No More Learning

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. Linnaeus 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 phoebe 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 AEsop 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 Zoological 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 phoebe, 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!

[Illustration: _Mount Wachusett from the Wayland Hills_]

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 phoebe, 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 AEneid 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
_debut_ 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 Petraea, 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.