Trees! Think of them! In the United States thirty-six varieties of oak,
thirty-four of pine, nine of fir, five of spruce, four of hemlock,
two of persimmon, twelve of ash, eighteen of willow, nine of poplar,
and I don't know how many of the beautiful beech. I once counted over
thirty different varieties of trees in the space of one acre. And the
leaves--their number, their individuality, their variety of shape and
tint, the acres of space that those of one great tree would cover if
spread out and laid together! In the autumn to watch them fall--how
slowly, how rapidly! Yet they say nobody ever saw one of them let go.
Homer's comparison to the lives of men--how fine! Better than Lucian's
to the bubbles. I remember very well one October day in Ohio. It was
long ago--"in life's morning march, when my bosom was young." (I like
to quote from that poem of Campbell's, it is incomparable of its kind.)
A delightful tramp! Elderberries. (The great Boerhaave held the elder
in such pleasant reverence for the multitude of its virtues, that he
is said to have taken off his hat whenever he passed it.) Grapes.
Haws. Pawpaws. (Nature's custard.) Spicewood. Sassafras. Hickory nuts.
Nearly a primeval forest. Vines reminding one of Brazilian creepers.
Trees that were respectable saplings when Columbus landed. The dead
roots of an iron-wood--so like a monster as to startle. Behemoth I
thought of. "He moveth his tail like a cedar.' Thistle-down. Diffused
like small vices. Every seed hath wings. Here and there a jay, or a
woodpecker. Grape-vines, fantastically running over the tops of tall
bushes, grouping deformities, any one of which, if an artist drew it,
would be called an exaggeration, worse than anything of Doré's. Trees,
swaying and bowing to one another, like stilted clowns in Nature's
afterpiece of the seasons. Trees incorporated, sycamore and elm, maple
and hickory, modifying and partaking each other's nature; resembling
so much as to appear one tree. A jolly gray squirrel, hopping from
limb to limb, like a robin; swinging like an oriole; flying along the
limb like a weaver's shuttle; scared away, at length, by a scudding
cloud of pigeons, just brushing the tallest tree-tops, as if kissing
an annual farewell. Clover. Sorrel. Pennyroyal. A drink of cider from
a bit of broken crockery. ("Does he not drink more sweetly that takes
his beverage in an earthen vessel than he that looks and searches into
his golden chalices for fear of poison, and sleeps in armor, and trusts
nobody, and does not trust God for his safety?") "All is fair--all is
glad--from grass to sun!" Not a "melancholy" day. Keats' poem on Autumn
comes to mind; and Crabbe's
"Welcome pure thoughts, welcome, ye silent groves;
These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves."
Indian summer. Balzac's comparison to ripe womanhood. The significant
worn walk round the mean man's field; its crooked outline impressively
striking. All in all, a white day. Memory of it supplies these notes.
They might be expanded into an essay. The country, the country!
Though the man who would truly relish and enjoy it must be previously
furnished with a large and various stock of ideas, which he must be
capable of turning over in his own mind, of comparing, varying, and
contemplating upon with pleasure; he must so thoroughly have seen the
world as to cure him of being over fond of it; and he must have so much
good sense and virtue in his own heart as to prevent him from being
disgusted with his own reflections, or uneasy in his own company. Alas!
Footnote:
[A] By permission.
[Illustration: GOPHER.
5/6 Life-size.
FROM COL. F. KAEMPFER.
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO.
COPYRIGHT 1900, BY
NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]