 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 phoebes 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.