[1842.]
Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read
in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground,
of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea-breezes; of
the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the
rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of
the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health
to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.
Within the circuit of this plodding life,
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of summer past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee’s long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial,—purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God’s cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter’s task again.
I am singularly refreshed in winter when I hear of service-berries,
poke-weed, juniper. Is not heaven made up of these cheap summer
glories? There is a singular health in those words, Labrador and East
Main, which no desponding creed recognizes. How much more than Federal
are these States. If there were no other vicissitudes than the seasons,
our interest would never tire. Much more is adoing than Congress wots
of. What journal do the persimmon and the buckeye keep, and the
sharp-shinned hawk? What is transpiring from summer to winter in the
Carolinas, and the Great Pine Forest, and the Valley of the Mohawk? The
merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are
degraded when considered as the members of a political organization. On
this side all lands present only the symptoms of decay. I see but
Bunker Hill and Sing-Sing, the District of Columbia and Sullivan’s
Island, with a few avenues connecting them. But paltry are they all
beside one blast of the east or the south wind which blows over them.
In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at
least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would be pale and
livid. Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so. There
is no scent in it so wholesome as that of the pines, nor any fragrance
so penetrating and restorative as the life-everlasting in high
pastures. I would keep some book of natural history always by me as a
sort of elixir, the reading of which should restore the tone of the
system. To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a
fountain of health. To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty
no harm nor disappointment can come. The doctrines of despair, of
spiritual or political tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such
as shared the serenity of nature. Surely good courage will not flag
here on the Atlantic border, as long as we are flanked by the Fur
Countries. There is enough in that sound to cheer one under any
circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock, and the pine will not
countenance despair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do
forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the
Esquimaux sledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the
northern night, the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and
walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who would
toll the world’s knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better
than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy
living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher’s
consolation. What is any man’s discourse to me, if I am not sensible of
something in it as steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? In it
the woods must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am not
constantly greeted and refreshed as by the flux of sparkling streams.
Surely joy is the condition of life. Think of the young fry that leap
in ponds, the myriads of insects ushered into being on a summer
evening, the incessant note of the hyla with which the woods ring in
the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly carrying accident and
change painted in a thousand hues upon its wings, or the brook minnow
stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of whose scales worn bright by
the attrition is reflected upon the bank.
We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which
is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the
universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth’s
axle; but if a man sleep soundly, he will forget it all between sunset
and dawn. It is the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cupboard, which
the great pulse of nature vibrates by and through each instant. When we
lift our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears with smoke and rattle
like the cars on a railroad. When I detect a beauty in any of the
recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in
which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a
life,—how silent and unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses
must be considered from the holiest, quietest nook. What an admirable
training is science for the more active warfare of life. Indeed, the
unchallenged bravery, which these studies imply, is far more impressive
than the trumpeted valor of the warrior. I am pleased to learn that
Thales was up and stirring by night not unfrequently, as his
astronomical discoveries prove. Linnaeus, setting out for Lapland,
surveys his “comb” and “spare shirt,” “leathern breeches” and “gauze
cap to keep off gnats,” with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of
artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is
admirable. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird, quadruped and
biped. Science is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and
danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry,
she calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of
arts that follow in her train. But cowardice is unscientific; for there
cannot be a science of ignorance. There may be a science of bravery,
for that advances; but a retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is,
then is it an orderly advance in the face of circumstances.
But to draw a little nearer to our promised topics. Entomology extends
the limits of being in a new direction, so that I walk in nature with a
sense of greater space and freedom. It suggests besides, that the
universe is not rough-hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will
bear the closest inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with
the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. She has no
interstices; every part is full of life. I explore, too, with pleasure,
the sources of the myriad sounds which crowd the summer noon, and which
seem the very grain and stuff of which eternity is made. Who does not
remember the shrill roll-call of the harvest fly? There were ears for
these sounds in Greece long ago, as Anacreon’s ode will show.
“We pronounce thee happy, Cicada,
For on the tops of the trees,
Drinking a little dew,
Like any king thou singest,
For thine are they all,
Whatever thou seest in the fields,
And whatever the woods bear.
Thou art the friend of the husbandmen,
In no respect injuring any one;
And thou art honored among men,
Sweet prophet of summer.
The Muses love thee,
And Phoebus himself loves thee,
And has given thee a shrill song;
Age does not wrack thee,
Thou skilful, earthborn, song-loving,
Unsuffering, bloodless one;
Almost thou art like the gods.”
In the autumn days, the creaking of crickets is heard at noon over all
the land, and as in summer they are heard chiefly at nightfall, so then
by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of the year. Nor can
all the vanities that vex the world alter one whit the measure that
night has chosen. Every pulse-beat is in exact time with the cricket’s
chant and the tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate with
these if you can.
About two hundred and eighty birds either reside permanently in the
State, or spend the summer only, or make us a passing visit. Those
which spend the winter with us have obtained our warmest sympathy. The
nut-hatch and chicadee 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[2] and lark lurking by warm springs in the woods; the
familiar snow-bird 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