HARD SHELL CONSIDERATIONS.
The plumage of the robin red-breast, the mottled sides of the Saranac
trout, the upholstery of a spider's web, the waist of the wasp fashionably
small without tight lacing, the lustrous eye of the gazelle, the ganglia of
the star-fish, have been discoursed upon; but it is left to us, fagged out
from a long ramble, to sit down on a log and celebrate the admirable
qualities of a turtle. We refer not to the curious architecture of its
house--ribbed, plated, jointed, carapace and plastron divinely
fashioned--but to its instincts, worthy almost of being called mental and
moral qualities.
The tortoise is wiser than many people we wot of, in the fact that he knows
when to keep his head in his shell. No sooner did we just now appear on the
edge of the wood than this animal of the order Testudinata modestly
withdrew. He knew he was no match for us. But how many of the human race
are in the habit of projecting their heads into things for which they have
no fittedness! They thrust themselves into discussions where they are
almost sure to get trod on. They will dispute about vertebrae with Cuvier,
or metaphysics with William Hamilton, or paintings with Ruskin, or medicine
with Doctor Rush, and attempt to sting Professor Jaeger to death with his
own insects. The first and last important lesson for such persons to learn
is, like this animal at our foot, to shut up their shell. If they could see
how, in the case of this roadside tortoise, at our appearance the carapace
suddenly came down on the plastron, or, in other words, how the upper bone
snapped against the lower bone, they might become as wise as this reptile.
We admire also the turtle's capacity of being at home everywhere. He
carries with him his parlor, nursery, kitchen, bed-chamber and bathroom.
Would that we all had an equal faculty of domestication! In such a
beautiful world, and with so many comfortable surroundings, we ought to
feel at home in any place we are called to be. While we cannot, like the
tortoise, carry our house on our back, we are better off than he, for by
the right culture of a contented spirit we may make the sky itself the
mottled shell of our residence, and the horizon all around us shall be the
place where the carapace shuts down on the plastron.
We admire still more the tortoise's determination to right itself. By way
of experiment, turn it upside down, and then go off a piece to see it
regain its position. Now, there is nothing when put upon its back which has
such little prospect of getting to its feet again as this animal. It has no
hands to push with and nothing against which to brace its feet, and one
would think that a turtle once upside down would be upside down for ever.
But put on its back, it keeps on scrabbling till it is right side up. We
would like to pick up this animal from the dust and put it down on
Broadway, if men passing by would learn from it never to stop exertion,
even when overthrown. You cannot by commercial disasters be more thoroughly
flat on your back than five minutes ago was this poor thing; but see it
yonder nimbly making for the bushes. Vanderbilt or Jay Gould may treat you
as we did the tortoise a few moments ago. But do not lie still,
discouraged. Make an effort to get up. Throw your feet out, first in one
direction and then in another. Scrabble!
We find from this day's roadside observation that the turtle uses its head
before it does its feet: in other words, it looks around before it moves.
You never catch a turtle doing anything without previous careful
inspection. We would, all of us, do better if we always looked before we
leaped. It is easier to get into trouble than to get out. Better have goods
weighed before we buy them. Better know where a road comes out before we
start on it. We caught one hundred flies in our sitting-room yesterday
because they sacrificed all their caution to a love of molasses. Better use
your brain before you do your hands and feet. Before starting, the turtle
always sticks its head out of its shell.
But tortoises die. They sometimes last two hundred years. We read that one
of them outlived seven bishops. They have a quiet life and no wear and tear
upon their nervous system. Yet they, after a while, notwithstanding all
their glow travel, reach the end of their journey. For the last time they
draw their head inside their shell and shut out the world for ever. But
notwithstanding the useful thoughts they suggest while living, they are of
still more worth when dead. We fashion their bodies into soup and their
carapace into combs for the hair, and tinged drops for the ear, and
bracelets for the wrist. One of Delmonico's soup tureens is waiting for the
hero we celebrate, and Tiffany for his eight plates of bone. Will we be as
useful after we are dead? Some men are thrown aside like a turtle-shell
crushed by a cart-wheel; but others, by deeds done or words spoken, are
useful long after they quit life, their example an encouragement, their
memory a banquet. He who helps build an asylum or gives healthful and
cultured starting to a young man may twenty years after his decease be
doing more for the world than during his residence upon it. Stephen Girard
and George Peabody are of more use to the race than when Philadelphia and
London saw them.
But we must get up off this log, for the ante are crawling over us, and the
bull-frogs croak as though the night were coming on. The evening star hangs
its lantern at the door of the night to light the tired day to rest. The
wild roses in the thicket are breathing vespers at an altar cushioned with
moss, while the fire-flies are kindling their dim lamps in the cathedral of
the woods. The evening dew on strings of fern is counting its beads in
prayer. The "Whip-poor-will" takes up its notes of complaint, making us
wonder on our way home what "Will" it was that in boyhood maltreated the
ancestors of this species of birds, whether William Wordsworth, or William
Cowper, or William Shakspeare, so that the feathered descendants keep
through all the forests, year after year, demanding for the cruel
perpetrator a sound threshing, forgetting the Bryant that praised them and
the Tennyson that petted them and the Jean Ingelow who throws them crumbs,
in their anxiety to have some one whip poor Will.