Outdoor studies. Poems

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Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

WORKS. Newly arranged. 7 vols. 12mo, each, $2.00.

1, CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS.

z. CONTEMPORARIES.

3. Army LiFg In a BLAck REGIMENT.

4. WoMEN AND THE ALPHABET.

5. STupIES IN ROMANCE.

6, OuTpoor STupigs; AND Poems.

7. Stupigs tn History AND LETTERS.
TRAVELLERS AND OUTLAWS. 16mo, $1.50.
OLDPORT DAYS. 16mo, $1.50.

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. $1.25.

THE AFTERNOON LANDSCAPE. Poems and
Translations. $1.00.

THE MONARCH OF DREAMS. 18mo, so cents.

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 4to, paper, 25 cents.

MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. In the American
Men of Letters Series. 16mo, $1.50.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. In American Men of
Letters Series. (/7 preparation.)

EDITED WITH MRS. E. H. BIGELOW.
AMERICAN SONNETS. 18mo, $1.25.

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
Boston AND New York.

THE WRITINGS OF

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

VOLUME VI

OUTDOOR STUDIES
POEMS

BY

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

Che Riversioe Presa}

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Che Vivergide Press, Cambridge
ia Ss

+

AiAN54%7Y4

COPYRIGHT, 1889 AND 1900, BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY LEE & SHEPARD
COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFATORY NOTE

THE prose essays in this volume were writ-
ten, with hardly an exception, while the author
was a resident of Worcester, Massachusetts,
and were published originally in the “ Atlantic
Monthly” magazine. They were reprinted, in
part, in a volume called “ Outdoor Papers,” and
some of them in an illustrated volume entitled
“In a Fair Country,” with illustrations by Miss
Trene E. Jerome, and again in a volume called
“The Procession of the Flowers, and Other
Essays,” with a frontispiece by Mrs. Arthur B.
Marsh.

The poems, on the other hand, were written
during a long series of years and in many differ-
ent places. Most of them have been previously
published, either in a volume called “The After-
noon Landscape” or in one entitled “Such as
They Are.”

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 5, 1900.

CONTENTS

PAGE

OUTDOOR STUDIES
I. SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES F . e é I
II. THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS . ° 29
Ill. APRIL DAYS . . . - . ‘i : - 55
IV. WATER-LILIES . ‘ P 2 s - ‘< 84
Vv. A SUMMER AFTERNOON . : . i . 12
VI. THE LIFE OF BIRDS . : é ‘ : : 137
VII. SNOW. . : - : : 3 5 - 164
VIII, FOOTPATHS s E 3 ‘ ‘ ° % 204,
IX. A SHADOW . $ Fi i . . é - 227
X. A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES . 3 : 249
XI. FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE . ‘ . . 270

POEMS
[A few of these poems are by other hands, and are designated
by initials.]

PRELUDE . F . ; ‘ so 8 - + 329
THE TRUMPETER . - F 7 4 7 ; 330
SONNET TO DUTY ‘i . o -& i we 2331
A JAR OF ROSE-LEAVES . S - : s - 332
SUB PONDERE CRESCIT . : . : . ~ 333
THE PLAYMATE HOURS . . 5 a ‘ ‘ 334
THE BABY SORCERESS os ss 3 : ‘: - 335
HEIRS OF TIME . «© . «© «© «© + 336
SIXTY AND SIX: OR A FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH . « 337
“SINCE CLEOPATRA DIED” . . . . : 339
THE SOUL OF A BUTTERFLY . . : F - 339
DECORATION . ‘ a : ‘ ‘ ‘ - 340

“THE SNOWING OF THE PINES” . . . » 342

vi CONTENTS

THE LESSON OF THE LEAVES
VESTIS ANGELICA ‘ .
TO MY SHADOW. ‘ “
TWO VOYAGES . ‘ a
SEA-GULLS AT FRESH POND .
THE DYING HOUSE . .
A SONG OF DAYS . F é
TREASURE IN HEAVEN 3
BENEATH THE VIOLETS . .
“THE KNOCK ALPHABET ”
THE REED IMMORTAL . a
DAME CRAIGIE . é ‘i
GIFTS 3 3 - ;
DWELLING-PLACES r ‘
TO THE MEMORY OF H.H. .
VENUS MULTIFORMIS . ;

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

WAITING FOR THE BUGLE.
ASTRA CASTRA % * ‘
MEMORIAL ODE . 7 fs
SERENADE BY THE SEA . é
THE FROZEN CASCADE ;
THE THINGS I MISS ‘ ‘i
AN EGYPTIAN BANQUET .
AN AMERICAN STONEHENGE
THE HORIZON LINE

THE FAIRY COURSERS . F
RABIAH’S DEFENCE . %
THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE S
THE SLEEPING-CAR . ‘
NEMESIS . é ‘ F :
MAB’S PONIES . - .
THE MONK OF LA TRAPPE .

343
344
345
346
347
348
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
358
359
360
361
362
366
367
368
369
370
371
371
372
376
377
377
378
379

CONTENTS

ODE TO A BUTTERFLY
THE TWO LESSONS .
CROSSED SWORDS
AN OUTDOOR KINDERGARTEN

DIRGE .

THE MADONNA DI SAN SISTO

.

POEMS FROM “THALATTA”
THE FEBRUARY HUSH

JUNE .
HYMNS.

SAPPHO’S ODE TO APHRODITE

FORWARD .

NATURE’S CRADLE SONG

SONNETS FROM CAMOENS

INDEX .

OUTDOOR STUDIES

I
SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES

EVER since the time of that dyspeptic heathen,
Plotinus, the saints have been “ashamed of
their bodies.” What is worse, they have usually
had reason for the shame. Of the four famous
Latin fathers, Jerome describes his own limbs
as misshapen, his skin as squalid, his bones as
scarcely holding together; while Gregory the
Great speaks in his Epistles of his own large
size, as contrasted with his weakness and infirm-
ities. Three of the four Greek fathers —
Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory Nazianzen —
ruined their health early, and were invalids for
the remainder of their days. Three only of the
whole eight were able-bodied men, — Ambrose,
Augustine, and Athanasius ; and the permanent
influence of these three has been far greater,
for good or for evil, than that of all the others
put together.

Robust military saints there have doubtless

2 OUTDOOR STUDIES

been in the Roman Catholic Church: George,
Michael, Sebastian, Eustace, Martin, Hubert the
Hunter, and Christopher the Christian Her-
cules. But these have always held a very
secondary place in canonization. Maurice and
his whole Theban legion also were sainted to-
gether, to the number of six thousand six hun-
dred and sixty-six ; doubtless they were stalwart
men, but there never yet has been a chapel
erected to one of them. The medizval type of
sanctity was a strong soul in a weak body; and
it could be intensified either by strengthening
the one or by further debilitating the other.
The glory lay in contrast, not in combination.
Yet, to do them justice, they conceded a strong
and stately beauty to their female saints, —
Catherine, Agnes, Agatha, Barbara, Cecilia, and
the rest. It was reserved for the modern Pre-
Raphaelites to attempt the combination of a
maximum of saintliness with a minimum of pul-
monary and digestive capacity.

But, indeed, from that earlier day to this, the
saints by spiritual laws have usually been sin-
ners against physical laws, and the artists have
merely followed the examples they found.
Vasari records, that Carotto’s masterpiece of
painting, “The Three Archangels,” at Verona,
was criticised because the limbs of the angels
were too slender, and Carotto, true to his con-

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 3

ventional standard, replied, “ Then they will fly
the better.” Saints have been flying to heaven,
for the same reason, ever since, — and have com-
monly flown young.

Indeed, the earlier some such saints cast off
their bodies the better, they make so little use
of them. Chittagutta, the Buddhist recluse,
dwelt in a cave in Ceylon. His devout visitors
one day remarked on the miraculous beauty of
the legendary paintings, representing scenes
from the life of Buddha, which adorned the
walls, The holy man informed them that, dur-
ing his sixty years’ residence in the cave, he had
been too much absorbed in meditation to notice
the existence of the paintings, but he would
take their word for it. And in this non-inter-
course with the visible world there has been an
apostolical succession, extending from Chitta-
guttadown to the Andover divinity student who
refused to join his companions in their admir-
ing gaze on that wonderful autumnal landscape
which spreads itself before the Seminary Hill
in October; but marched back into the library,
ejaculating, “ Lord, turn thou mine eyes from
beholding vanity !”

It is to be reluctantly recorded, in fact, that
the Protestant saints have not ordinarily had
much to boast of, in physical stamina, as com-
pared with the Roman Catholic. They have not

4 OUTDOOR STUDIES

got far beyond Plotinus. It is scarcely worth
while to quote Calvin on this point, for he, as
everybody knows, was an invalid for his whole
lifetime. But it does seem hard that the jovial
Luther, in the midst of his ale and skittles,
should have deliberately censured Juvenal’s
mens sana in corpore sano, aS a pagan maxim.
If Saint Luther fails us, where are the advo-
cates of the body to look for comfort ? Nothing
this side of ancient Greece, it is to be feared,
will afford adequate examples of the union of
saintly souls and strong bodies. Pythagoras the
sage may or may not have been identical with
Pythagoras the inventor of pugilism, and he was,
at any rate, — in the loving words of Bentley, —
“a lusty proper man, and built, as it were, to
make a good boxer.” Cleanthes, whose sublime
“Prayer” is, doubtless, the highest strain left
of early piety, was a boxer likewise. Plato wasa
famous wrestler, and Socrates was unequalled
for his military endurance. Nor was one of
these, like their puny follower Plotinus, too
weak-sighted to revise his own manuscripts.

It would be tedious to analyze the causes of
this modern deterioration of the saints. The
fact is clear. There is in the community an im-
pression that physical vigor and spiritual sanc-
tity are incompatible. New England ecclesias-
tical history records that a young Orthodox

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 5

divine lost his parish by swimming the Merri-
mack River, and that another was compelled to
ask a dismissal in consequence of vanquishing
his most influential parishioner in a game of ten-
pins ; it seemed to the beaten party very uncleri-
cal. The writer further remembers a match, in
a certain seaside bowling-alley, in which two
brothers, young divines, took part. The sides
being made up, with the exception of these two
players, it was necessary to find places for them
also. The head of one side accordingly picked his
man, on the avowed presumption that the best
preacher would naturally be the worst bowler.
The athletic capacity, he thought, would be in
inverse ratio to the sanctity. It is a satisfaction
to add, that in this case his hopes were signally
disappointed ; but it shows which way the pop-
ular impression lies.

The poets have probably assisted in maintain-
ing the delusion. How many cases of consump-
tion Wordsworth must have accelerated by his
assertion that “the good die first”! Happily he
lived to disprove his own maxim. Professor
Peirce has proved by statistics that the best
scholars in our colleges survive the rest ; and
virtue, like intellect, doubtless tends to longev-
ity. The experience of the literary class shows
that all excess is destructive, and that we need
the harmonious action of all the faculties. Of

6 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the brilliant roll of the “ young men of 1830,”
in Paris, — Balzac, Soulié, De Musset, De Ber-
nard, Sue, and their compeers, — nearly every
one perished in the prime of life. What is the
explanation? A stern one: opium, tobacco,
wine, and licentiousness. ‘All died of soften-
ing of the brain or spinal marrow, or swelling of
the heart.”” No doubt many of the noble and
the pure were dying prematurely at the same
time; but it proceeded from the same essential
cause: physical laws disobeyed and bodies ex-.
hausted. The evil is that what in the debauchee
is condemned as suicide, is lauded in the devo-
tee as saintship. The delirium tremens of the
drunkard conveys scarcely a sterner moral lesson
than the second childishness of the pure and
abstemious Southey.

But, happily, times change, and saints with
them. Our moral conceptions are expanding
to take in that “athletic virtue” of the Greeks,
dpery yupvaorixy, which Dr. Arnold, by precept
and practice, defended. It is good news, for
certainly this is as it should be. One of the
most potent causes of the ill-concealed aliena-
tion between the clergy and the people, in our
community, has been the supposed deficiency,
on the part of the former, of a vigorous, manly
life. There is a certain moral and physical
anhemia, a bloodlessness, which separates most

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 7

of our saints, more effectually than a cloister,
from the strong life of the age. What satirists
upon religion are those parents who say of their
pallid, puny, sedentary, lifeless, joyless little
offspring, “He is born for a minister ;” while
the ruddy, the brave, and the strong are as
promptly assigned to a secular career! Never
yet did an ill-starred young saint waste his
Saturday afternoons in preaching sermons in
the garret to his deluded little sisters and their
dolls, without living to repent it in maturity.
These precocious little sentimentalists wither
away like blanched potato-plants in a cellar;
and then comes some vigorous youth from his
outdoor work or play, and grasps the rudder of
the age, as he grasped the oar, the bat, or the
plough.

Everybody admires the physical training of
military and naval schools, But these same
persons never seem to imagine that the body
is worth cultivating for any purpose, except to
annihilate the bodies of others. Yet it needs
more training to preserve life than to destroy
it. The vocation of a literary man is far more
perilous than that of a frontier dragoon. The
latter dies at most but once, by an Indian bul-
let ; the former dies daily, unless he is warned
in time, and takes occasional refuge in the sad-
dle and the prairie with the dragoon. What

8 OUTDOOR STUDIES

battle-piece is so pathetic as Browning’s “ Gram-
marian’s Funeral”? Do not waste your gym-
nastics on the West Point or Annapolis stu-
dent, whose whole life will be one of active
exercise, but bring them into the professional
schools and the counting-rooms. Whatever
may be the exceptional cases, the stern truth
remains, that the great deeds of the world can
be more easily done by illiterate men than by
sickly ones. Wisely said Horace Mann, “All
through the life of a pure-minded but feeble-
bodied man, his path is lined with memory’s
gravestones, which mark the spots where noble
enterprises perished, for lack of physical vigor
to embody them in deeds.” And yet more
finely it has been said by a younger American
thinker, Wasson, “Intellect in a weak body is
like gold in a spent swimmer’s pocket, — the
richer he would be, under other circumstances,
by so much the greater his danger now.”

Of course, the mind has immense control
over physical endurance, and every one knows
that among soldiers, sailors, emigrants, and
woodsmen, the leaders, though more delicately
nurtured, will often endure hardship better
than the followers, — “ because,” says Sir Philip
Sidney, “they are supported by the great appe-
tites of honor.” But for all these triumphs of
nervous power a reaction lies in store, as in the

SAINTS, AND: THEIR BODIES 9

case of the superhuman efforts often made by
delicate women. And besides, there is a point
beyond which no mental heroism can ignore
the body,—as, for instance, in sea-sickness
and toothache. Can virtue arrest consumption,
or self-devotion set free the agonized breath of
asthma, or heroic energy defy paralysis? More
formidable still are those subtle influences of
disease which cannot be resisted because their
source is unseen. Voltaire declared that the
fate of a nation had often depended on the
good or bad digestion of a prime minister ; and
Motley holds that the gout of Charles V.
changed the destinies of the world.

But part of the religious press still clings
to the objection, that admiration of physical
strength belonged to the barbarous ages of the
world. So it certainly did, and thus the race
was kept alive through those ages. They had
that one merit, at least; and so surely as an
exclusively intellectual civilization ignored it,
the arm of some robust barbarian prostrated
that civilization at last. What Sismondi says
of courage is preéminently true of that bodily
vigor which it usually presupposes: it is by
no means the first of virtues, but its loss is
more fatal than that of all others, “Were it
possible to unite the advantages of a perfect
government with the cowardice of a whole

Io OUTDOOR STUDIES

people, those advantages would be utterly val-
ueless, since they would be utterly without se-
curity.”

Physical health is a necessary condition of
all permanent success. To the American peo-
ple it has a stupendous importance, because it
is the only attribute of power in which they
are said to be losing ground. Guarantee us
against physical degeneracy, and we can risk
all other perils, — financial crises, Slavery,
Romanism, Mormonism, Border Ruffians, and
New York assassins ; “ domestic malice, foreign
levy, nothing” can daunt us. Guarantee to
Americans health, and Mrs. Stowe cannot
frighten them with all the prophecies of Dred;
but when her sister Catherine informs us that
in all the vast female acquaintance of the
Beecher family there are not a dozen healthy
women, one is a little tempted to despair of the
republic.

The one drawback upon our public-school
system has been the physical weakness which
it revealed and perhaps helps to perpetuate.
One seldom notices a ruddy face in the school-
room without tracing it back to a Transatlantic
origin. The teacher of a large school in Can-
ada went so far as to declare to me that she
could recognize the children born this side the
line by their invariable appearance of compara-

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES ¥H

tive ill-health joined with intellectual precocity,
— stamina wanting, and the place supplied by
equations. Look at a class of boys or girls
in our grammar schools; a glance along the
line of their backs sometimes affords a study
of geometrical curves. You almost long to re-
verse the position of their heads, as Dante has
those of the false prophets, and thus improve
their figures; the rounded shoulders affording
a vigorous chest, and the hollow chest an ex-
cellent back.

There are statistics to show that the average
length of human life is increasing; and facts
to indicate a development of size and strength
with advancing civilization. Indeed, it is gen-
erally supposed that any physical deterioration
is local, being peculiar to the United States.
But the “Englishwoman’s Journal” asserts
that “it is allowed by all, that the appearance
of the English peasant, in the present day, is
very different to [from] what it was fifty years
ago; the robust, healthy, hard-looking country-
woman or girl is as rare now as the pale, deli-
cate, nervous female of our times would have
been a century ago.” And the writer proceeds
to give alarming illustrations, based upon the
appearance of children in English schools, both
in city and country.

All this may be met by the alleged distinction

12 OUTDOOR STUDIES

between a good idle constitution and a good
working constitution, —since the latter often
belongs to persons who make no show of physi-
cal powers. But this only means that there are
different temperaments and types of physical
organization, while within the limits of each
the distinction between a healthy and a dis-
eased condition still holds; and it is that alone
which is essential.

More specious is the claim of the Fourth-of-
July orators, that, health or no health, it is the
sallow Americans, and not the robust English,
who are really leading the world. But this,
again, is a question of temperaments. The
Englishman concedes the greater intensity, but
prefers a more solid and permanent power. He
justly sets the noble masonry and vast canals
of Montreal against the Aladdin’s palaces of
Chicago. “I observe,” admits the Englishman,
“that an American can accomplish more, at a
single effort, than any other man on earth ; but
T also observe that he exhausts himself in the
achievement. Kane, a delicate invalid, astounds
the world by his two Arctic winters, — and
then dies in tropical Cuba.” The solution is
simple; nervous energy is grand, and so is
muscular power; combine the two, and you
move the world.

One may assume as admitted, therefore, the

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 13

deficiency of physical health in America, and
the need of a great amendment. Into the gen-
eral question of cause and cure it is not here
needful to enter. In view of the vast variety
of special theories, and the inadequacy of any
one,—or any dozen, —it is wiser to forbear.
Perhaps the best diagnosis. of the common
American disease is to be found in Andral’s
famous description of the cholera: “ Anatomi-
cal characteristics, insufficient ;—-cause, mys-
terious ;— nature, hypothetical ;— symptoms,
characteristic ; diagnosis, easy ; — ¢veatment,
very doubtful.”

A great physician has said, “I know not
which is most indispensable for the support of
the frame, — food or exercise.” But who in
this community réally takes exercise? Even
the mechanic commonly confines himself to one
set of muscles; the blacksmith acquires strength
in his right arm, and the dancing-master in his
left leg. But the professional or business man,
what muscles has he at all? The tradition,
that Phidippides ran from Athens to Sparta,
one hundred and twenty miles, in two days,
seems to us Americans as mythical as the
Golden Fleece. Even to ride sixty miles in a
day, to walk thirty, to run five, or to swim one,
would cost most men among us a fit of illness,
and some their lives. Let any man test his

14 OUTDOOR STUDIES

physical condition, either, if he likes work, by
sawing his own cord of wood, or, if he prefers
play, by an hour in the gymnasium or at cricket,
and his enfeebled muscular apparatus will groan
with rheumatism for a week. Or let him test
the strength of his arms and chest by raising
and lowering himself a few times upon a hori-
zontal bar, or hanging by the arms to a rope,
and he will probably agree with Galen in pro-
nouncing it vobustum validumgue laborem.
Yet so manifestly are these things within the
reach of common constitutions, that a few weeks
or months of judicious practice will renovate his
whole system, and the most vigorous exercise
will refresh him like a cold bath.

To a well-regulated frame, mere physical
exertion, even for an uninteresting object, is a
great enjoyment, which is, of course, increased
by the excitement of games and sports. To
almost every man there is joy in the memory of
these things ; they are the happiest associations
of his boyhood. It does not occur to him that
he also might be as happy as a child if he lived
more like one. What do most men know of
the “wild joys of living,” the daily zest and
luxury of outdoor existence, in which every
healthy boy beside them revels ?— skating,
while the orange sky of sunset dies away over
the delicate tracery of gray branches, and the

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 15

throbbing feet pause in their tingling motion,
and the frosty air is filled with the shrill sound
of distant steel, the resounding of the ice, and
the echoes up the hillsides ? — or sailing, beating
up against a stiff breeze, with the waves thump-
ing under the bow, as if a dozen sea-gods had
laid their heads together to resist it ?— or climb-
ing tall trees, where the higher foliage, closing
around, cures the dizziness which began below,
and one feels as if he had left a coward beneath
and found a hero above ?—or the joyous hour
of crowded life in football or cricket ?— or the
gallant glories of riding, and the jubilee of
swimming ?

It is safe to cling still to the belief that the
Persian curriculum of studies — to ride, to shoot,
and to speak the truth —is the better part of
a boy’s education. As the urchin is undoubt-
edly physically safer for having learned to turna
somerset and fire a gun, perilous though these
feats appear to mothers, so his soul is made
healthier, larger, freer, stronger, by hours and
days of manly exercise and copious draughts of
open air, at whatever risk of idle habits and
bad companions. Even if the balance is some-
times lost, and play prevails, what matter? It
was a pupil of William Wells who wrote

“The hours the idle schoolboy squandered
The man would die ere he’d forget.”

16 OUTDOOR STUDIES

When will parents and teachers learn to regard
mental precocity as a disaster to be shunned,
instead of a glory to be coveted? “Nature,”
says Tissot, in his “Essay on the Health of
Men of Letters,” “is unable successfully to
carry on two rapid processes at the same time.
We attempt a prodigy, and the result is a fool.”
There was a child in Languedoc who at six
years was of the size of a large man; of course
his mind was a vacuum. On the other hand,
Jean Philippe Baratier was a learned man in his
eighth year, and died of apparent old age at
twenty. Both were monstrosities, and a healthy
childhood would be equidistant from either.
One invaluable merit of outdoor sports is to
be found in this, that they afford the best
cement for childish friendship. Their associa-
tions outlive all others. There is many a man,
now perchance hard and worldly, whom one
loves to pass in the street simply because in
meeting him one meets spring flowers and
autumn chestnuts, skates and cricket-balls,
cherry-birds and pickerel. There is an inde-
scribable fascination in the gradual transference
of these childish companionships into maturer
relations. It is pleasant to encounter in the
contests of manhood those whom one first met
at football, and to follow the profound thoughts
of those who always dived deeper, even in the

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 17

river, than one’s own efforts could attain. There
is a certain governor, of whom I personally can
remember only that he found the Fresh Pond
heronry, which I vainly sought ; and in memory
the august sheriff of a neighboring county still
skates in victorious pursuit of me, — fit emblem
of swift-footed justice !—-on the black ice of
the same once lovely lake. My imagination
crowns the Cambridge poet, and the Cambridge
sculptor, not with their later laurels, but with
the willows out of which they taught me to
carve whistles, shriller than any trump of fame,
in the happy days when Mount Auburn was
Sweet Auburn still.

Luckily, boy-nature is too strong for theory.
And truth demands the admission, that physi-
cal education is not so entirely neglected among
us as the scarcity of popular games would in-
dicate. It is very possible that this last fact
proceeds partly from the greater freedom of
field-sports in this country. There are few
New England boys who do not become familiar
with the rod or gun in childhood. Perhaps, in.
the mother country, the monopoly of land in-
terferes with this, and thus game laws, bya sort
of spontaneous pun, tend to introduce games.

But, so far as there is a deficiency in these
respects among us, this generation must not
shrink from the responsibility. It is unfair to

18 OUTDOOR STUDIES

charge it on the Puritans. They are not even
answerable for Massachusetts ; for there is no
doubt that athletic exercises, of some sort, were
far more generally practised in this community
before the Revolution than at present. A state
of almost constant Indian warfare then created
an obvious demand for muscle and agility. At
present there is no such immediate necessity,
and it has been supposed that a race of shop-
keepers, brokers, and lawyers could live with-
out bodies. Now that the terrible records of
dyspepsia and paralysis are disproving this, one
may hope for a reaction in favor of bodily exer-
cises. When we once begin the competition,
there seems no reason why any other nation
should surpass us. The wide area of our coun-
try, and its variety of surface and shore, offer a
corresponding range of physical training. Con-
trast our various aquatic opportunities, for in-
stance. It is one thing to steer a pleasure-
boat with a rudder, and another to steer a dory
with an oar; one thing to paddle a birch canoe,
and another to paddle a ducking float; in a
Charles River club-boat, the post of honor is in
the stern, —in a Penobscot Jateau, in the bow;
and each of these experiences educates a differ-
ent set of muscles. Add to this the constitu-
tional American receptiveness, which welcomes
new pursuits without distinction of origin, —

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 19

unites German gymnastics with English sports
and sparring, and takes the red Indians for in-
structors in paddling and running. With these
various aptitudes, we certainly ought to become
a nation of athletes.

Thus it is that, in one way or another, Ameri-
can schoolboys obtain active exercise. Thesame
is true, in a very limited degree, even of girls.
They are occasionally, in our larger cities, sent
to gymnasiums, —the more the better. Dan-
cing-schools are better than nothing, though
all the attendant circumstances are usually un-
favorable. A fashionable young lady is esti-
mated to traverse her three hundred miles a
season on foot ; and this implies training. But
outdoor exercise for girls is even now restricted,
first by their costume, and secondly by the
social proprieties. All young female animals
unquestionably require as much motion as their
brothers, and naturally make as much noise:
but what mother would not be shocked, in the
case of her girl of twelve, by one half the activ-
ity and uproar which are recognized as being
the breath of life to her twin brother ?

It is beyond question, that far more outdoor
exercise is habitually taken by the female popu-
lation of almost all European countries than by
our own. In the first place, the peasant women
of those countries are trained to field labor from

20 OUTDOOR STUDIES

childhood; and among the higher classes sys-
tematic training takes the place of these things.
Miss Beecher glowingly describes a Russian
female seminary, in which nine hundred girls
of the noblest families were being trained by
Ling’s system of calisthenics, and her inform-
ant declared that she never beheld such an
array of girlish health and beauty. English-
women, again, have horsemanship and pedes-
trianism, in which their ordinary feats appear to
our healthy women incredible. Thus, Mary
Lamb writes to Miss Wordsworth, — both ladies
being between fifty and sixty, — “You say you
can walk fifteen miles with ease; that is exactly
my stint, and more fatigues me;” and then
speaks pityingly of a delicate lady who could
accomplish only “four or five miles every third
or fourth day, keeping very quiet between.”
How few American ladies, in the fulness of
their strength (if feminine strength among us
has any fulness), can surpass this English in-
valid !

But even among American men, how few
carry athletic habits into manhood! The great
hindrance, no doubt, is absorption in business.
But in most places there is the further obstacle,
that a certain stigma of boyishness goes with
outdoor sports. So early does this begin, that
the writer remembers, in his teens, to have been

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 21

slightly reproached with juvenility, for still
clinging to football, though a Senior Sophister.
Juvenility! He only wishes he had the op-
portunity now. Mature men are, of course,
intended to take not less but more of active
exercise than boys. Some physiologists go so
far as to demand six hours of outdoor life daily ;
and it is absurd to complain that we have not
the healthy animal happiness of children, while
we forswear their simple sources of pleasure.

Most of the exercise habitually taken by men
of sedentary pursuits is in the form of walking.
Its merits may be easily overrated. Walking
is to real exercise what vegetable food is to
animal ; it satisfies the appetite, but the nour-
ishment is not sufficiently concentrated to be
invigorating. It takes a man outdoors, and it
uses his muscles, and therefore of course it is
good; but it is not the best kind of good.
Walking, for walking’s sake, becomes tedious.
We must not ignore the play-impulse in hu-
man nature, which, according to Schiller, is
the foundation of all Art. In girls’ boarding-
schools, teachers uniformly testify to the
aversion of pupils to the prescribed walk. Give
them a sled, or a pair of skates, or a rowboat, or
put them on horseback, and they will protract
the period of exercise till the complaint is trans-
ferred to the preceptor.

22 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Gymnastic exercises have two disadvantages:
one, in being commonly performed under cover
— though this may sometimes prove an advan-
tage as well; another, in requiring apparatus,
and at first a teacher. Apart from these, per-
haps no other form of exercise is so universally
invigorating. A teacher is required, less for the
sake of stimulus than of precaution. The ten-
dency is almost always to dare too much; and
there is also need of a daily moderation in com-
mencing exercises ; for the wise pupil will always
prefer to supple his muscles by mild exercises
and calisthenics, before proceeding to harsher
performances on the bars and ladders. With
this precaution, strains are easily avoided ; even
with this, the hand will sometimes blister and
the body ache, but perseverance will cure the
one and Russia Salve the other; and the in-
vigorated life in every limb will give a perpetual
charm to those seemingly aimless leaps and
somersets. The feats once learned, a private
gymnasium can easily be constructed, of the
simplest apparatus, and so daily used; though
nothing can wholly supply the stimulus afforded
by a class in a public institution, with a compe-
tent teacher. In summer, the whole thing can
partially be dispensed with ; but it is hard for me
to imagine how any young person gets through
the winter happily without a gymnasium.

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 23

It may seem to our non-resistant friends to
be going rather far, if we should indulge our
saints in taking boxing lessons; yet it is not
long since a New York clergyman saved his
life in Broadway by the judicious administration
of a “cross-counter ” or a “flying crook,” and
we have not heard of his excommunication from
the Church Militant. No doubt, a laudable
aversion prevails, in this country, to the English
practices of pugilism; yet it must be remem-
bered that sparring is, by its very name, a
“science of self-defence;” and if a gentleman
wishes to know how to hold a rude antagonist
at bay, in any emergency, and keep out of an
undignified scuffle, the means are most easily
afforded him by the art which Pythagoras
founded. Apart from this, boxing exercises
every muscle in the body, and gives a wonder-
ful quickness to eye and hand. These same
remarks apply, though in a minor degree, to
fencing also.

Passing now to outdoor exercises, —and no
one should confine himself to indoor ones, — one
must hold with the Thalesian school, and rank
water first. Vishnu Sarma gives, in his apo-
logues, the characteristics of the fit place for a
wise man to live in, and enumerates among its
necessities first “a Rajah” and then “a river.”
Democracies can dispense with the first, but not

24 OUTDOOR STUDIES

with the second. A square mile even of pond
water is worth a year’s schooling to any intelli-
gent boy. A boat isa kingdom. I personally
own one, —a mere flat-bottomed “ float ” with a
centreboard. It has seen service, — it is eight
years old, —has spent two winters under the
ice, and has been fished in by boys every day
for as many summers. It grew at last so hope-
lessly leaky that even the boys disdained it.
It cost seven dollars originally, and I would not
sell it to-day for seventeen, except with a view
to buying another. To own the poorest boat
is better than hiring the best. It is a link to
Nature; without a boat, one is so much the
less a man.

Sailing is of course delicious ; it is as good
as flying to steer anything with wings of can-
vas, whether one stand by the wheel of a clip-
per-ship, or by the clumsy stern-oar of a “gun-
dalow.”” But rowing has also its charms; and
the Indian noiselessness of the paddle, beneath
the fringing branches of the Assabeth or Arti-
choke, puts one into Fairyland at once, and
Hiawatha’s cheemaun becomes a possible pos-
session. Rowing is peculiarly graceful and
appropriate as a feminine exercise, and any
able-bodied girl can learn to handle one light
oar at the first lesson, and two at the second.

Swimming has also a birdlike charm of mo-

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 25

tion. The novel element, the free action, the
abated drapery, give a sense of personal con-
tact with Nature which nothing else so fully
bestows. No later triumph of existence is so
fascinating, perhaps, as that in which the boy
first wins his panting way across the deep gulf
that severs one green bank from another, ten
yards, perhaps, and feels himself thenceforward
lord of the watery world. The Athenian phrase
for a man who knew nothing was that he could
“neither read nor swim.” Yet there is a vast
amount of this ignorance ; the majority of sail-
ors, it is said, cannot swim a stroke; and in a
late lake disaster, many able-bodied men per-
ished by drowning, in calm water, only half a
mile from shore. At our watering-places it is
rare to see a swimmer venture out more than a
rod or two, though this proceeds partly from
the fear of sharks, —as if sharks of the danger-
ous order were not far more afraid of the rocks
than the swimmers of being eaten. But the
fact of the timidity is unquestionable; and I
was told by a certain clerical frequenter of a
watering-place, himself an athlete, that he had
never met but two companions who would swim
boldly out with him, both being ministers, and
one a distinguished ex-president of Brown Uni-
versity. This fact must certainly be placed to
the credit of the bodies of our saints.

26 OUTDOOR STUDIES

But, after all, the secret charm of all these
sports and studies is simply this, —that they
bring us into more familiar intercourse with
Nature. They give us that vétam sub divo in
which the Roman exulted,— those outdoor
days, which, say the Arabs, are not to be reck-
oned in the length of life. Nay, to a true lover
of the open air, night beneath its curtain is as
beautiful as day. The writer has personally
camped out under a variety of auspices, — be-
fore a fire of pine logs in the forests of Maine,
beside a blaze of faya-boughs on the steep side
of a foreign volcano, and beside no fire at all —
except a possible one of Sharp’s rifles —in
that domestic volcano, Kansas ; and every such
remembrance is. worth many nights of indoor
slumber. There is never a week in the year,
nor an hour of day or night, which has not, in
the open air, its own special interest. One
need not say, with Reade’s Australians, that
the only use of a house is to sleep in the lee of
it; but one might do worse. As for rain, it is
chiefly formidable indoors. Lord Bacon used
to ride with uncovered head in a shower, and
loved “to feel the spirit of the universe upon
his brow;” and I once knew an enthusiastic
hydropathic physician who loved to expose him-
self in thunderstorms at midnight, without a
shred of earthly clothing between himself and

SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 27

the atmosphere. Some prudent persons may
possibly regard this as being rather an extreme,
while yet their own extreme of avoidance of
every breath from heaven is really the more
extravagantly unreasonable of the two.

It is easy for the sentimentalist to say, “ But
if the object is, after all, the enjoyment of
Nature, why not go and enjoy her, without any
collateral aim?” Because it is the universal
experience of man, that, if we have a collateral
aim, we enjoy her far more. He knows not
the beauty of the universe who has not learned
the subtile mystery, that Nature loves to work
on us by indirections. Astronomers say that,
when observing with the naked eye, you see a
star less clearly by looking at it than by look-
ing at the next one. Margaret Fuller’s fine
saying touches the same point, — “ Nature will
not be stared at.” Go out merely to enjoy her,
and it seems a little tame, and you begin to
suspect yourself of affectation. There are per-
sons who, after years of abstinence from ath-
-letic sports or the pursuits of the naturalist or
artist, have resumed them, simply in order to
restore to the woods and the sunsets the zest
of the old fascination. Go out under pretence
of shooting on the marshes or botanizing in the
forests ; study birds or butterflies ; go to paint
a red maple-leaf in autumn, or watch a pickerel-

28 OUTDOOR STUDIES

line in winter; meet Nature on the cricket-
ground or at the regatta; swim with her, ride
with her, run with her, and she gladly takes you
back once more within the horizon of her
magic, and your heart of manhood is born again
into more than the fresh happiness of the boy.

Nore.—This essay appeared originally in the A¢/an-
tic Monthly of March, 1858, and was thus simultaneous
with that great development of athletic exercises in the
United States which began about that time, —a ten-
dency in which this essay was credited with having had,
perhaps, some small share. Some of its more extreme
statements have therefore been modified in the present
reprint, leaving mainly what is still significant.

II
THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS

In Cuba there is a blossoming shrub whose
multitudinous crimson flowers are so seductive
to the hummingbirds that they hover all day
around it buried in its blossoms until petal and
wing seem one. At first upright, the gorgeous
bells droop downward, and fall unwithered to
the ground, and are thence called by the Cre-
oles “Cupid’s Tears.” Fredrika Bremer re-
lates that daily she brought home handfuls of
these blossoms to her chamber, and nightly
they all disappeared. One morning she looked
toward the wall of the apartment, and there, in
a long crimson line, the delicate flowers went
ascending one by one to the ceiling, and passed
from sight. She found that each was borne
laboriously onward by a little colorless ant
much smaller than itself: the bearer was in-
visible, but the lovely burdens festooned the
wall with beauty.

To a watcher from the sky, the march of the
flowers of any zone across the year would seem
as beautiful as that West Indian pageant.

30 OUTDOOR STUDIES

These frail creatures, rooted where they stand,
a part of the “still life” of Nature, yet share
her ceaseless motion. In the most sultry si-
lence of summer noons, the vital current is
coursing with desperate speed through the in-
numerable veins of every leaflet, and the appar-
ent stillness, like the sleeping of a child’s top,
is in truth the very ecstasy of perfected motion,

Not in the tropics only, but even in England,
whence most of our floral associations and
traditions come, the march of the flowers is in
an endless circle, and, unlike our experience,
something is always in bloom. In the northern
United States, it is said, the active growth of
most plants is condensed into ten weeks, while
in the mother country the full activity is main-
tained through sixteen. But even the English
winter does not seem to be a winter in the same
sense as ours, appearing more like a chilly and
comfortless autumn. There is no month in the
English year when some special plant does not
bloom : the Coltsfoot there opens its fragrant
flowers from December to February ; the yel-
low-flowered Hellebore, and its cousin, the
sacred Christmas Rose of Glastonbury, extend
from January to March; and the Snowdrop
and Primrose often come before the first of
February. Something may be gained, much
lost, by that perennial succession ; those links,

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 31

however slight, must make the floral period con-
tinuous to the imagination ; while our year gives
a pause and an interval to its children, and after
exhausted October has effloresced into Witch-
hazel, there is an absolute reserve of blossom
until the Alders wave again.

No symbol could so well represent Nature’s
first yielding in springtime as this blossoming
of the Alder, the drooping of the tresses of
these tender things. Before the frost is gone,
and while the new-born season is yet too weak
to assert itself by actually uplifting anything, it
can at least let fall these blossoms, one by one,
till they wave defiance to the winter on a thou-
sand boughs. How patiently they have waited !
Men are perplexed with anxieties about their
own immortality; but these catkins, which
hang, almost full-formed, above the ice all win-
ter, show no such solicitude, though when
March wooes them they are ready. Once re-
laxing, their pollen is so prompt to fall that it
sprinkles your hand as you gather them; then,
for one day, they are the perfection of grace
upon your table, and next day they are weary
and emaciated, and their little contribution to
the spring is done.

Then many eyes watch for the opening of
the Mayflower, day by day, and a few for the
Hepatica. So marked and fantastic are the

32 OUTDOOR STUDIES

local preferences of our native plants, that, with
miles of woods and meadows open to their
choice, each selects only some few spots for its
accustomed abodes, and some one among them
all for its very earliest blossoming. There is
often a single chosen nook, which you might
almost cover with your handkerchief, where
each flower seems to bloom earliest without
variation, year by year. I know one such place
for Hepatica a mile northeast, — another for
Mayflower two miles southwest; and each
year the whimsical creature is in bloom on that
little spot when not another flower can be found
open through the whole country round. Ac-
cidental as the choice may appear, it is un-
doubtedly based on laws more eternal than the
stars; yet why all subtle influences conspire to
bless that undistinguishable knoll no man can
say. Another and similar puzzle offers itself
in the distribution of the tints of flowers, — in
these two species among the rest. There are
certain localities, near by, where the Hepatica is
all but white, and others where the Mayflower
is sumptuous in pink; yet it is not traceable to
wet or dry, sun or shadow, and no agricultural
chemistry can disclose the secret. Is it by
some Darwinian law of selection that the white
Hepatica has utterly overpowered the blue, in
our Cascade Woods, for instance, while yet in

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 33

the very midst of this pale plantation a single
clump will sometimes bloom with all heaven on
its petals? Why can one recognize the Plym-
outh Mayflower, as soon as seen, by its won-
drous depth of color? Perhaps it blushes with
triumph to see how Nature has outwitted the
Pilgrims, and has even succeeded in preserving
her deer like an English duke, since she still
maintains the deepest woods in Massachusetts
precisely where those sturdy immigrants first
began their clearings.

The Hepatica (called also Liverwort, Squir-
rel-Cup, or Blue Anemone) has been found in
Worcester as early as March 17, and in Dan-
vers on March 12,—dates which appear al-
most the extreme of credibility. Our next
wild-flower in this region is the Claytonia, or
Spring Beauty, which is common in the Middle
States, but here found in only a few localities.
It is the Indian MW/iskodeed, and was said to
have been left behind when mighty Peboan,
the Winter, was melted by the breath of Spring.
It is an exquisitely delicate little creature, bears
its blossoms in clusters, unlike most of the
early species, and opens in gradual succession
each white and pink-veined bell. It grows in
moist places on the sunny edges of woods, and
prolongs its shy career from about the 1oth of
April until almost the end of May.

34 OUTDOOR STUDIES

A week farther into April, and the Blood-
root opens, —a name of guilt and a type of in-
nocence. This fresh and lovely thing appears
to concentrate all its stains within its ensan-
guined root, that it may condense all purity in
the peculiar whiteness of its petals. It emerges
from the ground with each shy blossom wrapped
in its own pale green leaf, then doffs the cloak
and spreads its long petals round a group of
yellow stamens. The flower falls apart so
easily that when in full bloom it will hardly
bear transportation, but with a touch the stem
stands naked, a bare, gold-tipped sceptre amid
drifts of snow. And the contradiction of its
hues seems carried into its habits. One of the
most shy of wild plants, easily banished from
its locality by any invasion, it yet takes to the
garden with unpardonable readiness, doubles
its size, blossoms earlier, repudiates its love of
water, and flaunts its great leaves in the un-
natural confinement, until it elbows out the
exotics. Its charm is gone, unless one find it
in its native haunts, beside some cascade which
streams over rocks that are dark with moisture,
green with moss, and snowy with white bub-
bles. Each spray of dripping feather-moss
exudes a tiny torrent of its own, or braided
with some tiny neighbor, above the little water-
fonts which sleep sunless in ever-verdant caves.

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 35

Sometimes along these emerald canals there
comes a sudden rush and hurry, as if some
anxious housekeeper upon the hill above were
afraid that things were not stirring fast enough,
—and then again the waving and sinuous lines
of water are quieted to a serener flow. The
delicious red thrush and the busy little yellow-
throat are not yet come to this their summer
haunt; but all day long the answering field
sparrows trill out their sweet, shy, accelerating
lay.

In the same localities with the Bloodroot,
though some days later, grows the Dogtooth
Violet, —a name hopelessly inappropriate, but
likely never to be changed. These hardy and
prolific creatures have also many localities of
their own ; for, though they do not acquiesce
in cultivation, like the sycophantic Bloodroot,
yet they are hard to banish from their native
haunts, but linger after the woods are cleared
and the meadow drained. The bright flowers
blaze back all the yellow light of noonday, as
the gay petals curl and spread themselves
above their beds of mottled leaves; but it is
always a disappointment to gather them, for
indoors they miss the full ardor of the sun-
beams, and are apt to go to sleep and nod ex-
pressionless from the stalk.

And almost on the same day with this bright

36 OUTDOOR STUDIES

apparition one may greet a multitude of con-
current visitors, arriving so accurately together
that it is almost a matter of accident which of
the party shall first report himself. Perhaps
the Dandelion should have the earliest place ;
indeed, I once found it in Brookline on the
7th of April. But it cannot ordinarily be ex-
pected before the 20th, in Eastern Massachu-
setts, and rather later in the interior ; while by
the same date I have also found near Boston
the Cowslip, or Marsh Marigold, the Spring
Saxifrage, the Anemones, the Violets, the Bell-
wort, the Houstonia, the Cinquefoil, and the
Strawberry blossom. Varying, of course, in
different spots and years, the arrival of this
coterie is yet nearly simultaneous, and they
may all be expected hereabouts before May Day
at the very latest. After all, in spite of the
croakers, this festival could not have been
much better timed; for the delicate blossoms
which mark the period are usually in perfec-
tion on this day, and it is not long before they
are past their prime.

Some early plants which have now almost
disappeared from Eastern Massachusetts are
still found near Worcester in the greatest
abundance, —as the larger Yellow Violet, the
Red Trillium, the dwarf Ginseng, the Clintonia
or Wild Lily of the Valley, and the pretty

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 37

fringed Polygala, which Miss Cooper christened
“Gay-Wings.” Others, again, are now rare
near Worcester, and growing rarer, though still
abundant a hundred miles farther inland. In
several bits of old, swampy wood one may still
find, usually close together, the Hobble-bush
and the Painted Trillium, the Mitella, or Bish-
op’s Cap, and the snowy Tiarella. Others still
have entirely vanished within ten years, and
that in some cases without any adequate expla-
nation. The dainty white Corydalis, profanely
called “ Dutchman’s Breeches,” and the quaint,
woolly Ledum, or Labrador Tea, have disap-
peared within that time. The beautiful Linnza
is still found annually, but flowers no more; as
is also the case, in all but one distant locality,
with the once abundant Rhododendron. No-
thing in Nature has for me a more fascinating
interest than these secret movements of vege-
tation, —the sweet, blind instinct with which
flowers cling to old domains until absolutely
compelled to forsake them. How touching is
the fact, now well known, that salt-water plants
still flower beside the Great Lakes, yet dream-
ing of the time when those waters were briny
as the sea! Nothing in the demonstrations of
geology seems grander than the light thrown
by Professor Gray, from the analogies between
the flora of Japan and of North America, upon

38 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the successive epochs of heat which led the
wandering flowers along the Arctic lands, and
of cold which isolated them once more. Yet
doubtless these humble movements of our local
plants may be laying up results as important,
and may hereafter supply evidence of earth’s
changes upon some smaller scale.

May expands to its prime of beauty; the
summer birds come with the fruit blossoms, the
gardens are deluged with bloom, and the air
with melody, while in the woods the timid
spring flowers fold themselves away in silence
and give place to a brighter splendor. On the
margin of some quiet swamp a myriad of bare
twigs seem suddenly overspread with purple
butterflies, and we know that the Rhodora is
in bloom. Wordsworth never immortalized a
flower more surely than Emerson this, and it
needs no weaker words; there is nothing else
in which the change from nakedness to beauty
is so sudden, and when you bring home the
great mass of blossoms they appear all ready
to flutter away again from your hands and leave
you disenchanted.

At the same time the beautiful Cornel-tree is
in perfection ; startling as a tree of the tropics,
it flaunts its great flowers high up among the
forest-branches, intermingling its long, slender
twigs with theirs, and garnishing them with

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 39

alien blooms. It is very available for house-
hold decoration, with its four great, creamy
petals, — flowers they are not, but floral invo-
lucres, — each with a fantastic curl and stain at
its tip, as if the fireflies had alighted on them
and scorched them; and yet I like it best as it
peers out in barbaric splendor from the delicate
green of young Maples. And beneath it grows
often its more abundant kinsman, the Dwarf
Cornel, with the same four great petals envel-
oping its floral cluster, but lingering low upon
the ground,—an herb whose blossoms mimic
the statelier tree.

The same rich, creamy hue and texture show
themselves in the Wild Calla, which grows at
this season in dark, sequestered watercourses,
and sometimes well rivals, in all but size, that
superb whiteness out of a land of darkness, the
Ethiopic Calla of the conservatory. At this
season, too, we seek another semi-aquatic rar-
ity, whose homely name cannot deprive it of a
certain garden-like elegance, the Buckbean
(Menyanthes trifoliata). This is one of the
shy plants which yet grow in profusion within
their own domain. I have found it of old in
Cambridge, and then upon the pleasant shal-
lows of the Artichoke, that loveliest tributary
of the Merrimack, and I have never seen it
where it occupied a patch more than a few

40 OUTDOOR STUDIES

yards square, while yet within that space the
multitudinous spikes grow always tall and close,
reminding one of Hyacinths, when in perfec-
tion, but more delicate and beautiful. The
only locality I know for it in this vicinity lies
seven miles away, where a little inlet from the
lower, winding bays of Lake Quinsigamond
goes stealing up among a farmer’s hayfields,
and there, close beside the public road and in
full view of the farmhouse, this rare creature
fills the water. But to reach it we commonly
row down the lake to a sheltered lagoon, sepa-
rated from the main lake by a long island,
which is gradually forming itself like the coral
isles, growing each year denser with alder
thickets where the kingbirds build ; — there
we leave the boat among the lily-leaves, and
take a lane which winds among the meadows
and gives a fitting avenue for the pretty thing
we seek. It is not safe to vary many days
from the 20th of May, for the plant is not long
in perfection, and is past its prime when the
lower blossoms begin to wither on the stem.
But should we miss this delicate adjustment
of time, it is easy to console ourselves with
bright armfuls of Lupine, which bounteously
flowers for six weeks along our lakeside, ran-
ging from the 23d of May to the 6th of July.
The Lupine is one of our most travelled plants ;

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 41

for, though never seen off the American con-
tinent, it stretches to the Pacific, and is found
upon the Arctic coast. On these banks of
Lake Quinsigamond it grows in great families,
and should be gathered in masses and placed
in a vase by itself; for it needs no relief from
other flowers, its own soft leaves afford back-
ground enough, and though the white variety
rarely occurs, yet the varying tints of blue
upon the same stalk are a perpetual gratifica-
tion to the eye. I know not why shaded blues
should be so beautiful in flowers, and yet
avoided as distasteful in ladies’ fancy-work ;
but it is a mystery like that which long repu-
diated blue and green from all well-regulated
costumes, while Nature yet evidently prefers
it to any other combination in her wardrobe.
Another constant ornament of the end of
May is the large pink Lady’s Slipper, or Moc-
cason Flower, the “Cypripedium not due till
to-morrow,” which Emerson attributes to the
note-book of Thoreau,—to-morrow, in these
parts, meaning about the 2oth of May. It be-
longs to the family of Orchids, a high-bred
race, fastidious in habits, sensitive as to abodes.
Of the ten species named as rarest among
American endogenous plants by Dr. Gray, in
his valuable essay on the statistics of our north-
ern flora, all but one are Orchids. Even an

42 OUTDOOR STUDIES

abundant species, like the present, retains the
family traits in its person, and never loses its
high-born air and its delicate veining. I know
a grove where it can be gathered by the hun-
dred within a half-acre, and yet I never can
divest myself of the feeling that each specimen
is a choice novelty. But the actual rarity
occurs, at least in this region, when one finds
the smaller and more beautiful Yellow Moc-
cason Flower, — Cypripedium parvifiorum, —
which accepts only our very choicest botanical
locality, the “ Rattlesnake Ledge” on Tatessit
Hill, and may, for aught I know, have been the
very plant which Elsie Venner laid upon her
schoolmistress’s desk.

June is an intermediate month between the
spring and summer flowers, Of the more deli-
cate early blossoms, the Dwarf Cornel, the
Solomon’s Seal, and the Yellow Violet still lin-
ger in the woods, but rapidly make way for
larger masses and more conspicuous hues. The
meadows are gorgeous with Clover, Buttercups,
and Wild Geranium; but Nature is a little
chary for a week or two, maturing a more abun-
dant show. Meanwhile one may afford to take
some pains to search for another rarity, almost
disappearing from this region, — the lovely Pink
Azalea. It still grows plentifully in a few se-
questered places, selecting woody swamps to

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 43

hide itself ; and certainly no shrub suggests,
when found, more tropical associations. Those
great, nodding, airy, fragrant clusters, tossing
far above one’s head their slender cups of
honey, seem scarcely to belong to our sober
zone, any more than the scarlet tanager which
sometimes builds its nest beside them. They
appear bright exotics, which have wandered
into our woods, and are too happy to feel any
wish for exit. And just as they fade, their
humble sister in white begins to bloom, and
carries on through the summer the same intox-
icating fragrance.

But when June isat its height, the sculptured
chalices of the Mountain Laurel begin to unfold,
and thenceforward, for more than a month, ex-
tends the reign of this our woodland queen. I
know not why one should sigh after the blossom-
ing gorges of the Himalaya, when our forests
are all so crowded with this glowing magnifi-
cence, — rounding the tangled swamps into
smoothness, lighting up the underwoods, over-
topping the pastures, lining the rural lanes, and
rearing its great, pinkish masses till they meet
overhead. The color ranges from the purest
white to a perfect rose-pink, and there is an in-
exhaustible vegetable vigor about the whole
thing which puts to shame those tenderer shrubs
that shrink before the progress of cultivation.

44 OUTDOOR STUDIES

There is the Rhododendron, for instance, a
plant of the same natural family with the Lau-
rel and the Azalea, and looking more robust
and woody than either; it once grew in many
localities in this region, and still lingers in a
few, without consenting either to die or to blos-
som. There is only one remote place from
which any one now brings into our streets those
large, luxuriant flowers, waving white above the
dark green leaves, and bearing ‘just a dream of
sunset on their edges, and just a breath from
the green sea in their hearts.” The Laurel,
on the other hand, maintains its ground, imper-
turbable and almost impassable, on every hill-
side, takes no hints, suspects no danger, and
nothing but the most unmistakable onset from
spade or axe can diminish its profusion. Gather-
ing it on the most lavish scale seems only to
serve as wholesale pruning; nor can I con-
ceive that the Indians, who once ruled over this
whole country from Wigwam Hill, could ever
have found it more inconveniently abundant
than now. We have perhaps no single spot
where it grows in such perfect picturesqueness
as at “The Laurels,’ on the Merrimack, just
above Newburyport,— a whole hillside scooped
out and the hollow piled solidly with flowers ;
pines curving around its ridge, and the river
encircling it below, on which your boat glides

{ THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 45

along, while you look up through glimmering
arcades of bloom. But for the last half of June
laurel monopolizes everything in the Worcester
woods, — no one picks anything else; and it
fades so slowly that I have found a perfect
blossom on the last day of July.

At the same time with this royalty of the
woods, the queen of the water ascends her
throne, for a reign as undisputed and far more
prolonged. .The extremes of the Water-Lily
in this vicinity, so far as I have known, are the
18th of June and the 13th of October, —a
longer range than belongs to any other con-
spicuous wild-flower, unless we except the
Dandelion and Houstonia. It is not only the
most fascinating of all flowers to gather, but
more available for decorative purposes than
almost any other, if it can only be kept fresh.
The best method for this purpose, I believe, is
to cut the stalk very short before placing in the
vase; then, at night, the lily will close and the
stalk curl upward; refresh both by changing
the water, and in the morning the stalk will be
straight and the flower open.

From this time forth Summer has it all her
own way. After the 1st of July the yellow
flowers begin, matching the yellow fireflies:
Hawkweeds, Loosestrifes, Primroses bloom,
and the bushy Wild Indigo. The variety of

46 OUTDOOR STUDIES

hues increases ; delicate purple Orchises bloom
in their chosen haunts, and Wild Roses blush
over hill and dale. On peat-meadows the Ad-
der’s-tongue Arethusa (now called Pogonia)
flowers profusely, with a faint, delicious per-
fume, —and its more elegant cousin, the Calo-
pogon, by its side. In this vicinity we miss
the blue Harebell, the identical harebell of
Ellen Douglas, which I remember as waving
its exquisite flowers along the banks of the
Merrimack, and again at Brattleborough, below
the cascade in the village, where it has climbed
the precipitous sides of old buildings, and nods
inaccessibly from their crevices, in that pictur-
esque spot, looking down on the hurrying river.
But with this exception there is nothing want-
ing here of the familiar flowers of early sum-
mer.

The more closely one studies Nature, the
finer her adaptations grow. For instance, the
change of seasons is analogous to a change of
zones, and summer assimilates our vegetation
to that of the tropics. In those lands, Hum-
boldt has remarked, one misses the beauty of
wild-flowers in the grass, because the luxuriance
of vegetation develops everything into shrubs.
The form and color are beautiful, “but, being
too high above the soil, they disturb that har-
monious proportion which characterizes the

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 47

plants of our European meadows. Nature has,
in every zone, stamped on the landscape the
peculiar type of beauty proper to the locality.”
But every midsummer reveals the same ten-
dency. In early spring, when all is bare, and
small objects are easily made prominent, the
wild-flowers are generally delicate. Later, when
all verdure is profusely expanded, these minia-
ture strokes would be lost, and Nature then
practises landscape gardening in large, lights
up the copses with great masses of White
Alder, makes the roadsides gay with Aster and
Goldenrod, and tops the tall, coarse Meadow
Grass with nodding Lilies and tufted Spirzea.
One instinctively follows these plain hints, and
gathers bouquets sparingly in spring and exu-
berantly in summer.

The use of wild-flowers for decorative pur-
poses merits a word in passing, for it is
unquestionably in favored hands a branch of
high art. It is true that we are bidden, on
good authority, to love the wood-rose and leave
it on its stalk ; but against this may be set the
saying of Bettine Brentano, that “all flowers
which are broken become immortal in the sac-
rifice ;” and certainly the secret harmonies of
these fair creatures are so marked and delicate
that we do not understand them till we try to
group floral decorations for ourselves. The

48 OUTDOOR STUDIES

most successful artists will not, for instance,
consent to put those together which do not
grow together; for Nature understands her
business, and distributes her masses and back-
grounds unerringly. Yonder soft and feathery
Meadow Sweet longs to be combined with
Wild Roses; it yearns towards them in the
field, and, after withering in the hand most
readily, it revives in water as if to be with
them in the vase. In the same way the White
Spiraea serves as natural background for the
Field Lilies. These lilies, by the way, are the
brightest adornment of our meadows during
the short period of their perfection. We have
two species, — one slender, erect, solitary, scar-
let, looking up to heaven with all its blushes
on; the other clustered, drooping, pale yellow.
I never saw the former in such profusion as on
the bare summit of Wachusett. The granite
ribs have there a thin covering of crisp moss,
spangled with the white, starry blossoms of the
Mountain Cinquefoil ; and as I lay and watched
the red lilies that waved their innumerable urns
around me, it needed but little imagination to
see a thousand altars, sending visible flames
forever upward to the answering sun.

August comes: the Thistles are in bloom,
beloved of butterflies ; deeper and deeper tints,
more passionate intensities of color, prepare the

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 49

way for the year’s decline. A wealth of gor-
geous Goldenrod waves over all the hills, and
enriches every bouquet one gathers; its bright
colors command the eye, and it is graceful as
anelm. Fitly arranged, it gives a bright relief
to the superb beauty of the Cardinal Flowers,
the brilliant blue-purple of the Vervain, the
pearl-white of the Life-Everlasting, the delicate
lilac of the Monkey Flower, the soft pink and
white of the Spiraeas, — for the white yet lin-
gers, — all surrounded by trailing wreaths of
blossoming Clematis.

But the Cardinal Flower is best seen by
itself, and, indeed, needs the surroundings of its
native haunts to display its fullest beauty. Its
favorite abode is along the dank, mossy stones
of some black and winding brook, shaded with
overarching bushes, and running one long
stream of scarlet with these superb occupants.
It seems amazing how anything so brilliant can
mature in such a darkness. When a ray of
sunlight strays in upon it, the bright creature
seems to hover on the stalk ready to take
flight, like some lost tropic bird. There is a
spot whence J have in ten minutes brought away
as many as I could hold in both arms, some
bearing fifty blossoms on a single stalk ; and I
could not believe that there was such another
mass of color in the world. Nothing cultivated

50 OUTDOOR STUDIES

is comparable to them ; and, with all the talent
lately lavished on wild-flower painting, I have
never seen the peculiar sheen of these petals in
the least degree delineated. It seems some
new and separate tint, equally distinct from
scarlet and from crimson, a splendor for which
there is as yet no name, but only the reality.

It is the signal of autumn, when September
exhibits the first Barrel Gentian by the road-
side; and there is a pretty insect in the mea-
dows — the Mourning-cloak Moth, it might be
called — which gives coincident warning. The
innumerable Asters mark this period with their
varied and widespread beauty; the meadows
are full of rose-colored Polygala, of the white
spiral spikes of the Ladies’ Tresses, and of the
fringed loveliness of the Gentian. This flower,
always unique and beautiful, opening its deli-
cate eyelashes every morning to the sunlight,
closing them again each night, has also a
thoughtful charm about it as the last of the
year’s especial darlings. It lingers long, each
remaining blossom growing larger and more
deep in color, as with many other flowers ; and
after it there is nothing for which to look for-
ward, save the fantastic Witch-hazel.

On the water, meanwhile, the last White
Lilies are sinking beneath the surface, and the
last gay Pickerel-weed is gone, though the

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 5!

rootless plants of the delicate Bladderwort,
spreading over acres of shallows, still impurple
the wide, smooth surface. Harriet Prescott
Spofford says that some souls are like the
Water-Lilies, fixed, yet floating. But others
are like this graceful purple blossom, floating
unfixed, kept in place only by its fellows around
it, until perhaps a breeze comes, and, breaking
the accidental cohesion, sweeps them all away.

The season reluctantly yields its reign, and
over the quiet autumnal landscape everywhere,
even after the glory of the trees is. past, there
are tints and fascinations of minor beauty.
Last October, for instance, in walking, I found
myself on a little knoll, looking northward.
Overhead was a bower of climbing Waxwork,
with its yellowish pods scarce disclosing their
scarlet berries,—a wild Grapevine, with its
fruit withered by the frost into still purple
raisins, — and yellow Beech-leaves, detaching
themselves with an effort audible to the ear.
In the foreground were blue Raspberry-stems,
yet bearing greenish leaves, — pale yellow
Witch-hazel, almost leafless, — purple Vibur-
num-berries, — the silky cocoons of the Milk-
weed, —and, amid the underbrush, a few lin-
gering Asters and Goldenrods, Ferns still
green, and Maidenhair bleached white. In the
background were hazy hills, white Birches bare

52 OUTDOOR STUDIES

and snow-like, and a Maple half way up a
sheltered hillside, one mass of canary-color, its
fallen leaves making an apparent reflection on
the earth at its foot, —and then a real reflec-
tion, fused into a glassy light intenser than
itself, upon the smooth, dark stream below.
The beautiful disrobing suggested the persist-
ent and unconquerable delicacy of Nature, who
shrinks from nakedness and is always seeking
to veil her graceful boughs, — if not with leaves,
then with feathery hoar-frost, ermined snow, or
transparent icy armor.

After all, the fascination of summer lies not in
any details, however perfect, but in the sense of
total wealth that summer gives. Wholly to en-
joy this, one must give one’s self passively to it,
and not expect to reproduce it in words. We
strive to picture heaven, when we are barely at
the threshold of the inconceivable beauty of
earth. Perhaps the truant boy who simply
bathes himself in the lake and then basks in the
sunshine, dimly conscious of the exquisite love-
liness around him, is wiser, because humbler,
than is he who with presumptuous phrases tries
to utter it. There are moments when the atmos-
phere is so surcharged with luxury that every
pore of the body becomes an ample gate for
sensation to flow in, and one has simply to sit
still and be filled. In after years the memory

THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 53

of books seems barren or vanishing, compared
with the immortal bequest of hours like these.
Other sources of illumination seem cisterns
only; these are fountains. They may not in-
crease the mere quantity of available thought,
but they impart to it a quality which is price-
less. No man can measure what a single hour
with Nature may have contributed to the mould-
ing of his mind. The influence is self-renew-
ing, and if for a long time it baffles expression
by reason of its fineness, so much the better in
the end.

The soul is like a musical instrument : it is
not enough that it be framed for the most deli-
cate vibration, but it must vibrate long and
often before the fibres grow mellow to the finest
waves of sympathy. I perceive that in the
veery’s carolling, the clover’s scent, the glisten-
ing of the water, the waving wings of butter-
flies, the sunset tints, the floating clouds, there
are attainable infinitely more subtile modula-
tions of thought than I can yet reach the sensi-
bility to discriminate, much less describe. If
in the simple process of writing one could phy-
sically impart to this page the fragrance of this
spray of Azalea beside me, what a wonder would
it seem ! — and yet one ought to be able, by the
mere use of language, to supply to every reader
the total of that white, honeyed, trailing sweet-

54 OUTDOOR STUDIES

ness, which summer insects haunt and the
Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is
not in language, but in men. There is no con-
ceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as
words, — none so graceful, none so perfumed.
It is possible to dream of combinations of syl-
lables so delicious that all the dawning and
decay of summer cannot rival their perfection,
nor winter’s stainless white and azure match
their purity and their charm. To write them,
were it possible, would be to take rank with
Nature; nor is there any other method, even
by music, for human art to reach so high.

HII
APRIL DAYS

“Can trouble dwell with April days?”
In Memoriam.

In our methodical American life, we still
recognize some magic in summer. Most per-
sons at least resign themselves to being de-
cently happy in June. They accept June.
They compliment its weather. They complain
of the earlier months as cold, and so spend
them in the city; and they complain of the
later months as hot, and so refrigerate them-
selves on some barren seacoast. God offers
us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most
men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast
the rest away. It is time to chant a hymn of
more liberal gratitude.

There are no days in the whole round year
more delicious than those which often come to
us in the latter half of April. On these days
one goes forth in the morning, and finds an
Italian warmth brooding over all the hills, tak-
ing visible shape in a glistening mist of silvered
azure, with which mingles the smoke from

56 OUTDOOR STUDIES

many bonfires. The sun trembles in his own
soft rays, till one understands the old English
tradition, that he dances on Easter Day.
Swimming in a sea of glory, the tops of the.
hills look nearer than their bases, and their
glistening watercourses seem close to the eye,
as is their liberated murmur to the ear. All
across this broad intervale the teams are plough-
ing. The grass in the meadow seems all to
have grown green since yesterday. The black-
birds jangle in the oak, the robin is perched
upon the elm, the song sparrow on the hazel,
and the bluebird on the apple-tree. There rises
a hawk and sails slowly, the stateliest of airy
things, a floating dream of long and languid
summer hours. But as yet, though there is
warmth enough for a sense of luxury, there is
coolness enough for exertion. No tropics can
offer such a burst of joy; indeed, no zone much
warmer than our Northern States can offer a
genuine spring. There can be none where
there is no winter, and the monotone of the
seasons is broken only by wearisome rains.
Vegetation and birds being distributed over
the year, there is no burst of verdure nor of
song. But with us, as the buds are swelling,
the birds are arriving ; they are building their
nests almost simultaneously; and in all the
Southern year there is no such rapture of

APRIL DAYS 57

beauty and of melody as here marks every
morning from the last of April onward.

But days even earlier than these, in April,
have a charm, — even days that seem raw and
rainy, when the sky is dull and a bequest of
March wind lingers, chasing the squirrel from
the tree and the children from the meadows,
There is a fascination in walking through these
bare early woods, —there is such a pause of
preparation, winter’s work is so cleanly and
thoroughly done. Everything is taken down
and put away; throughout the leafy arcades
the branches show no remnant of last year,
save a few twisted leaves of oak and beech, a
few empty seed vessels of the tardy witch-
hazel, and a few gnawed nutshells dropped
coquettishly by the squirrels into the crevices
of the bark. All else is bare, but prophetic :
buds everywhere, the whole splendor of the
coming summer concentrated in those hard
little knobs on every bough; and clinging here
and there among them a brown, papery chrys-
alis, from which shall yet wave the superb wings
of the Luna moth. An occasional shower
patters on the dry leaves, but it does not silence
the robin on the outskirts of the wood. Indeed,
he sings louder than ever during rain, though
the song sparrow and the bluebird are silent.

Then comes the sweetness of the nights in

58 OUTDOOR STUDIES

latter April. There is as yet no evening prim-
rose to open suddenly, no cistus to drop its
petals; but the Mayflower knows the moment,
and becomes more fragrant in the darkness, so
that one can then often find it in the woods
without aid from the eye. The pleasant night
sounds are begun ; the hylas are uttering their
shrill peep from the meadows, mingled soon
with hoarser toads, who take to the water at
this season to deposit their spawn. The tree-
toads soon join them; but one listens in vain
for bull-frogs or katydids or grasshoppers or
whip-poor-wills or crickets: we must wait for
most of these until the nights of June.

The earliest familiar token of the coming
season is the expansion of the stiff catkins of
the alder into soft, drooping tresses. These
are so sensitive that, if you pluck them at
almost any time during the winter, a few days’
sunshine will make them open in a vase of
water, and thus they eagerly yield to every mo-
ment of April warmth. The blossom of the
birch is more delicate, that of the willow more
showy, but the alders come first. They cluster
and dance everywhere upon the bare boughs
above the watercourses ; the blackness of the
buds is softened into rich brown and yellow;
and as this graceful creature thus comes wav-
ing into the spring, it is pleasant to remember

APRIL DAYS 59

that the Norse Eddas fabled the first woman to
have been named Embla, because she was cre-
ated from an alder bough.

The first wild-flower of the year is like land
after sea. The two which, throughout the
Northern Atlantic States, divide this interest
are the L£pig@a repens (Mayflower, ground
laurel, or trailing arbutus) and the Hepatica tri-
Joba (liverleaf, liverwort, or blue anemone). Of
these two, the latter is perhaps more immedi-
ately exciting on first discovery, because it is
an annual, not a perennial, and so does not,
like the epigzea, exhibit its buds all winter,
but opens its blue eyes almost as soon as it
emerges from the ground. Without the rich
and delicious odor of its compeer, it has an
inexpressibly fresh and earthy scent, that seems
to bring all the promise of the blessed season
with it; indeed, that clod of fresh turf with the
inhalation of which Lord Bacon delighted to
begin the day must undoubtedly have been
full of the roots of our little hepatica. Its
healthy sweetness belongs to the opening year,
like Chaucer’s poetry; and one thinks that
anything more potent and voluptuous would be
less enchanting — until one turns to the May-
flower. Then comes a richer fascination for
the senses. To pick the Mayflower is like
following in the footsteps of some spendthrift

60 OUTDOOR STUDIES

army which has scattered the contents of its
treasure chest among beds of scented moss.
The fingers sink in the soft, moist verdure, and
make at each instant some superb discovery
unawares ; again and again, straying carelessly,
they clutch some new treasure; and, indeed,
the plants are linked together in bright neck-
laces by secret threads beneath the surface,
and where you grasp at one, you hold many.
The hands go wandering over the moss as over
the keys of a piano, and bring forth odors for
melodies. The lovely creatures twine and nestle
and lay their glowing faces to the very earth
beneath withered leaves, and what seemed mere
barrenness becomes fresh and fragrant beauty.
So great is the charm of the pursuit, that the
epigeea is really the wild-flower for which our
country people have a hearty passion. Every
village child knows its best haunts, and watches
for it eagerly in the spring ; boys wreathe their
hats with it, girls twine it in their hair, and the
cottage windows are filled with its beauty.

In collecting these early flowers, one finds or
fancies singular natural affinities. I flatter my-
self with being able always to discover hepatica,
if there is any within reach, for I was brought
up with it ; but other persons, who were brought
up with Mayflower, and remember searching
for it with their childish fingers, can find that

APRIL DAYS 61

better. The most remarkable instance of these
natural affinities was in the case of Levi Thax-
ter and his double anemones. Thaxter had
always a gift for wild-flowers, and used often to
bring to Cambridge the largest white anemones
that were ever seen, from a certain special hill
in Watertown ; they were not only magnificent
in size and whiteness, but had that exquisite
blue on the outside of the petals, as if the sky
had bent down in ecstasy at last over its dar-
lings, and left visible kisses there. But even
this success was not enough, and one day he
came with something yet choicer. It was a
rue-leaved anemone (A. ¢halictrotdes) ; and each
one of the three white flowers was double, not
merely with that multiplicity of petals in the
disk which is common with this species, but
technically and horticulturally double, like the
double-flowering almond or cherry, — with the
most exquisitely delicate little petals, like fairy
lace-work. He had three specimens, and gave
one to Professor Asa Gray of Harvard, who
said it was almost or quite unexampled, and
another tome. As the man in the fable says
of the chameleon, “I have it yet and can pro-
duce it.”

Now comes the marvel. The next winter
Thaxter went to New York for a year, and
wrote to me, as spring drew near, with solemn

62 OUTDOOR STUDIES

charge to visit his favorite haunt and find an-
other specimen. Armed with this letter of in-
troduction, I sought the spot, and tramped
through and through its leafy corridors.
Beautiful wood-anemones I found, to be sure,
trembling on their fragile stems, deserving all
their pretty names, — Wind-flower, Easter-
flower, Pasque-flower, and homceopathic Pulsa-
tilla ; — rue-leaved anemones I found also, ris-
ing taller and straighter and firmer in stem,
with the whorl of leaves a little higher up on the
stalk than one fancies it ought to be, as if there
were a supposed danger that the flowers would
lose their balance, and as if the leaves must be
all ready to catch them. These I found, but
the special wonder was not there forme. Then
I wrote to him that he must evidently come
himself and search; or that, perhaps, as Sir
Thomas Browne avers that “smoke doth follow
the fairest,” so his little treasures had followed
him towards New York. Judge of my surprise,
when, on opening his next letter, out dropped,
from those folds of metropolitan paper, a veri-
table double anemone. He had just been out to
Hoboken, or some such place, to spend an after-
noon, and of course his pets were there to meet
him; and from that day to this I have never
heard of such an event as happening to any one
else.

APRIL DAYS 63

May Day is never allowed to pass in this com-
munity without profuse lamentations over the
tardiness of our spring as compared with that
of England and the poets. Yet it is easy to
exaggerate this difference. Even so good an
observer as Wilson Flagg is betrayed into say-
ing that the epigzea and hepatica “seldom make
their appearance until after the middle of
April” in Massachusetts, and that “it is not
unusual for the whole month of April to pass
away without producing more than two or three
species of wild-flowers.” But I have formerly
found the hepatica in bloom at Mount Auburn,
for three successive years, on the 27th of March ;
and it has since been found in Worcester on the
17th, and in Danvers on the 12th. The May-
flower is usually as early, though the more
gradual expansion of the buds renders it less
easy to give dates. And there are nearly twenty
species which I have noted, for five or six years
together, as found always before May Day, and
therefore properly to be assigned to April. The
list includes bloodroot, cowslip, houstonia, saxi-
frage, dandelion, chickweed, cinquefoil, straw-
berry, mouse-ear, bellwort, dogtooth violet, five
species of violet proper, and two of anemone.
These are all common flowers, and easily ob-
served ; but the catalogue might be increased
by rare ones, as the white corydalis, the smaller

64 OUTDOOR STUDIES

yellow violet (V. rotundifolia) , and the clayto-
nia or spring beauty.

But in England the crocus and the snowdrop
— neither being probably an indigenous flower,
since neither is mentioned by Chaucer — usually
open before the 1st of March ; indeed, the snow-
drop was formerly known by the yet more
fanciful name of “Fair Maid of February.”
Chaucer’s daisy comes equally early ; and March
brings daffodils, narcissi, violets, daisies, jon-
quils, hyacinths, and marsh marigolds. This is
altogether in advance of our season, so far as
the wild-flowers give evidence, — though snow-
drops are sometimes found in February even
here. But, on the other hand, it would appear
that, though a larger number of birds winter in
England than in Massachusetts, yet the return
of those which migrate is actually earlier among
us. From journals which were kept during
sixty years in England, and an abstract of which
is printed in Hone’s “Every-Day Book,” it ap-
pears that only two birds of passage revisit Eng-
land before the 15th of April, and only thirteen
more before the 1st of May; while with us the
song sparrow, the bluebird, and the red-winged
blackbird appear about the Ist of March, and
a good many more by the middle of April.
This is a peculiarity of the English spring which
T have never seen explained or even mentioned.

APRIL DAYS 65

After the epigzea and the hepatica have blos-
somed, there is a slight pause among the wild-
flowers, — these two forming a distinct prologue
for their annual drama, as the brilliant witch-
hazel in October brings up its separate epilogue.
The truth is, Nature attitudinizes a little, liking
to make a neat finish with everything, and then
to begin again with é/at. Flowers seem spon-
taneous things enough, but there is evidently a
secret marshalling among them, that all may be
brought out with due effect. As the country
people say that so long as any snow is left on
the ground more snow may be expected, for it
must all vanish together at last,— so every
seeker of spring flowers has observed how ac-
curately they seem to move in platoons, with
little straggling. Each species seems to burst
upon us with a united impulse ; you may search
for it day after day in vain, but the day when
you find one specimen the spell is broken and
you find twenty. By the end of April all the
margins of the great poem of the woods are
illuminated with these exquisite vignettes.

Most of the early flowers either come before
the full unfolding of their leaves, or else have in-
conspicuous ones. Yet Nature always provides
for her garlands the due proportion of green.
The verdant and graceful sprays of the wild
raspberry are unfolded very early, long before

66 OUTDOOR STUDIES

its time of flowering. Over the meadows spread
the regular Chinese pagodas of the equisetum
(horse-tail or scouring-rush), and the rich, coarse
vegetation of the veratrum, or American helle-
bore. In moist copses the ferns and osmundas
begin to uncurl in April, opening their soft coils
of spongy verdure, coated with woolly down,
from which the hummingbird steals the lining
of her nest.

The early blossoms represent the aboriginal
epoch of our history: the bloodroot and the
Mayflower are older than the white man, older
perchance than the red man; they alone are
the true Native Americans. Of the later wild
plants, many of the most common are foreign
importations. In our sycophancy we attach
grandeur to the name “exotic ;”’ we call aristo-
cratic garden flowers by that epithet ; yet they
are no more exotic than the humbler compan-
ions they brought with them, which have be-
come naturalized. The dandelion, the butter-
cup, chickweed, celandine, mullein, burdock,
yarrow, whiteweed, nightshade, and most of
the thistles, —these are importations. Miles
Standish never crushed them with his heavy
heel as he strode forth to give battle to the
savages ; they never kissed the daintier foot of
Priscilla, the Puritan maiden. It is noticeable
that these are all of rather coarser texture than

APRIL DAYS 67

our indigenous flowers; the children instinc-
tively recognize this, and are apt to omit them
when gathering the more delicate native blos-
soms of the woods.

There is something touching in the gradual
retirement before civilization of these fragile
aborigines. They do not wait for the actual
brute contact of red bricks and curbstones, but
they feel the danger miles away. The Indians
called the low plantain “the white man’s foot-
step ;” and these shy creatures gradually disap-
pear the moment the red man gets beyond
hearing. Bigelow’s delightful book, “Florula
Bostoniensis,” is becoming a series of epitaphs.
Too well we know it,—those of us who in
happy Cambridge childhood often gathered,
almost within a stone’s-throw of Professor Agas-
siz’s museum, the arethusa and the gentian,
the cardinal flower and the gaudy rhexia, — we
who remember the last secret hiding-place of
the rhodora in West Cambridge, of the yellow
violet and the Viola debilis in Watertown, of
the Convallaria trifolia near Fresh Pond, of the
Hottonia beyond Wellington’s Hill, of the Cor
nus florida in West Roxbury, of the Clintonia
and the dwarf ginseng in Brookline, — we who
have found in its one chosen nook the sacred
Andromeda polifolia of Linnzeus. Now van-
ished almost or wholly from city suburbs, these

68 OUTDOOR STUDIES

fragile creatures still linger in more rural parts
of Massachusetts; but they are doomed every-
where, unconsciously, yet irresistibly ; while
others still more shy, as the Lzxua@a, the yel-
low Cypripedium, the early pink Azalea, and
the delicate white Corydalis or “ Dutchman’s
breeches,” are being chased into the very re-
cesses of the Green and White Mountains.
The relics of the Indian tribes are supported
by the legislature at Martha’s Vineyard, while
these precursors of the Indian are dying un-
friended away.

And with these receding plants go also the
special insects which haunt them. Who that
knew the pure enthusiast, Dr. Thaddeus Wil-
liam Harris, but remembers the accustomed
lamentations of the entomologist over the de-
parture of these winged companions of his life-
time? In a letter which I happened to receive
from him a short time previous to his death, he
thus renewed the lament: “I mourn for the
loss of many of the beautiful plants and insects
that were once found in this vicinity. C/ethra,
Rhodora, Sanguinaria, Viola debilis, Viola
acuta, Dracena borealis, Rhexia, Cypripedium,
Corallorhiza verna, Orchis spectabilis, with
others of less note, have been rooted out by
the so-called hand of improvement. Cicindela
vugifrons, Helluo preusta, Spheroderus steno-

APRIL DAYS 69

stomus, Blethisa quadricollis (Americana mi),
Carabus, Horia (which for several years oc-
curred in profusion on the sands beyond Mount
Auburn), with others, have entirely disappeared
from their former haunts, driven away, or exter-
minated, perhaps, by the changes effected
therein. There may still remain in your vicin-
ity some sequestered spots, congenial to these
and other rarities, which may reward the botan-
ist and the entomologist who will search them
carefully. Perhaps you may find there the
pretty coccinella-shaped, silver-margined Omo-
phron, or the still rarer Panagewus fasciatus, of
which I once took two specimens on Welling-
ton’s Hill, but have not seen it since.” Is not
this, indeed, handling one’s specimens “gently
as if you loved them,” as Isaak Walton bids
the angler do with his worm?

There is this merit, at least, among the
coarser crew of imported flowers, that they
bring their own proper names with them, and
we know precisely with whom we have to deal.
In speaking of our own native flowers we must
either be careless and inaccurate, or else resort
sometimes to the Latin, in spite of the indigna-
tion of friends. There is something yet to be
said on this point. In England, where the old
household and monkish names adhere, they are
sufficient for popular and poetic purposes, and

70 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the familiar use of scientific names seems an
affectation. But here, where many native flow-
ers have no popular names at all, and others
are called confessedly by wrong ones, — where
it really costs less trouble to use Latin names
than English, — the affectation seems the other
way. Think of the long list of wild-flowers
where the Latin name is spontaneously used by
all who speak of the flower: as, Arethusa,
Aster, Cistus (“after the fall of the cistus-
flower”), Clematis, Clethra, Geranium, Iris,
Lobelia, Rhodora, Spirzea, Tiarella, Trientalis,
and so on. Even those formed from proper
names — the worst possible system of nomen-
clature— become tolerable at last, and we for-
get the godfather in the more attractive name-
sake. When the person concerned happens to
be a botanist, there is a peculiar fitness in the
association; the Linnaa, at least, would not
smell so sweet by any other name.

In other cases the English name is a mere
modification of the Latin one, and our ideal
associations have really a scientific basis: as
with Violet, Lily, Laurel, Gentian, Vervain.
Indeed, our enthusiasm for vernacular names
* is, like that for Indian names of localities, one
sided: we enumerate only the graceful ones,
and ignore the rest. It would be a pity to
Latinize Touch-me-not, or Yarrow, or Gold

APRIL DAYS 71

thread, or Self-heal, or Columbine, or Blue-
eyed Grass, — though, to be sure, this last has
an annoying way of shutting up its azure orbs
the moment you gather it, and you reach home
with a bare, stiff blade, which deserves no bet-
ter name than Sisyrinchium anceps. But in
what respect is Cucumber-root preferable to
Medeola, or Solomon’s Seal to Convallaria, or
Rock Tripe to Umbilicaria, or Lousewort to
Pedicularis? In other cases the merit is di-
vided: Anemone may dispute the prize of mel-
ody with Wind-flower, Campanula with Hare-
bell, Neottia with Ladies’ Tresses, Uvularia
with Bellwort and Strawbell, Potentilla with
Cinquefoil, and Sanguinaria with Bloodroot.
Hepatica may be bad, but Liverleaf is worse.
The pretty name of Mayflower is not so popu-
lar, after all, as that of Trailing Arbutus, where
the graceful and appropriate adjective redeems
the substantive, which happens to be Latin
and incorrect at once. It does seem a waste
of time to say Chrysanthemum leucanthemum
instead of Whiteweed; though, if the long
scientific name were an incantation to banish
the intruder, our farmers would gladly consent
to adopt it.

But a great advantage of a reasonable use
of the botanical name is that it does not de-
ceive us. Our primrose is not the English

72 OUTDOOR STUDIES

primrose, any more than it was our robin who
tucked up the babes in the wood; our cowslip
is not the English cowslip, it is the English
marsh marigold, — Tennyson’s marsh marigold.,
The pretty name of Azalea means something
definite; but its rural name of Honeysuckle
confounds under that name flowers without
even an external resemblance, — Azalea, Dier-
villa, Lonicera, Aquilegia, —just as every bird
which sings loud in deep woods is popularly
denominated a thrush. The really rustic names
of both plants and animals are very few with
us, —the different species are many; and as
we come to know them better and love them
more, we absolutely require some way to dis-
tinguish them from their half sisters and second
cousins. It is hopeless to try to create new
popular epithets, or even to revive those which
are thoroughly obsolete. Miss Cooper may
strive in vain, with benevolent intent, to christen
her favorite spring blossoms “ May-Wings”
and “Gay-Wings” and “Fringe-Cup” and
“ Squirrel-Cup ” and “Cool-Wort” and “ Bead-
Ruby ;” there is no conceivable reason why
these should not be the familiar appellations,
except the irresistible fact that they are not.
It is impossible to create a popular name: one
might as well attempt to invent a legend or
compose a ballad. Mascitur, non fit.

APRIL DAYS 73

As the spring comes on, and the changing
outlines of the elm give daily a new design for
a Grecian urn, — its hue first brown with blos-
soms, then emerald with leaves, — we appreci-
ate the vanishing beauty of the bare boughs.
In our favored temperate zone the trees denude
themselves each year, like the goddesses before
Paris, that we may see which unadorned loveli-
ness is the fairest. Only the unconquerable
delicacy of the beech still keeps its soft vest-
ments about it: far into spring, when worn to
thin rags and tatters, they cling there still; and
when they fall, the new appear as by magic.
It must be owned, however, that the beech has
good reasons for this prudishness, and has here-
abouts little beauty of figure ; while the elms,
maples, chestnuts, walnuts, and even oaks have
not exhausted all their store of charms for us
until we have seen them disrobed. Only yon-
der magnificent pine-tree,— that pitch pine,
nobler when seen in perfection than white pine,
or Norwegian, or Norfolk Islander, —that pitch
pine, herself a grove, wna nemus, holds her un-
changing beauty throughout the year, like her
half brother, the ocean, whose voice she shares ;
and only marks the flowing of her annual tide
of life by the new verdure that yearly sub-
merges all trace of last year’s ebb.

How many lessons of faith and beauty we

74 OUTDOOR STUDIES

should lose if there were no winter in our
year! Sometimes in following up a watercourse
among our hills, in the early spring, one comes
to a weird and desolate place, where one huge
wild grapevine has wreathed its ragged arms
around a whole thicket and brought it to the
ground,— swarming to the tops of hemlocks,
clinching a dozen young maples at once and
tugging them downward, stretching its wizard
black length across the underbrush, into the
earth and out again, wrenching up great stones
in its blind, aimless struggle. What a piece
of chaos is this! Yet come here again, two
months hence, and you shall find all this deso-
lation clothed with beauty and with fragrance,
one vast bower of soft green leaves and grace-
ful tendrils, while summer birds chirp and flut-
ter amid these sunny arches all the livelong
day.

To the end of April, and often later, one
still finds remains of snow-banks in sheltered
woods, especially among evergreens ; and this
snow, like that upon high mountains, has often
become hardened, by the repeated thawing and
freezing of the surface, till it is more impene-
trable than ice. But the snow that falls during
April is usually what Vermonters call “sugar-
snow,” — falling in the night and just whiten-
ing the surface for an hour or two, and taking

APRIL DAYS 75

its name, not so much from its looks as from
the fact that it denotes the proper weather for
“sugaring,” namely, cold nights and warm days.
Our saccharine associations, however, remain
so obstinately tropical that it seems almost im-
possible for the imagination to locate sugar in
New England trees, though it is known that
not the maple only, but the birch and the wal-
nut even afford it in appreciable quantities.

Along our maritime rivers the people asso-
ciate April, not with “sugaring,” but with
“shadding.” The pretty Amelanchier Cana-
densis of Gray—the Aronia of Whittier’s
song — is called Shad-bush, or Shad-blow, in
Essex County, from its connection with this
season ; and there is a bird known as the Shad-
spirit, which I take to be identical with the
flicker or golden-winged woodpecker, whose
note is still held to indicate the first day when
the fish ascend the river. Upon such slender
wings flits our New England romance!

In April the creative process described by
Thales is repeated, and the world is renewed by
water. The submerged creatures first feel the
touch of spring, and many an equivocal career,
beginning in the ponds and brooks, learns later
to ignore this obscure beginning, and hops or
flutters in the dusty daylight. Early in March,
before the first male canker-moth appears on

76 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the elm-tree, the whirlwig beetles have begun
to play round the broken edges of the ice, and
the caddis-worms to crawl beneath it; and soon
come the water-skater (Gevris) and the water-
boatman (WVotonecta). Turtles and newts are
in busy motion when the spring birds are only
just arriving. Those gelatinous masses in yon-
der wayside pond are the spawn of water-newts
or tritons: in the clear, transparent jelly are
imbedded, at regular intervals, little blackish
dots ; these elongate rapidly, and show symp-
toms of head and tail curled up in a spherical
cell; the jelly is gradually absorbed for their
nourishment, until on some fine morning, each
elongated dot gives one vigorous wriggle, and
claims thenceforward all the privileges of free-
dom. The final privilege is often that of being
suddenly snapped up by a turtle or a snake:
for Nature brings forth her creatures liberally,
especially the aquatic ones, sacrifices nine tenths
of them as food for their larger cousins, and re-
serves only a handful to propagate their race,
on the same profuse scale, next season.

It is surprising, in the midst of our museums
and scientific schools, how little we yet know
of the common things around us. Our savans
still confess their inability to discriminate with
certainty the egg or tadpole of a frog from
that of a toad; and it is strange that these hop-

APRIL DAYS 77

ping creatures, which seem so unlike, should
coincide so nearly in their juvenile career, while
the tritons and salamanders, which border so
closely on each other in their maturer state as
sometimes to be hardly distinguishable, yet
choose different methods and different ele-
ments for laying their eggs. The eggs of our
salamanders, or land lizards, are deposited be-
neath the moss on some damp rock, without
any gelatinous envelope; they are but few in
number, and the anxious mamma may some-
times be found coiled in a circle around them,
like the symbolic serpent of eternity.

The small number of birds yet present in
early April gives a better opportunity for care-
ful study, —— more especially if one goes armed
with that best of fowling-pieces, a small spy-
glass: the best, — since how valueless for pur-
poses of observation is the bleeding, gasping,
dying body, compared with the fresh and living
creature, as it tilts, trembles, and warbles on
the bough before you! Observe that robin in
the oak-tree’s top: as he sits and sings, every
one of the dozen different notes which he flings
down to you is accompanied by a separate flirt
and flutter of his whole body, and, as Thoreau
says of the squirrel, “each movement seems to
imply a spectator.” Study that song sparrow :
why is it that he always goes so ragged in '

78 OUTDOOR STUDIES

spring and the bluebird so neat? Is it that the
song sparrow is a wild artist, absorbed in the
composition of his lay, and oblivious of ordinary
proprieties, while the smooth bluebird and his
ash-colored mate cultivate their delicate warble
only as a domestic accomplishment, and are al-
ways nicely dressed before sitting down at the
piano? Then how exciting is the gradual arrival
of the birds in their summer plumage! To
watch it is like sitting at the window on Easter
Sunday to observe the new bonnets. Yonder,
in that clump of alders by the brook, is the
delicious jargoning of the first flock of yellow-
birds ; there are the little gentlemen in black
and yellow, and the little ladies in olive-brown ;
“sweet, sweet, sweet,” is the only word they
say, and often they will so lower their ceaseless
warble that, though almost within reach, the
minstrels seem far distant. There is the very
earliest catbird, mimicking the bobolink before
the bobolink has come: what is the history of
his song, then? Is it a reminiscence of last
year, or has the little coquette been practising
it all winter, in some gay Southern society,
where catbirds and bobolinks grow intimate,
just as Southern fashionables from different
States may meet and sing duets at Saratoga?
There sounds the sweet, low, long-continued
trill of the little hairbird, or chipping sparrow,

APRIL DAYS 79

a suggestion of insect sounds in sultry summer :
by and by we shall sometimes hear that same
delicate rhythm burst the silence of the June
midnights, and then, ceasing, make stillness
more still. Now watch that woodpecker, roving
in ceaseless search, travelling over fifty trees in
an hour, running from top to bottom of some
small sycamore, pecking at every crevice, paus-
ing to dot a dozen inexplicable holes in a row
upon an apple-tree, but never once intermitting
the low, querulous murmur of housekeeping
anxiety. Sometimes she stops to hammer with
all her little life at some tough piece of bark,
strikes harder and harder blows, throws herself
back at last, flapping her wings furiously as she
brings down her whole strength again upon it ;
finally it yields, and grub after grub goes down
her throat, till she whets’ her beak after the
meal as a wild beast licks its claws, and is off
on her pressing business once more.

It is no wonder that there is so little sub-
stantial enjoyment of nature in the commun-
ity, when we feed children on grammars and
dictionaries only, and take no pains to train
them to see that which is before their eyes.
The mass of the community have ‘‘summered
and wintered” the universe pretty regularly,
one would think, for a good many years ; and
yet nine persons out of ten in the town or

80 OUTDOOR STUDIES

city, and two out of three even in the country,
seriously suppose, for instance, that the buds
upon trees are formed in the spring ; they have
had them within sight all winter, and never
seen them. So people think, in good faith,
that a plant grows at the base of the stem, in-
stead of at the top: that is, if they see a young
sapling in which there is a crotch at five feet
from the ground, they expect to see it ten feet
from the ground by and by, — confounding the
growth of a tree with that of a man or animal.
But perhaps the best of us could hardly bear
the system of tests unconsciously laid down by
a small child of my acquaintance. The boy’s
father, a college-bred man, had early chosen
the better part, and employed his fine facul-
ties in rearing laurels in his own beautiful nurs-
ery gardens, instead of in the more arid soil
of court-rooms or state-houses. Of course the
young human scion knew the flowers by name
before he knew his letters, and used their sym-
bols more readily; and after he got the com-
mand of both, he was one day asked by his
younger brother what the word “idiot” meant,
— for somebody in the parlor had been saying
that somebody else was an idiot. “Don’t you
know?” quoth Ben, in his sweet voice: “an
idiot is a person who doesn’t know an arbor-
vitze from a pine, — he does n’t know anything.”

APRIL DAYS 81

When Ben grows up to maturity, bearing such
terrible definitions in his unshrinking hands,
which of us will be safe ?

The softer aspects of Nature, especially,
require time and culture before man can enjoy
them. To rude races her processes bring only
terror, which is very slowly outgrown. Hum-
boldt has best exhibited the scantiness of finer
natural perceptions in Greek and Roman litera-
ture, in spite of the grand oceanic rhythm of
Homer and the delicate water-coloring of the
Greek Anthology and of Horace. The Orien-
tal and the Norse sacred books are full of fresh
and beautiful allusions; but the Greek saw in
nature only a framework for art, and the Ro-
man only a camping-ground for men. Even
Virgil describes the grotto of ASneas merely as
a “black grove ” with “horrid shade,” — “ Hor-
venti atrum nemus imminet umbra.” Words-
worth points out that, even in English litera-
ture, the “ Windsor Forest’ of Anne, Countess
of Winchelsea, was the first poem which repre-
sented nature as a thing to be consciously
enjoyed ; and as she was almost the first Eng-
lish poetess, we might be tempted to think that
we owe this appreciation, like some other good
things, to the participation of woman in litera-
ture. But, on the other hand, it must be re-
membered that the voluminous Duchess of

82 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Newcastle, in her “Ode on Melancholy,” de-
scribes among the symbols of hopeless gloom
“the still moonshine night” and “a mill where
rushing waters run about,” — the sweetest nat-
ural images. In our own country, the early
explorers seemed to find only horror in its
woods and waterfalls. Josselyn, in 1672, could
only describe the summer splendor of the
White Mountain region as “dauntingly terrible,
being full of rocky hills, as thick as molehills
in a meadow, and full of infinite thick woods.”
Father Hennepin spoke of Niagara, in the nar-
rative still quoted in the guide-books, as a
“frightful cataract ;” and honest John Adams
could find no better name than “ horrid chasm”
for the picturesque gulf at Egg Rock, where he
first saw the sea-anemone.

But we are lingering too long, perhaps, with
this sweet April of smiles and tears. It needs
only to add, that all her traditions are beautiful.
Ovid says well, that she was not named from
aperire, to open, as some have thought, but
from Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. April holds
Easter-time, St. George’s Day, and the Eve of
St. Mark’s. She has not, like her sister May
in Germany, been transformed to a verb and
made a synonym for joy, —“ Deine Seele maiet
den triiben Herbst,’ — but April was believed in
early ages to have been the birth-time of the

APRIL DAYS 83

world. According to the Venerable Bede, the
point was first accurately determined at a coun-
cil held at Jerusalem about a. D. 200, when,
after much profound discussion, it was finally
decided that the world’s birthday occurred on
Sunday, April 8,—that is, at the vernal equi-
nox and the full moon. But April is certainly
the birth-time of the season, at least, if not of
the planet. Its festivals are older than Chris-
tianity, older than the memory of man. No sad
associations cling to it, as to the month of June,
in which month, says William of Malmesbury,
kings are wont to go to war, — “Quando solent
reges ad arma procedere,” — but it contains the
Holy Week, and it is the Holy Month. And
in April Shakespeare was born, and in April he
died.

IV
WATER-LILIES

THE inconstant April mornings drop show-
ers or sunbeams over the glistening lake, while
far beneath its surface a murky mass disen-
gages itself from the muddy bottom and rises
slowly through the waves. The tasselled alder
branches droop above it ; the last year’s black-
bird’s nest swings over it in the grapevine ; the
newly opened Hepaticas and Epigzeas on the
neighboring bank peer down modestly to look
for it ; the water-skater (Gerris) passes on the
surface near it, casting on the shallow bottom
the odd shadow of his feet, like three pairs of
boxing-gloves; the Notonecta, or water-boat-
man, rows round and round it, sometimes on
his breast, sometimes on his back; queer cad-
dis-worms trail their self-made homesteads of
leaves or twigs beside it; the Dytiscus, dor-
bug of the water, blunders clumsily against it ;
the tadpole wriggles his stupid way to it, and
rests upon it, meditating of future frogdom ; the
passing wild duck dives and nibbles at it ; the
mink and muskrat brush it with their soft fur ;

WATER-LILIES 85

the spotted turtle slides over it ; the slow larvze
of gauzy dragon-flies cling sleepily to its sides
and await their change: all these fair or un-
couth creatures feel, through the dim waves,
the blessed longing of spring; and yet not one of
them dreams that within that murky mass there
lies a treasure too white and beautiful to be yet
intrusted to the waves, and that for many a day
the bud must yearn toward the surface, before
the time when, aspiring above it, as mortals to
heaven, it shall meet the sunshine with the
answering beauty of the Water-Lily.

Days and weeks have passed away; the
wild duck has flown onward, to dive for his
luncheon in some remoter lake; the tadpoles
have made themselves legs, with which they
have vanished ; the caddis-worms have sealed
themselves up in their cylinders, and emerged
again as winged insects; the dragon-flies have
crawled up the water-reeds, and, clinging with
heads upturned, have undergone the change
which symbolizes immortality ; the world is
transformed from spring to summer ; the lily-
buds are opened into glossy leaf and radiant
flower, and we have come for the harvest.

We visitors lodged, last night, in the old
English phrase, “at the sign of the Oak and
Star.”” Wishing not, indeed, like the ancient
magicians, to gather magic berry and bud

86 OUTDOOR STUDIES

before sunrise, but at least to see these trea-
sures of the lake in their morning hour, we
camped overnight on a little island, which
one tall tree almost covers with its branches,
while a dense undergrowth of young chestnuts
and birches fills all the intervening space, touch-
ing the water all around the circular, shelving
shore. The day had been hot, but the night
was cool, and we kindled a gypsy fire of twigs,
less for warmth than for society. The first
gleam made the dark, lonely islet into a cheer-
ing home, turned the protecting tree to a star-
lit roof, and the chestnut sprays to illuminated
walls. To us, lying beneath their shelter, every
fresh flickering of the fire kindled the leaves
into brightness and banished into dark inter-
stices the lake and sky; then the fire died into
embers, the leaves faded into solid darkness in
their turn, and water and heavens showed light
and close and near, until fresh twigs caught fire
and the blaze came up again. Rising to look
forth at intervals, during the peaceful hours, —
for it is the worst feature of a night outdoors,
that sleeping seems such a waste of time, — we
watched the hilly and wooded shores of the
lake sink into gloom and glimmer into dawn
again, amid the low plash of waters and the .
noises of the night.

Precisely at half past three a song sparrow

WATER-LILIES 87

above our heads gave one liquid trill, so-inex-
pressibly sudden and delicious that it seemed
to set to music every atom of freshness and
fragrance that nature held; then the spell was
broken, and the whole shore and lake were
vocal with song. Joining in this jubilee of
morning, we were early in motion ; bathing and
breakfast, though they seemed indisputably in
accordance with the instincts of the universe,
yet did not detain us long, and we were promptly
on our way to Lily Pond. Will the reader join
us?

It is one of those summer days when a veil
of mist gradually burns away before the intense
sunshine, and the sultry morning only plays
at coolness, and that with its earliest visitors
alone. But we are before the sunlight, though
not before the sunrise, and can watch the pretty
game of alternating mist and shine. Stray
gleams of glory lend their trailing magnificence
to the tops of chestnut-trees, floating vapors
raise the outlines of the hills and make mystery
of the wooded islands, and as we glide through
the placid water we can sing, with the Chorus
in the “Ion” of Euripides, “O immense and
brilliant air, resound with our cries of joy!”

Almost every town has its Lily Pond, dear to
boys and maidens, and partially equalizing, by
its annual delights, the presence or absence of

88 OUTDOOR STUDIES

other geographical advantages. Ours is acces-
sible from the larger lake only by taking the
skiff over a narrow embankment, which protects
our fairy-land by its presence, and eight distant
factories by its dam. Once beyond it, we are
in a realm of dark Lethean water, utterly un-
like the sunny depths of the main lake. Hither
the water-lilies have retreated, to a domain of
their own. Inthe bosom of these shallow waves
there stand hundreds of submerged and dis-
masted roots, still upright, spreading their vast,
uncouth limbs like enormous spiders beneath
the surface. They are remnants of border
wars with the axe, vegetable Witheringtons, still
fighting on their stumps, but gradually sinking
into the soft ooze, and ready, perhaps, when a
score of centuries has piled two more strata of
similar remains in mud above them, to furnish
foundations for a newer New Orleans ; that city
having been lately discovered to be thus sup-
ported.

The present decline in the manufacturing
business is clear revenue to the water-lilies, and
these ponds are higher than usual, because the
idle mills do not draw them off. But we may
notice, in observing the shores, that peculiar
charm of water, that, whether its quantity be
greater or less, its grace is the same; it makes
its own boundary in lake or river, and where its

WATER-LILIES 89

edge is, there seems the natural and permanent
margin. And the same natural fitness, without
reference to mere quantity, extends to its flow-
ery children. Before us lie islands and conti-
nents of lilies, acres of charms, whole, vast,
unbroken surfaces of stainless whiteness. And
yet, as we approach them, every island cup that
floats in lonely dignity, apart from the multi-
tude, appears perfect in itself, couched in white
expanded perfection, its reflection taking a faint
glory of pink that is scarcely perceptible in the
flower. As we glide gently among them, the
air grows fragrant, and a stray breeze flaps
the leaves, as if to welcome us. Each floating
flower becomes suddenly a ship at anchor, or
rather seems beating up against the summer
wind in a regatta of blossoms.

Early as it is in the day, the greater part of
the flowers are already expanded. Indeed,
that experience of Thoreau’s, of watching them
open in the first sunbeams, rank by rank, is
not easily obtained, unless perhaps in a narrow
stream, where the beautiful slumberers are
more regularly marshalled. In our lake, at
least, they open irregularly, though rapidly.
But this morning many linger as buds, while
others peer up, in half-expanded beauty, be-
neath the lifted leaves, frolicsome as Pucks or
baby nymphs. As you raise the leaf, in such

90 OUTDOOR STUDIES

cases, it is impossible not to imagine that a pair
of tiny hands have upheld it, and that the
pretty head will dip down again and disappear.
Others, again, have expanded all but the in-
most pair of white petals, and these spring apart
at the first touch of the finger on the stem.
Some spread vast vases of fragrance, six or ,
seven inches in diameter, while others are
small and delicate, with petals like fine lace-
work. Smaller still, we sometimes pass a flo-
tilla of infant leaves an inch in diameter. All
these grow from the dark water,—and the
blacker it is, the fairer their whiteness shows.
But your eye follows the stem often vainly into
those sombre depths, and vainly seeks to behold
Sabrina fair, sitting with her twisted braids of
lilies, beneath the glassy, cool, but not translucent
wave. Do not start, when, in such an effort,
only your own dreamy face looks back upon you
beyond the gunwale of the reflected boat, and.
you find that you float double—self and shadow.

Let us rest our paddles, and look round us,
while the idle motion sways our light skiff
onward, now half embayed among the lily-
pads, now lazily gliding over intervening gulfs.
There is a great deal going on in these waters
and their fringing woods and meadows. All
the summer long the pond is bordered with
successive walls of flowers. In early spring

WATER-LILIES or

emerge the yellow catkins of the swamp willow,
first; then the long tassels of the graceful
alders expand and droop, till they weep their
yellow dust upon the water; then come the
birch blossoms, more tardily; then the downy
leaves and white clusters of the medlar or shad-
bush (Amelanchier Canadensis); these drop-
ping, the roseate chalices of the mountain laurel
open; as they fade into melancholy brown, the
sweet Azalea uncloses; and before its last
honeyed blossom has trailed down, dying, from
the stem, the more fragrant Clethra starts out
above, the button-bush thrusts forth its merry
face amid wild roses, and the Clematis waves
its sprays of beauty. Muingled with these grow,
lower, the spirzas, white and pink, yellow
touch-me-not, fresh white arrowhead, bright
blue vervain and skullcap, dull snakehead, gay
monkey flower, coarse eupatoriums, milkweeds,
goldenrods, asters, thistles, and a host beside.
Beneath, the brilliant scarlet cardinal flower
begins to palisade the moist shores ; and after
its superb reflection has passed away from the
waters, the grotesque witch-hazel flares out its
narrow yellow petals amidst the October leaves,
and so ends the floral year. There is not a
week during all these months when one cannot
stand in the boat and wreathe garlands of blos-
soms from the shores.

92 OUTDOOR STUDIES

These all crowd around the brink, and watch,
day and night, the opening and closing of the
water-lilies. Meanwhile, upon the waters, our
queen keeps her chosen court, nor can one of
these mere land-loving blossoms touch the hem
of her garment. In truth, she bears no sister
near her throne. There is but this one spe-
cies among us, Vymphea odorata, the beautiful
little rose-colored Nymphea sanguinea, which
still adorns the Botanic Gardens, being merely
an occasional variety. She has, indeed, an
English half-sister, Vymphea alba, less beauti-
ful, less fragrant, but keeping more fashionable
hours, — not opening (according to Linnzus)
till seven, nor closing till four. And she has a
humble cousin, the yellow Nuphar, who keeps
commonly aloof, as becomes a poor relation,
though created from the self-same mud, —a
fact which Hawthorne has beautifully moralized.
The prouder Nelumbium, a second cousin, lineal
descendant of the sacred bean of Pythagoras,
has fallen to an obscurer position, but dwells,
like a sturdy democrat, in the Far West.

Yet, undisturbed, the water-lily reigns on,
with her retinue around her. The tall pickerel-
weed (Pontederia) is her gentleman usher,
gorgeous in blue and gold through July, some-
what rusty in August. The water-shield (Hy-
dropeltis) is chief maid-of-honor ; a high-born

WATER-LILIES 93

lady she, not without royal blood, indeed, but
with rather a bend sinister; not precisely
beautiful, but very fastidious ; encased over her
whole person with a gelatinous covering, liter-
ally a starched duenna. Sometimes she is
suspected of conspiring to drive her mistress
from the throne; for we have observed certain
slow watercourses where the leaves of the
water-lily have been almost wholly replaced, in
a series of years, by the similar, but smaller
leaves of the water-shield. More rarely seen is
the slender Utricularia, a dainty maiden, whose
light feet scarce touch the water, —with the
still more delicate floating white Water-Ra-
nunculus, and the shy Villarsia, whose sub-
merged flowers merely peep one day above the
surface and then close dgain forever. Then
there are many humbler attendants, Potamo-
getons or pond-weeds. And here float little
emissaries from the dominions of land; for the
fallen florets of the Viburnum drift among the
lily-pads, with mast-like stamens erect, sprin-
kling the water with a strange beauty, and cheat-
ing us with the promise of a new aquatic flower.

These are the still life of this sequestered
nook; but it is in fact a crowded thoroughfare.
No tropic jungle more swarms with busy exist-
ence than these midsummer waters and their
bushy banks. The warm and humming air is

94 OUTDOOR STUDIES

filled with insect sounds, ranging from the mur-
mur of invisible gnats and midges to the im-
petuous whirring of the great Libellule, large
almost as swallows, and hawking high in air for
their food. Swift butterflies glance by, moths
flutter, flies buzz, grasshoppers and katydids
pipe their shrill notes, sharp as the edges of
the sunbeams. Busy bees go humming past,
straight as arrows, express freight trains from
one blossoming copse to another. Showy wasps
of many species fume uselessly about, in gallant
uniforms, wasting an immense deal of unneces-
sary anger on the sultry universe. Graceful,
stingless Sphexes and Ichneumon-flies emulate
their bustle, without their weapons. Delicate
lady-birds come and go to the milkweeds, spot-
ted almost as regularly as if nature had decided
to number the species, like policemen or hack-
drivers, from one to twenty. Elegant little
Lepture fly with them, so gay and airy they
hardly seem like beetles. Phryganez (once
caddis-worms), lace-flies, and long-tailed Ephe-
mere flutter more heavily by. On the large
alder flowers clings the suberb Desmocerus pal-
fiatus, beautiful as a tropical insect, with his
steel-blue armor and his golden cloak (pa//ium)
above his shoulders, grandest knight on this
Field of the Cloth of Gold. The countless fire-
flies which spangled the evening mist now only

WATER-LILIES 95

crawl sleepily, daylight creatures, with the lus-
tre buried in their milky bodies. More wholly
children of night, the soft, luxurious Sphinxes
(or hawk-moths) come not here; fine ladies of
the insect world, their home is among gardens
and greenhouses, late and languid by day, but
all night long upon the wing, dancing in the
air with unwearied muscles till long past mid-
night, and supping on honey at last. They
come not ; but the nobler butterflies soar above
us, stoop a moment to the water, and then with
a few lazy wavings of their sumptuous wings
float far over the oak-trees to the woods they
love.

All these hover near the water-lily ; but its
special parasites are an enamelled beetle (Dona-
cia metallica) which keeps house permanently
in the flower, and a few smaller ones which
tenant the surface of the leaves, —larva, pupa,
and perfect insect, forty feeding like one, and
each leading its whole earthly career on this
floating island of perishable verdure. The
“beautiful blue damsel-flies ” alight also in mul-
titudes among them, so fearless that they perch
with equal readiness on our boat or paddle, and |
so various that two adjacent ponds will some- '
times be haunted by two distinct sets of species.
In the water, among the leaves, little shining
whirlwigs wheel round and round, fifty joining '

96 OUTDOOR STUDIES

in the dance, till, at the slightest alarm, they
whirl away to some safer ball-room, and renew
the merriment. On every floating log as we
approach it, there is a convention of turtles,
sitting in calm debate, like mailed barons, till,
as we draw near, they plump into the water, and
paddle away for some subaqueous Runnymede.
Beneath, the shy and stately pickerel vanishes
at a glance, shoals of minnows glide, black and
bearded pouts frisk aimlessly, soft water-newts
hang poised without motion, and slender pick-
erel-frogs cease occasionally their submerged
croaking, and, darting to the surface, with swift
vertical strokes, gulp a mouthful of fresh air,
and down again to renew the moist soliloquy.
Time would fail us to tell of the feathered
life around us,—the blackbirds that build
securely in these thickets, the stray swallows
that dip their wings in the quiet waters, and
the kingfishers that still bring, as the ancients
fabled, halcyon days. Yonder stands, against
the shore, a bittern, motionless in that wreath
of mist which makes his long-legged person al-
most as dim as his far-off booming by night.
There poises a hawk, before sweeping down
to some chosen bough in the dense forest ;
and there flies a pair of blue jays, screaming,
from tree to tree. As for wild quadrupeds, the
race is almost passed away. Far to the north,

WATER-LILIES 97

indeed, the great moose still browses on the
lily-pads, and the shy beaver nibbles them ; but
here the few lingering four-footed creatures
only haunt, but do not graze upon, these float-
ing pastures. Eyes more favored than ours
may yet chance to spy an otter in this still place ;
there by the shore are the small footprints of
a mink; that dark thing disappearing in the
waters yonder, a soft mass of drowned fur, is a
muskrat, or “musquash.” Later in the season
a mound of earth will be his winter dwelling-
place ; and these myriad mussel-shells at the
water’s edge are the remnant of his banquets,
— once banquets for the Indians, too.

But we must return to our lilies. There is
no sense of wealth like floating in this archi-
pelago of white and green. The emotions of
avarice become almost demoralizing. Every
flower bears a fragrant California in its bosom,
and you feel impoverished at the thought of
leaving one behind. Then, after the first half
hour of eager grasping, one becomes fastidious,
rather avoids those on which the wasps and
flies have alighted, and seeks only the stainless.
But handle them tenderly, as if you loved them.
Do not grasp at the open flower as if it were a
peony or a hollyhock, for then it will come off,
stalkless, in your hand, and you will cast it
blighted upon the water; but coil your thumb

98 OUTDOOR STUDIES

and second finger affectionately around it, press
the extended forefinger firmly to the stem
below, and with one steady pull you will secure
a long and delicate stalk, fit to twine around
the graceful head of your beloved, as the Hin-
doo goddess of beauty encircled with a Lotus
the brow of Rama.

Consider the lilies. AJ] over our rural water-
courses, at midsummer, float these cups of
snow. They are nature’s symbols of coolness.
They suggest to us the white garments of their
Oriental worshippers. They come with the
white roses, and prepare the way for the white
lilies of the garden. The white doe of Ryl-
stone and Andrew Marvell’s fawn might fitly
bathe amid their beauties. Yonder steep bank
slopes down to the lakeside, one solid mass of
pale pink laurel, but, once upon the water, a
purer tint prevails. The pink fades into a
lingering flush, and the white creature floats
peerless, set in green without and gold within.
That bright circle of stamens is the very ring
with which Doges once wedded the Adriatic ;
Venice has lost it, but it dropped into the
water-lily’s bosom, and there it rests forever.
So perfect in form, so redundant in beauty, so
delicate, so spotless, so fragrant, — what pre-
sumptous lover ever dared, in his most enam-
oured hour, to liken his mistress to a water-

WATER-LILIES 99

lily? No human Blanche or Lilian was ever
so fair as that.

The water-lily comes of an ancient and sacred
family of white-robed priests. They assisted
at the most momentous religious ceremonies,
from the beginning of recorded time. The
Egyptian Lotus was a sacred plant; it was
dedicated to Harpocrates and to the God Nofr
Atmoo, — Nofr meaning good, whence the
name of our yellow lily, Nuphar. But the true
Egyptian flower was Nymphaea Lotus, though
Nymphea cerulea, Moore’s “ blue water-lilies,”
can be traced on the sculptures also. It was
cultivated in tanks in the gardens; it was the
chief material for festal wreaths; a single bud
hung over the forehead of many a queenly
dame; and the sculptures represent the weary
flowers as dropping from the heated hands of
belles, in the later hours of the feast. Rock
softly on the waters, fair lilies! your Eastern
kindred have rocked on the stormier bosom of
Cleopatra. The Egyptian Lotus was, more-
over, the emblem of the sacred Nile, —as the
Hindoo species of the sacred Ganges; and
each was held the symbol of the creation of the
world from the waters. The sacred bull Apis
was wreathed with its garlands; there were
niches for water, to place it among tombs; it
was carved in the capitals of columns; it was

100 OUTDOOR STUDIES

represented on plates and vases ; the sculptures
show it in many sacred uses, even as a burnt-
offering; Isis holds it; and the god Nilus still
binds a wreath of water-lilies around the throne
of Memnon.

From Egypt the Lotus was carried to As-
syria, and Layard found it among fir-cones and
honeysuckles on the later sculptures of Nine-
veh. The Greeks dedicated it to the nymphs,
whence the name Wymphea. Nor did the
Romans disregard it, though the Lotus to
which Ovid’s nymph Lotis was changed, ser-
valo nomine, was a tree, and not a flower. Still
different a thing was the enchanted stem of
the Lotus-eaters of Herodotus, which prosaic
botanists have reduced to the Zizyphus Lotus
found by Mungo Park, translating also the yel-
low Lotus-dust into a mere “ farina, tasting like
sweet gingerbread.”

But in the Lotus of Hindostan we find our
flower again, and the Oriental sacred books are
cool with water-lilies. Open the Vishni Purana
at any page, and it is a Sortes Liliane. The
orb of the earth is Lotus-shaped, and is upborne
by the tusks of Vesava, as if he had been sport-
ing in a lake where the leaves and blossoms
float. Brahma, first incarnation of Vishnu, cre-
ator of the world, was born from a Lotus; so
was Sri or Lakshmu, the Hindoo Venus, god-

WATER-LILIES Iol

dess of beauty and prosperity, protectress of
womanhood, whose worship guards the house
from all danger. “Seated on a full-blown
Lotus, and holding a Lotus in her hand, the
goddess Sri, radiant with beauty, rose from the
waves.” The Lotus is the chief ornament of
the subterranean Eden, Patala, and the holy
mountain Meru is thought to be shaped like its
seed-vessel, larger at summit than at base.
When the heavenly Urvasi fled from her
earthly spouse, Purtvavas, he found her sport-
ing with four nymphs of heaven, in a lake beau-
tified with the Lotus. When the virtuous
Prahlada was burned at the stake, he cried to
his cruel father, “The fire burneth me not,
and all around I behold the face of the sky,
cool and fragrant with beds of Lotus-flowers !”
Above all, the graceful history of the transfor-
mations of. Krishna is everywhere hung with
these fresh chaplets. Every successive maiden
whom the deity wooes is Lotus-eyed, Lotus-
mouthed, or Lotus-cheeked, and the youthful
hero wears always a Lotus-wreath. Also “the
clear sky was bright with the autumnal moon,
and the air fragrant with the perfume of the
wild water-lily, in whose buds the clustering
bees were murmuring their song.”

Elsewhere we find fuller details. “In the
primordial state of the world, the rudimentary

102 OUTDOOR STUDIES

universe, submerged in water, reposed on the
bosom of the Eternal. Brahma, the architect
of the world, poised on a Lotus-leaf, floated
upon the waters, and all that he was able to
discern with his eight eyes was water and dark-
ness. Amid scenes so ungenial and dismal,
the god sank into a profound reverie, when he
thus soliloquized: ‘Who am I? Whence am
I?’ In this state of abstraction Brahma con-
tinued during the period of a century and a
half of the gods, without apparent benefit or
a solution of his inquiries,—a circumstance
which caused him great uneasiness of mind.”
It is a comfort, however, to know that subse-
quently a voice came to him, on which he rose,
“seated himself upon the Lotus in an attitude
of contemplation, and reflected upon the Eter-
nal, who soon appeared to him in the form of a
man with a thousand heads,” —a questionable
exchange for his Lotus-solitude.

This is Brahminism ; but the other great form
of Oriental religion has carried the same fair
symbol with it. One of the Bibles of the Bud-
dhists is named “ The White Lotus of the Good
Law.” A pious Nepaulese bowed in reverence
before a vase of lilies which perfumed the study
‘of Sir William Jones. At sunset in Thibet,
the French missionaries tell us, every inhabit-
ant of every village prostrates himself in the

WATER-LILIES 103

public square, and the holy invocation, “ Oh, the
gem in the Lotus!” goes murmuring over hill
and valley, like the sound of many bees. It is
no unmeaning phrase, but an utterance of ar-
dent desire to be absorbed into that Brahma
whose emblem is the sacred flower. This mys-
tic formula or “ mani” is imprinted on the pave-
ment of the streets, it floats on flags from the
temples, and the wealthy Buddhists maintain
sculptor-missionaries, Old Mortalities of the
water-lily, who, wandering to distant lands,
carve the blessed words upon cliff and stone.
Having got thus far into Orientalism, we can
hardly expect to get out again without some
slight entanglement in philology. Lily-pads.
Whence pads ? No other leaf is identified with
that singular monosyllable. Has our floating
Lotus-leaf any connection with padding, or
with a footpad? with the ambling pad of an
abbot, or a paddle, or a paddock, or a padlock?
with many-domed Padua proud, or with St. Pat-
rick? Is the name derived from the Anglo-Saxon
paad or petthian, or the Greek waréw? The ety-
mologists are silent ; but was there ever a philo-
logical trouble for which the Sanscrit could not
afford at least a conjectural cure? A diction-
ary of that venerable tongue is an ostrich’s
stomach, which can crack the hardest etymo-
logical nut. The Sanscrit name for the Lotus

104 OUTDOOR STUDIES

is simply Padma. The learned Brahmins call
the Egyptian deities Padma Devi, or Lotus-
Gods; the second of the eighteen Hindoo
Puranas is styled the Padma Purana, because it
treats of the “epoch when the world was a
golden Lotus;” and the sacred incantation
which goes murmuring through Thibet is ‘Om
mani padme houm.” It would be singular, if
upon these delicate floating leaves a fragment
of our earliest vernacular has been borne down
to us, so that here the schoolboy is more learned
than the philologists.

This lets us down easily to the more familiar
uses of this plant divine. By the Nile, in early
days, the water-lily was good not merely for
devotion, but for diet. “From the seeds of
the Lotus,” said Pliny, “the Egyptians make
bread.” The Hindoos still eat the seeds, roasted
in sand; also the stalks and roots. In South
America, from the seeds of the Victoria (Vym-
phea Victoria, now Victoria Regia) a farina is
made, preferred to that of the finest wheat,
— Bonpland even suggesting to our reluctant
imagination Victoria-pies. But the European
species are used, so far as is reported, only in
dyeing, and as- food (if the truth be told) of
swine. Our own water-lily is rather more power-
ful in its uses; the root contains tannin and
gallic acid, and a decoction of it “ gives a black

WATER-LILIES 105

precipitate, with sulphate of iron.” It gra-
ciously consents to become an astringent and a
styptic, and a poultice, and, banished from all
other temples, still lingers in those of AEscula-
pius.

The botanist also finds his special satisfac-
tions in the flower. It has some strange peculi-
arities of structure. So loose is the internal
distribution of its tissues, that it was for some
time held doubtful to which of the two great
vegetable divisions, exogenous or endogenous,
it belonged. Its petals, moreover, furnish the
best example of the gradual transition of petals
into stamens, — illustrating that wonderful law
of identity which is the great discovery of mod-
ern science. Every child knows this peculiar-
ity of the water-lily, but the extent of it seems
to vary with season and locality, and sometimes
one finds a succession of flowers almost entirely
free from this confusion of organs,

The reader may not care to learn that the
order of Nymphzeacez “ differs from Ranuncu-
laceze in the consolidation of its carpels, from
Papaveraceze in the placentation not being pari-
etal, and from Nelumbiacez in the want of a
large truncated disc containing monospermous

‘achenia ;” but they may like to know that the
water-lily has relations on land, in all gradations
of society, from poppy to magnolia, and yet

106 OUTDOOR STUDIES

does not conform its habits precisely to those
of any of them. Its great black roots, some-
times as large as a man’s arm, form a network
at the bottom of the water. Its stem floats, an
airy four-celled tube, adapting itself to the depth,
and stiff in shallows, like the stalk of the yellow
lily; and it contracts and curves downward
when seedtime approaches. The leaves show
beneath the magnifier beautiful adaptations of
structure. They are not, like those of land
plants, constructed with deep veins to receive
the rain and conduct it to the stem, but are
smooth and glossy, and of even surface. The
leaves of land vegetation have also thousands
of little breathing-pores, principally on the un-
der side: the apple leaf, for instance, has twenty-
four thousand to the square inch. But here
they are fewer; they are wholly on the upper
side, and, whereas in other cases they open or
shut according to the moisture of the atmo-
sphere, here the greedy leaves, secure of mois-
ture, scarcely deign to close them. Neverthe
less, even these give some recognition of
hygrometric necessities, and, though living on
the water, and not merely christened with dew-
drops like other leaves, but baptized by immer-
sion all the time, they are yet known to suffer
in drought and to take pleasure in the rain.
After speaking of the various kindred of the

WATER-LILIES 107

water-lily, it would be wrong to leave our mod-
est species without due mention of its rarest
and most magnificent relative, at first claimed
even as its twin sister, and classed as a Nym-
phzea. I once lived near neighbor to a Victoria
Regia. Nothing in the world of vegetable exist-
ence has such a human interest. The charm is
not in the mere size of the plant, which disap-
points everybody, as Niagara does, when tried
by that sole standard. The leaves of the Vic-
toria, indeed, attain a diameter of six feet ; the
largest flowers, of twenty-three inches, — four
times the size of the largest of our water-lilies.
But it is not the measurements of the Victoria,
it is its life which fascinates. It is not a thing
merely of dimensions, nor merely of beauty, but
a creature of vitality and motion. Those vast
leaves expand and change almost visibly. They
have been known to grow half an inch an
hour, eight inches a day. Rising one day from
the water, a mere clinched mass of yellow
prickles, a leaf is transformed the next day to a
crimson salver, gorgeously tinted on its up-
turned rim. Then it spreads into a raft of
green, armed with long thorns, and supported
by a framework of ribs and crosspieces, an inch
thick, and so substantial that the Brazil Indi-
ans, while gathering the seed-vessels, place
their young children on the leaves ;—yrupe,

108 OUTDOOR STUDIES

or water-platter, they call the accommodating
plant. But even these expanding leaves are
not the glory of the Victoria; the glory is in
the opening of the flower.

I have sometimes looked in, for a passing
moment, at the greenhouse, its dwelling-place,
during the period of flowering, — and then
stayed for more than an hour, unable to leave
the fascinating scene. After the strange flower-
bud has reared its dark head from the placid
tank, moving a little, uneasily, like some impris-
oned water-creature, it pauses for a moment in
a sort of dumb despair. Then, trembling again,
and collecting all its powers, it thrusts open,
with an indignant jerk, the rough calyx-leaves ;
and the beautiful disrobing begins. The firm,
white, central cone, once so closely infolded,
quivers a little, and swiftly, before your eyes,
the first of the hundred petals detaches its deli-
cate edges, and springs back, opening towards
the water, while its white reflection opens to
meet it from below. Many moments of repose
follow, — you watch, — another petal trembles,
detaches, springs open, and is still, Then an-
other, and another, and another. Each move-
ment is so quiet, yet so emphatic, so living, so
human, that the radiant creature seems a Musi-
dora of the water, and you almost blush with a
sense of guilt, in gazing on that peerless pri-

WATER-LILIES 109

vacy. As petal by petal slowly opens, there
still stands the central cone of snow, a glacier,
an alp, a Jungfrau, while each avalanche of
whiteness seems the last. Meanwhile a strange,
rich odor fills the air, and Nature seems to con-
centrate all fascinations and claim all senses for
this jubilee of her darling.

So pass the enchanted moments of the even-
ing, till the fair thing pauses at last, and remains
for hours unchanged. In the morning, one by
one, those white petals close again, shutting all
their beauty in, and you watch through the
short sleep for the period of waking. Can this
bright, transfigured creature appear again in
the same chaste loveliness? Your fancy can
scarcely trust it, fearing some disastrous change;
and your fancy is too true a prophet. Come
again, after the second day’s opening, and you
start at the transformation which one hour has
secretly produced. Can this be the virgin Vic-
toria, —this thing of crimson passion, this
pile of pink and yellow, relaxed, expanding,
voluptuous, lolling languidly upon the water,
never to rise again? In this short time every
tint of every petal is transformed; it is gor-
geous in beauty, but it is “ Hebe turned to
Magdalen.”

Such is the Victoria Regia. But our rustic
water-lily, our innocent Nympheea, never claim-

bBo) OUTDOOR STUDIES

ing such a hothouse glory, never drooping into
such a blush, blooms on placidly in the quiet
waters, till she modestly folds her leaves for
the last time, and bows her head beneath the
surface forever. Next year she lives for us
only in her children, fair and pure as herself.

Nay, not alone in them, but also in memory.
The fair vision will not fade from us, though
the paddle has dipped its last crystal drop from
the waves, and the boat is drawn upon the
shore. We may yet visit many lovely and
lonely places, — meadows thick with violet, or
the homes of the shy Rhodora, or those slop-
ing forest haunts where the slight Linnea
hangs its twin-born heads, — but no scene will
linger on our vision like this annual Feast of
the Lilies. On scorching mountains, amid raw
prairie winds, or upon the regal ocean, the white
pageant shall come back to memory again, with
all the luxury of summer heats, and all the fra-
grant coolness that can relieve them. We shall
fancy ourselves again among these fleets of
anchored lilies, — again, like Urvasi, sporting
amid the Lake of Lotuses.

For that which is remembered is often more
vivid than that which is seen. The eye paints
better in the presence, the heart in the absence,
of the object most dear. ‘He who longs after
beautiful Nature can best describe her,” said

WATER-LILIES III

Bettine Brentano; “he who is in the midst of
her loveliness can only lie down and enjoy.” It
enhances the truth of the poet’s verses, that he
writes them in his study. Absence is the very
air of passion, and all the best description is 27
memoriam. As with our human beloved, when
the graceful presence is with us, we cannot an-
alyze or describe, but merely possess, and only
after its departure can it be portrayed by our
yearning desires ; so is it with Nature: only in
losing her do we gain the power to describe
her, and we are introduced to Art, as we are
to Eternity, by the dropping away of our com-
panions.

V
A SUMMER AFTERNOON

THE noontide of the summer day is past,
when all nature slumbers, and when the an-
cients feared to sing, lest the great god Pan
should be awakened. Soft changes, the grad-
ual shifting of every shadow on every leaf,
begin to show the waning hours. Ineffectual
thunderstorms have gathered and gone by,
hopelessly defeated. The floating bridge is
trembling and resounding beneath the pressure
of one heavy wagon, and the quiet fishermen
change their places to avoid the tiny ripple that
glides stealthily to their feet above the half-
submerged planks. Down the glimmering lake
there are miles of silence and still waters and
green shores, overhung with a multitudinous
and scattered fleet of purple and golden clouds,
now furling their idle sails and drifting away
into the vast harbor of the South. Voices of
birds, hushed first by noon and then by possi-
bilities of tempest, cautiously begin once more,
leading on the infinite melodies of the June
afternoon. As the freshened air invites them

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 113

forth, so the smooth and stainless water sum-
mons us, “ Put your hand upon the oar,” says
Charon, in the old play, to Bacchus, “and you
shall hear the sweetest songs.” The doors of
the boathouse swing softly open, and the slen-
der wherry, like a water-snake, steals silently in
the wake of the dispersing clouds.

The woods are hazy, as if the warm sun-
beams had melted in among the interstices of
the foliage and spread a soft film throughout
the whole. The sky seems to reflect the water,
and the water the sky; both are roseate with
color, both are darkened with clouds, and be-
tween them both, as the boat recedes, the float-
ing bridge hangs suspended, with its motionless
fishermen and its moving team. The wooded
islands are poised upon the lake, each belted
with a paler tint of softer wave. The air seems
fine and palpitating ; the drop of an oar in a
distant rowlock, the sound of a hammer on a
dismantled boat, pass into some region of mist
and shadows, and form a metronome for deli-
cious dreams.

Every summer I launch my boat to seek
some realm of enchantment beyond all the
sordidness and sorrow of earth, and never yet
did I fail to ripple, with my prow at least, the
outskirts of those magic waters. What spell
has fame or wealth to enrich this midday bless-

114 OUTDOOR STUDIES

edness with a joy the more? Yonder barefoot
boy, as he drifts silently in his punt beneath
the drooping branches of that vine-clad bank,
has a bliss which no millionaire can buy with
money, no statesman conquer with votes, —
which yet is no monopoly of his, and to which
time and experience only add a more subtile and
conscious charm. The rich years were given
us to increase, not to impair, these cheap felici-
ties. Sad or sinful is the life of that man who
finds not the heavens bluer and the waves more
musical in maturity than childhood. Time is a
severe alembic of youthful joys, no doubt; we
exhaust book after book, and leave Shakespeare
unopened ; we grow fastidious in men and wo-
men; all the rhetoric, all the logic, we fancy
we have heard before; we have seen the pic-
tures, we have listened to the symphonies: but
what has been done by all the art and litera-
ture of the world towards describing one sum-
mer day? The most exhausting effort brings
us no nearer to it than to the blue sky which
is its dome; our words are shot up against it
like arrows, and fall back helpless. Literary
amateurs go the tour of the globe to renew
their stock of materials, when they do not yet
know a bird or a bee or a blossom beside their
homestead door ; and in the hour of their great-
est success they have not an horizon to their

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 115

life so large as that of yonder boy in his punt.
All that is purchasable in the capitals of the
world is not to be weighed in comparison with
the simple enjoyment that may be crowded into
one hour of sunshine. What can place or power
do here? ‘Who could be before me, though
the palace of Czesar cracked and split with
emperors, while I, sitting in silence on a cliff
of Rhodes, watched the sun as he swung his
golden censer athwart the heavens?”

It is pleasant to observe a sort of confused
and latent recognition of all this in the instinc-
tive sympathy which is always rendered to any
indication of outdoor pursuits. How cordially
one sees the eyes of all travellers turn to the
man who enters the railroad station with a fowl-
ing-piece in hand, or the boy with water-lilies !
There is a momentary sensation of the freedom
of the woods, a whiff of oxygen for the anxious
money-changers. How agreeably sounds the
news — to all but his creditors —that the law-
yer or the merchant has locked his office door
and gone fishing! The American tempera-
ment needs at this moment nothing so much
as that wholesome training of semi-rural life
which reared Hampden and Cromwell to as-
sume at one grasp the sovereignty of Eng-
land, and which has ever since served as the
foundation of England’s greatest ability. The

116 OUTDOOR STUDIES

best thoughts and purposes seem ordained to
come to human beings beneath the open sky,
as the ancients fabled that Pan found, when he
was engaged in the chase, the goddess Ceres,
whom no other of the gods could find when
seeking seriously. The little I have gained
from colleges and libraries has certainly not
worn so well as the little I learned in child-
hood of the habits of plant, bird, and insect.
That “weight and sanity of thought,” which
Coleridge so finely makes the crowning attri-
bute of Wordsworth, is in no way so well ma-
tured and cultivated as in the society of nature.

There may be extremes and affectations, and
Mary Lamb declared that Wordsworth held it
doubtful if a dweller in towns had a soul to be
saved. During the various phases of tran-
scendental idealism among ourselves in the last
fifty years, the love of nature has at times as-
sumed an exaggerated and even a pathetic
aspect, in the morbid attempts of youths and
maidens to make it a substitute for vigorous
thought and action,—a lion endeavoring to
dine on grass and green leaves. In some cases
this mental chlorosis reached such a height as
almost to nauseate one with nature, when in
the society of the victims ; and surfeited com-
panions felt inclined to rush to the treadmill
immediately, or get chosen on the Board of

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 117

Selectmen, or plunge into any conceivable drudg-
ery, in order to feel that there was still work
enough in the universe to keep it sound and
healthy. But this, after all, was exceptional
and transitory, and our American life still
needs, beyond all things else, the more habit-
ual cultivation of outdoor habits.

Probably the direct ethical influence of nat-
ural objects may be overrated. Nature is not
didactic, but simply healthy. She helps every-
thing to its legitimate development, but applies
no goads, and forces on us no sharp distinc-
tions. Her wonderful calmness, refreshing the
whole soul, must aid both conscience and intel-
lect in the end, but sometimes lulls both tem-
porarily, when immediate issues are pending.
The waterfall cheers and purifies infinitely, but
it marks no moments, has no reproaches for
indolence, forces to no immediate decision,
offers unbounded to-morrows, and the man of
action must tear himself away, when the time
comes, since the work will not be done for him.
“The natural day is very calm, and will hardly
reprove our indolence.”

And yet the more bent any man is upon
action, the more profoundly he needs this very
calmness of nature to preserve his equilibrium.
The radical himself needs nothing so much as
fresh air. The world is called conservative ; but

118 OUTDOOR STUDIES

it is far easier to impress a plausible thought on
the complaisance of others, than to retain an
unfaltering faith in it for ourselves. The most
dogged reformer distrusts himself every little
while, and says inwardly, like Luther, “Art
thou alone wise?” So he is compelled to ex-
aggerate, in the effort to hold his own. The
community is bored by the conceit and egotism
of the innovators; so it is by that of poets and
artists, orators and statesmen; but if we knew
how heavily ballasted all these poor fellows
need to be, to keep an even keel amid so many
conflicting tempests of blame and praise, we
should hardly reproach them. But the simple
enjoyments of outdoor life, costing next to
nothing, tend to equalize all vexations. What
matter if the governor removes you from office?
he cannot remove you from the lake; and if.
readers or customers will not bite, the pickerel
will. We must keep busy, of course; yet we
cannot transform the world except very slowly,
and we can best preserve our patience in the
society of Nature, who does her work almost
as imperceptibly as we.

And for literary training, especially, the in-
fluence of natural beauty is simply priceless.
Under the present educational systems we need
grammars and languages far less than a more
thorough outdoor experience. On this flowery

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 119

bank, on this ripple-marked shore, are the true
literary models. How many living authors have
ever attained to writing a single page which
could be for one moment compared, for the
simplicity and grace of its structure, with this
green spray of wild woodbine or yonder white
wreath of blossoming clematis? A finely or-
ganized sentence should throb and palpitate
like the most delicate vibrations of the summer
air. We talk of literature as if it were a mere
matter of rule and measurement, a series of pro-
cesses long since brought to mechanical perfec-
tion: but it would be less incorrect to say that
it all lies in the future; tried by the outdoor
standard, there is as yet no literature, but only
glimpses and guideboards; no writer has yet
succeeded in sustaining, through more than
some single occasional sentence, that fresh and
perfect charm. If by the training of a life-
time one could succeed in producing one con-
tinuous page of perfect cadence, it would bea
life well spent, and such a literary artist would
fall short of nature’s standard in quantity only,
not in quality.

It is one sign of our weakness, also, that we
commonly assume Nature to be a rather fragile
and merely ornamental thing, and suited for
a model of the graces only. But her seduc-
tive softness is the last climax of magnificent

120 OUTDOOR STUDIES

strength. The same mathematical law winds the
leaves around the stem and the planets around
the sun. The same law of crystallization rules
the slight-knit snowflake and the hard foun-
dations of the earth. The thistledown floats
secure upon the same summer zephyrs that are
woven into the tornado, The dewdrop holds
within its transparent cell the same electric fire
which charges the thunder-cloud. In the soft-
est tree or the airiest waterfall, the fundamen-
tal lines are as lithe and muscular as the crouch-
ing haunches of a leopard ; and without a pencil
vigorous enough to render these, no mere mass
of foam or foliage, however exquisitely finished,
can tell the story. Lightness of touch is the
crowning test of power.

Yet nature does not work by single spasms
only. That chestnut spray is not an isolated
and exhaustive effort of creative beauty: look
upward and see its sisters rise with pile above
pile of fresh and stately verdure, till tree meets
sky in a dome of glorious blossom, the whole as
perfect as the parts, the least part as perfect as
the whole. Studying the details, it seems as if
Nature were a series of costly fragments with
no coherence, —as if she would never encour-
age us to do anything systematically, — would
tolerate no method but her own, and yet had
none of her own, — were as abrupt in her tran-

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 121

sitions from oak to maple as the heroine who
went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to
make an apple-pie; while yet there is no con-
ceivable human logic so close and inexorable as
her connections. How rigid, how flexible are,
for instance, the laws of perspective! If one
could learn to make his statements as firm and
unswerving as the horizon line, — his continuity
of thought as marked, yet as unbroken, as
yonder soft gradations by which the eye is
lured upward from lake to wood, from wood to
hill, from hill to heavens, — what more bracing
tonic could literary culture demand? As it is,
art misses the parts, yet does not grasp the
whole.

Literature also learns from nature the use
of materials: either to select only the choicest
and rarest, or to transmute coarse to fine by
skill in using. How perfect is the delicacy
with which the woods and fields are kept
throughout the year! All these millions of liv-
ing creatures born every season, and born to
die; yet where are the dead bodies? We
never see them. Buried beneath the earth by
tiny nightly sextons, sunk beneath the waters,
dissolved into the air, or distilled again and
again as food for other organizations, — all have
had their swift resurrection. Their existence
blooms again in these violet-petals, glitters in

122 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the burnished beauty of these golden beetles,
or enriches the veery’s song. It is only out of
doors that even death and decay become beau-
tifull The model farm, the most luxurious
house, have their regions of unsightliness ; but
the fine chemistry of nature is constantly
clearing away all its impurities before our eyes,
and yet so delicately that we never suspect the
process. The most exquisite work of literary
art exhibits a certain crudeness and coarseness,
when we turn to it from nature,—as the
smallest cambric needle appears rough and
jagged when compared through the magnifier
with the tapering fineness of the insect’s sting.

Once separated from nature, literature re-
cedes into metaphysics, or dwindles into novels.
How ignoble seems the current material of
London literary life, for instance, compared
with the noble simplicity which, a century ago,
made the Lake Country an enchanted land
forever. Compare the “enormity of pleasure”
which De Quincey says Wordsworth derived
from the simplest natural object, with the seri-
ous protest of Wilkie Collins against the affec-
tation of caring about nature at all. “Is it not
strange,” says this unhappy man, “to see how
little real hold the objects of the natural world
amidst which we live can gain on our hearts
and minds? We go to nature for comfort in

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 123

joy, and sympathy in trouble, only in books.
. .. What share have the attractions of nature
ever had in the pleasurable or painful interests
and emotions of ourselves or our friends? ...
There is surely a reason for this want of inborn
sympathy between the creature and the crea-
tion around it.”

Leslie says of “the most original landscape
painter he knew,” meaning Constable, that,
whenever he sat down in the fields to sketch,
he endeavored to forget that he had ever seen
a picture. In literature this is easy, the de-
scriptions are so few and so faint. When
Wordsworth was fourteen, he stopped one day
by the wayside to observe the dark outline of
an oak against the western sky; and he says
that he was at that moment struck with “the
infinite variety of natural appearances which
had been unnoticed by the poets of any age or
country,” so far as he was acquainted with
them, and “made a resolution to supply in
some degree the deficiency.” He spent a long
life in studying and telling these beautiful won-
ders; and yet, so vast is the sum of them, they
seem almost as undescribed as before, and men
to be still as content with vague or conven-
tional representations. On this continent,
especially, people fancied that all must be tame
and second-hand, everything long since duly

124 OUTDOOR STUDIES

analyzed and distributed and put up in appro-
priate quotations, and nothing left for us poor
American children but a preoccupied universe.
And yet Thoreau camps down by Walden
Pond, and shows us that absolutely nothing in
nature has ever yet been described, — not a
bird, nor a berry of the woods, nor a drop of
water, nor a spicula of ice, nor summer, nor
winter, nor sun, nor star.

Indeed, no person can portray nature from
any slight or transient acquaintance. A re-
porter cannot step out between the sessions of
a caucus and give a racy abstract of the land-
scape. It may consume the best hours of
many days to certify for one’s self the simplest
outdoor fact, but every such piece of know-
ledge is intellectually worth the time. Even
the driest and barest book of Natural History
is good and nutritious, so far as it goes, if it
represents genuine acquaintance; one can find
summer in January by poring over the Latin
catalogues of plants and insects. The most
commonplace outdoor society has the same
attraction. Every one of those old outlaws
who haunt our New England ponds and
marshes, water-soaked and soakers of some-
thing else, — intimate with the pure fluid in
that familiarity which breeds contempt, — has
yet a wholesome side when you explore his

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 125

knowledge of frost and freshet, pickerel and
muskrat, and is exceedingly good company
while you can keep him beyond scent of the
tavern. Any intelligent farmer’s boy can give
you some narrative of outdoor observation
which, so far as it goes, fulfils Milton’s defini-
tion of poetry, “simple, sensuous, passionate.”
He may not write sonnets to the lake, but he
will walk miles to bathe in it; he may not
notice the sunsets, but he knows where to
search for the blackbird’s nest. How surprised
the school-children looked, to be sure, when
the Doctor of Divinity from the city tried to
sentimentalize in addressing them about “the
bobolink in the woods”! They knew that the
darling of the meadow had no more personal
acquaintance with the woods than was exhib-
ited by the preacher.

But the preachers are not much worse than
the authors. The prosaic Buckle, indeed, ad-
mits that the poets have in all time been con-
summate observers, and that their observations
have been as valuable as those of the men of
science ; and yet we look even to the poets for
very casual and occasional glimpses of Nature
only, not for any continuous reflection of her
glory. Thus, Chaucer is perfumed with early
spring; Homer resounds like the sea; in the
Greek Anthology the sun always shines on the

t

126 OUTDOOR STUDIES

fisherman’s cottage by the beach ; we associate
the Vishni Purana with lakes and _ lotuses,
Keats with nightingales in forest dim, while
the long grass waving on the lonely heath is
the last memorial of the fading fame of Ossian.
Of course Shakespeare’s omniscience included
all natural phenomena; but the rest, great or
small, associate themselves with some special
aspects, and not with the daily atmosphere.
Coming to our own times, one must quarrel
with Ruskin as taking rather the artist’s view
of nature, selecting the available bits and deal-
ing rather patronizingly with the whole; and
one is tempted to charge even Emerson, as he
somewhere charges Wordsworth, with not be-
ing of a temperament quite liquid and musical
enough to admit the full vibration of the great
harmonies.

Yet what wonderful achievements have some
of the fragmentary artists performed! Some
of Tennyson’s word pictures, for instance, bear
almost as much study as the landscape. One
afternoon, last spring, I had been walking
through a copse of young white birches, — their
leaves scarce yet apparent,— over a ground
delicate with wood-anemones, moist and mot-
tled with dog-tooth violet leaves, and spangled
with the delicate clusters of that shy creature,
the Claytonia or Spring Beauty. All this was

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 127

floored with last year’s faded foliage, giving a
singular bareness and whiteness to the fore-
ground. Suddenly, as if entering a cavern, I
stepped through the edge of all this, into a
dark little amphitheatre beneath a hemlock
grove, where the afternoon sunlight struck
broadly through the trees upon a tiny stream
and a miniature swamp, — this last being in-
tensely and luridly green, yet overlaid with the
pale gray of last year’s reeds, and absolutely
flaming with the gayest yellow light from great
clumps of cowslips. The illumination seemed
perfectly weird and dazzling; the spirit of the
place appeared live, wild, fantastic, almost hu-
man. Now open your Tennyson, —

“And the wild marsh marigold shines like fire in swamps

and hollows gray.”

Our cowslip, as I have already said, is the
English marsh marigold.

History is a grander poetry, and it is often
urged that the features of Nature in America
must seem tame because they have no legend-
ary wreaths to decorate them. It is perhaps
hard for those of us who are untravelled to ap-
preciate how densely even the rural parts of
Europe are overgrown with this ivy of associa-
tions. Thus, it is fascinating to hear that the
great French forests of Fontainebleau and St.
Germain are full of historic trees, — the oak of

128 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Charlemagne, the oak of Clovis, of Queen
Blanche, of Henri Quatre, of Sully, — the alley
of Richelieu,—-the rendezvous of St. Hérem,
—the star of Lamballe and of the Princesses,
a star being a point where several paths or
roads converge. It is said that every topo-
graphical work upon these forests has turned
out to be a history of the French monarchy.
Yet surely men lose nearly as much as they
gain by such subordination of imperishable
beauty to the perishable memories of man. It
may not be wholly unfortunate, that in the
absence of those influences which come to
older nations from ruins and traditions, we
must go more directly to nature. Art may
either rest upon other art, or it may rest di-
rectly upon the original foundation ; the one is
easier, the other more valuable. Direct de-
pendence on nature leads to deeper thought,
and affords the promise of far fresher results.
Why should I wish to enter upon indoor studies
at Berlin or Heidelberg, when I possess the un-
exhausted treasures of this outdoor study here?

The walls of my study are of ever-changing
verdure, and its roof and floor of ever-varying
blue. I never enter it without a new heaven
above and new thoughts below. The lake has
no lofty shores and no level ones, but a series
of undulating hills, fringed with woods from end

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 129

toend. The profaning axe may sometimes come
near the margin, and one may hear the whet-
ting of the scythe ; but no cultivated land abuts
upon the main lake, though beyond the narrow
woods there are here and there glimpses of rye-
fields, that wave like rolling mist. Graceful
islands rise from the quiet waters, — Grape
Island, Grass Island, Sharp Pine Island, and
the rest, baptized with simple names by de-
parted generations of farmers, — all wooded
and bushy, and trailing with festoonery of vines.
Here and there the banks are indented, and one
may pass beneath drooping chestnut-leaves and
among alder branches into some secret sanctuary
of stillness. The emerald edges of these silent
tarns are starred with dandelions which have
strayed here, one scarce knows how, from their
foreign home; the buck-bean perchance grows
in the water, or the Rhodora fixes here one of
its shy camping-places, or there are whole skies
of lupine on the sloping banks ;— the catbird
builds its nest beside us, the yellow-bird above,
the wood thrush sings late and the whip-poor-
will later, and sometimes the scarlet tanager
and his golden-haired bride send a gleam of the
tropics through these leafy aisles.

Sometimes I rest in a yet more secluded
place amid the waters, where a little wooded
island holds a small lagoon in the centre, just

130 OUTDOOR STUDIES

wide enough for the wherry to turn round.
The entrance lies between two hornbeam trees,
which stand close to the brink, spreading over
it their thorn-like branches and their shining
leaves. Within there is perfect shelter; the
island forms a high, circular bank, like a coral
reef, and shuts out the wind and the passing
boats ; the surface is paved with leaves of lily
and pond-weed, and the boughs above are full
of song. No matter what whitecaps may crest
the blue waters of the pond, which here widens
out to its broadest reach, there is always quiet
here. A few oar-strokes away lies a dam or
water-break, where the whole lake is held under
control by certain distant mills, towards which
a sluggish stream goes winding on through
miles of water-lilies. The old gray timbers of
the dam are the natural resort of every boy or
boatman within their reach; some come in pur-
suit of pickerel, some of turtles, some of bull-
frogs, some of lilies, some of bathing. It is a
good place for the last desideratum, and it is
well to leave here the boat tethered to the vines
which overhang the cove, and perform a sacred
and Oriental ablution beneath the sunny after-
noon.

O radiant and divine afternoon! The poets
profusely celebrate silver evenings and golden
mornings ; but what floods on floods of beauty

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 131

steep the earth and gladden it in the first hours
of day’s decline! The exuberant rays reflect
and multiply themselves from every leaf and
blade ; the cows lie upon the hillside, with their
broad, peaceful backs painted into the land-
scape; the hum of insects, “tiniest bells on
the garment of silence,” fills the air; the gor-
geous butterflies doze upon the thistle-blooms
till they almost fall from the petals; the air is
full of warm fragrance from the wild-grape
clusters ; the grass is burning hot beneath the
naked feet in sunshine, and cool as water in
the shade. Diving from this overhanging
beam, —for Ovid evidently meant that Midas
to be cured must dive, —

“ Subde caput, corpusque simul, simul elue crinem,” —

one finds as kindly a reception from the water
as in childish days, and as safe a shelter in the
green dressing-room afterwards ; and the pa-
tient wherry floats near by, in readiness for a
reémbarkation.

Here a word seems needed, unprofessionally
and non-technically, upon boats, —these being
the sole seats provided for occupant or visitor
in my outdoor study. When wherries first
appeared in this peaceful inland community,
the novel proportions occasioned remark. Face-
tious bystanders inquired sarcastically whether

132 OUTDOOR STUDIES

that thing were expected to carry more than
one, — plainly implying by labored emphasis
that it would occasionally be seen tenanted by
even less than that number. Transcendental
friends inquired, with more refined severity, if
the proprietor expected to meditate in that
thing. This doubt at least seemed legitimate.
Meditation seems to belong to sailing rather
than rowing ; there is something so gentle and
unintrusive in gliding effortless beneath over-
hanging branches and along the trailing edges
of clematis thickets ; — what a privilege of fairy-
land is this noiseless prow, looking in and out
of one flowery cove after another, scarcely stir-
ring the turtle from his log, and leaving no
wake behind! It seemed as if all the process
of rowing had too much noise and bluster, and
as if the sharp, slender wherry, in particular,
were rather too pert and dapper to win the
confidence of the woods and waters. Time has
dispelled the fear. As I rest poised upon the
oars above some submerged shadow, diamonded
with ripple-broken sunbeams, the fantastic No-
tonecta or water-boatman rests upon his oars
below, and I see that his proportions antici-
pated the wherry, as honeycombs antedated
the problem of the hexagonal cell. While one
of us rests, so does the other; and when one
shoots away rapidly above the water, the other

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 133

does the same beneath. For the time, as our
motions seem the same, so with our motives,
—my enjoyment certainly not less, with the
conveniences of humanity thrown in.

But the sun is declining low. The club-
boats are out, and from island to island in the
distance these shafts of youthful life shoot
swiftly across. There races some swift Ata-
lanta, with no apple to fall in her path, but
some soft and spotted oak-apple from an over-
hanging tree ; there the Phantom, with a crew
white and ghost-like in the distance, glimmers
in and out behind the headlands, while yonder
wherry glides lonely across the smooth expanse.
The voices of all these oarsmen are dim and
almost inaudible, being so far away; but one
would scarcely wish that distance should anni-
hilate the ringing laughter of these joyous girls,
who come gliding, in a safe and heavy boat,
they and some blue dragon-flies together,
around yonder wooded point.

Many a summer afternoon have I rowed joy-
ously with these same maidens beneath these
steep and garlanded shores; many a time have
they pulled the heavy four-oar, with me as cox-
swain at the helm,—the said patient steers-
man being ofttimes insulted by classical allu-
sions from rival boats, satirically comparing
him to an indolent Venus drawn by doves,

134 OUTDOOR STUDIES

while the oarswomen, in turn, were likened to
Minerva with her feet upon a tortoise. Many
were the disasters in the earlier days of femi-
nine training:—first of toilet,— straw hats
blowing away, hair coming down, hairpins
strewing the floor of the boat, gloves commonly
happening to be off at the precise moment of
starting, and trials of speed impaired by some-
body’s oar catching in somebody’s pocket.
Then the actual difficulties of handling the long
and heavy oars, — the first essays at feathering,
with a complicated splash of air and water, as
when a wild duck, in rising, swims and flies
together and uses neither element handsomely,
—the occasional pulling of a particularly vigor-
ous stroke through the atmosphere alone, and
at other times the compensating disappearance
of nearly the whole oar beneath the liquid sur-
face, as if some Uncle Kiihleborn had grasped
it, while our Undine by main strength tugged
it from the beguiling wave. But with what
triumphant abundance of merriment were these
preliminary disasters repaid, and how soon were
they outgrown! What time we sometimes
made, when nobody happened to be near with
a watch, and how successfully we tossed oars
in saluting, when the world looked on from a
picnic! We had our applauses, too. To be
sure, owing to the age and dimensions of the

A SUMMER AFTERNOON 135

original barge, we could not command such a
burst of enthusiasm as when the young men
shot by us in their race-boat ; but then, as one
of the girls justly remarked, we remained longer
in sight.

And many a day, since promotion to a swifter
craft, have they rowed with patient stroke
down the lovely lake, still attended by their
guide, philosopher, and coxswain, — along banks
where herds of young birch-trees overspread
the sloping valley, and ran down beneath a
blaze of sunshine to the rippling water, —or
through the Narrows, where some breeze
rocked the boat till trailing shawls and ribbons
were water-soaked, and the bold little foam
would even send a daring drop over the gun-
wale, to play at ocean, — or to Davis’s Cottage,
where a whole parterre of lupines bloomed to
the water’s edge, as if relics of some ancient
garden bower of a forgotten race,—or to the
dam by Lily Pond, there to hunt among the
stones for snakes’ eggs, each empty shell cut
crosswise, where the young creatures had made
their first fierce bite into the universe outside,
—or to some island, where white violets
bloomed fragrant and lonely, separated by re-
lentless breadths of water from their shore-
born sisters, until mingled in their visitors’
bouquets, —then up the lake homeward again

136 OUTDOOR STUDIES

at nightfall, the boat all decked with clematis,
clethra, laurel, azalea, or water-lilies, while pur-
ple sunset clouds turned forth their golden lin-
ings for drapery above our heads, and then,
unrolling, sent northward long, roseate wreaths
to outstrip our loitering speed, and reach the
floating bridge before us.

It is nightfall now. One by one the birds
grow silent, and the soft dragon-flies, children
of the day, are fluttering noiselessly to their
rest beneath the under sides of drooping leaves.
From shadowy coves the evening air is thrust-
ing forth a thin film of mist to spread a white
floor above the waters. The gathering dark-
ness deepens the quiet of the lake, and bids us,
at least for this time, to forsake it. “ De soir
Sontaines, de matin montaignes,” says the old
French proverb, — Morning for labor, evening
for repose.

VI
THE LIFE OF BIRDS

WHEN one thinks of a bird, one fancies a soft,
swift, aimless, joyous thing, full of nervous
energy and arrowy motions, —a song with
wings. So remote from ours their mode of ex-
istence, they seem accidental exiles from an
unknown globe, banished where none can un-
derstand their language ; and men only stare
at their darting, inexplicable ways, as at the
gyrations of thecircus. Watch their little traits
for hours, and it only tantalizes curiosity. Every
man’s secret is penetrable, if his neighbor be
sharp-sighted. Dickens, for instance, can take
a poor, condemned wretch, like Fagin, whose
emotions neither he nor his reader has experi-
enced, and can paint him in colors that seem
made of the soul’s own atoms, so that each be-
holder feels as if he, personally, had been the
man. But this bird that hovers and alights be-
side me, peers up at me, takes its food, then
looks again, attitudinizing, jerking, flirting his
tail, with a thousand inquisitive and fantastic
motions, — although I have power to grasp it

138 OUTDOOR STUDIES

in my hand and crush its life out, yet I cannot
gain its secret thus, and the centre of its con-
sciousness is really farther from mine than the
remotest planetary orbit. ‘We do not stead-
ily bear in mind,” says Darwin, with a noble
humility, “how profoundly ignorant we are of
the condition of existence of every animal.”

What sympathetic penetration can fathom
the life, for instance, of yonder mysterious,
almost voiceless, Hummingbird, smallest of
feathery things, and loneliest ; whirring among
birds, insect-like, and among insects, bird-like ;
his path untraceable, his home unseen? An
image of airy motion, yet it sometimes seems
as if there were nothing joyous in him. He
seems like some exiled pygmy prince, banished,
but still regal, and doomed to wings. Did gems
turn to flowers, flowers to feathers, in that long,
past dynasty of the Hummingbirds? It is
strange to come upon his tiny nest, in some
gray and tangled swamp, with this brilliant
atom perched disconsolately near it, upon some
mossy twig; it is like visiting Cinderella among
her ashes. And from Hummingbird to Eagle,
the daily existence of every bird is a remote
and bewitching mystery.

Pythagoras has been charged, both before
and since the days of Malvolio, with holding
that “the soul of our grandam might haply in-

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 139

habit a fowl,’—that delinquent men must
revisit earth as women, and delinquent women
as birds. Malvolio thought nobly of the soul,
and in no way approved his opinion ; but I re-
member that Harriet Prescott, in her school-
days, accepted this, her destiny, with glee.
“When I saw the Oriole,” she wrote to me,
“from his nest among the plum-trees in the
garden, sail over the air and high above the
Gothic arches of the elm, a stream of flashing
light, or watched him swinging silently on pen-
dent twigs, I did not dream how near akin we
were. Or when a Hummingbird, a winged
drop of gorgeous sheen and gloss, a living gem,
poising on his wings, thrust his dark, slender,
honey-seeking bill into the white blossoms of a
little bush beside my window, I should have
thought it no such bad thing to be a bird ; even
if one next became a bat, like the colony in
our eaves, that dart and drop and skim and
scurry, all the length of moonless nights, in
such ecstasies of dusky joy.” Was this weird
creature, the bat, in very truth a bird, in some
far primeval time ? and does he fancy, in unquiet
dreams at nightfall, that he is one still? I won-
der whether he can enjoy the winged brother-
hood into which he has thrust himself, — vic-
tim, perhaps, of some rash quadruped-ambition,
— an Icarus, doomed forever not to fall.

140 OUTDOOR STUDIES

I think that, if required, on pain of death, to
name instantly the most perfect thing in the
universe, I should risk my fate on a bird’s egg.
There is, first, its exquisite fragility of material,
strong only by the mathematical precision of
that form so daintily moulded. There is its
absolute purity from external stain, since that
thin barrier remains impassable until the whole
is in ruins, —a purity recognized in the house-
hold proverb of “ An apple, an egg, and a nut.”
Then, its range of tints, so varied, so subdued,
and so beautiful, — whether of pure white, like
the Martin’s, or pure green, like the Robin’s,
or dotted and mottled into the loveliest of
browns, like the Red Thrush’s, or aquamarine,
with stains of moss-agate, like the Chipping
Sparrow’s, or blotched with long, weird ink
marks on a pale ground, like the Oriole’s, as if
it bore inscribed some magic clue to the bird’s
darting flight and pensile nest. Above all, the
associations and predictions of this little won-
der, — that one may bear home between his
fingers all that winged splendor, all that celes-
tial melody, coiled in mystery within these tiny
walls! Even the chrysalis is less amazing, for
its form always preserves some trace, however
fantastic, of the perfect insect, and it is but
moulting a skin; but this egg appears to the
eye like a separate unit from some other kingdom

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 141

of nature, claiming more kindred with the very
stones than with feathery existence ; and it is
as if a pearl opened and an angel sang.

The nest which is to contain these fair things
is a wonderful study also, from the coarse
masonry of the Robin to the soft structure of
the Hummingbird, a baby house among nests.
Among all created things, the birds come near-
est to man in their domesticity. Their unions are
usually in pairs, and for life; and with them,
unlike the practice of most quadrupeds, the
male labors for the young. He chooses the
locality of the nest, aids in its construction,
and fights for it, if needful. He sometimes
assists in hatching the eggs. He feeds the
brood with exhausting labor, like yonder Robin,
whose winged picturesque day is spent in put-
ting worms into- insatiable beaks, at the rate of
one morsel in every three minutes. He has to
teach them to fly, as among the Swallows, or
even to hunt, as among the Hawks. His life is
anchored to his home. Yonder Oriole fills with
light and melody the thousand branches of a
neighborhood ; and yet the centre for all this
divergent splendor is always that one drooping
dome upon one chosen tree. This he helped
to build in May, confiscating cotton as if he
were an army provost-marshal, and singing
many songs, with his mouth full of plunder; -

142 OUTDOOR STUDIES

and there he watches over his household, all
through the leafy June, perched often upon
the airy cradle edge, and swaying with it in the
summer wind. And from this deep nest, after
the pretty eggs are hatched, will he and his
mate extract every fragment of the shell, leav-
ing it, like all other nests, save those of birds
of prey, clean and pure, when the young are
flown. This they do chiefly from an instinct
of delicacy, since wood-birds are not wont to
use the same nest a second time, even if they
rear several broods in a season.

The subdued tints and notes which almost
always mark the female sex, among birds, —
unlike insects and human beings, where the
female is often more showy than the male, —
seem designed to secure their safety while
sitting on the nest, while the brighter colors
and louder song of the male enable his domes-
tic circle to detect his whereabouts more easily.
It is commonly noticed, in the same way, that
ground-birds have more neutral tints than those
which build out of reach. With the aid of
these advantages, it is astonishing how well
these roving creatures keep their secrets, and
what sharp eyes are needed to spy out their
habitations, — while it always seems as if the
empty last year’s nests were very plenty. Some,
indeed, are very elaborately concealed, as of the

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 143

Golden-crowned Thrush, called, for this reason,
the Oven-bird,—the Meadowlark, with its
burrowed gallery among the grass, —and the
Kingfisher, which mines four feet into the
earth. Many of the rarer nests would hardly
be discovered, only that the maternal instinct
seems sometimes so overloaded by nature as
to defeat itself, and the bird flies and chirps in
agony, when she might pass unnoticed by keep-
ing still. The most marked exception I have
noticed is that of the Red Thrush, which, in
this respect, as in others, has the most high-
bred manners among all our birds: both male
and female sometimes flit in perfect silence
through the bushes, and show solicitude only
in a sob that is scarcely audible,

Passing along the shore-path by our lake, one
day in June, I heard a great sound of scuffling
and yelping before me, as if dogs were hunting
rabbits or woodchucks. On approaching I saw
no sign of such disturbances, and presently a
Partridge came running at me through the
trees, with ruff and tail expanded, bill wide
open, and hissing like a goose, —then turned
suddenly, and with ruff and tail furled, but with
no pretence of lameness, scudded off through
the woods in a circle,—then at me again
fiercely, approaching within two yards, and
spreading all her furbelows, to intimidate, as

144 OUTDOOR STUDIES

before, —then, taking in sail, went off again,
always at the same rate of speed, yelping like
an angry squirrel, squealing like a pig, occasion-
ally clucking like a hen, and in general so fill-
ing the woods with bustle and disturbance that
there seemed no room for anything else. Quite
overawed by the display, I stood watching her
for some time, then entered the underbrush,
where the little, invisible brood had been un-
ceasingly piping, in their baby way. So motion-
less were they, that, for all their noise, I stood
with my feet among them, for some minutes,
without finding it possible to detect them.
When found and taken from the ground, which
they so closely resembled, they made no attempt
to escape; but when replaced, they presently
ran away fast, as if conscious that the first
policy had failed, and that their mother had
retreated. Such is the summer life of these
little things ; but come again in the fall, when
the wild autumnal winds go marching through
the woods, and a dozen pairs of strong wings
will thrill like thunder through the arches of
the trees, as the full-grown brood whirs away
around you.

Not only have we scarcely any species of
birds which are thoroughly and unquestionably
identical with European species, but there are
certain general variations of habit. For in-

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 145

stance, in regard to migration. This is, of
course, a universal instinct, since even tropical
birds migrate for short distances from the equa-
tor, so essential to their existence do these wan-
derings seem. But in New England, among
birds as among men, the roving habit seems
unusually strong, and abodes are shifted very
rapidly. The whole number of species observed
in Massachusetts is about the same as in Eng-
land, — some three hundred in all. But of this
number, in England, about a hundred habitu-
ally winter on the island, and half that number
even in the Hebrides, some birds actually breed-
ing in Scotland during January and February,
incredible as it may seem. Their habits can,
therefore, be observed through a long period of
the year; while with us the bright army comes
and encamps for a month or two and then van-
ishes. You must attend their dress-parades
while they last; for you will have but few op-
portunities, and their domestic life must com-
monly be studied during a few weeks of the
season, or not at all.

Wonderful as the instinct of migration seems,
it is not, perhaps, so altogether amazing in
itself as in some of its attendant details. Toa
great extent, birds follow the open foliage
northward, and flee from its fading, south; they
must keep near the food on which they live,

146 OUTDOOR STUDIES

and secure due shelter for their eggs. Our ear-
liest visitors shrink from trusting the bare trees
with their nests; the Song Sparrow seeks the
ground; the Bluebird finds a box or a hole
somewhere; the Red-winged Blackbird haunts
the marshy thickets, safer in spring than at
any other season; and even the sociable Robin
prefers a pine-tree to an apple-tree, if resolved
to begin housekeeping prematurely. The move-
ments of birds are chiefly timed by the advance
of vegetation; and the thing most thoroughly
surprising about them is not the general fact of
the change of latitude, but their accuracy in
hitting the precise locality. That the same
Catbird should find its way back, every spring,
to almost the same branch of yonder larch-tree,
—that is the thing astonishing tome. In Eng-
land, a lame Redstart was observed in the same
garden for sixteen successive years; and the
astonishing precision of course which enables
some birds of small size to fly from Australia
to New Zealand in a day — probably the long-
est single flight ever taken —is only a part of
the same mysterious instinct of direction.

In comparing modes of flight, the most sur-
prising, of course, is that of the Swallow tribe,
remarkable not merely for its velocity, but for
the amazing boldness and instantaneousness of
the angles it makes; so that eminent European

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 147

mechanicians have speculated in vain upon the
methods used in its locomotion, and prizes have
been offered, by mechanical exhibitions, to him
who could best explain it. With impetuous
dash they sweep through our perilous streets,
these wild hunters of the air, “so near, and yet
so far ;”’ they bathe flying, and flying they feed
their young. In my immediate vicinity, the
Chimney Swallow is not now common, nor the
Sand Swallow; but the Cliff Swallow, that
strange emigrant from the Far West, the Barn
Swallow, and the white-breasted species are
abundant, together with the Purple Martin. I
know no prettier sight than a bevy of these
bright little creatures, met from a dozen differ-
ent farmhouses to picnic at a wayside pool,
splashing and fluttering, with their long wings
expanding like butterflies, keeping poised by a
constant hovering motion, just tilting upon
their feet, which scarcely touch the moist
ground. You will seldom see them actually
perch on anything less airy than some tele-
graphic wire ; but when they alight, each will
make chatter enough for a dozen, as if all the
rushing hurry of the wings had passed into the
tongue.

Between the swiftness of the Swallow and
the stateliness of the birds of prey, the whole
range of bird motion seems included. The long

148 OUTDOOR STUDIES

wave of a Hawk’s wings seems almost to send a
slow vibration through the atmosphere, tolling
upon the eye as yon distant bell upon the ear.
I never was more impressed with the superior
dignity of these soarings than in observing a
bloodless contest in the air last April. Stand-
ing beside a little grove on a rocky hillside, I
heard Crows cawing near by, and then a sound
like great flies buzzing, which I really attributed,
for a moment, to some early insect. Turning,
I saw two Crows flapping their heavy wings
among the trees, and observed that they were
teasing a Hawk about as large as themselves,
which was also on the wing. Presently all
three had risen above the branches, and were
circling higher and higher in a slow spiral.
The Crows kept constantly swooping at their
enemy, with the same angry buzz, one of the
two taking decidedly the lead. They seldom
struck at him with their beaks, but kept lum-
bering against him, and flapping him with their
wings, as if in a fruitless effort to capsize him ;
while the Hawk kept carelessly eluding the as-
saults, now inclining on one side, now on the
other, with a stately grace, never retaliating,
but seeming rather to enjoy the novel amuse-
ment, as if it were a skirmish in balloons. Dur-
ing all this, indeed, he scarcely seemed once to
wave his wings, yet he soared steadily aloft, till

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 149

the Crows refused to follow, though already
higher than I ever saw Crows before, dim against
the fleecy sky ; then the Hawk flew northward,
but soon after he sailed over us once again,
with loud, scornful chzvr, and they only cawed,
and left him undisturbed.

When we hear the tumult of music from
these various artists of the air, it seems as if
the symphony never could be analyzed into its
different instruments. But with time and pa-
tience it is not so difficult; nor can we really
enjoy the performance so long as it is only a con-
fused chorus to our ears. It is not merely the
highest form of animal language, but in strict-
ness of etymology the only form, if it be true,
as is claimed, that no other animal employs its
tongue, /zgua, in producing sound. In the
Middle Ages, the song of birds was called their
Latin, as was any other foreign dialect. It was
the old German superstition, that any one who
should eat the heart of a bird would thenceforth
comprehend its language; and one modern
philologist of the same nation (Masius declares)
has so far studied the sounds produced by do-
mestic fowls as to announce a Goose-Lexicon.
Dupont de Nemours asserted that he under-
stood eleven words of the Pigeon language, the
same number of that of Fowls, fourteen of the
Cat tongue, twenty-two of that of Cattle, thirty

150 OUTDOOR STUDIES

of that of Dogs, and the Raven language he
understood completely. But the ordinary ob-
server seldom attains farther than to compre-
hend some of the cries of anxiety and fear
around him, often so unlike the accustomed
carol of the bird, — as the mew of the Catbird,
the lamb-like bleating of the Veery and his im-
patient yeoick, the chaip of the Meadowlark,
the tsowyee of the Chewink, the petulant psz¢
and ¢see of the Red-winged Blackbird, and the
hoarse cooing of the Bobolink. With some
of our most familiar birds the variety of notes
is at its greatest. I have watched two Song
Sparrows, perched near each other, in whom
the spyglass could show not the slightest dif-
ference of marking, even in the characteristic
stains upon the breast, who yet chanted to each
other, for fifteen minutes, over and over, two
elaborate songs which had nothing in common,
I have observed a similar thing in two Wood
Sparrows, with their sweet, distinct, monoto-
nous note; nor can I find it stated that the
difference is sexual. Who can claim to have
heard the whole song of the Robin? Taking
shelter from a shower beneath an oak-tree, the
other day, I caught a few of the notes which
one of those cheery creatures, who love to sing
in wet weather, tossed down to me through the
drops.

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 151

(Before noticing me,) chirrup, cheerup ;
(pausing in alarm, at my approach,) che, che, che ;
(broken presently by a thoughtful strain,) caw, caw ;

(then softer and more confiding,) "see, Ste, See 3
(then the original note, in a whisper,) chirrup, cheerup ;
(often broken by a soft note,) see, Wee 3

(and an odder one,) squeal ;

(and a mellow note,) tweedle.

And all these were mingled with more com-
plex combinations, and with half imitations, as
of the Bluebird, so that it seemed almost im-
possible to doubt that there was some specific
meaning, to him and his peers, in this endless
vocabulary. Yet other birds, as quick-witted as
the Robins, possess but one or two chirping
notes, to which they seem unable to give more
than the very rudest variation of accent.

The controversy concerning the singing birds
of Europe and America has had various phases
and influential disputants. Buffon easily con-
vinced himself that our Thrushes had no songs,
because the voices of all birds grew harsh in
savage countries, such as he naturally held this
continent to be. Audubon, on the other hand,
relates that even in his childhood he was as-
sured by his father that the American song-
sters were the best, though neither Americans
nor Europeans could be convinced of it. Mac-
Gillivray, the Scottish naturalist, reports that
Audubon himself, in conversation, arranged

152 OUTDOOR STUDIES

our vocalists in the following order : first the
Mockingbird, as unrivalled; then the Wood
Thrush, the Catbird, and Red Thrush; the
Rose-breasted, Pine, and Blue Grosbeak; the
Orchard and Golden Oriole; the Tawny and
Hermit Thrushes; several Finches, — Bach-
mann’s, the White-crowned, the Indigo, and the
Nonpareil ; and, finally, the Bobolink.

Among those birds of this list which fre-
quent Massachusetts, the Hermit Thrush stands
at the head. As I sat the other day in the deep
woods beside a black brook which dropped from
stone to stone beneath the shadow of our Rat-
tlesnake Rocks, the air seemed at first as silent
above me as the earth below. The buzz of
summer sounds had not begun. Sometimes a
bee hummed by with a long, swift thrill like
a chord of music; sometimes a breeze came
resounding up the forest like an approaching
locomotive, and then died utterly away. Then,
at length, a Veery’s delicious note rose in a
fountain of liquid melody from beneath me ; and
when it was ended, the clear, calm, interrupted
chant of the Hermit Thrush fell like solemn
water-drops from some source above. I am ac-
quainted with no sound in nature so sweet, so
elevated, so serene. Flutes and flageolets are
art’s poor efforts to recall that softer sound.
It is simple, and seems all prelude; but the

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 153

music to which it is the overture belongs to
other spheres. It might be the Azgelus of
some lost convent. It might be the meditation
of some maiden hermit, saying over to herself
in solitude, with recurrent tuneful pauses, the
only song she knows. Beside this soliloquy of
seraphs, the carol of the Veery seems a familiar
and almost domestic thing; yet it is so charm-
ing that Aububon must have designed to in-
clude this among the Thrushes whose merits he
proclaims,

But the range of musical perfection is a wide
one; and if the standard of excellence be that
wondrous brilliancy and variety of execution
suggested by the Mockingbird, then the palm
belongs, among our New England songsters,
to the Red Thrush, otherwise called the Mavis
or Brown Thrasher. I know not how to de-
scribe the voluble and fantastic notes which fall
like pearls and diamonds from the beak of our
Mavis, while his stately attitudes and high-born
bearing are in full harmony with the song. I
recall the steep, bare hillside, and the two great
boulders which guard the lonely grove, where
I first fully learned the wonder of this lay, as
if I had met St. Cecilia there. A thoroughly
happy song, overflowing with life, it gives even
its most familiar phrases an air of gracious con-
descension, as when some great violinist stoops

154 OUTDOOR STUDIES

to the “ Carnival of Venice.” The Red Thrush
does not, however, consent to any parrot-like
mimicry, though every note of wood or field —
Oriole, Bobolink, Crow, Jay, Robin, Whip-poor-
will—appears to pass in veiled procession
through the song.

Retain the execution of the Red Thrush
but hopelessly impair his organ, and you have
the Catbird. This accustomed visitor would
seem a gifted vocalist but for the inevitable
comparison between his thinner note and the
gushing melodies of the lordlier bird. Is it
some hopeless consciousness of this disadvan-
tage which leads him to pursue that peculiar
habit of singing softly to himself very often in
a fancied seclusion? When other birds are
cheerily out of doors, on some bright morning
in May or June, one will often discover a solitary
Catbird sitting concealed in the middle of a
dense bush, and twittering busily, in subdued
rehearsal, the whole copious variety of his lay,
practising trills and preparing half imitations,
which at some other time, sitting on the top-
most twig, he shall hilariously seem to im-
provise before all the world. Can it be that he
is really in some slight disgrace with nature,
with that demi-mourning garb of his, and that
his feline cry of terror, which makes his op-
probrium with boys, is but a part of some hid-

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 155

den doom? No, the lovely color of the eggs
which his companion watches on that labori-
ously builded staging of twigs shall vindicate
this familiar companion from any suspicion of
original sin.

Indeed, it is well demonstrated by our Ameri-
can odlogist, Dr. Brewer, that the eggs of the
Catbird affiliate him with the Robin and the
Wood Thrush, all three being widely separated
in this respect from the Red Thrush. The Red
Thrush builds on the ground, and has mottled
eggs; while the whole household establish-
ment of the Wood Thrush is scarcely distin-
guishable from that of the Robin, and the Cat-
bird differs chiefly in being more of a carpenter
and less of a mason.

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak, which Audubon
places so high on his list of minstrels, comes
annually to one region in this vicinity, but I
am not sure of having heard it. The young
Pine Grosbeaks come to our woods in winter,
and have then but a subdued twitter. Every
one knows the Bobolink ; and almost all recog-
nize the Oriole, by sight at least, even if un-
familiar with all the notes of his cheery and
resounding song. The Red-eyed Flycatcher,
heard even more constantly, is less generally
identified by name; but his note sounds all
day among the elms of our streets, and seems

156 OUTDOOR STUDIES

a sort of piano adaptation, popularized for the
million, of the rich notes of the Thrushes. He
is not mentioned by Audubon among his favor-
ites, and has no right to complain of the exclu-
sion, Yet the birds which most endear summer
are not necessarily the finest performers ; and
certainly there is none whose note I could spare
less easily than the little Chipping Sparrow,
called hereabouts the Hairbird. To lie half
awake on a warm morning in June, and hear
that soft, insect-like chirp draw in and out with
long, melodious pulsations, like the rising and
falling of the human breath, condenses for my
ear the whole luxury of summer. Later in the
day, among the multiplicity of noises, the chirp-
ing becomes louder and more detached, losing
that faint and dream-like thrill.

The bird-notes which have the most familiar
fascination are perhaps simply those most inti-
mately associated with other rural things. This
applies especially to the earliest spring song-
sters, Listening to these delicious prophets
upon some of those still and moist days which
slip in between the rough winds of March, and
fill our lives for a moment with anticipated de-
lights, it seems as if their varied notes were sent
to symbolize all the different elements of spring
association. The Bluebird appears to represent
simply spring’s faint, tremulous, liquid sweet-

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 157

ness, the Song Sparrow its changing pulsations
of more positive and varied joy, and the Robin
its cheery and superabundant vitality. The
later birds of the season, suggesting no such
fine-drawn sensations, yet identify themselves
with their chosen haunts, so that we cannot
think of the one without the other. In the
meadows we hear the languid and tender drawl
of the Meadowlark,— one of the most pecul-
iar of notes, almost amounting to affectation
in its excess of laborious sweetness. When we
reach the thickets and wooded streams, there is
no affectation in the Maryland Yellow-throat,
that little restless busybody, with his eternal
which-ts-it, which-ts-it, which-is-it, emphasizing
each syllable at will, in despair of response.
Passing into the loftier woods, we find them
resounding with the loud proclamation of the
Golden-crowned Thrush, — scheat, scheat,
scheat, scheat, — rising and growing louder in
its vigorous way. And penetrating to some yet
lonelier place, we find it consecrated to that
life-long sorrow, whatever it may be, which is
made immortal in the plaintive cadence of the
Pewee Flycatcher.

There is one favorite bird, —the Chewink,
or Ground Robin, — which I always fancied
must have been known to Keats when he wrote
those few words of perfect descriptiveness, —

158 OUTDOOR STUDIES

“Tf an innocent bird
Before my heedless footsteps stirred and stirred
In little journeys.”

What restless spirit is in this creature, that,
while so shy in its own personal habits, it yet
watches every visitor with a Paul Pry curiosity,
follows him in the woods, peers out among the
underbrush, scratches upon the leaves with a
pretty pretence of important business there,
and presently, when disregarded, ascends some
small tree and begins to carol its monotonous
song, as if there were no such thing as man in
the universe? There is something irregular
and fantastic in the coloring, also, of the Che-
wink ; unlike the generality of ground-birds, it
is a showy thing, with black, white, and bay
intermingled, and it is one of the most unmis-
takable of all our feathery creatures, in its as-
pect and its ways.

Another of my favorites, perhaps from our
sympathy as to localities, since we meet freely
every summer at a favorite lake, is the King-
bird, or Tyrant Flycatcher. The habits of roy-
alty or tyranny I have never been able to per-
ceive, —only a democratic habit of resistance
to tyrants ; but this bird always impresses me
as a perfectly well-dressed and well-mannered
person, who amid a very talkative society pre-

. fers to listen, and shows his character by action

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 159

only. So long as he sits silently on some stake
or bush in the neighborhood of his family
circle, you notice only his glossy black-cap and
the white feathers in his handsome tail ; but let
a Hawk or a Crow come near, and you find
that he is something more than a mere lazy
listener to the Bobolink : far up in the air, de-
termined to be thorough in his chastisements,
you will see him, with a comrade or two, driv-
ing the bulky intruder away into the distance,
till you wonder how he ever expects to find his
own way back again. He speaks with emphasis
on these occasions, and then reverts, more
sedately than ever, to his accustomed silence.
We know but little, even now, of the local
distribution of our birds. I remember that in
my very last conversation with Thoreau, in De-
cember, 1861, he mentioned most remarkable
facts in this department, which had fallen under
his unerring eyes. The Hawk most common at
Concord, the Red-tailed species, is not known
near the seashore, twenty miles off,—as at
Boston or Plymouth. The White-breasted Spar-
row is rare in Concord; but the Ashburnham
woods, thirty miles away, are full of it. The
Scarlet Tanager’s is the commonest note in
Concord, except the Red-eyed Flycatcher’s ;
yet one of the best field ornithologists in Bos-
ton had never heard it. The Rose-breasted ,

160 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Grosbeak is seen not infrequently at Concord,
though its nest is rarely found; but in Min-
nesota Thoreau found it more abundant than
any other bird, far more so than the Robin.
But his most interesting statement, to my
fancy, was that, during a stay of ten weeks on
Monadnock, he found that the Snowbird built
its nest on the top of the mountain, and prob-
ably never came down through the season.
That was its Arctic; and it would probably yet
be found, he predicted, on Wachusett and other
Massachusetts peaks. It is known that the
Snowbird, or “Snowflake,” as it is called in
England, was reported by Audubon as having
only once been proved to build in the United
States, namely, among the White Mountains,
though Wilson found its nests among the Alle-
ghanies ; and in New England it used to be the
rural belief that the Snowbird and the Chip-
ping Sparrow were the same.

After July most of our birds grow silent,
and but for the insects August would be al-
most the stillest month in the year, — stiller
than the winter, when the woods are often
vocal with the Crow, the Jay, and the Chicka-
dee. But with patient attention one may hear,
even far into the autumn, the accustomed .
notes. As I sat in my boat, one sunny after-'
noon of last September, beneath the shady

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 161

western shore of our quiet lake, with the low
sunlight striking almost level across the wooded
banks, it seemed as if the last hoarded drops of
summer’s sweetness were being poured over all
the world. The air was full of quiet sounds.
Turtles rustled beside the brink and slid into
the water; cows plashed in the shallows;
fishes leaped from the placid depths ; a squir-
rel sobbed and fretted on a neighboring stump;
a katydid across the lake maintained its hard,
dry croak ; the crickets chirped pertinaciously,
but with little, fatigued pauses, as if glad that
their work was almost done; the grasshoppers
kept up their continual chant, which seemed
thoroughly melted and amalgamated into the
summer, as if it would go on indefinitely,
though the body of the little creature were
dried into dust. All this time the birds were
silent and invisible, as if they would take no
more part in the symphony of the year. Then,
seemingly by preconcerted signal, they joined
in : Crows cawed anxiously afar ; Jays screamed
in the woods ; a Partridge clucked to its brood,
like the gurgle of water from a bottle; a-King-
fisher wound his rattle, more briefly than in
spring, as if we now knew all about it and the
merest hint ought to suffice; a Fishhawk
flapped into the water, with a great, rude
splash, and then flew heavily away; a flock of

162 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Wild Ducks went southward overhead, and a
smaller party returned beneath them, flying
low and anxiously, as if to pick up some lost
baggage ; and at last a Loon laughed loud from
behind a distant island, and it was pleasant to
people these woods and waters with that wild
shouting, linking them with Katahdin Lake
and Amperzand.

But the later the birds linger in the autumn,
the more their aspect differs from that of
spring. In spring they come, jubilant, noisy,
triumphant, from the South, the winter con-
quered and the long journey done. In autumn
they come timidly from the North, and, pausing
on their anxious retreat, lurk within the fading
copses and twitter snatches of song as fading.
Others fly as openly as ever, but gather in
flocks, as the Robins, most piteous of all birds
at this season, — thin, faded, ragged, their bold
note sunk to a feeble quaver, and their manner
a mere caricature of that inexpressible military
smartness with which they held up their heads
in May.

Yet I cannot really find anything sad even
in November. When I think of the thrilling
beauty of the season past, the birds that came
and went, the insects that took up the choral
song as the birds grew silent, the procession of
the flowers, the glory of autumn, — and when

THE LIFE OF BIRDS 163

I think that, this also ended, a new gallery of
wonder is opening, almost more beautiful, in
the magnificence of frost and snow, — there
comes an impression of affluence and liberality
in the universe which seasons of changeless
and uneventful verdure would never give. The
catkins already formed on the alder, quite pre-
pared to droop into April’s beauty, —the white
edges of the Mayflower’s petals, already visible
through the bud, show in advance that winter
is but a slight and temporary retardation of the
life of nature, and that the barrier which sepa-
rates November from March is not really more
solid than that which parts the sunset from the
sunrise.

VII
SNOW

ALL through the long hours of yesterday the
low clouds hung close above our heads, to pour
with more unswerving aim their constant storm
of sleet and snow, — sometimes working in soft
silence, sometimes with impatient gusty breaths,
but always busily at work. Darkness brought
no rest to these laborious warriors of the air,
but only fiercer strife: the wild winds rose;
noisy recruits, they howled beneath the eaves,
or swept around the walls, like hungry wolves,
now here, now there, howling at opposite doors.
Thus, through the anxious and wakeful night,
the storm went on. The household lay vexed
by broken dreams, with changing fancies of
lost children on solitary moors, of sleighs hope-
lessly overturned in drifted and pathless gorges,
or of icy cordage upon disabled vessels in Arc-
tic seas ; until a softer warmth, as of sheltering
snow-wreaths, lulled all into deeper rest till
morning.

And what a morning! The sun, a young
conqueror, sends in his glorious rays, like her-

SNOW 165

alds, to rouse us for the inspection of his
trophies. The baffled foe, retiring, has left far
and near the high-heaped spoils behind. The
glittering plains own the new victor. Over all
these level and wide-swept meadows, over all
these drifted, spotless slopes, he is proclaimed
undisputed monarch. On the wooded hillsides
the startled shadows are in motion; they flee
like young fawns, bounding upward and down-
ward over rock and dell, as through the long
gleaming arches the sun comes marching to his
throne. But shade yet lingers undisturbed in
the valleys, mingled with timid smoke from
household chimneys; blue as the smoke, a
gauzy haze is twined around the brow of every
distant hill; and the same soft azure confuses
the outlines of the nearer trees, to whose
branches snowy wreaths are clinging, far up
among the boughs, like strange new flowers.
Everywhere the unstained surface glistens in
the sunbeams. In the curves and wreaths and
turrets of the drifts a blue tinge nestles. The
fresh pure sky answers to it; every cloud has
vanished, save one or two which linger near the
horizon, pardoned offenders, seeming far too
innocent for mischief, although their dark and
sullen brothers, banished ignominiously below
the horizon’s verge, may be plotting nameless
treachery there. The brook still flows visibly

166 OUTDOOR STUDIES

through the valley, and the myriad rocks that -
check its course are all rounded with fleecy sur-
faces, till they seem like flocks of tranquil sheep
that drink the shallow flood.

The day is one of moderate cold, but clear
and bracing; the air sparkles like the snow;
everything seems dry. and resonant, like the
wood of a violin. All sounds are musical, —
the voices of children, the cooing of doves, the
crowing of cocks, the chopping of wood, the
creaking of country sleds, the sweet jangle of
sleigh-bells. The snow has fallen under a cold
temperature, and the flakes are perfectly crys-
tallized; every shrub we pass bears wreaths
which glitter as gorgeously as the nebula in the
constellation Perseus; but in another hour of
sunshine every one of those fragile outlines
will disappear, and the white surface glitter no
longer with stars but with star-dust. On such
a day, the universe seems to hold but three
pure tints, — blue, white, and green. The love-
liness of the universe seems simplified to its
last extreme of refined delicacy. That sensation
we poor mortals often have, of being just on
the edge of infinite beauty, yet with always a
lingering film between, never presses down
more closely than on days like this. Every-
thing seems perfectly prepared to satiate the
soul with inexpressible felicity, if we could only,

SNOW 167

by one infinitesimal step farther, reach the
mood to dwell in it.

Leaving behind us the sleighs and snow-
shovels of the street, we turn noiselessly toward
the radiant margin of the sunlit woods. The
yellow willows on the causeway burn like flame
against the darker background, and will burn on
until they burst into April. Yonder pines and
hemlocks stand motionless and dark against the
sky. The statelier trees have already shaken
all the snow from their summits, but it still
clothes the lower ones with a white covering
that looks solid as marble. Yet see how lightly
it escapes ! — a slight gust shakes a single tree,
there is a Staud-bach for a moment, and the
branches stand free as in summer, a pyramid
of green amid the whiteness of the yet im-
prisoned forest. Each branch raises itself
when emancipated, thus changing the whole
outline of the growth ; and the snow beneath
is punctured with a thousand little depressions,
where the petty avalanches have just buried
themselves and disappeared.

In crossing this white level, we have been
tracking our way across an invisible pond, which .
was alive last week with five hundred skaters.
Now there is a foot of snow upon it, through
which there is a boyish excitement in making
the first path. Looking back upon our track,

168 OUTDOOR STUDIES

it proves to be like all other human paths,
straight in intention, but slightly devious in
deed. We have gay companions on our way;
for a breeze overtakes us, and a hundred little
simooms of drift whirl along beside us, and
overwhelm in miniature burial whole caravans
of dry leaves. Here, too, our track intersects
with that of some previous passer; he has but
just gone on, judging by the freshness of the
trail, and we can study his character and pur-
poses. The large boots betoken a woodman
or iceman; yet such a one would hardly have
stepped so irresolutely where a little film of
water has spread between the ice and snow and
given a look of insecurity ; and here again he
has stopped to observe the wreaths on this
pendent bough, and this snow-filled bird’s nest.
And there the footsteps of the lover of beauty
turn abruptly to the road again, and he vanishes
from us forever.

As we wander on through the wood, all the
labyrinths of summer are buried beneath one
white inviting pathway, and the pledge of per-
fect loneliness is given by the unbroken surface
of the all-revealing snow. There appears no-
thing living except a downy woodpecker, whirl-
ing round and round upon a young beech stem,
and a few sparrows, plump with grass seed and
hurrying with jerking flight down the sunny

SNOW 169

glade. But the trees furnish society enough.
What a congress of ermined kings is this circle
of hemlocks, which stand, white in their soft
raiment, around the dais of this woodland pond!
Are they held here, like the sovereigns in the
palace of the Sleeping Beauty, till some mortal
breaks their spell? What sage counsels must
be theirs, as they nod their weary heads and
whisper ghostly memories and old men’s tales
to each other, while the red leaves dance on the
snowy sward below, or a fox or squirrel steals
hurriedly through the wild and wintry night!
Here and there is some discrowned Lear, who
has thrown off his regal mantle, and stands in
faded russet, misplaced among the monarchs.
What a simple and stately hospitality is that
of nature in winter! The season which the
residents of cities think an obstruction is in
the country an extension of intercourse: it
opens every forest from here to Labrador, free
of entrance; themost tangled thicket, the most
treacherous marsh, becomes passable; and the
lumberman or moose hunter, mounted on his
snowshoes, has the world before him. He says
“ good snowshoeing,” as we say “good sleigh-
ing ;” and it gives a sensation like a first visit
to the seaside and the shipping, when one first
sees exhibited for sale, in the streets of Bangor
or Montreal, these delicate Indian conveyances.

170 OUTDOOR STUDIES

It seems as if a new element were suddenly
opened for travel, and all due facilities provided.
One expects to go a little farther, and see in
the shop windows, “Wings for sale, — gentle-
men’s and ladies’ sizes.” The snowshoe and
the birch canoe, — what other dying race ever
left behind it two memorials so perfect and so
graceful ?

The shadows thrown by the trees upon the
snow are blue and soft, sharply defined, and so
contrasted with the gleaming white as to appear
narrower than the boughs which cast them.
There is something subtle and fantastic about
these shadows. Here is a leafless larch sapling,
eight feet high. The image of the lower boughs
is traced upon the snow, distinct and firm as
cordage, while the higher ones grow dimmer
by fine gradations, until the slender topmost
twig is blurred, and almost effaced. But the
denser upper spire of the young spruce by its
side throws almost as distinct a shadow as its
base, and the whole figure looks of a more solid
texture, as if you could feel it with your hand.
More beautiful than either is the fine image of
this baby hemlock: each delicate leaf droops
above as delicate a copy, and here and there the
shadow and the substance kiss and frolic with
each other in the downy snow.

The larger larches havea different plaything:

SNOW 17I

on the bare branches, thickly studded with buds,
cling airily the small, light cones of last year’s
growth, each crowned with a little ball of soft
snow, four times taller than itself, — save where
some have drooped sideways, so that each car-
ries, poor weary Atlas, a sphere upon its back.
Thus the coy creatures play cup and ball, and
one has lost its plaything yonder, as the branch
slightly stirs, and the whole vanishes in a whirl
of snow. Meanwhile a fragment of low arbor-
vitze hedge, poor outpost of a neighboring plan-
tation, is so covered and packed with solid drift,
inside and out, that it seems as if no power of
sunshine could ever steal in among its twigs
and disentangle it.

In winter each separate object interests us ;
in summer, the mass. Natural beauty in winter
is a poor man’s luxury, infinitely enhanced in
quality by the diminution in quantity. Winter,
with fewer and simpler methods, yet seems to
give all her works a finish even more delicate
than that of summer, working, as Emerson says
of English agriculture, with a pencil, instead of
a plough. Or rather, the ploughshare is but
concealed ; since a pithy old English preacher
has said that “the frost is God’s plough, which
he drives through every inch of ground in the
world, opening each clod, and pulverizing the
whole.”

172 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Coming out upon a high hillside, more ex-
posed to the direct fury of the sleet, we find
nature wearing a wilder look. Every white
birch clump around us is bent divergingly to
the ground, each white form prostrated in mute
despair upon the whiter bank. The bare, writh-
ing branches of that sombre oak grove are
steeped in snow, and in the misty air they look
so remote and foreign that there is not a wild
creature of the Norse mythology who might
not stalk from beneath their haunted branches.
Buried races, Teutons and Cimbri, might tramp
solemnly forth from those weird arcades. The
soft pines on this nearer knoll seem separated
from them by ages and generations. On the
farther hills spread woods of smaller growth,
like forests of spun glass, jewelry by the acre
provided for this coronation of winter.

We descend a steep bank, little pellets of
snow rolling hastily beside us, and leaving
enamelled furrows behind. Entering the shel-
tered and sunny glade, we are assailed by a
sudden warmth whose languor is almost oppres-
sive. Wherever the sun strikes upon the pines
and hemlocks, there is a household gleam which
gives a more vivid sensation than the diffused
brilliancy of summer. The sunbeams maintain
a thousand secondary fires in the reflection of
light from every tree and stalk, for the preser-

SNOW 173

vation of animal life and ultimate melting of
these accumulated drifts. Around each trunk
or stone the snow has melted and fallen back.
It is a singular fact, established beyond doubt
by science, that the snow is absolutely less
influenced by the direct rays of the sun than
by these reflections. “If a blackened card is
placed upon the snow or ice in the sunshine,
the frozen mass underneath it will be gradually
thawed, while that by which it is surrounded,
though exposed to the full power of solar heat,
is but little disturbed. If, however, we reflect
the sun’s rays from a metal surface, an exactly
contrary result takes place: the uncovered
parts are the first to melt, and the blackened
card stands high above the surrounding por-
tion.” Look round upon this buried meadow,
and you will see emerging through the white
surface a thousand stalks of grass, sedge, os-
munda, goldenrod, mullein, Saint John’s-wort,
plantain, and eupatorium, —an allied army of
the sun, keeping up a perpetual volley of innu-
merable rays upon the yielding snow.

It is their last dying service. We misplace
our tenderness in winter, and look with pity
upon the leafless trees. But there is no tra-
gedy in the trees: each is not dead, but sleep-
eth; and each bears a future summer of buds
safe nestled on its bosom, as a mother reposes

174 OUTDOOR STUDIES

with her baby at her breast. The same secur-
ity of life pervades every woody shrub: the
alder and the birch have their catkins all ready
for the first day of spring, and the sweet fern
has even now filled with fragrance its folded
blossom. Winter is no such solid bar between
season and season as we fancy, but only a slight
check and interruption: one may at any time
produce these March blossoms by bringing the
buds into the warm house; and the petals of
the Mayflower sometimes show their pink and
white edges in autumn. But every grass blade
and flower stalk is a mausoleum of vanished
summer, itself crumbling to dust, never to rise
again. Each child of June, scarce distinguish-
able in November against the background of
moss and rocks and bushes, is brought into
final prominence in December by the white
snow which embeds it. The delicate flakes col-
lapse and fall back around it, but retain their
inexorable hold. Thus delicate is the action of
nature, —a finger of air and a grasp of iron.
We pass the old red foundry, banked in with
snow and its low eaves draped with icicles, and
come to the brook which turns its resounding
wheel. The musical motion of the water seems
almost unnatural amidst the general stillness :
brooks, like men, must keep themselves warm
by exercise. The overhanging rushes and al-

SNOW 175

der sprays, weary of winter’s sameness, have
made for themselves playthings, — each dan-
gling a crystal knob of ice, which sways gently
in the water and gleams ruddy in the sun-
light. As we approach the foaming cascade,
the toys become larger and more glittering,
movable stalactites, which the water tosses
merrily upon their flexible stems. The torrent
pours down beneath an enamelled mask of ice,
wreathed and convoluted like the human brain,
and sparkling with gorgeous glow. Tremulous
motions and glimmerings go through the trans-
lucent veil, as if it throbbed with the throbbing
wave beneath. It holds in its mazes stray bits
of color, — scarlet berries, evergreen sprigs, blue
raspberry stems, and sprays of yellow willow ;
glittering necklaces and wreaths and tiaras of
brilliant ice-work cling and trail around its
edges, and no regal palace shines with such
carcanets of jewels as this winter ball-room of
the dancing drops.

Above, the brook becomes a smooth black
canal between two steep white banks; and the
glassy water seems momentarily stiffening into
the solider blackness of ice. Here and there
thin films are already formed over it, and are
being constantly broken apart by the treacher-
ous current; a flake a foot square is jerked
away and goes sliding beneath the slight trans-

176 OUTDOOR STUDIES

parent surface till it reappears below. The same
thing, on a larger scale, helps to form the mighty
icepack of the Northern seas. Nothing except
ice is capable of combining, on the largest scale,
bulk with mobility, and this imparts a dignity
to its motions even on the smallest scale. I do
not believe that anything in Behring’s Straits
could impress me with a grander sense of deso-
lation or of power, than when in boyhood I
watched: the ice break up in the winding chan-
nel of Charles River.

Amidst so much that seems like death, let us
turn and study the life. There is much more
to be seen in winter than most of us have ever
noticed. Far in the North the “ moose-yards ”
are crowded and trampled, at this season, and
the wolf and the deer run noiselessly a deadly
race, as I have heard the hunters describe, upon
the white surface of the gleaming lake, But
the pond beneath our feet keeps its stores of
life chiefly below its level platform, as the
bright fishes in the basket of yon heavy-booted
fisherman can tell. Yet the scattered tracks of
mink and muskrat beside the banks, of meadow
mice around the haystacks, of squirrels under
the trees, of rabbits and partridges in the wood,
show the warm life that is beating unseen, be-
neath fur or feathers, close beside us. The
chickadees are chattering merrily in the upland

SNOW 177

grove, the blue jays scream in the hemlock
glade, the snowbird mates the snow with its
whiteness, and the robin contrasts with it his
still ruddy breast. The weird and impenetra-
ble crows, most talkative of birds and most
uncommunicative, their very food at this sea-
son a mystery, are almost as numerous now as
in summer. They always seem like some race
of banished goblins, doing penance for some
primeval and inscrutable transgression, and if
any bird can have a history it is they. In the
Spanish version of the tradition of King Ar-
thur, it is said that he fled from the weeping
queens and the island valley of Avilion in the
form of a crow; and hence it is said in “ Don
Quixote” that no Englishman will ever kill
one.

The traces of the insects in the winter are
prophetic, — from the delicate cocoon of some
infinitesimal feathery thing which hangs upon
the dry, starry calyx of the aster, to the large
brown paper parcel which hides in peasant
garb the costly beauty of some gorgeous moth ;
but the hints of birds are retrospective. In
each tree of this pasture, the very pasture
where last spring we looked for nests and
found them not among the deceitful foliage,
the fragile domiciles now stand revealed. But
where are the birds that filled them? Could

178 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the airy creatures nurtured in those nests have
left permanently traced upon the air behind
them their own bright summer flight, the whole
atmosphere would be filled with interlacing
lines and curves of gorgeous coloring, the cen-
tre of all being this forsaken bird’s nest filled
with snow.

Among the many birds which winter here,
and the many insects which are called forth by
a few days of thaw, not a few must die of cold
or of fatigue amid the storms. Yet how few
traces one sees of this mortality! Yonder a
dead wasp has fallen on the snow, and the
warmth of its body, or its power of reflecting
a few small rays of light, is melting its little
grave beneath it. With what a cleanly purity
does Nature strive to withdraw all unsightly
objects into her cemetery! Their own weight
and lingering warmth take them through air or
water, snow or ice, to the level of the earth, and
there with spring comes an army of burying-
insects, Wecrophagi, in a livery of red and black,
to dig a grave beneath every one, and not a
sparrow falleth to the ground without know-
ledge. The tiny remains thus disappear from
the surface, and the dry leaves are soon spread |
above these Children in the Wood.

Thus varied and benignant are the aspects of
winter on these sunny days. But it is impos-

SNOW 179

sible to claim this weather as the only type of
our winter climate. There occasionally come
days which, though perfectly still and serene,
suggest more terror than any tempest, — terri-
ble, clear, glaring days of pitiless cold, — when
the sun seems powerless or only a brighter
moon, when the windows remain ground glass
at high noontide, and when, on going out of
doors, one is dazzled by the brightness, and fan-
cies for a moment that it cannot be so cold as
has been reported, but presently discovers that
the severity is only more deadly for being so
still, Exercise on such days seems to produce
no warmth ; one’s limbs appear ready to break
on any sudden motion, like icy boughs. Stage-
drivers and draymen are transformed to mere
human buffaloes by their fur coats ; the patient
oxen are frost-covered; the horse that goes
racing by waves a wreath of steam from his
tossing head. On such days life becomes a
battle to all householders, the ordinary appa-
ratus for defence is insufficient, and the price
of caloric is continual vigilance. In innumer-
able armies the frost besieges the portal, creeps
in beneath it and above it, and on every latch
and key-handle lodges an advanced guard of
white rime. Leave the door ajar never so
slightly, and a chill creeps in cat-like ; we are
conscious by the warmest fireside of the near

180 OUTDOOR STUDIES

vicinity of cold, its fingers are feeling after us,
and even if they do not clutch us, we know that
they are there. The sensations of such days
almost make us associate their clearness and
whiteness with something malignant and evil.
Charles Lamb asserts of snow, “It glares too
much for an innocent color, methinks.” Why
does popular mythology associate the infernal
regions with a high temperature instead of a
low one? El Aishi, the Arab writer, says of
the bleak wind of the Desert (so writes Rich-
ardson, the African traveller), “The north wind
blows with an intensity equalling the cold of
hell ; language fails me to describe its rigorous
temperature.” Some have thought that there
is a similar allusion in the phrase “weeping
and gnashing of teeth,” — the teeth chattering
from frost. Milton also enumerates cold as one
of the torments of the lost, —
“O’er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp; ”

and one may sup full of horrors on the exceed-
ingly cold collation provided for the next world
by the Norse Edda.

But after all, there are but few such terrific
periods in our Massachusetts winters, and the
appointed exit from their frigidity is usually
through a snowstorm. After a day of this se-
vere sunshine there comes commonly a darker
day of cloud, still hard and forbidding, though

SNOW 181

milder in promise, with a sky of lead, deepen-
ing near the horizon into darker films of iron.
Then, while all the nerves of the universe seem
rigid and tense, the first reluctant flake steals
slowly down, like a tear. In a few hours the
whole atmosphere begins to relax once more,
and in our astonishing climate very possibly the
snow changes to rain in twenty-four hours, and
a thaw sets in. It is not strange, therefore, that
snow, which to Southern races is typical of cold
and terror, brings associations of warmth and
shelter to the children of the North.

Snow, indeed, actually nourishes animal life.
It holds in its bosom numerous animalcules:
you may have a glass of water, perfectly free
from zzfusoria, which yet, after your dissolving
in it a handful of snow, will show itself full of
microscopic creatures, shrimp-like and swift ;
and the famous red snow of the Arctic regions
is only an exhibition of the same property. It
has sometimes been fancied that persons buried
under the snow have received sustenance
through the pores of the skin, like reptiles
embedded in rock. Elizabeth Woodcock lived
eight days beneath a snowdrift, in 1799, without
eating a morsel ; anda Swiss family were buried
beneath an avalanche, in a manger, for five
months, in 1755, with no food but a trifling
store of chestnuts and a small daily supply of

182 OUTDOOR STUDIES

milk from a goat which was buried with them.
In neither case was there extreme suffering
from cold, and it is unquestionable that the in-
terior of a drift is far warmer than the surface.

The process of crystallization seems a mi-
crocosm of the universe. Radiata, mollusca,
feathers, flowers, ferns, mosses, palms, pines,
grain-fields, leaves of cedar, chestnut, elm, acan-
thus: these and multitudes of other objects
are figured on your frosty window; on sixteen
different panes I have counted sixteen patterns
strikingly distinct, and it appeared like a show-
case for the globe. What can seem remoter
relatives than the star, the starfish, the star-
flower, and the starry snowflake which clings
this moment to your sleeve ?— yet some philo-
sophers hold that one day their law of existence
will be found precisely the same. The connec-
tion with the primeval star, especially, seems
far and fanciful enough, but there are yet unex-
plored affinities between light and crystalliza-
tion: some crystals have a tendency to grow
toward the light, and others develop electricity
and give out flashes of light during their forma-
tion. Slight foundations for scientific fancies,
indeed, but slight is all our knowledge.

More than a hundred different figures of
snowflakes, all regular and kaleidoscopic, have
been drawn by Scoresby, Lowe, and Glaisher,

SNOW 183

and may be found pictured in the encyclope-
dias and elsewhere, ranging from the simplest
stellar shapes to the most complicated ramifi-
cations. Professor Tyndall, in his delightful
book on “The Glaciers of the Alps,” gives
drawings of a few of these snow blossoms,
which he watched falling for hours, the whole
air being filled with them, and drifts of several
inches being accumulated while he watched.
“Let us imagine the eye gifted with micro-
scopic power sufficient to enable it to see the
molecules which composed these starry crys-
tals; to observe the solid nucleus formed and
floating in the air; to see it drawing towards it
its allied atoms, and these arranging themselves
as if they moved to music, and ended with ren-
dering that music concrete.” Thus do the
Alpine winds, like Orpheus, build their walls
by harmony.

In some of these frost flowers the rare and
delicate blossom of our wild A/ttella diphylia is
beautifully figured. Snowflakes have been also
found in the form of regular hexagons and
other plane figures, as well as in cylinders and
spheres. As a general rule, the intenser the
cold the more perfect the formation, and the
most perfect specimens are Arctic or Alpine in
their locality. In this climate the snow seldom
falls when the mercury is much below zero;

184 OUTDOOR STUDIES

but the slightest atmospheric changes may alter
the whole condition of the deposit, and decide
whether it shall sparkle like Italian marble, or
be dead-white like the statuary marble of Ver-
mont,— whether it shall be a fine powder
which can sift through wherever dust can, or
descend in large woolly masses, tossed like
mouthfuls to the hungry earth.

The most remarkable display of crystalliza-
tion which I have ever seen was on the 13th of
January, 1859. There had been three days of
unusual cold, but during the night the weather
had moderated, and the mercury in the morn-
ing stood at +14°. About two inches of snow
had fallen, and the trees appeared densely
coated with it. It proved, on examination, that
every twig had on the leeward side a dense row
of miniature fronds or fern-leaves executed in
snow, with a sharply defined central nerve, or
midrib, and perfect ramification, tapering to a
point, and varying in length from half an inch
to three inches. On every post, every rail, and
the corners of every building, the same spec-
tacle was seen ; and where the snow had accu-
mulated in deep drifts, it was still made up of
the ruins of these fairy structures. The white,
enamelled landscape was beautiful, but a close
view of the details was far more so. The crys-
tallizations were somewhat uniform in struc-

SNOW 185

ture, yet suggested a variety of natural objects,
as feather-mosses, birds’ feathers, and the most
delicate lace-corals, but the predominant anal-
ogy was with ferns. Yet they seemed to assume
a sort of fantastic kindred with the objects to
which they adhered: thus, on the leaves of
spruce-trees and on delicate lichens they looked
like reduplications of the original growth, and
they made the broad, flat leaves of the arbor-
vitee fully twice as wide as before. But this
fringe was always on one side only, except
when gathered upon dangling fragments of
spider’s web or bits of stray thread: these
they entirely encircled, probably because these
objects had twirled in the light wind while the
crystals were forming. Singular disguises were
produced: a bit of ragged rope appeared a
piece of twisted lace-work; a knot-hole in a
board was adorned with a deep antechamber of
snowy wreaths ; and the frozen body of a hairy
caterpillar became its own well-plumed hearse.
The most peculiar circumstance was the fact
that single flakes never showed any regular
crystallization: the magic was in the combina-
tion ; the under sides of rails and boards exhib-
ited it as unequivocally as the upper sides, indi-
cating that the phenomenon was created in the
lower atmosphere, and was more akin to frost
than snow; and yet the largest snow-banks

186 OUTDOOR STUDIES

were composed of nothing else, and seemed
like heaps of blanched iron filings.

Interesting observations have been made on
the relations between ice and snow. The dif-
ference seems to lie only in the more or less
compacted arrangement of the frozen particles.
Water and air, each being transparent when
separate, become opaque when intimately min-
gled, the reason being that the inequalities of
refraction break up and scatter every ray of
light. Thus, clouds cast a shadow; so does
steam; so does foam: and the same elements
take a still denser texture when combined as
snow. Every snowflake is permeated with
minute airy chambers, among which the light
is bewildered and lost; while from perfectly
hard and transparent ice every trace of air dis-
appears, and the transmission of light is un-
broken. Yet that same ice becomes white and
opaque when pulverized, its fragments being
then intermingled with air again, — just as col-
orless glass may be crushed into white powder.
On the other hand, Professor Tyndall has con-
verted slabs of snow tq ice by pressure, and has
shown that every glacier begins as a snowdrift
at its summit, and ends in a transparent ice
cavern below. “ The blue blocks which span
the sources of the Arveiron were once powdery
snow upon the slopes of the Col du Géant.”

SNOW 187

The varied and wonderful shapes assumed
by snow and ice have been best portrayed, per-
haps, by Dr. Kane in his two works; but their
resources of color have been so explored by no
one as by this same favored Professor Tyndall,
among his Alps. It appears that the tints
which in temperate regions are seen feebly and
occasionally, in hollows or angles of fresh drifts,
become brilliant and constant above the line of
perpetual snow, and the higher the altitude the
more lustrous the display. When a staff was
struck into the new-fallen drift, the hollow
seemed instantly to fill with a soft blue liquid,
while the snow adhering to the staff took a
complementary color of pinkish yellow, and on
moving it up and down it was hard to resist the
impression that a pink flame was rising and
sinking in the hole. The little natural furrows
in the drifts appeared faintly blue, the ridges
were gray, while the parts most exposed to
view seemed least illuminated, and as if a light
brown dust had been sprinkled over them.
The fresher the snow, the more marked the
colors, and it made no. difference whether the
sky were cloudless or foggy. Thus was every
white peak decked upon its brow with this tiara
of ineffable beauty.

The impression is very general that the
average quantity of snow has greatly diminished

188 OUTDOOR STUDIES

in America; but it must be remembered that
very severe storms occur only at considerable
intervals, and the Puritans did not always, as
boys fancy, step out of the upper windows upon
the snow. In 1717 the ground was covered
from ten to twenty feet, indeed ; but during
January, 1861, the snow was six feet on a
level in many parts of Maine and New Hamp-
shire, and was probably drifted three times that
depth in particular spots. The greatest storm
recorded in England, I believe, is that of 1814,
in which for forty-eight hours the snow fell
so furiously that drifts of sixteen, twenty, and
even twenty-four feet were recorded in various
places. An inch an hour is thought to be the
average rate of deposit, though four inches are
said to have fallen during the severe storm of
January 3, 1859. When thus intensified, the
“beautiful meteor of the snow”’ begins to give
a sensation of something formidable ; and when
the mercury suddenly falls meanwhile, and the
wind rises, there are sometimes suggestions
of such terror in a snowstorm as no summer
thunders can rival. The brief and singular
tempest of February 7, 1861, was a thing to
be forever remembered by those who saw it
(as I did) over a wide plain. The sky suddenly
appeared to open and let down whole solid
snow-banks at once, which were caught and

SNOW 189

torn to pieces by the ravenous winds, and the
traveller was instantaneously enveloped in a
whirling mass far denser than any fog; it was
a tornado with snow stirred into it. Standing
in the middle of the road, with houses close on
every side, one could see absolutely nothing in
any direction ; one could hear no sound but the
storm. Every landmark vanished; it was no
more possible to guess the points of the com-
pass than in mid-ocean; and it was easy to
conceive of being bewildered and overwhelmed
within a rod of one’s own door. The tempest
lasted only an hour ; but if it had lasted a week,
we should have had such a storm as occurred
on the steppes of Kirgheez in Siberia, in 1827,
destroying two hundred and eighty thousand
five hundred horses, thirty thousand four hun-
dred cattle, a million sheep, and ten thousand
camels, —or as “the thirteen drifty days,” in
1620, which killed nine tenths of all the sheep
in the South of Scotland. On Eskdale Moor,
out of twenty thousand only forty-five were left
alive, and the shepherds everywhere built up
huge semicircular walls of the dead creatures,
to afford shelter to the living, till the gale should
end. But the most remarkable narrative of a
snowstorm which I have ever seen was that writ-
ten by Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, in record
of one which took place January 24, 1790.

190 OUTDOOR STUDIES

James Hogg at this time belonged to a sort
of literary society of young shepherds, and had
set out, the day previous, to walk twenty miles
over the hills to the place of meeting; but so
formidable was the look of the sky that he felt
anxious for his sheep, and finally turned back
again. There was at that time only a slight
fall of snow, in thin flakes which seemed uncer-
tain whether to go up or down; the hills were
covered with deep folds of frost-fog, and in the
valleys the same fog seemed dark, dense, and
as it were crushed together. An old shepherd,
predicting a storm, bade him watch for a sudden
opening through this fog, and expect a wind
from that quarter; yet when he saw such an
opening suddenly form at midnight (having
then reached his own home), he thought it alla
delusion, for the weather had grown milder and
a thaw seemed setting in. He therefore went
to bed, and felt no more anxiety for his sheep ;
yet he lay awake in spite of himself, and at two
o'clock he heard the storm begin. It smote the
house suddenly, like a great peal of thunder, —
something utterly unlike any storm he had ever
before heard. On his rising and thrusting his
bare arm through a hole in the roof, it seemed
precisely as if he had thrust it into a snow-bank,
so densely was the air filled with falling and
driving particles. He lay still for an hour,

SNOW 191

while the house rocked with the tempest, hop-
ing it might prove only a hurricane; but as
there was no abatement, he wakened his com-
panion shepherd, telling him “it was come on
such a night or morning as never blew from
the heavens.” The other at once arose, and,
opening the door of the shed where they slept,
found a drift as high as the farmhouse already
heaped between them and its walls, a distance
of only fourteen yards. He floundered through,
Hogg soon following, and, finding all the fam-
ily up, they agreed that they must reach the
sheep as soon as possible, especially eight hun-
dred ewes that were in one lot together, at the
farthest end of the farm. So after family
prayers and breakfast, four of them stuffed
their pockets with bread and cheese, sewed
their plaids about them, tied down their hats,
and, taking each his staff, set out on their tre-
mendous undertaking, two hours before day.
Day dawned before they got three hundred
yards from the house. They could not see
each other, and kept together with the greatest
difficulty. They had to make paths with their
staves, rolled themselves over drifts otherwise
impassable, and every three or four minutes
had to hold their heads down between their
knees to recover breath. They went in single
file. taking the lead by turns, The master

192 OUTDOOR STUDIES

soon gave out, and was speechless and semi-
conscious for more than an hour, though he
afterwards recovered and held out with the rest.
Two of them lost their head-gear, and Hogg
himself fell over a high precipice; but they
reached the flock at half past ten. They found
the ewes huddled together in a dense body,
under ten feet of snow, — packed so closely,
that, to the amazement of the shepherds, when
they had extricated the first, the whole flock
walked out one after another, in a body, through
the hole.

How they got them home it is almost im-
possible to tell. It was now noon, and they
sometimes could see through the storm for
twenty yards, but they had only one momentary
glimpse of the hills through all that terrible
day. Yet Hogg persisted in going by himself
afterwards to rescue some flocks of his own,
barely escaping with life from the expedition ;
his eyes were sealed up with the storm, and he
crossed a formidable torrent, without knowing
it, on a wreath of snow. Two of the others
lost themselves in a deep valley, and would have
perished but for being accidentally heard by a
neighboring shepherd, who guided them home,
where the female portion of the family had
abandoned all hope of ever seeing them again.

The next day was clear, with a cold wind,

SNOW 193

and they set forth again at daybreak to seek
the remainder of the flock. The face of the
country was perfectly transformed: not a hill
was the same, not a brook or lake could be re-
cognized. Deep glens were filled in with snow,
covering the very tops of the trees; and over
a hundred acres of ground, under an average
depth of six or eight feet, they were to look for
four or five hundred sheep. The attempt would
have been hopeless but for a dog that accom-
panied them. Seeing their perplexity, he began
snuffing about, and presently scratched in the
snow at a certain point, then looked round at
his master. And on digging at this spot they
found a sheep beneath. And so the dog led
them all day, bounding eagerly from one place
to another, much faster than they could dig the
creatures out, so that he sometimes had twenty
or thirty holes marked beforehand. In this
way, within a week, they got out every sheep
on the farm except four, these last being buried
under a mountain of snow fifty feet deep, on
the top of which the dog had marked their
places again and again. In every case the
sheep proved to be alive and warm, though half
suffocated ; on being taken out, they usually
bounded away swiftly, and then fell helplessly
in a few moments, overcome by the change of
atmosphere ; some then died almost instantly,

194 OUTDOOR STUDIES

and others were carried home and with diffi-
culty preserved, only about sixty being lost in
all. Marvellous to tell, the country people
unanimously agreed afterwards to refer the
whole terrific storm to some secret incantations
of poor Hogg’s literary society ; it was gener-
ally maintained that a club of young dare-devils
had raised the Fiend himself among them in
the likeness of a black dog, the night preceding
the storm; and the young students actually did
not dare to show themselves at fairs or at mar-
kets for a year afterwards.

Snow scenes less exciting, but more wild and
dreary, may be found in Alexander Henry’s
Travels with the Indians, more than a century
ago. In the winter of 1776, for instance, they
wandered for many hundred miles over the
farthest northwestern prairies, where scarcely a
white man had before trodden. The snow lay
from four to six feet deep, and they went on
snowshoes, drawing their stores on sleds. The
mercury was sometimes —32°; no fire could keep
them warm at night, and often they had no fire,
being scarcely able to find wood enough to melt
the snow for drink. They lay beneath buffalo-
skins and the stripped bark of trees: a foot of
snow sometimes fell on them before morning.
The sun rose at half past nine and set at half
past two. “The country was one uninterrupted

SNOW 195

plain, in many parts of which no wood, nor even
the smallest shrub, was to be seen: a frozen sea,
of which the little coppices were the islands.
That behind which we had encamped the night
before soon sank in the horizon, and the eye
had nothing left save only the sky and snow.”
Fancy them encamped by night, seeking shelter
in a scanty grove from a wild tempest of snow;
then suddenly charged upon by a herd of buffa-
loes, thronging in from all sides of the wood to
take shelter likewise, — the dogs barking, the
Indians firing, and still the bewildered beasts
rushing madly in, blinded by the storm, fearing
the guns within less than the fury without,
crashing through the trees, trampling over the
tents, and falling about in the deep and dreary
snow! No other writer has ever given us the
full desolation of Indian winter life. Whole
families, Henry said, frequently perished to-
gether in such storms. No wonder that the
aboriginal legends are full of “mighty Peboan,
the Winter,” and of Kabibonokka in his lodge
of snowdrifts.

The interest inspired by these simple narra-
tives suggests the reflection that literature,
which has thus far portrayed so few aspects of
external nature, has described almost nothing
of winter beauty. In English books, especially,
this season is simply forlorn and disagreeable,
dark and dismal.

196 OUTDOOR STUDIES

“ And foul and fierce
All winter drives along the darkened air.”

“When dark December shrouds the transient day,
And stormy winds are howling in their ire,
Why com’st not thou? . . . Oh, haste to pay
The cordial visit sullen hours require !”

“ Winter will oft at eve resume the breeze,
Chill the pale morn, and bid his driving blasts
Deform the day delightless.”

“ Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire,
With whom you might converse, and by the fire
Help waste the sullen day.”

But our prevalent association with winter, in
the northern United States, is with something
white and dazzling and brilliant ; and it is time
to paint our own pictures, and cease to borrow
these gloomy alien tints. One must turn
eagerly every season to the few glimpses of
American winter aspects: to Emerson’s “Snow-
storm,” every word a sculpture ; to the admira-
ble storm in “ Margaret ;” to Thoreau’s “ Win-
ter Walk,” in the “Dial;” and to Lowell’s
“First Snowflake.” These are fresh and real
pictures, which carry us back to the Greek An-
thology, where the herds come wandering down
from the wooded mountains, covered with snow,
and to Homer’s aged Ulysses, his wise words.
falling like the snows of winter.

Let me add to this scanty gallery of snow

SNOW 197

pictures the quaint lore contained in one of the
multitudinous sermons of Increase Mather,
printed in 1704, entitled “A Brief Discourse
concerning the Prayse due to God for His
Mercy in giving Snow like Wool.” One can
fancy the delight of the oppressed Puritan boys
in the days of the nineteenthlies, driven to the
place of worship by the tithingmen, and cooped
up on the pulpit and gallery stairs under charge
of the constables, at hearing for once a dis-
course which they could understand, — snow-
balling spiritualized. This was not one of Em-
erson’s terrible examples, — “the storm real,
and the preacher only phenomenal ;” but this
setting of snowdrifts, which in our winters
lends such grace to every stern rock and rugged
tree, throws a charm even around the grim the-
ology of the Mathers. Three main propositions,
seven subdivisions, four applications, and four
uses, but the wreaths and the gracefulness are
cast about them all, while the wonderful com-
monplace books of those days, which held
everything, had accumulated scraps of winter
learning which cannot be spared from these
less abstruse pages.

Beginning first at the foundation, the preacher
must prove, “Prop. I. That the Snow is fitly
resembled to Wool. Snow like Wool, sayes the
Psalmist. And not only the Sacred Writers,

198 OUTDOOR STUDIES

but others make use of this Comparison. The
Grecians of old were wont to call the Snow
Eriopes Hupor, Wooly Water, or wet Wool.
The Latin word Floccus signifies both a Lock
of Wool and a Flake of Snow, in that they re-
semble one another. The aptness of the simili-
tude appears in three things.” ‘1. In respect
of the Whiteness thereof.” “2. In respect of
Softness.” “3. In respect of that Warming
Vertue that does attend the Snow.” [Here
the reasoning must not be omitted.] “Wool is
warm. We say, As warm as Wool. Woolen-
cloth has a greater warmth than other Cloath-
ing has. The wool on Sheep keeps them warm
in the Winter season. So when the back of
the Ground is covered with Snow, it keeps it
warm. Some mention it as one of the wonders
of the Snow, that tho’ it is itself cold, yet it
makes the Earth warm. But Naturalists ob-
serve that there is a saline spirit in it, which is
hot, by means whereof Plants under the Snow
are kept from freezing. Ice under the Snow is
sooner melted and broken than other Ice. In
some Northern Climates, the wild barbarous
People use to cover themselves over with it to
keep them warm. When the sharp Air has be-
gun to freeze a man’s Limbs, Snow will bring
heat into them again. If persons Eat much
Snow, or drink immoderately of Snow-water,

SNOW 199

it will burn their Bowels and make them black.
So that it has a warming vertue in it, and is
therefore fitly compared to Wool.”

Snow has many merits. “In Lapland, where

there is little or no light of the sun in the depth
of Winter, there are great Snows continually on
the ground, and by the Light of that they are
able to Travel from one place to another. .
At this day in some hot Countreys, they have
their Snow-cellars, where it is kept in Summer,
and if moderately used, is known to be both
refreshing and healthful. There are also Me-
dicinal Vertues in the snow. A late Learned
Physician has found that a Sa/¢ extracted out
of snow is a sovereign Remedy against both pu-
trid and pestilential Feavors. Therefore Men
should Praise God, who giveth Snow like Wool.”
But there is an account against the snow, also.
“ Not only the disease called Budimza, but others
more fatal have come out of the Snow. Geo-
graphers give us to understand that in some
Countries Vapours from the Snow have killed
multitudes in less than a Quarter of an Hour.
‘Sometimes both Men and Beasts have been
destroyed thereby. Writers speak of no less
than Forty Thousand men killed by a great
Snow in one Day.”

It gives a touching sense of human sympathy,
to find that we may look at Orion and the Plei-

200 OUTDOOR STUDIES

ades through the grave eyes of a Puritan divine.
“ The Seven Stars are the Summer Constella-
tion; they bring on the spring and summer;
and Ovion is a Winter Constellation, which is
attended with snow and cold, as at this Day.
. .. Moreover, Late Philosophers by the help
of the AZicroscope have observed the wonderful
Wisdom of God in the Figure of the Snow;
each flake is usually of a Stel/ate Form, and of
six Angles of exact equal length from the Cen-
ter. It is Uke a little Star. A great man
speaks of it with admiration, that in a Body so
familiar as the Snow is, no Philosopher should
for many Ages take notice of a thing so obvious
as the Figure of it. The learned Kepler, who
lived in this last Age, is acknowledged to be
the first that acquainted the world with the
Sexangular Figure of the Snow.”

Then come the devout applications. “There
is not a Flake of Snow that-falls on the Ground
without the hand of God, Mat. 10. 29. 30.
Not a Sparrow falls to the Ground, without the
Will of your Heavenly Father, all the Hairs of
your head arenumbred. So the Great God has
numbred all the Flakes of Snow that covers
the Earth, Altho’ no man can number them,
that God that tells the number of the Stars has
numbred them all. . . . We often see it, when
the Ground is bare, if God speaks the word, the

SNOW 201.

Earth is covered with snow in a few Minutes’
time. Here is the power of the Great God. If
all the Princes and Great Ones of the Earth
should send their Commands to the Clouds, not
a Flake of snow would come from thence.”

Then follow the “uses,” at last, — the little
boys in the congregation having grown uneasy
long since, at hearing so much theorizing about
snowdrifts, with so little opportunity of personal
practice. “Use I. If we should Praise God
for His giving Snow, surely then we ought to
Praise Him for Spiritual Blessings much more.”
“Use II. We should Humble our selves under
the Hand of God, when Snow in the season of
it is witheld from us.” “Use III. Hence all
Atheists will be left Eternally Inexcusable.”
“Use IV. We should hence Learn to make a
Spiritual Improvement of the Snow.” And
then with a closing volley of every text which
figures under the head of “Snow” in the Con-
cordance, the discourse comes to an end; and
every liberated urchin goes home with his head
full of devout fancies of building a snow-fort,
after sunset, from which to propel consecrated
missiles against imaginary or traditional Pe-
quots.

And the patient reader, too long snow-bound,
must be liberated also. After the winters of
deepest drifts the spring often comes most sud-

202 OUTDOOR STUDIES

denly ; there is little frost in the ground, and
the liberated waters, free without the expected
freshef, are filtered into the earth, or climb on
ladders of sunbeams to the sky. The beautiful
crystals all melt away, and the places where
they lay are silently made ready to be sub-
merged in new drifts of summer verdure.
These also will be transmuted in their turn, and
so the eternal cycle of the season glides along.
Near my house there is a garden, beneath
whose stately sycamores a fountain plays.
Three sculptured girls lift forever upward a chal-
ice which distils unceasingly a fine and plashing
rain ; in summer the spray holds the maidens in
a glittering veil, but winter takes the radiant
drops and slowly builds them up into a shroud
of ice which creeps gradually about the three
slight figures : the feet vanish, the waist is encir-
cled, the head is covered, the piteous uplifted
arms disappear, as if each were a Vestal Virgin
entombed alive for her transgression. They
vanishing entirely, the fountain yet plays on
unseen ; all winter the pile of ice grows larger,
glittering organ-pipes of congelation add them-
selves outside, and by February a great glacier
is formed, at whose buried centre stand immov-
able the patient girls. Spring comes at last,
the fated prince, to free with glittering spear
these enchanted beauties; the waning glacier,

SNOW 203

slowly receding, lies conquered before their
liberated feet; and still the fountain plays.
Who can despair before the iciest human life,
when its unconscious symbols are so beautiful ?

VII
FOOTPATHS

Wo cares whither a footpath leads? The
charm is in the path itself, its promise of some-
thing that the high-road cannot yield. Away
from habitations, you know that the fisherman,
the geologist, the botanist may have been there,
or that the cows have been driven home, and
that somewhere there are bars and a milk-pail.
Even in the midst of houses the path suggests
school-children with their luncheon baskets, or
workmen seeking eagerly the noonday interval
or the twilight rest. A footpath cannot be
quite spoiled, so long as it remains such; you
can make a road a mere avenue for fast horses
or showy women, but this humbler track keeps
its simplicity, and if a queen comes walking
through it, she comes but as a village maid.
A footpath has its own character, while that of
the high-road is imposed upon it by those who
dwell beside it or pass over it; indeed, roads
become picturesque only when they are called
lanes and make believe that they are but paths.

The very irregularity of a footpath makes

FOOTPATHS 205

half its charm. So much of loitering and indo-
lence and impulse have gone to its formation,
that all which is stiff and military has been left
out. I observed that the very dikes of the
Southern rice plantations did not succeed in
being rectilinear, though the general effect was
that of Tennyson’s “flowery squares.” Even
the country road, which is but an enlarged foot-
path, is never quite straight, as Thoreau long
since observed, noting it with his surveyor’s
eye. I read in his unpublished diary : “The law
that plants the rushes in waving lines along the
edge of a pond, and that curves the pond shore
itself, incessantly beats against the straight
fences and highways of men, and makes them
conform to the line of beauty at last.” It is
this unintentional adaptation that makes a foot-
path so indestructible. Instead of striking
across the natural lines, it conforms to them,
nestles into the hollow, skirts the precipice,
avoids the morass. An unconscious landscape
gardener, it seeks the most convenient course,
never doubting that grace will follow. Mitchell,
at his “ Edgewood” farm, wishing to decide on
the most picturesque avenue to his front door,
ordered a heavy load of stone to be hauled
across the field, and bade the driver seek the
easiest grades, at whatever cost of curvature.
The avenue followed the path so made.

206 OUTDOOR STUDIES

When a footpath falls thus unobtrusively into
its place, all natural forces seem to sympathize
with it, and help it to fulfil its destiny. Once
make a well-defined track through a wood, and
presently the overflowing brooks seek it fora
channel, the obstructed winds draw through it,
the fox and woodchuck travel by it, the catbird
and robin build near it, the bee and. swallow
make a high-road of its convenient thorough-
fare. In winter the first snows mark it with a
white line ; as you wander through you hear the
blue jay’s cry, and see the hurrying flight of
the sparrow ; the graceful outlines of the leaf-
less bushes are revealed, and the clinging bird’s
nests, “leaves that do not fall,’ give happy
memories of summer homes. Thus nature
meets man half way. The paths of the wild
forest and of the rural neighborhood are not at
all the same thing; indeed, a “spotted trail,”
marked only by the woodman’s axe-strokes on
the trees, is not a footpath. Thoreau, who is
sometimes foolishly accused of having sought
to be a mere savage, understood this distinction
well. “A man changes by his presence,” he
says in his unpublished diary, “the very nature
of the trees. The poet’s is not a logger’s path,
but a woodman’s, — the logger and pioneer have
preceded him, and banished decaying wood and
the spongy mosses which feed on it, and built

FOOTPATHS 207

hearths and humanized nature for him. Fora
permanent residence there can be no comparison
between this and the wilderness. Our woods
are sylvan, and their inhabitants woodsmen and
rustics ; that is, a selvaggia and its inhabitants
salvages.” What Thoreau loved, like all men
of healthy minds, was the occasional experi-
ence of untamed wildness. “TI love to see oc-
casionally,” he adds, “a man from whom the
usnea (lichen) hangs as gracefully as from a
spruce.”

Footpaths bring us nearer both to nature and
to man. No high-road, not even a lane, con-
ducts to the deeper recesses of the wood, where
you hear the wood thrush. There are a thou-
sand concealed fitnesses in nature, rhymed cor-
respondences of bird and blossom, for which
you must seek through hidden paths ; as when
you come upon some black brook so palisaded
with cardinal flowers as to seem “a stream of
sunsets ;”’ or trace its shadowy course till it
spreads into some forest pool, above which that
rare and patrician insect, the Agrion dragon-fly,
flits and hovers perpétually, as if the darkness
and the cool had taken wings. The dark brown
pellucid water sleeps between banks of softest
moss ; white stars of twin flowers creep close
to the brink, delicate sprays of dewberry trail
over it, and the emerald tips of drooping leaves

208 OUTDOOR STUDIES

forever tantalize the still surface. Above these
the slender, dark blue insect waves his dusky
wings, like a liberated ripple of the brook, and
takes the few stray sunbeams on his lustrous
form. Whence came the correspondence be-
tween this beautiful shy creature and the moist,
dark nooks, shot through with stray and transi-
tory sunlight, where it dwells? The analogy
is as unmistakable as that between the scorch-
ing heats of summer and the shrill cry of the
cicada. They suggest questions that no savant
can answer, mysteries that wait, like Goethe’s
secret of morphology, till a sufficient poet can
be born. And we, meanwhile, stand helpless
in their presence, as one waits beside the tele-
graphic wire, while it hums and vibrates, charged
with all fascinating secrets, above the heads of
a wondering world.

It is by the presence of pathways on the
earth that we know it to be the habitation of
man; in the barest desert, they open to us a
common humanity. It is the absence of these
that renders us so lonely on the ocean, and
makes us glad to watch even the track of our
own vessel. But on the mountain-top, how
eagerly we trace out the “road that brings
places together,” as Schiller says. It is the
first thing we look for; till we have found it,
each scattered village has an isolated and churl-

FOOTPATHS 209

ish look, but the glimpse of a furlong of road
puts them all in friendly relations. The nar-
rower the path, the more domestic and familiar
it seems. The railroad may represent the capi-
talist or the government; the high-road indi-
cates what the surveyor or the county commis-
sioners thought best; but the footpath shows
what the people needed. Its associations are
with beauty and humble life,—the boy with’
his dog, the little girl with her fagots, the ped-
ler with his pack; cheery companions they are
or ought to be.
“Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:

A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad one tires in a mile-a.”

The footpath takes you across the farms and
behind the houses; you are admitted to the
family secrets and form a personal acquaint-
ance. Even if you take the wrong path, it
only leads you “across lots” to some man
ploughing, or some old woman picking berries,
—perhaps a very spicy acquaintance, whom
the road would never have brought to light.
If you are led astray in the woods, this only
teaches you to observe landmarks more closely,
or to leave straws and stakes for tokens, like a
gypsy’s patteran, to show the ways already
traversed. There is a healthy vigor in the

210 OUTDOOR STUDIES

mind of the boy who would like of all things
to be lost in the woods, to build a fire out of
doors, and sleep under a tree or in a haystack.
Civilization is tiresome and enfeebling, unless
we occasionally give it the relish of a little out-
lawry, and approach, in imagination at least, the
zest of a gypsy life. The records of pedestrian
journeys, the Wanderjahre and memoirs of
good-for-nothings, and all the delightful Ger-
man forest literature,— these belong to the
footpath side of our nature. The passage I
best remember in all Bayard Taylor’s travels
is the ecstasy of his Thiiringian forester, who
said: “I recall the time when just a sunny
morning made me so happy that I did not
know what to do with myself. One day in
spring, as I went through the woods and saw
the shadows of the young leaves upon the
moss, and smelt the buds of the firs and larches,
and thought to myself, ‘All thy life is to be
spent in the splendid forest,’ I actually threw
myself down and rolled in the grass like a dog,
over and over, crazy with joy.”

It is the charm of pedestrian journeys that
they convert the grandest avenues to footpaths,
Through them alone we gain intimate know-
ledge of the people, and of nature, and indeed
of ourselves. It is easy to hurry too fast for
our best reflections, which, as the old monk

FOOTPATHS 211

said of perfection, must be sought not by fly-
ing, but by walking, “ Perfectionis via non per-
volanda sed perambulanda.” The thoughts
that the railway affords us are dusty thoughts ;
we ask the news, read the journals, question
our neighbor, and wish to know what is going
on because we are a part of it. It is only in
the footpath that our minds, like our bodies,
move slowly, and we traverse thought, like
space, with a patient thoroughness. Rousseau
said that he had never experienced so much,
lived so truly, and been so wholly himself, as
during his travels on foot.

What can Hawthorne mean by saying in his
English diary that “an American would never
understand the passage in Bunyan about Chris-
tian and Hopeful going astray along a bypath
into the grounds of Giant Despair, from there
being no stiles and bypaths in our country”?
So much of the charm of American pedestrian-
ism lies in the bypaths! For instance, the
whole interior of Cape Ann, beyond Gloucester,
is a continuous woodland, with granite ledges
everywhere cropping out, around which the
high-road winds, following the curving and
indented line of the sea, and dotted here and
there with fishing hamlets. This whole interior
is traversed by a network of footpaths, rarely
passable for a wagon, and not always for a

212 OUTDOOR STUDIES

horse, but enabling the pedestrian to go from
any one of these villages to any other in a line
almost direct, and always under an agreeable
shade. By the longest of these hidden ways,
one may go from Pigeon Cove to Gloucester,
ten miles, without seeing a public road. In the
little inn at the former village there used to
hang an old map of this whole forest region,
giving a chart of some of these paths, which
were said to date back to the first settlement
of the country. One of them, for instance, was
called on the map “Old Road from Sandy Bay
to Squam Meeting-house through the Woods;”
but the road is now scarcely even a bridle-path,
and the most faithful worshipper could not
seek Squam Meeting-house in the family chaise.
Those woods have been lately devastated ; but
when I first knew that region, it was as good
as any German forest. Often we stepped al-
most from the edge of the sea into some gap in
the woods; there seemed hardly more than a
rabbit track, yet presently we met some way-
farer who had crossed the Cape by it. A piny
dell gave some vista of the broad sea we were
leaving, and an opening in the woods displayed
another blue sea-line before; the encountering
breezes interchanged odor of berry bush and
scent of brine; penetrating farther among oaks
and chestnuts, we come upon some little cot-

FOOTPATHS 213

tage, quaint and sheltered as any Spenser drew;
it was built on no high-road, and turned its
vine-clad gable away from even the footpath.
Then the ground rose and we were surprised
by a breeze from a new quarter; perhaps we
climbed trees to look for landmarks, and saw
only, still farther in the woods, some great cliff
of granite or the derrick of an unseen quarry.
Three miles inland, as I remember, we found
the hearthstones of a vanished settlement; then
we passed a swamp with cardinal flowers ; then
a cathedral of noble pines, topped with crows’
nests. If we had not gone astray by this time,
we presently emerged on Dogtown Common,
an elevated tableland, overspread with great
boulders as with houses, and encircled with a
girdle of green woods and an outer girdle of
blue sea. I know of nothing more wild than
that gray waste of boulders ; it is a natural Salis-
bury Plain, of which icebergs and ocean cur-
rents were the Druidic builders; in that multi-
tude of couchant monsters there seems a sense
of suspended life; you feel as if they must
speak and answer to each other in the silent
nights, but by day only the wandering sea-birds
seek them, on their way across the Cape, and
the sweet-bay and green fern embed them in a
softer and deeper setting as the years go by.
This is the “height of ground” of that wild

214 OUTDOOR STUDIES

footpath ; but as you recede farther from the
outer ocean and approach Gloucester, you come
among still wilder ledges, unsafe without a
guide, and you find in one place a cluster of
deserted houses, too difficult of access to re-
move even their materials, so that they are left
to moulder alone. I used to wander in those
woods, summer after summer, till I had made
my own chart of their devious tracks. And now
when I close my eyes in this Oldport midsum-
mer, the soft Italian air takes on something of
a Scandinavian vigor; for the incessant roll of
carriages I hear the tinkle of the quarryman’s
hammer and the veery’s song; and I long for
those perfumed and breezy pastures, and for
those promontories of granite where the fresh
water is nectar and the salt sea has a regal
blue.

I recall another footpath near Worcester,
Massachusetts ; it leads up from the low mea-
dows into the wildest region of all that vicinity,
Tatesset Hill. Leaving behind you the open
pastures where the cattle lie beneath the chest-
nut-trees or drink from the shallow brook, you
pass among the birches and maples, where the
woodsman’s shanty stands in the clearing, and
the raspberry fields are merry with children’s
voices. The familiar birds and butterflies lin-
ger below with them, and in the upper and

FOOTPATHS 215

more sacred depths the wood thrush chants his
litany and the brown mountain butterflies hover
among the scented vines. Higher yet rises the
“Rattlesnake Ledge,” spreading over one side
of the summit a black avalanche of broken
rock, now overgrown with reindeer-moss and
filled with tufts of the smaller wild geranium.
Just below this ledge, —amid a dark, dense
track of second-growth forest, masked here and
there with grapevines, studded with rare or-
chises, and pierced by a brook that vanishes
suddenly where the ground sinks away and lets
the blue distance in, —there is a little monu-
ment to which the footpath leads, and which
always seemed to me as wild a memorial of for-
gotten superstition as the traveller can find
amid the forests of Japan.

It was erected by a man called Solomon Par-
sons, residing near Worcester, a quiet, thought-
ful farmer, long-bearded, low-voiced, and with
that aspect of refinement which an ideal life
brings forth even in quite uninstructed men.
At the height of the “ Second Advent ” excite-
ment this man resolved to build for himself
upon these remote rocks a house which should
escape the wrath to come, and should even
endure amid a burning and transformed earth.
Thinking, as he had once said to me, that, “if
the First Dispensation had been strong enough

216 OUTDOOR STUDIES

to endure, there would have been no need of
a Second,” he resolved to build for his part
something which should possess permanence
at least. And there still remains on that high
hillside the small beginning that he made.

There are four low stone walls, three feet
thick, built solidly together without cement,
and without the trace of tools. The end walls
are nine feet high (the sides being lower), and
are firmly united by a strong iron ridgepole,
perhaps fifteen feet long, which is embedded at
each end in the stone. Other masses of iron
lie around unused, in sheets, bars, and coils,
brought with slow labor by the builder from far
below. The whole building was designed to
be made of stone and iron. It is now covered
with creeping vines and the débris of the hill-
side; but though its construction had been
long discontinued when I saw it, the interior
was still kept scrupulously clean through the
care of this modern Solomon, who often visited
his shrine.

An arch in the terminal wall admits the
visitor to the small roofless temple, and he sees
before him, embedded in the centre of the floor,
a large smooth block of white marble, where
the deed of this spot of land was to be recorded,
in the hope to preserve it even after the globe
should have been burned and renewed. But

FOOTPATHS 217

not a stroke of this inscription was ever cut,
and now the young chestnut boughs droop into
the uncovered interior, and shy forest-birds sing
fearlessly among them, having learned that this
house belongs to God, not man.!_ As if to re-
assure them, and perhaps in allusion to his
own vegetarian habits, the architect has spread
some rough plaster at the head of the apart-
ment and marked on it in bold characters,
“Thou shalt not kill.”’ Two slabs outside, a
little way from the walls, bear these inscrip-
tions, “ Peace on Earth,” “ Good-Will to Men.”
When I visited it, the path was rough and so
obstructed with bushes that it was hard to com-
prehend how it had afforded passage for these
various materials; it seemed more as if some
strange architectural boulder had drifted from
some Runic period and been stranded there.
It was as apt a confessional as any of Words-
worth’s nooks among the Trosachs; and when
one thinks how many men are wearing out their
souls in trying to conform to the traditional
mythologies of others, it seems nobler in this
man to have reared upon that lonely hill the
unfinished memorial of his own.

1 Since this sketch was written, Solomon Parsons has died,
having previously caused the deed to be carved on the stone,
conveying the property to God. He tried several times, be-
fore his death, to have the inscription formally recorded at
the registry of deeds.

218 OUTDOOR STUDIES

I recall another path which leads from the
Lower Saranac Lake, near “ Martin’s,” to what
the guides call, or used to call, “The Philoso-
pher’s Camp” at Amperzand. On this oddly
named lake, in the Adirondack region, a tract of
land was bought by Professor Agassiz and his
friends, who made there a summer camping-
ground, and with one comrade I once sought
the spot. I remember with what joy we left
the boat, ——so delightful at first, so fatiguing
at last ; for I cannot, with Mr. Murray, call it
a merit in the Adirondacks that you never have
to walk, and stepped away into the free for-
est. We passed tangled swamps, so dense with
upturned trees and trailing mosses that they
seemed to give no opening for any living thing
to pass, unless it might be the soft and silent
owl that turned its head almost to dislocation
in watching us, ere it flitted vaguely away.
Farther on, the deep, cool forest was luxurious
with plumy ferns; we trod on moss-covered
roots, finding the emerald steps so soft we
scarcely knew that we were ascending ; every
breath was aromatic ; there seemed infinite heal-
ing in every fragrant drop that fell upon our
necks from the cedar boughs. We had what I
think the pleasantest guide for a daylight tramp,
—one who has never before passed over that
particular route, and can only pilot you on gen-

FOOTPATHS 219

eral principles till he gladly, at last, allows you
to pilot him. When we once got the lead we
took him jubilantly on, and beginning to look
for “The Philosopher's Camp,” found our-
selves confronted by a large cedar-tree on the
margin of a wooded lake. This was plainly the
end of the path. Was the camp then afloat ?
Our escort was in that state of hopeless igno-
rance of which only lost guides are capable.
We scanned the green horizon and the level
water, without glimpse of human abode. It
seemed an enchanted lake, and we looked about
the tree trunk for some fairy horn, that we
might blow it. That failing, we tried three rifle-
shots, and out from the shadow of an island, on
the instant, there glided a boat, which bore no
lady of the lake, but a red-shirted woodsman.
The artist whom we sought was on that very
island, it seemed, sketching patiently while his
guides were driving the deer.

This artist was he whose “ Procession of the
Pines ’’ had identified his fame with that delight-
ful forest region. He it was who had laid out
with artistic taste “The Philosopher’s Camp,”
and who was that season still awaiting philoso-
phers as well as deer. He had been there for a
month, alone with the guides, and declared that
nature was pressing upon him to an extent that
almost drove him wild. His eyes had a certain

220 OUTDOOR STUDIES

remote and questioning look that belongs to
imaginative men who dwell alone. It seemed
an impertinence to ask him to come out of his
dream and offer us dinner ; but his instincts of
hospitality failed not, and the red-shirted guide
was sent to the camp, which was, it seemed, on
the other side of the lake, to prepare our meal,
while we bathed. I am thus particular in speak-
ing of the dinner, not only because such is the
custom of travellers, but also because it was the
occasion of an interlude which I shall never for-
get. As we were undressing for our bath upon
the lonely island, where the soft, pale water
almost lapped our feet, and the deep, wooded
hills made a great amphitheatre for the lake, our
host bethought himself of something neglected
in his instructions.

“Ben!” vociferated he to the guide, now
rapidly receding. Ben paused on his oars.

“Remember to bo-o-oil the venison, Ben!”
shouted the pensive artist, while all the slum-
bering echoes arose to applaud this culinary
confidence.

“ And, Ben!” he added imploringly, “don’t
forget the dumplings!’’ Upon this, the loons,
all down the lake, who had hitherto been silent,
took up the strain with vehemence, hurling
their wild laughter at the presumptuous mortal
who thus dared to invade their solitudes with

FOOTPATHS 221

details as trivial as Mr. Pickwick’s tomato sauce.
They repeated it over and over to each other,
till ten square miles of loons must have heard
the news, and all laughed together ; never was
there such an audience; they could not get
over it, and two hours after, when we had
rowed over to the camp and dinner had been
served, this irreverent and invisible chorus kept
bursting out, at all points of the compass, with
scattered chuckles of delight over this extraor-
dinary bill of fare. Justice compels me to add
that the dumplings were made of Indian meal,
upon a recipe devised by our artist ; the guests
preferred the venison, but the host showed a
fidelity to his invention that proved him to be
indeed a dweller in an ideal world.

Another path that comes back to memory is
the bare trail that we followed over the prairies
of Nebraska, in 1856, when the Missouri River
was held by roving bands from the Slave States,
and Freedom had to seek an overland route into
Kansas. All day and all night we rode between
distant prairie fires, pillars of evening light and
of morning cloud, while sometimes the low grass
would burn to the very edge of the trail, so that
we had to hold our breath as we galloped through.
Parties of armed Missourians were sometimes
seen over the prairie swells, so that we had to
mount guard at nightfall; free-state emigrants,

222 OUTDOOR STUDIES

fleeing from persecution, continually met us ;
and we sometimes saw parties of wandering
Sioux, or passed their great irregular huts and
houses of worship. I remember one desolate
prairie summit on which an Indian boy sat mo-
tionless on horseback ; his bare red legs clung
closely to the white sides of his horse ; a gor-
geous sunset was unrolled behind him, and he
might have seemed the last of his race, just
departing for the hunting-grounds of the blest.
More often the horizon showed no human out-
line, and the sun set cloudless, and elongated
into pear-shaped outlines, as behind ocean
waves. But I remember best the excitement
that filled our breasts when we approached
spots where the contest for a free soil had
already been sealed with blood. In those days,
as one went to Pennsylvania to study coal for-
mations, or to Lake Superior for copper, so one
went to Kansas for men. “Every footpath on
this planet,” said a rare thinker, “may lead to
the door of a hero,” and that trail into Kansas
ended rightly at the tent door of John Brown.
And later, who that knew them can forget
the picket-paths that were worn throughout the
Sea Islands of South Carolina, — paths that
wound along the shores of creeks or through
the depths of woods, where the great wild roses
tossed their airy festoons above your head, and

FOOTPATHS 223

the brilliant lizards glanced across your track,
and your horse’s ears suddenly pointed forward
and his pace grew uneasy as he snuffed the pre-
sence of something you could not see. At night
you had often to ride from picket to picket in
dense darkness, trusting to the horse to find
his way, or sometimes dismounting to feel with
your hands for the track, while the great South-
ern fireflies offered their floating lanterns for
guidance, and the hoarse “ Chuck-will’s-widow ”
croaked ominously from the trees, and the great
guns of the siege of Charleston throbbed more
faintly than the drumming of a partridge, far
away. Those islands are everywhere so inter-
sected by dikes and ledges and winding creeks
as to form a natural military region, like La
Vendée; and yet two plantations that are
twenty miles asunder by the road will some-
times be united by a footpath which a negro
can traverse in two hours. These tracks are
limited in distance by the island formation, but
they assume a greater importance as you pene-
trate the mainland ; they then join great States
instead of mere plantations, and if you ask
whither one of them leads, you are told “To
Alabama,” or “ To Tennessee.”

Time would fail to tell of that wandering
path which leads to the Mine Mountain near
Brattleborough, where you climb the high peak

224 OUTDOOR STUDIES

at last, and perhaps see the showers come up
the Connecticut till they patter on the leaves
beneath you, and then, swerving, pass up the
black ravine and leave you unwet. Or of those
among the White Mountains, gorgeous with
great red lilies which presently seem to take
flight in a cloud of butterflies that match their
tints, paths where the balsamic air caresses you
in light breezes, and masses of alderberries rise
above the waving ferns. Or of the paths that
lead beside many a little New England stream,
whose bank is lost to sight in a smooth green
slope of grapevine: the lower shoots rest upon
the quiet water, but the upper masses are
crowned by a white wreath of alder blooms;
beside them grow great masses of wild roses,
and the simultaneous blossoms and berries of
the gaudy nightshade. Or of those winding
tracks that lead here and there among the flat
stones of peaceful old graveyards, so entwined
with grass and flowers that every spray of
sweetbrier seems to tell more of life than all
the accumulated epitaphs can tell of death.

And when the paths that one has personally
traversed are exhausted, memory holds almost
as clearly those which the poets have trodden
for us, —those innumerable byways of Shake-
speare, each more real than any high-road in
England ; or Chaucer’s

FOOTPATHS 225

“ Little path I found
Of mintes full and fennell greene; ”

or Spenser’s

“ Pathes and alleies wide
With footing worne; ”

or the path of Browning’s “ Pippa,”

“Down the hillside, up the glen,
Love me as I love!”

or the haunted way in Sydney Dobell’s ballad,

“Ravelstone, Ravelstone,
The merry path that leads
Down the golden morning hills,
And through the silver meads ;”

or the few American paths that genius has yet
idealized, — that where Hawthorne’s David
Swan slept, or that which Thoreau found
upon the banks of Walden Pond, or where
Whittier parted with his childhood’s playmate
on Ramoth Hill. It is not heights or depths
or spaces that make the world worth living in ;
for the fairest landscape needs still to be gar-
landed by the imagination, — to become classic
with noble deeds and romantic with dreams.
Go where we please in nature, we receive in
proportion as we give. Ivo, the old Bishop of
Chartres, wrote that “neither the secret depth
of woods nor the tops of mountains make man
blessed, if he has not with him solitude of

226 OUTDOOR STUDIES

mind, the sabbath of the heart, and tranquillity
of conscience.’ There are many roads, but
one termination; and Plato says, in his “Re-
public,” that the point where all paths meet is
the soul’s true resting-place and the journey’s
end.

IX
A SHADOW

I sHaLL always remember one winter even-
ing, a little before Christmas-time, when I took
a long, solitary walk in the outskirts of the
town. The cold sunset had left a trail of
orange light along the horizon, the dry snow
tinkled beneath my feet, and the early stars
had a keen, clear lustre that matched well with
the sharp sound and the frosty sensation. For
some time I had walked toward the gleam of a
distant window, and as I approached, the light
showed more and more clearly through the
white curtains of a little cottage by the road.
I stopped, on reaching it, to enjoy the sugges-
tion of domestic cheerfulness in contrast with
the dark outside. I could not see the inmates,
nor they me; but something of human sym-
pathy came from that steadfast ray.

As I looked, a film of shade kept appearing
and disappearing with rhythmic regularity in a
corner of the window, as if some one might be
sitting in a low rocking-chair close by. Pre-
sently the motion ceased, and suddenly across

228 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the curtain came the shadow of a woman. She
raised in her arms the shadow of a baby, and
kissed it ; then both disappeared, and I walked
on.

What are Raphael’s Madonnas but the sha-
dow of a mother’s love, so traced as to endure
forever? In this picture of mine, the group
actually moved upon the canvas. The curtains
that hid it revealed it. The ecstasy of human
love passed in brief, intangible panorama before
me. It was something seen, yet unseen; airy,
yet solid; a type, yet a reality ; fugitive, yet
destined to last in my memory while I live. It
said more to me than would any Madonna of
Raphael’s, for his mother never kisses her child.
I believe I have never passed over that road
since then, never seen the house, never heard
the names of its occupants. Their character,
their history, their fate, are all unknown. But
these two will always stand for me as disem-
bodied types of humanity, — the Mother and
the Child; they seem nearer to me than my
immediate neighbors, yet they are as ideal and
impersonal as the goddesses of Greece or as
Plato’s archetypal man.

I know not the parentage of that child,
whether black or white, native or foreign, rich
or poor. It makes no difference. The pre-
sence of a baby equalizes all social conditions.

A SHADOW 229

On the floor of some Southern hut, scarcely so
comfortable as a dog-kennel, I have seen a
dusky woman look down upon her infant with
such an expression of delight as painter never
drew. No social culture can make a mother’s
face more than a mother’s, as no wealth can
make a nursery more than a place where chil-
dren dwell. Lavish thousands of dollars on
your baby-clothes, and after all the child is
prettiest when every garment is laid aside.
That bewitching nakedness, at least, may adorn
the chubby darling of the poorest home.

I know not what triumph or despair may
have come and gone through that wayside
house since then, what jubilant guests may
have entered, what lifeless form passed out.
What anguish or what sin may have come be-
tween that woman and that child; through
what worlds they now wander, and whether
separate or in each other’s arms, —this is all
unknown. Fancy can picture other joys to
which the first happiness was but the prelude,
and, on the other hand, how easy to imagine
some special heritage of human woe and call it
theirs !

“T thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality ;
And Grief, uneasy lover, might not rest
Save when he sat within the touch of thee.”

230 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Nay, the foretaste of that changed fortune
may have been present, even in the kiss. Who
knows what absorbing emotion, besides love’s
immediate impulse, may have been uttered in
that shadowy embrace? There may have been
some contrition for ill-temper or neglect, or
some triumph over ruinous temptation, or some
pledge of immortal patience, or some heart-
breaking prophecy of bereavement. It may
have been simply an act of habitual tender-
ness, or it may have been the wild reaction to-
ward a neglected duty ; the renewed self-conse-
cration of the saint, or the joy of the sinner
that repenteth, No matter. She kissed the
baby. The feeling of its soft flesh, the busy
struggle of its little arms between her hands,
the impatient pressure of its little feet against
her knees, — these were the same, whatever
the mood or circumstance beside. They did
something to equalize joy and sorrow, honor
and shame. Maternal love is love, whether a
woman be a wife or only a mother. Only a
mother!

The happiness beneath that roof may, per-
haps, have never reached so high a point as at
that precise moment of my passing. In the
coarsest household, the mother of an infant is
placed on a sort of pedestal of care and ten-
derness, at least for a time. She resumes some-

A SHADOW 231

thing of the sacredness and dignity of the
maiden. Coleridge ranks as the purest of
human emotions that of a husband towards a
wife who has a baby at her breast, — “a feel-
ing how free from sensual desire, yet how dif-
ferent from friendship!” And to the true
mother, however cultivated, or however igno-
rant, this period of early parentage is happier
than all else, in spite of its exhausting cares.
In that delightful book, the “ Letters” of Mrs.
Richard Trench,— mother of the well-known
English writer, —the most agreeable passage
is perhaps that in which, after looking back
upon a life spent in the most brilliant society
of Europe, she gives the palm of happiness to
the time when she was a young mother. She
writes to her god-daughter: “I believe it is
the happiest time of any woman’s life, who has
affectionate feelings, and is blessed with healthy
and well-disposed children. I know at least
that neither the gayeties and boundless hopes
of early life, nor the more grave pursuits and
deeper affections of later years, are by any
means comparable in my recollection with the
serene, yet lively pleasure of seeing my chil-
dren playing on the grass, enjoying their little
temperate supper, or repeating ‘with holy
look ’* their simple prayers, and undressing for
bed, growing prettier for every part of their

232 OUTDOOR STUDIES

dress they took off, and at last lying down, all
freshness and love, in complete happiness, and
an amiable contest for mamma’s last kiss.”
That kiss welcomed the child into a world
where joy predominates. The vast multitude
of human beings enjoy existence and wish to
live. They all have their earthly life under
their own control. Some religions sanction
suicide ; the Christian Scriptures nowhere ex-
plicitly forbid it; and yet it is a rare thing.
Many persons sigh for death when it seems far
off, but the desire vanishes when the boat up-
sets, or the locomotive runs off the track, or
the measles set in. A wise physician once
said to me: “I observe that every one wishes
to go to heaven, but I observe that most peo-
ple are willing to take a great deal of very dis-
agreeable medicine first.” The lives that one
least envies —as of the Digger Indian or the
outcast boy in the city — are yet sweet to the
living. “They have only a pleasure like that
of the brutes,” we say with scorn. But what
a racy and substantial pleasure is that! The
flashing speed of the swallow in the air, the
cool play of the minnow in the water, the dance
of twin butterflies round a thistle-blossom, the
thundering gallop of the buffalo across the
prairie, nay, the clumsy walk of the grizzly
bear ; it were doubtless enough to reward exist-

A SHADOW 233

ence, could we have joy like such as these,
and ask no more. This is the hearty physical
basis of animated life, and as step by step the
savage creeps up to the possession of intellec-
tual manhood, each advance brings with it new
_ sorrow and new joy, with the joy always in
excess.

There are many who will utterly disavow this
creed that life is desirable in itself. A fair
woman in a ball-room, exquisitely dressed, and
possessed of all that wealth could give, once
declared to me her belief —and I think hon-
estly —that no person over thirty was. con-
sciously happy, or would wish to live, but for
the fear of death. There could not even be
pleasure in contemplating one’s children, she
asserted, since they were living in such a world
of sorrow. Asking the opinion, within half an
hour, of another woman as fair and as favored
by fortune, I found directly the opposite ver-
dict. “For my part I can truly say,” she an-
swered, “that I enjoy every moment I live.”
The varieties of temperament and of physical
condition will always afford us these extremes ;
but the truth lies between them, and most per-
sons will endure many sorrows and still find
life sweet.

And the mother’s kiss welcomes the child
into a world where good predominates as well

234 OUTDOOR STUDIES

as joy. What recreants must we be, in an age
that has abolished slavery in America and pop-
ularized the governments of all Europe, if we
doubt that the. tendency of man is upward!
How much that the world calls selfishness is
only generosity with narrow walls, —a too ex-
clusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury
or make one’s children rich! In an audience
of rough people a generous sentiment always
brings down the house. In the tumult of war
both sides applaud an heroic deed. A cour-
ageous woman, who had traversed alone, on be-
nevolent errands, the worst parts of New York,
told me that she never felt afraid except in the
solitudes of the country ; wherever there was a
crowd, she found a protector. A policeman of
great experience once spoke to me with admi-
ration of the fidelity of professional thieves to
each other, and the risks they would run for
the women whom they loved; when “ Bristol
Bill” was arrested, he said, there was found
upon the burglar a set of false keys, not quite
finished, by which he would certainly, within
twenty-four hours, have had his mistress out
of jail, Parent-Duchatelet found always the
remains of modesty among the fallen women
of Paris hospitals ; and Mayhew, amid the Lon-
don outcasts, says that he thinks better of
human nature every day. Even among politi-

A SHADOW 235

cians, whom it is our American fashion to revile
as the chief of sinners, there is perhaps less of
evil than of good. In Wilberforce’s “Memoirs”
there is an account of his having once asked
Mr. Pitt whether his long experience as Prime
Minister had made him think well or ill of his
fellow men. Mr. Pitt answered, “Well;” and
his successor, Lord Melbourne, being asked the
same question, answered, after a little reflec-
tion, “My opinion is the same as that of Mr.
Pitt.”

Let us have faith. It was a part of the vigor
of the old Hebrew tradition to rejoice when a
man-child was born into the world; and the
maturer strength of nobler ages should rejoice
over a woman-child as well. Nothing human
is wholly sad, until it is effete and dying out.
Where there is life there is promise. “ Vitality
is always hopeful,” was the verdict of the most
refined and clear-sighted woman who has yet
explored the rough mining villages of the Rocky
Mountains. There is apt to be a certain coarse
virtue in rude health; as the Germanic races
were purest when least civilized, and our Ameri-
can Indians did not unlearn chastity till they
began to decay. But even where vigor and
vice are found together, they still may hold a
promise for the next generation. Out of the
strong cometh forth sweetness. Parisian wick-

236 OUTDOOR STUDIES

edness is not so discouraging merely because it
is wicked, as from a suspicion that it is drain-
ing the life-blood of the nation. A mob of
miners or of New York bullies may be uncom-
fortable neighbors, and may make a man of
refinement hesitate whether to stop his ears or
to feel for his revolver; but they hold more
promise for the coming generations than the
line which ends in Madame Bovary or the
Vicomte de Camors.

But behind that cottage curtain, at any rate,
a new and prophetic life had begun. I cannot
foretell that child’s future, but I know some-
thing of its past. The boy may grow up into
a criminal, the woman into an outcast, yet the
baby was beloved. It came “not in utter na-
kedness.” It found itself heir of the two prime
essentials of existence,—life and love. Its
first possession was a woman’s kiss; and in
that heritage the most important need of its
career was guaranteed. “An ounce of mother,”
says the Spanish proverb, “is worth a pound
of clergy.” Jean Paul says that in life every
successive influence affects us less and less, so
that the circumnavigator of the globe is less
influenced by all the nations he has seen than
by his nurse. Well may the child imbibe that
reverence for motherhood which is the first
need of man. Where woman is most a slave,

A SHADOW 237

she is at least sacred to her son. The Turkish
Sultan must prostrate himself at the door of
his mother’s apartments, and were he known
to have insulted her, it would make his throne
tremble. Among the savage African Toua-
ricks, if two parents disagree, it is to the mother
that the child’s obedience belongs. Over the
greater part of the earth’s surface, the foremost
figures in all temples are the Mother and Child.
Christian and Buddhist nations, numbering to-
gether two thirds of the world’s population,
unite in this worship. Into the secrets of the
ritual that baby in the window had already re-
ceived initiation.

And how much spiritual influence may in
turn have gone forth from that little one! The
coarsest father gains a new impulse to labor
from the moment of his baby’s birth; he
scarcely sees it when awake, and yet it is with
him all the time. Every stroke he strikes is
for his child. New social aims, new moral mo-
tives, come vaguely up to him. The London
costermonger told Mayhew that he thought
every man would like his son or daughter to
have a better start in the world than his own.
After all, there is no tonic like the affections.
Philosophers express wonder that the divine
laws should give to some young girl, almost a
child, the custody of an immortal soul. But

238 OUTDOOR STUDIES

what instruction the baby brings to the mother !
She learns patience, self-control, endurance ;
her very arm grows strong, so that she can
hold the dear burden longer than the father
can. She learns to understand character, too,
by dealing with it. “In training my first chil-
dren,” said a wise mother to me, “I thought
that all were born just the same, and that I
was wholly responsible for what they should
become. I learned by degrees that each had
a temperament of its own, which I must study
before I could teach it.” And thus, as the little
ones grow older, their dawning instincts guide
those of the parents; their questions suggest
new answers, and to have loved them is a lib-
eral education.

For the height of heights is love. The phi-
losopher dries into a skeleton like that he inves-
tigates, unless love teaches him. He is blind
among his microscopes, unless he sees in the
humblest human soul a revelation that dwarfs
all the world beside. While he grows gray in
ignorance among his crucibles, every girlish
mother is being illuminated by every kiss of
her child. That house is so far sacred, which
holds within its walls this new-born heir of
eternity. But to dwell on these high mysteries
would take us into depths beyond the present
needs of mother or of infant, and it is better

A SHADOW 239

that the greater part of the baby-life should be
that of an animated toy.

Perhaps it is well for all of us that we should
live mostly on the surfaces of things and should
play with life, to avoid taking it too hard. In
a nursery the youngest child is a little more
than a doll, and the doll is a little less than a
child. What spell does fancy weave on earth
like that which the one of these small beings
performs for the other? This battered and tat-
tered doll, this shapeless, featureless, possibly
legless creature, whose mission it is to be
dragged by one arm, or stood upon its head in
the bathing-tub, until it finally reverts to the
rag-bag whence it came, — what an affluence of
breathing life is thrown around it by one touch
of dawning imagination! Its little mistress will
find all joy unavailing without its sympathetic
presence, will confide every emotion to its pen-
and-ink ears, and will weep passionate tears if
its extremely soiled person is pricked when its
clothes are mended. What psychologist, what
student of the human heart, has ever applied
his subtile analysis to the emotions of a child
toward her doll?

I read lately the charming autobiography of
a little girl of eight years, written literally from
her own dictation. Since “Pet Marjorie” I
have seen no such actual self-revelation on the

240 OUTDOOR STUDIES

part of achild. In the course of her narration
she describes, with great precision and correct-
ness, the travels of the family through Europe
in the preceding year, assigning usually the
place of importance to her doll, who appears
simply as “My Baby.” Nothing can be more
grave, more accurate, more serious than the
whole history, but nothing in it seems quite so
real and alive as the doll. “When we got to
Nice, I was sick. The next morning the doc-
tor came, and he said I had something that
was very much like scarlet fever. Then I had
Annie take care of baby, and keep her away,
for I was afraid she would get the fever. She
used to cry to come to me, but I knew it
would n’t be good for her.”

What firm judgment is here, what tenderness
without weakness, what discreet motherhood !
When Christmas came, it appears that baby
hung up her stocking with the rest. Her de-
voted parent had bought for her a slate with
a real pencil. Others provided thimble and
scissors and bodkin and a spool of thread,
and a travelling-shawl with a strap, and a cap
with tarletan ruffles. “I found baby with the
cap on, early in the morning, and she was so
pleased she almost jumped out of my arms.”
Thus in the midst of visits to the Coliseum
and St. Peter’s, the drama of early affection

A SHADOW 241

goes always on. “I used to take her to hear
the band, in the carriage, and she went every-
where I did.”

But the love of all dolls, as of other pets,
must end with a tragedy, and here it comes.
“The next place we went to was Lucerne.
There was a lovely lake there, but I had a
very sad time. One day I thought I’d take
baby down to breakfast, and, as I was going
upstairs, my foot slipped and baby broke her
head. And oh, I felt so bad! and I cried out,
and I ran upstairs to Annie, and mamma came,
and oh, we were all so sorry! And mamma
said she thought I could get another head,
but I said, ‘It won’t be the same baby.’ And
mamma said may be we could make it seem so.”

At this crisis the elder brother and sister de-
parted for Mount Righi ‘They were going
to stay all night, and mamma and I stayed at
home to take care of each other. I felt very
bad about baby and about their going, too.
After they went, mamma and I thought we
would go to the little town and see what we
could find.” After many difficulties, a waxen
head was discovered. ‘ Mamma bought it, and
we took it home and put it on baby; but I said
it wasn’t like my real baby, only it was better
than having no child at all!”

This crushing bereavement, this reluctant

242 OUTDOOR STUDIES

acceptance of a child by adoption, to fill the
vacant heart, — how real and formidable is all
this rehearsal of the tragedies of maturer
years! I knew an instance in which the last
impulse of ebbing life was such a gush of im-
aginary motherhood. A dear friend of mine,
whose sweet charities prolong into a third gen-
eration the unbounded benevolence of old Isaac
Hopper, used to go at Christmas-time with dolls
and other gifts to the poor children on Randall's
Island. Passing the bed of a little girl whom
the physician pronounced to be unconscious
and dying, the kind visitor insisted on putting
a doll into her arms. Instantly the eyes of the
little invalid opened, and she pressed the gift
eagerly to her heart, murmuring over it and ca-
ressing it. The matron afterwards wrote that
the child died within two hours, wearing a
happy face, and still clinging to her new-found
treasure.

And beginning with this transfer of all hu-
man associations to a doll, the child’s life inter-
fuses itself readily among all the affairs of the
elders. In its presence, formality vanishes ; the
most oppressive ceremonial is a little relieved
when children enter. Their influence is per-
vasive and irresistible, like that of water, which
adapts itself to any landscape, — always takes
its place, welcome or unwelcome, — keeps its

A SHADOW 243

own level and seems always to have its natural
and proper margin. Out of doors how children
mingle with nature, and seem to begin just
where birds and butterflies leave off! Leigh
Hunt, with his delicate perceptions, paints this
well: “The voices of children seem as natural
to the early morning as the voice of the birds.
The suddenness, the lightness, the loudness,
the sweet confusion, the sparkling gayety,
seem alike in both. The sudden little jangle
is now here and now there; and now a single
voice calls to another, and the boy is off like
the bird.” So Heine, with deeper thoughtful-
ness, noticed the “intimacy with the trees”
of the little wood-gatherer in the Hartz Moun-
tains ; soon the child whistled like a linnet, and
the other birds all answered him ; then he dis-
appeared in the thicket with his bare feet and
his bundle of brushwood. “Children,” thought
Heine, “are younger than we, and can still re-
member the time when they were trees or birds,
and can therefore understand and speak their
language ; but we are grown old, and have too
many cares, and too much jurisprudence and
bad poetry in our heads.”

But why go to literature for a recognition of
what one may see by opening one’s eyes? Be-
fore my window there is a pool, two rods
square, that is haunted all winter by children,

244 OUTDOOR STUDIES

—clearing away the snow of many a storm, if
need be, and mining downward till they strike
the ice. I look this morning from the window,
and the pond is bare. Ina moment I happen
to look again, and it is covered with a swarm of
boys ; a great migrating flock has settled upon
it, as if swooping down from parts unknown
to scream and sport themselves here. The air
is full of their voices; they have all tugged
on their skates instantaneously, as it were by
magic. Now they are in a confused cluster,
now they sweep round and round in a circle,
now it is broken into fragments and as quickly
formed again ; games are improvised and aban-
doned ; there seems to be no plan or leader,
but all do as they please, and yet somehow
.act in concert, and all chatter all the time.
Now they have alighted, every one, upon the
bank of snow that edges the pond, each scrap-
ing a little hollow in which to perch. Now
every perch is vacant again, for they are all in
motion ; each moment increases the jangle of
shrill voices, — since a boy’s outdoor whisper
to his nearest crony is as if he was hailing a
ship in the offing, —and what they are all say-.
ing can no more be made out than if they were
a flock of gulls or blackbirds. I look away
from the window once more, and when I glance
out again there is not a boy in sight. They

A SHADOW 245

have whirled away like snowbirds, and the little
pool sleeps motionless beneath the cheerful
wintry sun. Who but must see how gradually
the joyous life of the animal rises through
childhood into man, — since the soaring gnats,
the glancing fishes, the sliding seals are all re-
presented in this mob of half-grown boyhood
just released from school.

If I were to choose among all gifts and
qualities that which, on the whole, makes life
pleasantest, I should select the love of children.
No circumstance can render this world wholly
a solitude to one who has that possession. It
is a freemasonry. Wherever one goes, there
are the little brethren and sisters of the mystic
tie. No diversity of race or tongue makes
much difference. A smile speaks the universal
language. “If I value myself on anything,”
said the lonely Hawthorne, “it is on having
a smile that children love.’ They are such
prompt little beings ; they require so little pre-
lude; hearts are won in two minutes, at that
frank period, and so long as you are true to
them they will be true to you. They need no
argument, no bribery. They have a hearty ap-
petite for gifts, no doubt, but it is not for these
that they love the giver. Take the wealth of
the world and lavish it with counterfeited af-
fection: I will win all the children’s hearts

246 OUTDOOR STUDIES

away from you by empty-handed love. The
gorgeous toys will dazzle them for an hour ;
then their instincts will revert to their natural
friends. In visiting a house where there are
children I do not like to take them presents :
it is better to forego the pleasure of the giving
than to divide the welcome between yourself
and the gift. Let that follow after you are
gone.

It is an exaggerated compliment to women
when we ascribe to them alone this natural
sympathy with childhood. It is an individual,
not a sexual trait, and is stronger in many men
than in many women. It is nowhere better ex-
hibited in literature than where the happy Wil-
helm Meister takes his boy by the hand, to lead
him “into the free and lordly world.” Such
love is not universal among the other sex,
though men, in that humility which so adorns
their natures, keep up the pleasing fiction that
it iss As a general rule, any little girl feels
some glimmerings of emotion towards anything
that can pass for a doll, but it does not follow
that, when grown older, she will feel as ready
an instinct toward every child. Try it. Point
out to a woman some bundle of blue-and-white
or white-and-scarlet in some one’s arms at the
next street corner. Ask her, “Do you love
that baby?” Not one woman in three will say

A SHADOW 247

promptly, “Yes.” The others will hesitate,
will bid you wait till they are nearer, till they
can personally inspect the little thing and take
an inventory of its traits ; it may be dirty, too;
it may be diseased. Ah! but this is not to love
children, and you might as well bea man. To
love children is to love childhood, instinctively,
at whatever distance, the first impulse being
one of attraction, though it may be checked by
later discoveries. Unless your heart com-
mands at least as long a range as your eye, it is
not worth much. The dearest saint in my cal-
endar never entered a railway car that she did
not look round for a baby, which, when discov-
ered, must always be won at once into her arms.
If it was dirty, she would have been glad to
bathe it; if ill, to heal it. It would not have
seemed to her anything worthy the name of
love, to seek only those who were wholesome
and clean. Like the young girl in Holmes’s
most touching poem, she would have claimed
as her own the outcast child whom nurses and
physicians had abandoned.
“¢Take her, dread Angel! Break in love
This bruised reed and make it thine!’

No voice descended from above,
But Avis answered, ‘ She is mine!’”

When I think of the self-devotion which the
human heart can contain—of those saintly

248 OUTDOOR STUDIES

souls that are in love with sorrow, and that
yearn to shelter all weakness and all grief — it
inspires an unspeakable confidence that there
must also be an instinct of parentage beyond
this human race, a heart of hearts, cor cordium.
As we all crave something to protect, so we
long to feel ourselves protected. We are all
infants before the Infinite; and as I turned
from that cottage window to the resplendent
sky, it was easy to fancy that mute embrace,
that shadowy symbol of affection, expanding
from the narrow lattice till it touched the stars,
gathering every created soul into the arms of
Immortal Love.

Xx
A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES

THE newspapers describe a throng of tourists
as passing through the White Mountains all
summer long; but we forget that, when tried
by the standard of Swiss or Scotch hill-country,
ours is still unexplored and unopened. Even
the laborious Appalachian Club has as yet
barely called attention to a few of the wilder
recesses. Half a mile to the right or left of
many a much-travelled pathway lies the untamed
and shaggy wilderness, traversed here and
there, at intervals of years, by some hunter or
trapper, but too high in air for the lumberman
or trout fisherman, and unseen by the tourist.
It is the realm of the shy deer and bear, of the
nocturnal /oup-cervier and catamount ; one may
thread his way through it for many hours with-
out coming upon the trace of a human being.
It was in such a region, on the side of Mount
Moosilauke, that I went to seek for the Plei-
ades.

Few of the White Mountains have summits
so fine and characteristic in their formation

250 OUTDOOR STUDIES

as is that of Moosilauke. After you ascend
above the more luxuriant vegetation, and find
yourself in a cooler zone, passing, as it were,
from summer back to spring, —leaving, for
instance, the ripe red raspberries below, and
finding them still green above,—after you
have come to interrupted groves and ever-
dwindling trees, you step out at length upon a
bare and narrow ridge. With one bold curve,
it sweeps away in air, and leads the eye to a
little summit half a mile beyond, on which the
Tip-Top House, a low stone building, clings.
There can be nothing finer than this curving
crest, raised nearly five thousand feet above
the sea level, and just wide enough to hold the
rough wagon road built some years since to the
top. As you traverse it, you seem to walk
along the heights of heaven. Looking down,
you see on one hand all the fertile valley of the
Connecticut and the broad farms of Vermont ;
and on the other side there lie spread all Maine
and New Hampshire. Within the embrace of
this bending ridge, held as in its arm, there
drops a precipitous gorge, densely wooded and
utterly pathless, and it was in this wild depth,
known locally as the Jobildunk Ravine, that
the Pleiades were to be sought.

Little, the historian of Warren, describes this
ravine as “wild and hideous,” and estimates its

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES 251

depth at three thousand feet. Osgood’s White
Mountain Guide-Book says that it is “one of
the wildest places in the State, but is difficult
to explore on account of its forests,” and adds
that “in its upper part are the woodland beau-
ties of the Seven Cascades.” At the two hotels
on the side of the mountain we found no very
definite knowledge of these cascades, and they
were confounded with certain other waterfalls
on Baker’s River, several miles away. At a
late field meeting of the Appalachian Club,
however, an interesting report had been pre-
sented by Rev. G. H. Scott of Plymouth, N. H.,
who, with the Rev. H. O. Ladd of Hopkinton,
had once spent the night on top of Moosilauke,
had descended into Jobildunk Ravine next day
for fishing purposes, and had come upon these
falls; after which they had followed Gorge
Brook, as it is called, through the forest to
Baker’s River, and so on to the village of War-
ren. These two explorers, it appeared, were so
delighted with the beauty of the cascades as to
feel moved to do all that could be done for
them in recognition; so in due form, by what
may be called a self-acting baptismal process,
—since the brook itself furnished the font, —
they christened the sisterhood “the Pleiades.”
Such was the region we wished to visit.

The rule as to the inevitable exaggeration of

252 OUTDOOR STUDIES

the unseen — omne ignotum pro mirifico —ap-
plies only to the person nearest to the wonder,
and for all others is reversed. The larger your
estimate of the size of your unlanded trout, the
more derisively small is the guess of your fel-
low fishermen. As with unseen trout, so with
waterfalls unvisited ; and Mr. Scott soon found
that he must inspect his newly christened cas-
cades again, and take with him witnesses, I
went as one of these, we having as our guide
James Merrill, of the Breezy Point House, who
had long hunted and trapped through all that
region, and had, many years ago, passed by
these falls, though he was now by no means
sure of their precise position.

It was the hottest day of the summer; the
breeziness of the hotel which was our rendez-
vous lay that day in its name only, and the
mercury on the piazza stood at 85° Fahrenheit
in the shade. As we had come from Plymouth,
N. H., in the morning, we could not set off on
our walk until a little before noon, and must
stop presently to eat our lunch. When we
resumed our march, it was still within that
period of the day when, as the ancients fabled,
the great god Pan sleeps, and must not be
awakened, and when even wood-paths are apt
to be unshaded ; and as we climbed we found
ourselves zigzagging from side to side, to make

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES 253

the most of every bit of protection, — beating up
to shadowward, as it were, instead of to wind-
ward. Our guide walked on before us, erect
and manly, wearing one of those broad canvas
hats which are characteristic of this region,
and furnish one of our few glimpses of pictur-
esque costume. He had led for years the gen-
uinely outdoor life which belongs to our moun-
taineers. As a rule, farmers are far less rich
in conversation than seaside people, — sailors,
pilots, fishermen; the rural lives are rather
monotonous and uneventful; but when you
come where the farms actually abut upon un-
tamed forest, the art of conversation revives,
and James Merrill was as good as Thoreau, so
far as the habit of observation could carry him.
That he did not sometimes romance a little, I
am not quite prepared to affirm.

He showed us, in the occasional deposits of
soft mud by the water bars on the mountain
road, how to distinguish squirrel tracks, sable
tracks, bear tracks. A bear had passed, as he
proved to us, within a few days, had weighed
about one hundred and seventy-five pounds, and
was probably two years old. He pointed out
to us where, in sandy places, the young par-
tridges had nestled and fluttered like hens in
the path, and where the hedgehogs had gnawed
and torn the roots in the wood. He told us

254 OUTDOOR STUDIES

how these little “quill-pigs,” as they are popu-
larly called, defend themselves with their tails,
thrashing them about till the nose of a dog or
other animal is full of bristles; the dogs in-
stinctively fear this, and seize the creature by
the head, where the bristles turn the other way,
and cannot hurt. The hedgehog is in winter
the chief food of the “fisher-cat,” and this in
turn is trapped for its fur. This small quad-
ruped is jet black, with a few white hairs; is as
large as a large cat, but is shaped like a mink,
having short legs. The fisher-cat and sable —
pronounced uniformly “saple” — climb trees
like cats, in pursuit of squirrels, and will run
from tree to tree as easily as the game they
hunt, though unable to spring like them through
the air. Both of these species are active and
daring, venturing sometimes into the hunters’
camps at night in search of food. The ordi-
nary wildcat, or “bob-cat,” or “lucivee ” (loup-
cervier) is also found on Moosilauke, but not
the larger “catamount,” or that half-mythical
beast known among Maine lumbermen as the
“Indian devil.” This bob-cat is often as large
to the eye as a Newfoundland dog, but its fur
is so deceptively thick that it really does not
weigh more than thirty pounds. Merrill was
eloquent about its shriek at night. “When you
hear it near you,” he said, “it makes every

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES 255

hair stand up straight, and you feel about as
big as your finger. I have heard it when it
made me feel as if my hat was two feet from
my head. It is as much bigger than the house
cat’s noise as that is bigger than a canary’s.”
Of the larger animals, the deer is still hunted
in this region, although the present laws, which
protect these animals from January 1 to Au-
gust 1, have cut off the snow-hunting, which
was the most profitable. Before this legis-
lation, Merrill had once taken three deer alive
in a single day, pursuing them in snowshoes
with a dog, when the slender hoofs cut through
the crusted snow, and they could be over-
taken. When thrown down in the snow the
deer defend themselves actively with their
hoofs, which are used very swiftly and cut like
razors. The best way to quiet them is to hold
their heads down by the ears, and after this
‘has been done for ten or fifteen minutes they
will usually submit, and can afterwards be led
along, although sometimes the old bucks will
fight, from first to last, so furiously that the
hunter, entangled in his snowshoes, must kill
his opponent in self-defence. Of bears not
more than three or four are annually taken
here, —a bounty of ten dollars being paid, —
but a good many visit the region, keeping in
the valley between Moosilauke and Carr’s

256 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Mountain, and always attracted by ponds and
sloughs, in which they wallow, and by berry
pastures, among which they feed. The foot-
prints we saw — in which the claws, by the way,
were to be clearly distinguished — were near a
large patch of wild raspberries. Wolves are
pretty well exterminated from this whole re-
gion. The last report of one was several years
ago, when some unknown animal devastated
the sheepfolds. A mighty hunter from beyond
the mountain was offered forty dollars by the
farmers, in addition to the legal bounty of half
that sum, for the destruction of the wolf. He
brought in the head, as by law required, and
received the money; but avowed, a year or two
later, that he had only exhibited the head of a
harmless dog, peculiarly wolf-like in appearance,
which he had bought for a dollar in a distant
hamlet. However, the sheepfolds were thence-
forth left unmolested, though the unseen enemy
was never trapped.

Many of our guide’s facts were before known
to us, but some were wholly new, as when he
told us that a deer, if forced into water too
shallow for his long legs, will swim easily on his
side, instead of wading. There is always plea-
sure in listening to the simplest woodcraft from
those who habitually live by its pursuit, — those
who know nothing of books, but supply obser-

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES 257

vations for the bookmakers. Such talk links us
with the Rocky Mountains, with Scott’s novels,
and with the great French forests in old days
of royal hunting. All the “venerers, prickers,
and verderers”’ of romance have now come
down to a few plain incidents like these, but
no matter; so long as there is a squirrel on a
bough or a partridge in the woods, it will keep
us in contact with that healthful outdoor na-
ture which is the background of all our civili-
zation. Thus discoursing, at any rate, we
toiled up the mountain beneath an increasing
shade. It was pretty to observe the graceful
effect of the increased elevation on the wild-
flowers. At the base, this being August 2, I
sought in vain among the wood-sorrel and
dwarf-cornel leaves for a single blossom ; when
half way up we saw them beginning to spangle
the green beds; and at the top they were in
fullest bloom, amid the linnza and mountain
cranberry. It was strange also to see meadow
plants, like the snakehead and American helle-
bore, growing abundantly in dry places at an
elevation of four thousand feet; and even to
find lingering blossoms of the latter, which we
are accustomed to regard as an early spring
flower. The longer one lives, the less rigid ap-
pear the rules and forms of external nature ;
she seems to bid her wild-flowers bloom where

258 OUTDOOR STUDIES

she will, and almost when she will, and: to de-
light in setting at naught the most careful
assertions of the botanists. The time may
come, perhaps, when one can pluck passion
flowers off a glacier without surprise, so fearless
are nature’s combinations.

All the party had climbed Moosilauke before,
and there had been a good deal of debate as to
whether, for our present purpose, we should
leave the mountain path far down, and strike
through the forest for the base of the cascades,
or whether we should ascend nearly to the
summit and search downward for the upper-
most falls. The latter counsel at length pre-
vailed, and even the point of departure was
fixed upon. There are on Moosilauke several
springs of water, along its upper regions, —
each kindly provided by some good Samaritan
with sheets of birch bark, such as Samaria never
saw, but such as the New Hampshire woods-
man easily twists into a cup. At the highest
of these springs — said popularly, but wrongly,
to be the origin of the very brook in question
—we left the carriage road, and struck boldly
downwards into the unbroken woods. In two
minutes we seemed wholly beyond reach of the
steep height we were leaving behind us, so
sharp was the descent. It seemed as irretrace-
able as a plunge over Niagara, and all civilized

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES 259

and sheltered life was as absolutely withdrawn.
Beneath us and around us was a craggy world
of boulders and broken rock, all united into
one continuous and treacherous surface by an
emerald garment of the softest moss. Our feet
sank and slipped in it; it was a delicious
cushion on which to leap from rock to rock;
but the leaps were too dangerous, for none
could tell by the eye whether there was any
foothold. Meantime we were twisting and
writhing our bodies among closely set trees,
never very large, since it was too high in
air for that, but tough and firmly knit, their
branches being stunted into a magnificent vigor.
Their insecurity was in their foothold among
those mossy rocks: in some cases they had so
wrenched and griped their roots into the crevices
as to seem a part of the mountain side, while
other trees were scarcely more than poised
upon the rocks, and were wholly unable to bear
the weight of a man. The brook soon disap-
peared beneath the rocks, leaving only moisture
enough for the beautiful slender spikes of the
northern white orchis (Platanthera dilatata),
which we afterwards found abundantly through-
out the watercourses of the ravine. Still we
descended ; it seemed like slipping cautiously
down the interminable steeple of a gigantic
church, on which boulders had somehow stayed

260 OUTDOOR STUDIES

themselves, and trees and moss had contrived
to grow. The great danger was of going for-
ward headlong, with a sudden insertion of one’s
feet in a sharp cleft of these beautiful, treacher-
ous, moss-hidden rocks. It was a positive re-
lief to tread occasionally upon some prostrate
tree trunk, green with ferns and half decayed,
yet bristling with spiked branches, and giving a
safe though difficult bridge, as it slanted down
the hillside. Meanwhile we could see nothing
overhead or outward, so dense were the trunks
and boughs; and we had only an occasional
glimpse of the broad hat of our guide, still de-
scending without remorse. Once, when we
had halted, and some one had expressed fervent
gratitude that we had not to reascend that
formidable ravine, Merrill looked round with a
chuckle, and said, “It would be easier to go up
there again than to go back the way you expect
to go.” We too looked round and up. The
suggestion seemed like that of reclimbing the
church steeple already mentioned, and holding
on by the moss as we went up. Any distance,
any form of descent, should be welcomed, we
resolved, rather than attempt that “wild and
hideous” climb.

During all this time we had listened vainly
for the brook, which should be rippling some-
where below. If it was there, every step of

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES = 261

our stumbling progress brought us nearer to
it; but no one knew just where to find it, and
there was a perpetual murmur in the trees,
drowning all minor sounds. At length a softer
plash, as of plunging waters, mingled in the
strain, and almost before we knew it we stood
in a green dell, where all the shaggy terrors of
the precipitous ravine suddenly vanished, as if
they had never been. Westood with level feet
at last, beside a little stream, on whose flat and
mossy rocks it seemed as if nothing rougher
than the moccasined foot of an Indian had ever
rested. As far up and down as the woods dis-
closed them extended a series of dainty water-
falls, — never high or sweeping, like the Artists’
Fall in North Conway, or the far bolder Llama
Falls near Lake Dunmore in Vermont, but
more like the graceful Chase Cascades in Brat-
tleborough, as they were while yet unspoiled.
As for the precise number of these cascades in
Jobildunk Ravine, it was of no consequence;
the brook dropped almost continuously from
ledge to ledge, and there might be seven or
seventeen, as one chose to count them for pur-
poses of baptism. At any rate, our lost Plei-
ades were found.

When we had once reached them, instanta-
neous was the change in our condition. No
longer slipping and staggering down the craggy

262 OUTDOOR STUDIES

ravine, amid tangled roots and trunks, seeking
in vain for a footing, until, as in Lowell’s de-
scription of old-time Cambridge mud, one’s legs
became mere corkscrews to extract one’s boots,
—no longer thus afflicted, we trod on smooth
slabs of rock, cushioned with velvet moss, that
would have invited repose but for the delicate
rills of trickling water that preserved its em-
erald hue. What matter for these ! —they
cooled our feet ; and very sweet was the forest
chill that made an atmosphere about the stream.
A lingering ‘“‘ Peabody-bird ” welcomed us from
the ravine, now silent with summer. Above and
below us spread the cascades: some spanned
by forest trunks, long since fallen, but still
green with mosses; others open to the sky,
and with only a suggestive rill of water; while
others, again, held even this little stream in-
visible, murmuring beneath the rocks. We
could not have asked for a sweeter rest after
our descent, or for a lovelier bower of peace,
than we found in the valley of the Seven Cas-
cades.

There is nothing in nature so shy and vir-
ginal as a cascade in primeval woods; it seems
alone with its own beauty, and unfit for any
ruder contact than that of the deer which comes,
timid and lonely as itself, to drink at its pure
basin. On this particular day, it must be

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES = 263

owned, we could have wished for our wood
nymph an ampler garment of water. Still there
was enough to adorn her beauty, and we could
readily accept the apologies of our friend, the
original explorer, who had seen her, so to speak,
in full flow of drapery. But it is the beauty
of a cascade, as of a lake, that it adapts itself
easily to any margin; nor did the beauty of this
scene of peace require for its full appreciation
the severe prelude of fatigue through which we
had passed.

The immediate question before us was that
which the English poet Faber long since set
to music, “Up a stream or down?” We had
struck the cascades, it was guessed, about half
way up their course; and they were, at any
rate, so much nearer the top of the ravine than
the bottom that it was a question which route
to pursue. We could follow them up and reach
the summit, thence descending the mountain
by the ordinary road; or we could follow the
stream itself down, an easier but perhaps longer
route, especially with a guide not thoroughly
familiar with the way. It was already half past
four, and, being on the eastern or shadowy
slope of Moosilauke, we could not safely count
on more than two hours of time. Deciding, at
last, to ascend, we pressed on in the path of the
brook, our feet treading

264 OUTDOOR STUDIES

“On the stubs of living rock
Ages ago it crenelled,”

as Browning has it. A few turns of the stream
brought us to the most beautiful cascade of all.
Looking upward, we saw a green cave or grotto,
built with the regularity of art, and arching
towards us over the little pool into which its
waters fell. The cascade came from an over-
hanging ledge, precisely as if the arch which
surmounted the cave had lost its keystone, and
the water passed through between two mossy
slabs. The fall was of eight or ten feet only,
but the hollow cave which received it —a grotto
all emerald with glistening moss — gave it a
beauty that nothing was needed to enhance ex-
cept the solitary deer which should have been,
but was not, drinking in that still place.

The brook soon left us, dwindling to a gurgle
among the stones, and then vanishing, while we
pushed on towards upper air, our guide mark-
ing the trees for future explorers, or for a pos-
sible pathway. We noted how skilfully he
“ spotted” with his axe, — the word “blaze”’ is
rarely used, in this sense, in New England, —
not cutting deeply in, as a novice would have
done, but simply scarring’ the bark, and thus
leaving a more unmistakable mark for future
years than if the wood itself were indented.
The wall we were climbing grew rapidly steeper,

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES 265

until it was the counterpart of that we had de-
scended ; and though the fatigue of the ascent
was doubtless greater, we yet knew better what
we were doing, and the risk of broken limbs
was less. At intervals we had glimpses of the
ridge above us, still seeming incredibly far
away, and gradually swathed in such a dimness
that we knew, although we could not see, that
the vapors must be gathering in the air. Still
we toiled on, up mossy dells, palisaded with the
shy white orchis, until suddenly a shout from
some one above caused me to look: round, and
I saw a sight of exquisite beauty. An opening
in the woods showed the ravine behind us, dark,
almost black, with shadow; but beyond this
the sunlight was so poured on the eastern slope
of Mount Washington and his companions as to
make them glisten in double prominence, and
it was almost impossible to believe that they
were not snow-covered, — Ido not mean coated
with continuous and dazzling snow, like Mont
Blanc, but rather clad in that scattered and
sprinkled whiteness which clings upon the ter-
rible peak of the Matterhorn. As we went a
step farther, the trees hid this fair sight, and
we entered a domain of utter shadow, fitly pre-
paring us for the change that was presently to
come, in the drama of the day.

Climbing a few steps higher, I saw clearly —

266 OUTDOOR STUDIES

for we were now getting above the trees — the
meaning of the deepening blackness and the
weird light. A storm was upon us,— such a
storm as explained the superstitions of Indians
about these mountain summits, and their re-
fusal toclimb them. Thesky was all obscured,
—not densely black, as with a thunder-cloud,
but lighter than the already dark ravine; yet
there were flashes of lightning in it, and mur-
murings of thunder. Its chief terror appeared
to lie not in darkness but in motion. All im-
mediately around us was absolutely still, yet on
the side of the ravine toward the Tip-Top
House there was in the woods a roar that I can
only describe as ferocious ; it seemed as if the
force which made that sound could sweep from
the ravine below us the whole forest that
clothed it, and count the work a trifle. Mean-
time, upon the mountain crest the mass of pale
cloud was accumulating, and suddenly, as with
one word of command, it was unloosed. We
saw a detached body of cloud, that seemed to
obey an order of its own and have its own sepa-
rate work to do, come sweeping down into the
ravine beside us—not toward us—with a
sense of power and direction that no wings of
eagles could symbolize, and an effect of swift-
ness such as no swallow’s flight, no rush of rail-
way train, could represent. I knew that it was

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES = 267

a filmy, bodiless thing,—that if it changed
direction and came toward us we should know
it but as rain and wind; yet as I watched it,
the Oriental hymns to the storm-gods seemed
too little for an invocation of its power, and one
could fancy a great army of men halting and
retreating before its awful majesty. “The
charge of the six hundred!” called one of my
companions. The clouds went first, the rain
followed ; we could see it pouring in great
sheets between us and the side of the ravine,
and yet we escaped for atime. At last it
reached us.

It came with a discharge like that from a
steam fire-engine, yet we were by this time so
warm that we welcomed it for our bodies’ sake;
we were like men working at a great confla-
gration, who beseech the engines to play on
them. Yet the instinct of self-protection for
a moment prevailed; and the dwarf spruce-
trees under which we could easily shelter our-
selves made a dry defence. But what was the
use? Every atom of vegetation must soon be
saturated, and we were now where we must
crawl through it, and under it, and over it, to
reach the top. We were in the region known
as “scrub,” — above where trees could be trees,
but where they were condensed into stiff
bushes, gnarled spikes, holding in every twig the

268 OUTDOOR STUDIES

vigor of a limb. Vegetation driven to its alpine
stronghold does its worst at last, before it van-
ishes and leaves you in free air. You must
clamber above it, you must burrow through it ;
you cannot stop to find out whether it is branch
or root on which you are treading, since they
seem equally rugged. Sometimes, in creeping
beneath a bough, I found myself trailing my
wet breast over some exquisite bed of wood-
sorrel and linnza, the sweet: pink flowers fad-
ing unseen where no eye had looked on their.
race before,

At last, as by magic, all obstruction van-
ished, and I stood in increasing darkness on the
bare ridge, with thousands of feet of stormy.
vapor spreading and sinking on either hand.
So great was the sense of freedom — for there
was now nothing before us but a descent of
five miles by the rough carriage road to Mer-:
rill’s — that I remember no feeling except of
exhilaration. I had nothing on but a thin ten-
nis shirt and trousers, with shoes and stockings.
all saturated ; but I recall a distinct savage.
enjoyment in the pelting of the cold rain, mixed
with a slight hail, upon my shoulders. Fatigue
seemed to vanish; we all felt as if at the begin-
ning of our day’s work. Nature presently re-
sponded ‘to our mood ; already the veil of cloud
was thin over the western outlook, and soon it

A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES — 269

burst away into soft, rosy fragments. The vast
valley of the Connecticut, with nearly all of
Vermont, lay visible before us ; lakes glistened,
grain-fields spread, glimpses of rivers showed
themselves. It was like a vast battlefield in
the multiplicity of little vapors that hung over
detached ‘points, and on distant hills lay level
bars of absolutely golden light. The Green
Mountains and the far Adirondacks and the
curious Notch in which lies Willoughby Lake
were all closely shrouded with ‘these gorgeous
splendors ; and as we: looked down from above,
it was as if the sunset itself lay in state. Yet
glittering raindrops were still falling on us, and
we were glad to speed rapidly downward, away
from this bright scene, to the mountain’s foot,
there to seek dry clothing, made up from many
-wardrobes, at the Breezy Point House, and to
take our way by the mountain wagon to the
‘railway station. The next day we felt a certain
triumph amidst our bruises. We were not ex-
actly like Keats’s

“ watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,”

‘but we had at least rediscovered the Pleiades.

XI
FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE

(1855-56)

Every man when he first crosses the ocean
is a Columbus to himself, no matter how many
voyages by other navigators he may have heard
described. Geographies convince only the
brain, not the senses, that the globe is round;
and when personal experience proves the fact,
it is as wonderful as if never before suggested.
You have dwelt for weeks within one unbroken
loneliness of sea and sky, finding nothing that
seemed solid in the universe but the bit of
painted wood on which you have floated. Sud-
denly one morning something looms high and
cloudlike far away, and you are told that it is
land. Then you feel, with all ignorant races,
as if the ship were a god, thus to find its way
over that trackless waste; or as if this must
be some great and unprecedented success, and
by no means the expected or usual result of
such enterprises. An intelligent sea-captain of
twenty-five years’ experience once told me that

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 271

this sensation never wore off, and that he still
felt as fresh a sense of something extraordinary,
at the sight of land, as upoh his first voyage. .
To discover for one’s self that there is really
another side to the ocean, —that is the aston-
ishing thing. And when it happens, as in our
case, that the haven thus gained is not merely
a part of a great continent which the stupidest
ship could not miss, if it only sailed far enough,
but is actually a small volcanic island, a mere
dot among those wild waves, a thing which one
might easily have passed in the night, unsus-
pecting, and which yet was not so passed, — it
really seems like the maddest piece of good
luck, as if one should go to sea in a bowl, hop-
ing somewhere or other to land on the edge of
a teacup.

As next day we stumbled on deck in the
foggy dawn, the dim island five miles off seemed
only dawning too; a shapeless thing, half formed
out of chaos, as if the leagues of gray ocean
had grown weary of their eternal loneliness,
and bungled into something solid at last. The
phrase “making land” at once became the sim-
ple and necessary expression; we had come
upon the very process itself. Nearer still, the
cliffs five hundred feet in height, and the bare
conical hills of the interior, divided everywhere
by cane hedges into a regular checker-work of

272 OUTDOOR STUDIES

cultivation, prolonged the mystery, and the
glimpses of white villages scarcely seemed to
break the spell. Point after point we passed,
— great shoulders of volcanic mountain thrust
out to meet the sea, with steep green ravines
furrowed in between them; and when at last
we rounded the Espalamarca, and the white
walls and the Moorish towers of Horta stood
revealed before us, and a stray sunbeam pierced
the clouds on the great mountain Pico across
the bay, and the Spanish steamship in the har-
bor flung out her gorgeous ensign of gold and
blood, — then, indeed, we felt that all the glow-
ing cup of the tropics was proffered to our lips,
and the dream of our voyage stood fulfilled.
Not one of our immediate party, most hap-
pily, had ever been beyond Boston harbor be-
fore, and so we all plunged without fear or
apology into the delicious sense of foreignness ;
we moved as those in dreams. No one could
ever precisely remember what we said or what
we did, only that we were somehow boated
ashore till we landed with difficulty through
high surf on a wave-worn quay, amid an enthu-
siastic throng of women in dark blue hooded
cloaks which we all took for priestly vestments,
and of beggars in a combination of patches
which no sane person could reasonably take for
vestments of any sort, until one saw how scru-

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 273

pulously they were washed and how carefully
put together.

The one overwhelming fact of the first day
abroad is the simple sensation that one zs
abroad: a truth that can never be made any-
thing but commonplace in the telling, or any-
thing but wonderful in the fulfilling. What
Emerson says of the landscape is true here:
no particular foreign country is so remarkable
as the necessity of being remarkable under
which every foreign country lies. Horace Wal-
pole found nothing in Europe so astonishing as
Calais; and we felt that at every moment the
first edge of novelty was being taken off for
life, and that, if we were to continue our journey
round the world, we never could have that first
day’s sensations again. Yet because no one
can spare time to describe it at the moment,
this first day has never yet been described ; all
books of travels begin on the second day; the
photographic machine is not ready till the ex-
pression has begun to fade out. Months had
been spent in questioning our travelled friends,
sheets of old correspondence had been disin-
terred, sketches studied, Bullar’s unsatisfactory
book read ; and now we were on the spot, and
it seemed as if every line and letter must have
been intended to describe some other place on
the earth, and not this strange, picturesque,
Portuguese, Semi-Moorish Fayal.

274 OUTDOOR STUDIES

One general truth came over us instantly,
and it was strange to think that no one had
happened to speak of it before. The essence
of the surprise was this. We had always been
left to suppose that in a foreign country one
would immediately begin to look about and
observe the foreign things, — these novel details
having of course that groundwork of ordinary
human life, the same all the world over. To
our amazement, we found that it was the
groundwork that was foreign; we were shifted
off our feet; not the details, but the basis itself
was wholly new and bewildering ; and instead
of noting down, like intelligent travellers, the
objects which were new, we found ourselves
stupidly staring about to find something which
was old,—a square inch of surface anywhere
which looked like anything ever seen before, —
that we might take our departure from that,
and then begin to improve our minds. Perhaps
this is difficult for the first hours in any foreign
country; certainly the untravelled American
finds it utterly impossible in Fayal. Consider
the incongruities. The beach beneath your
feet, instead of being white or yellow, is black ;
the cliffs beside you are white or red, instead
of black or gray. The houses are of white
plaster on the outside, with woodwork, often
painted in gay stripes, within. There are no

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 275

chimneys to the buildings, but sometimes there
is a building to the chimney ; the latter being
a picturesque tower with smoke coming from
the top and a house appended to the base.
One half the women go about bareheaded, save
a handkerchief, and with a good deal of bare-
ness at the other extremity, —while the other
half wear vast conical hoods attached to volu-
minous cloth cloaks which sweep the ground.
The men cover their heads with all sorts of
burdens, and their feet with nothing, or else
with raw-hide slippers, hair outside. There is
no roar or rumble in the streets, for there are
no vehicles and no horses, but an endless stream
of little donkeys, clicking the rough pavement
beneath their sharp hoofs, and thumped solidly
by screaming drivers. Who wears the new
shoes on the island does not appear, since al-
most everybody goes barefoot; but the hens
limp about the houses, tethered to old ones.
Further inspection reveals new marvels. The
houses are roofed with red and black tiles, semi-
cylindrical in shape and rusty in surface, and
making the whole town look as if incrusted with
barnacles. There is never a pane of glass on
the lower story, even for the shops, but only
barred windows and solid doors. Every house
has a paved courtyard for the ground floor,
into which donkeys may be driven and where

276 OUTDOOR STUDIES

beggars or peasants may wait, and where one
naturally expects to find Gil Blas in one corner
and Sancho Panza in another. An English
lady, on arriving, declared that our hotel was
only a donkey stable, and refused to enter it.
In the intervals between the houses the streets
are lined with solid stone walls from ten to
twenty feet high, protecting the gardens be-
hind; and there is another stone wall inclos-
ing the town on the water side, as if to keep
the people from being spilled out. One must
go some miles into the country before getting
beyond these walls, or seeing an inch on either
side. This would be intolerable, of course, were
the country a level ; but as every rod of ground
slopes up or down, it simply seems like walk-
ing through a series of roofless ropewalks or
bowling-alleys, each being tilted up at an angle,
so that one observes the landscape through
the top, but never over the sides. Thus, walk-
ing or riding, one seldom sees the immediate
foreground, but a changing background of soft
valleys, an endless patchwork of varied green
rising to the mountains in the interior of the
island, or sinking to the blue sea, beyond which
the mountain Pico rears its graceful outline
across the bay.

From the street below comes up a constant
hum of loud voices, often rising so high that

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 277

one runs to see the fight commence, and by
the time one has crossed the room it has all
subsided and everybody is walking off in good
humor. Meanwhile the grave little donkeys
are constantly pattering by, sometimes in pairs
or in fours with a cask slung between. And
mingled with these, in the middle of the street,
there is an endless stream of picturesque fig-
ures, everybody bearing something on the head,
— girls, with high water-jars, each with a green
bough thrust in, to keep the water sweet;
boys, with baskets of fruit and vegetables ;
men, with boxes, bales, bags, or trunks for the
custom-house, or an enormous fagot of small
sticks for firewood, or a long pole hung with
wooden jars of milk, or with live chickens, head:
downward, or perhaps a basket of red and blue
and golden fishes, fresh from the ocean and
glistening in the sun. The strength of these
Portuguese necks seems wonderful, as does
also their power of balancing. Ona rainy day
I have seen a tall man walk gravely along the
middle of the street through the whole length
of the town, bearing a large empty cask bal-
anced upon his head, over both of which he
held an umbrella.

Perhaps it is a procession day, and all the
saints of some church are taken out for an air-
ing. They are-figures composed-of wood: and-

278 OUTDOOR STUDIES

wax, life-size, and in full costume, each having
a complete separate wardrobe, but more tawdry
and shabby, let us hope, than the originals ever
indulged in. Hereare Saint Francis and Saint
Isabella, Saint Peter with a monk kneeling be-
fore him, and Saint Margaret with her dog,
and the sceptred and ermined Saint Louis ; and
then Joseph and Mary sitting amicably upon
the same platform, with an additional force of
bearers to sustain them. For this is the pro-
cession of the Bem-casados or Well-married,
in honor of the parents of Jesus. Then there
are lofty crucifixes and waving flags ; and when
the great banner comes in sight, bearing simply
the letters S. P. Q. R., one starts in wonder at
that mighty superstition which has grasped
the very central symbol of ancient empire, and
brought it down, like a boulder on a glacier,
into modern days. The letters which once
meant Senatus Populusque Romanus stand
now only for the feebler modern formula,
Salve populum quem redemistz.

All these shabby splendors are interspersed
among the rank and file of several hundred lay
brethren of different orders, ranging in years
from six to sixty. The Carmelites wear a sort
of white bathing-dress, and the Brotherhood of
Saint Francis are clothed in long brown robes,
girded with coarse rope. The very old and the

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 279

very young look rather picturesque in these
disguises, the latter especially, urchins with
almost baby faces, toddling along with lighted
candle in hand ; and one often feels astonished
to recognize some familiar porter or shopkeeper
in this ecclesiastical dress, as when discover-
ing a pacific next-door neighbor beneath the
bearskin of an American militia-man. A fit
suggestion ; for next follows a detachment of
Portuguese troops-of-the-line,— twenty sham-
bling men in short jackets, with hair shaved
close, looking much like children’s wooden mon-
keys, but by no means alive enough for the
real ones. They straggle along, scarcely less
irregular in aspect than the main body of the
procession ; they march to the tap of the drum.
I never saw a Fourth of July procession in the
remotest of our rural districts which was not
beautiful, compared to this forlorn display ;
but the popular homage is duly given, the bells
jangle incessantly, and as the procession passes,
all men uncover their heads or have their hats
knocked off by official authority.

Still watching from our hotel window, turn
now from the sham picturesqueness of the
church to the real and unconscious picturesque-
ness of every day. It is the orange season,
and beneath us streams an endless throng of
men, women, and children, each bearing on the

280 OUTDOOR STUDIES

head a great graceful basket of yellow treasures.
Opposite our window there is a wall by which
they rest themselves, after their three-mile walk
from the gardens. There they lounge and there
they chatter. Little boys come slyly to pilfer
oranges, and are pelted away with other oranges ;
for a single orange has here no more appreci-
able value than a single apple in our farmers’
orchards ; and, indeed, the windfalls are left to
decay in both cases. During this season one
sees oranges everywhere, even displayed as a
sort of thank-offering on the humble altars
of country churches; the children’s lips and
cheeks assume a chronic yellowness ; and the
narrow sidewalks are strewn with bits of peel,
punched through and through by the boys’ pop-
guns, as our boys punch slices of potato.

All this procession files down, the whole day
long, to the orange yards by the quay. There
one finds another merry group, or a series of
groups, receiving and sorting the fragrant loads,
papering, packing, boxing. Inthe gardens there
seems no end to the varieties of the golden
fruit, although only one or two are here being
packed. There are shaddocks, zaméoas, limes,
sour lemons, sweet lemons, oranges proper, and
Tangerinhas ; these last being delicate, per-
fumed, thin-skinned miniature fruit from the
land- of the Moors. One may begin to eat

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 281

oranges at Fayal in November, but no discrim-
inating person eats a whole one before March ;
a few slices are cut from the sunny side, and the
rest is thrown upon the ground. One learns
to reverse the ordinary principles of selection
also, and choose the smaller and darker before
the large and yellow ; the very finest in appear-
ance being thrown aside by the packers as
worthless. Of these packers the Messrs. Dab-
ney employ two hundred, and five hundred be-
sides in the transportation. One knows at a
glance whether the cargo is destined for Amer-
ica or England, the English boxes having the
thin wooden top bent into a sort of dome, al-
most doubling the solid contents of the box.
This is to evade the duty, the custom-house
measurement being taken only at the corners.
It also enables the London dealers to remove
some two hundred oranges from every box, and
still send it into the country as full, When
one thinks what a knowing race we came from,
it is really wonderful where we Yankees picked
up our honesty.

Let us take one more glance from the win-
dow; for there is a mighty jingling and rattling,
the children are all running to see something,
and the carriage is approaching. “The car-
riage:” it is said advisedly ; for there is but
one street on the island passable to such an

282 OUTDOOR STUDIES

equipage, and but one such equipage to enjoy its
privileges, — only one, that is, drawn by horses.
There are three other vehicles, each the ob-
ject of admiration, but each hauled by oxen
only. There is the Baroness, who sports a sort
of butcher’s cart, with a white top ; within lies a
mattress, and on the mattress recline her lady-
ship and her daughter, as the cart rumbles and
stumbles over the stones ;—nor they alone,
for on emerging from an evening party, I have
seen the oxen of the Baroness, unharnessed,
quietly munching their hay at the foot of the
stairs, while a pair of bare feet emerging from
one end of the vehicle, and a hearty snore from
the other, showed the mattress to be found a
convenience by some one beside the nobility.
Secondly, there is a stout gentleman near the
hotel, reputed to possess eleven daughters, and
known to possess a pea-green omnibus mounted
on an ox-cart ; the windows are all closed with
blinds, and the number of young ladies may be
an approximation only. Lastly, there some-
times rolls slowly by an expensive English cur-
ricle, lately imported ; the springs are some-
how deranged, so that it hangs entirely on one
side ; three ladies ride within, and the proprie-
tor sits on the box, surveying in calm delight
his two red oxen with their sky-blue yoke and
the tall peasant who drives them with a goad.

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 283

After a few days of gazing at objects like
these, one is ready to recur to the maps, and
become statistical. It would be needless to say
— but that we all know far less of geography
than we are supposed to know — that the Azores
are about two thirds of the way across the At-
lantic, and are about the latitude of Philadelphia,
sharing, however, in the greater warmth of the
European coast, and slightly affected, also, by
the Gulf Stream. The islands are supposed to
have been known to the Pheenicians, and Hum-
boldt holds out a flattering possibility of Phoe-
nician traces yet discoverable. This lent addi-
tional interest to a mysterious inscription which
we hunted up in a church built in the time of
Philip II., at the north end of the island; we
had the satisfaction of sending a copy of it to
Humboldt, though it may after all be only a
Latin inscription clothed in uncouth Greek
characters, such as have long passed for Runic
in the Belgian churches and elsewhere. The
Phoenician traces remain to be detected ; so does
a statue which is fabled to exist on the shore
of one of the smaller islands, where Columbus
landed in some of his earlier voyages, and, pacing
the beach, looked eagerly towards the western
sea: the statue is supposed still to portray him.
In the fifteenth century, at any rate, the islands
were rediscovered. Since then they have always

284 OUTDOOR STUDIES

been under Portuguese control, including in
that phrase the period when Philip II. united
that crown with his own; and they are ruled
now by Portuguese military and civil govern-
ors with the aid of local legislatures.

Fayal stands, with Pico and San Jorge, rather
isolated from the rest of the group, and out of
their sight. It is the largest and most popu-
lous of the islands, except St. Michael and Ter-
ceira; it has the best harbor and by far the
greater share of American commerce, St. Mi-
chael taking most of the English. Whalers
put into Fayal for fresh vegetables and supplies,
and to transship their oil ; while distressed ves-
sels often seek the harbor to repair damages.
The island is twenty-five miles long, and shaped
like a turtle; the cliffs along the sea range
from five hundred to a thousand feet in height,
and the mountainous interior rises to three
thousand. The sea is far more restless than
upon our coast, the surf habitually higher ; and
there is such a depth of water in many places
around the shore, that, on one occasion, a whale-
ship, drawn too near by the current, broke her
main yard against the cliff, without grazing her
keel.

The population numbers about twenty-five
thousand, one half of these being found in the
city of Horta, and the rest scattered in some

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 285

forty little hamlets lying at irregular distances
along the shores. There are very few English
or French residents, and no Americans but the
different branches of the Consul’s family, — a
race whose reputation for all generous virtues
has spread too widely to leave any impropriety
in mentioning them here. Their energy and
character have made themselves felt in every
part of the island ; and in the villages farthest
from their charming home one has simply to
speak of a famztha, “the family,” and the intro-
duction is sufficient. Almost every good insti-
tution or enterprise on the island is the creation
of Mr. Charles W. Dabney. He transacts with-
out charge the trade in vegetables between the
peasants and the whale-ships, guaranteeing the
price to the producers, giving them the profits,
if any, and taking the risk himself; and the
only provision for pauperism is found in his
charities. Every Saturday, rain or shine, there
flocks together from all parts of the island a
singular collection of aged people, lame, halt,
and blind, who receive, to the number of two
hundred, a weekly donation of ten cents each,
making a thousand dollars annually. This con-
stitutes but a small part of the benefactions of
this remarkable man, the true father of the
island, with twenty-five thousand grown chil-
dren under his charge.

286 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Ten cents a week may not seem worth a
whole day’s journey on foot, but by the Fayal
standard it is not unprofitable. The usual rate
of wages for an able-bodied man is sixteen cents
a day ; and an acquaintance of ours, who had
just got a job on the roads at thirty cents a
day, declined a good opportunity to emigrate to
America, on the ground that it was best to let
well alone. Yet the price of provisions is by
no means very low, and the difference is chiefly
in abstinence. Fuel and clothing cost little,
however, sincé little is needed, — except that
no woman thinks herself really respectable until
she has her great blue cloak, which requires an
outlay of from fifteen to thirty dollars, though
the whole remaining wardrobe may not be
worth half that. The poorer classes pay about
a dollar a month in rent ; they eat fish several
times a week and meat twice or thrice a year,
living chiefly upon the coarsest corn bread, with
yams and beans. Still they contrive to have
their luxuries. A soldier's wife, an elderly
woman, said to me pathetically, “ We have six
vintems (twelve cents) a day, —my husband
smokes and I take snuff, — and how are we to
buy shoes and stockings?” But the most ex-
treme case of economy which I discovered was
that of a poor old woman, unable to tell her
own age, who boarded with a poor family for

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 287

four patacos (twenty cents) a month, or five
cents a week. She had, she said, a little place
in the chimney to sleep in, and when they had
too large a fire, she went out of doors.

Steeped in this utter poverty, — dwelling in
low, dark, smoky huts, with earthen floors, — it
is yet wonderful to see how these people pre-
serve not merely the decencies, but even the
amenities of life. Their clothes are a chaos of
patches, but one sees no rags; all their well-
worn white garments are white in the superla-
tive degree; and when their scanty supply of
water is at the scantiest, every bare foot on the
island is sure to be washed in warm water at
night. Certainly there are fleas.and there are
filthinesses in some directions; and yet it is
amazing, especially for one accustomed to the
Trish, to see an extreme of poverty so much
greater, with such an utter absence of squalid-
ness. But when all this is said and done, the
position of the people of Fayal is an abject one,
that is, it is a European position; it teaches
more of history in a day to an untravelled
American than all his studies had told him be-
sides, — and he returns home ready to acquiesce
in a thousand dissatisfactions, in view of that
most wondrous of all recorded social changes,
the transformation of the European peasant
into the American citizen.

288 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Fayal is not an expensive place. One pays
six dollars a week at an excellent hotel, and
there is nothing else to spend money on, except
beggars and donkeys. For a shilling an hour
one can ride, or, as the Portuguese phrase
perhaps circuitously expresses it, go to walk on
horseback on a donkey, — dar um passeio a
cavalho n'um burvo. The beggars, indeed, are
numerous; but one’s expenditures are always
happily limited by the great scarcity of small
change. A half cent, however, will buy you
blessings enough for a lifetime, and you can
find an investment in almost any direction.
You visit some church or cemetery ; you ask a
question or two of a lounger in a black cloak,
with an air like an exiled Stuart, and, as you
part, he detains you, saying, “ Sir, will you give
me some little thing (e/guma cousinha), —I am
so poor?”’ Overwhelmed with a sense of per-
sonal humility, you pull out three half cents
and present them with a touch of your hat; he
receives them with the same, and you go home
with a feeling that a distinguished honor has
been done you. The Spaniards say that the
Portuguese are “mean even in their begging :”
they certainly make their benefactors mean ;
and I can remember to have returned home,
after giving away a fataco (five cents), with a
debilitating sense of too profuse philanthropy.

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE — 289

It is inevitable that even the genteel life of
Fayal should share this parsimony. As a gen-
eral rule, the higher classes on the island, so-
cially speaking, live on astonishingly small
means. How they do it is a mystery; but fam-
ilies of eight contrive to spend only three or
four hundred dollars a year, and yet keep sev-
eral servants, and always appear rather stylishly
dressed. The low rate of wages — two dollars
a month at the very highest — makes household
service a cheap luxury. I was told of a family
which employed two domestics upon an income
of a hundred and twenty dollars. Persons come
to beg, sometimes, and bring a servant to carry
home what is given. I never saw a mechanic
carry his tools; if it be only a hammer, the
hired boy must come to fetch it.

Fortunately, there is not much to transport,
the mechanic arts being in a very rudimentary
condition. For instance, there are no saw-
horses or hand-saws, the smallest saw used be-
ing a miniature wood-saw, with the steel set at
an angle, ina peculiar manner. It takes three
men to saw a plank: one to hold the plank,
another to do the work, and a third to carry
away the pieces. Farming tools have the same
simplicity. It is one odd result of the univer-
sal bare feet that they never will use spades,
but everything is done with a hoe, most skil-

290 OUTDOOR STUDIES

fully wielded. There are no wheelbarrows,
but baskets are the universal substitutes. The
plough is made entirely of wood, only pointed
with iron, and is borne to and from the field on
the shoulder. The carts are picturesque, but
clumsy ; they are made of wicker-work, and the
iron-shod wheels are solidly attached to the
axle, so that all revolves together, amid fearful
creaking. The people could not be induced to
use a cart with movable wheels which was im-
ported from America, nor will they even grease
their axles, because the noise is held to drive
away witches. Some other arts are a little
more advanced, as any visitor to Mr. Harper’s
pleasant Fayal shop in Boston may discover.
The islanders make homespun cloth upon a
simple loom, and out of their smoky huts come
beautiful embroideries and stockings whose
fineness is almost unequalled. Their baskets
are strong and graceful, and I have seen men
sitting in village doorways, weaving the beauti-
ful broom-plant, yellow flowers and all, until
basket and bouquet seemed one.

The greater part of the surface of the island
is cultivated like a kitchen garden, even up to
the top of volcanic cones eight hundred feet
high, and accessible only by steps cut in the
earth. All the land is divided into little rectan-
gular patches of various verdure, — yellow-blos-

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 291

somed broom, blue-flowering flax, and the con-
trasting green of lupines, beans, Indian corn,
and potatoes, There is not a blade of genuine
grass on the island, except on the Consul’s lawn,
but the ground is covered with red heather, low
Jaya bushes, — whence the name of the island,
—and a great variety of mosses. The cattle are
fed on beans and lupines. Firewood is obtained
from the opposite island of Pico, five miles off,
and from the Caddeira or Crater, a pit five miles
round and fifteen hundred feet deep, at the
summit of Fayal, whence great fagots are
brought upon the heads of men and girls. It
is an oversight in the “New American Cyclo-
pedia” to say of Fayal that “the chief object
of agriculture is the vine,’ because there are
not a half-dozen vineyards on the island, the
soil being unsuitable; but there are extensive
vineyards on Pico, and these are owned almost
wholly by proprietors resident in Fayal.

There is a succession of crops of vegetables
throughout the year; peas are green in Janu-
ary, which is, indeed, said to be the most ver-
dant month of the twelve, the fields in summer
becoming parched and yellow. The mercury
usually ranges from 50° to 80° Fahrenheit, win-
ter and summer; but we were there during an
unusually cool season, and it went down to 45°.
This was regarded as very severe by the thinly

292 OUTDOOR STUDIES

clad Fayalese, and I sometimes went into cot-
tages and found the children lying in bed to
keep warm. Yet roses, geraniums, and callas
bloomed out of doors all the time, and great
trees of red camellia, which they cut as we cut
roses. Superb scarlet banana flowers decked
our Christmas-tree. Deciduous trees lose their
leaves in winter there, however, and exotic
plants retain the habits they brought with
them, with one singular exception. The Morus
multicaulis was imported, and the silk manufac-
ture with it. Suddenly the trees seemed to grow
bewildered ; they put forth earlier and earlier in
the spring, until they got back to January; the
leaves at last fell so early that the worms died
before spinning cocoons, and the whole enter-
prise was in a few years abandoned because of
this vegetable insanity.

In spite of the absence of snow and presence
of verdure, this falling of the leaves gives some
hint of winter ; yet blackbirds and canaries sing
without ceasing. The latter are a variety pos-
sessing rather inferior charms, compared with
the domestic species; but they have a pretty
habit of flying away to Pico every night. It
was pleasant to sit at sunset on the high cliffs
at the end of the island and watch the little
brown creatures, like fragments of the rock
itself, whirled away over the foaming ocean.

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 293

The orange orchards were rather a disappoint-
ment. They suggested quince-trees with more
shining leaves ; and, indeed, there was a hard,
glossy, coriaceous look to the vegetation gen-
erally, which made us sometimes long for the
soft, tender green of more temperate zones.
The novel beauty of the Dabney gardens can
scarcely be exaggerated ; each step was a new
incursion into the tropics, —a palm, a magnolia,
a camphor-tree, a dragon-tree, suggesting Hum-
boldt and Orotava, a clump of bamboos or cork-
trees, or the startling strangeness of the great
grass-like banana, itself a jungle. There are
hedges of pittosporum, arbors veiled by passion
flowers, and two specimens of that most beauti-
ful of all living trees, the avaucarvia, or Norfolk
Island pine, — one of these being some eighty
feet high, and said to be the largest north of the
equator. When over all this luxuriant exotic
beauty the soft clouds furled away and the sun
showed us Pico, we had no more to ask, and the
soft, beautiful blue cone became an altar for
our gratitude, and the thin mist of hot volcanic
air that flickered above it seemed the rising
incense of the world.

In the midst of all these charming surprises,
we all found it hard to begin upon the study
of the language, although the prospect of a
six months’ stay made it desirable. We were

294 OUTDOOR STUDIES

pleased to experience the odd, stupid sensation
of having people talk loud to us as being for-
eigners, and of seeing even the little children
so much more at their ease than we were;
and every step beyond this was a new enjoy-
ment. We found the requisites for learning
a language on its own soil to be a firm will, a
quick ear, flexible lips, and a great deal of cool
audacity. Plunge boldly in, expecting to make
countless blunders ; find out the shops where
they speak English, and avoid them; make
your first bargains at twenty-five per cent dis-
advantage, and charge it as a lesson in the
language ; expect to be laughed at, and laugh
yourself, because you win. The daily labor is
its own reward. If it is a pleasure to look
through a telescope in an observatory, grad-
ually increasing its powers until a dim nebula
is resolved into a whole galaxy of separate stars,
how much more when the nebula is one of lan-
guage, close around you, and the telescope is
your own more educated ear !

We discovered further, what no one had ever
told us, that the ability to speak French, how-
ever poorly, is rather a drawback in learning
any less universal language, because the best
company in any nation will usually have some
knowledge of French, and this tempts one to
remain on neutral ground and be lazy. But

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE = 295

the best company in Fayal was so much less
interesting than the peasantry, that some of us
persevered in studying the vernacular. To be
sure, one finds English spoken by more of the
peasants than of the small aristocracy of the
island, because many of the poorer class have
spent some years in American whale-ships, and
come back to settle down with their savings
in their native village. In visiting the smaller
hamlets on the island, I usually found that the
owners of the two or three most decent houses
had learned to speak English in this way. But
I was amused at the dismay of an American sea-
captain who during a shooting excursion ven-
tured on some free criticisms on the agriculture
of a farm, and was soon answered in excellent
English by the proprietor.

“ Look at the foolish fellow,” quoth the cap-
tain, “‘carrying his plough to the field on his
shoulder!”

“ Sir,” said the Portuguese coolly, “I have
no other way to take it there.”

The American reserved his fire, thereafter,
for bipeds with wings.

These Americanized sailors form a sort of
humbler aristocracy in Fayal, and are apt to
pride themselves on their superior knowledge
of the world, though their sober habits have
commonly saved them from the demoralization

296 OUTDOOR STUDIES

of a sailor’s life. But the untravelled Fayalese
peasantry are a very gentle, affectionate, child-
like people, pensive rather than gay; indus-
trious, but not ingenious; with few amuse-
ments and those the simplest; incapable of
great crimes or very heroic virtues; educated
by their religion up to the point of reverent
obedience, and no higher.

Among the young men and boys, one sees
the true olive cheeks and magnificent black
eyes of Southern races. The women of Fayal
are not considered remarkable for beauty, but
in the villages of Pico one sees in the doorways
of hovels complexions like rose petals, and faces
such as one attributes to Evangeline, soft, shy,
and innocent. Yet the figure is the chief won-
der, the figure of woman as she was meant to
be, beautiful in superb vigor, — not fragile and
tottering, as happens so often with us, but erect
and strong and stately ; every muscle fresh and
alive, from the crown of the steady head to the
sole of the emancipated foot,—and yet not
heavy and clumsy, as one fancies barefooted
women must be, but inheriting symmetry and
grace from the Portuguese or Moorish blood.
T have looked in vain through the crowded halls
of Newport for one such figure as I have again
and again seen descending those steep moun-
tain paths with a bundle of firewood on the

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE = 297

head, or ascending them with a basket of farm
manure,

This condition of health cannot be attributed
to any mere advantage of climate. The higher
classes of Fayal are feeble and sickly; their
diet is bad, they take no exercise, and suffer
the consequences; they have all the ills to
which flesh is heir, including one specially Por-
tuguese complaint, known by the odd name of
dér do cotovelo, elbow disease, which corre-
sponds to that known to Anglo-Saxons, by an
equally bold symbol, as the green-eyed monster,
Jealousy. So the physical superiority of the
peasantry seems to come solely from their
mode of life, — outdoor labor, simple diet, and
bare feet. Change these and their health goes ;
domestic service in foreign families on the is-
land always makes them ill, and often destroys
their health and bloom forever ; and, strange to
say, that which most nauseates and deranges
their whole physical condition, in such cases, is
the necessity of wearing shoes and stockings.

The Pico peasants have also the advantage
of the Fayalese in picturesqueness of costume.
The men wear homespun blue jackets and blue
or white trousers, with a high woollen cap of
red or blue. The women wear a white waist
with a gay kerchief crossed above the bosom,
a full short skirt of blue, red, or white, and a

298 OUTDOOR STUDIES

man’s jacket of blue, with tight sleeves. On
the head there is the pretty round-topped straw
hat with red and white cord, which is now so
extensively imported from Fayal; and beneath
this there is always another kerchief, tied under
the chin, or hanging loosely. The costume is
said to vary in every village, but in the villages
opposite Horta this dress is worn by every
woman from grandmother to smallest grand-
daughter ; and when one sails across the har-
bor in the lateen-sail packet-boat, and old and
young come forth on the rocks to see the ar-
rival, it seems like voyaging to some realm of
butterflies.

Their outdoor life begins very early. As
soon as the Fayalese baby is old enough to sit
up alone, he is sent into the nursery. The
nursery is the sunny side of the house door.
A large stone is selected, in a convenient posi-
tion, and there the little dusky creature squats,
hour after hour, clad in one garment at most,
and looking at the universe through two black
beads of eyes. Often the little dog comes and
suns himself close by, and the little cat beside
the dog, and the little pig beside the cat, and
the little hen beside the pig,—a “ Happy
Family,” a row of little traps to catch sun-
beams, all down the lane. When older, the
same child harnesses his horse and wagon, he

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE = 299

being the horse and a sheep’s jawbone the
wagon, and trots contentedly along, in almost
the smallest amount of costume accessible to
mortals. All this refers to the genuine, happy,
plebeian baby. The genteel baby is probably
as wretched in Fayal as elsewhere, but he is
kept more out of sight.

These children are seldom noisy and never
rude: the race is not hilarious, and their polite-
ness is inborn. Not an urchin of three can be
induced to accept a sugarplum until he has
shyly slid off his little cap, if he has one, and
kissed his plump little hand. The manners of
princes can hardly surpass the natural courtesy
of yonder peasant, as he insists on climbing the
orange-tree to select for you the choicest fruit.
A shopkeeper can never sell you a handful of
nuts without first bringing the bundle near to
his lips with a graceful wave of salutation. A
lady from Lisbon told us that this politeness
surpassed that of the native Portuguese; and
the wife of an English captain, who had sailed
with her husband from port to port for fifteen
years, said that she had never seen anything to
equal it. It is not the slavishness of inferiors,
for the poorest exhibit it towards each other.
You see two very old women talking eagerly in
the street, each in a cloak whose every square
inch is a patch, and every patch a different

300 OUTDOOR STUDIES

shade,—and each alternate word you hear
seems to be Sexhora. Among laboring men,
the most available medium of courtesy is the
cigarette; it contains about four whiffs, and is
smoked by about that number of separate per-
sons.

But to appreciate in full this natural courtesy,
one must visit the humbler Fayalese at home.
You enter a low stone hut, thatched and win-
dowless, and you find the mistress within, a
robust, black-eyed, dark-skinned woman, en-
gaged in grinding corn with a Scriptural hand-
mill. She bars your way with apologies; you
must not enter so poor a house; you are so
beautiful, so perfect, and she is so poor, she has
“nothing but the day and the night,” or some
equally poetic phrase. But you enter and talk
with her a little, and she readily shows you all
her little possessions, — her chest on the earthen
floor, her one chair and stool, her tallow candle
stuck against the wall, her husk mattress rolled
together, with the precious blue cloak inside of
it. Behind a curtain of coarse straw-work is a
sort of small boudoir, holding things more pri-
vate, an old barrel with the winter’s fuel in it,
a few ears of corn hanging against the wall, a
pair of shoes, and a shelf with a large paste-
board box. The box she opens triumphantly
and exhibits her saz¢zxhos, or little images of

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 301

saints. This is San Antonio, and that is Nossa
Senhora do Conceig&o, Our Lady of the Con-
ception. She prays to them every day for sun-
shine ; but they do not seem to hear, this win-
ter, she says, and it rains all the time. Then,
approaching the climax of her blessedness, with
beaming face she opens a door in the wall, and
shows you her pig.

The courtesy of the higher classes tends to
formalism, and has stamped itself on the lan-
guage in some very odd ways. The tendency
common to all tongues, towards a disuse of
the second person singular, as too blunt and
familiar, is carried so far in Spanish and Portu-
guese as to disuse the second person plural
also, except in the family circle, and to substi-
tute the indirect phrases, vuestra Merced (in
Spanish) and vossa Mercé (in Portuguese), both
much contracted in speaking and in familiar
writing, and both signifying “your Grace.” The
joke of invariably applying this epithet to one’s
valet would seem sufficiently grotesque in either
language, and here the Spanish stops; but Por-
tuguese propriety has gone so far that even
this phrase has become too hackneyed to be
civil, In talking with your equals, it would
be held an insult to call them simply “your
Grace ;” it must be some phrase still more
courtly, — vossa Excellencia, or vossa Senhorta.

302 OUTDOOR STUDIES

One may hear an elderly gentleman talking to
a young girl of fourteen, or, better still, two
such damsels talking together, and it is “your
Excellency” at every sentence; and the ad-
dress on an envelope for a married lady is ///us-
trissima Excellentissima Senhora Dona. The
lower classes have not quite reached the “ Ex-
cellency,” but have got beyond the “ Grace,”
and hence the personal pronouns are in a state
of colloquial chaos, and the only safe way is to
hold to the third person and repeat the name
of Manuel or Maria, or whatever it may be, as
often as possible.

This leads naturally to the mention of an-
other peculiar usage. On visiting the Fayal
post-office, I was amazed to find the letters
arranged alphabetically in the order of the bap-
tismal, not the family names, of the persons
concerned, —as if we should enumerate Adam,
Benjamin, Charles, and so on. But I at once
discovered this to be the universal usage. Mer-
chants, for instance, thus file their business
papers; or rather, since four fifths of the male
baptismal names in the language fall under the
four letters, A, F, J, M, they arrange only five
bundles, giving one respectively to Antonio,
Francisco, José or Joao, and Manuel, adding a
fifth for sundries. This all seemed inexplica-
ble, till at last there proved to be an historical

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE —§ 303

kernel to the nut. The Portuguese, and to
some extent the Spaniards, have kept nearer to
the primitive usage which made the personal
name the important one and the patronymic
quite secondary. John Smith is not known
conversationally as Mr. Smith, but as Mr. John,
—Senhor Joao. You may have in society an
acquaintance named Senhor Francisco, and
another named Senhora Dona Christina, and it
may be long before it turns out that they are
brother and sister, the family name being, we
will suppose, Garcia da Rosa; and even then it
will be doubtful whether to call them Garcia or
da Rosa. This explains the great multiplica-
tion of names in Spain and Portugal. The first
name being the important one, the others may
be added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided,
with perfect freedom. A wife may or may not
add her husband’s name to her own; the eldest
son takes some of the father’s family names,
the second son some of the mother’s, saints’
names are sprinkled in to suit the taste, and
no confusion is produced, because the first
name is the only one in common use. Each
may, if he pleases, carry all his ancestors on
his visiting card, without any inconvenience
except the cost of pasteboard.

Fayal exhibits another point of courtesy to
be studied. The gentleman of our party was

304 OUTDOOR STUDIES

early warned that it was very well to learn his
way about the streets, but far more essential to
know the way to the brim of his hat. Every
gentleman touches his hat to every lady, ac-
quaintance or stranger, in street or balcony.
So readily does one grow used to this, that I
was astonished, for a moment, at the rudeness
of some French officers, just landed from a fri-
gate, who passed some ladies, friends of mine,
without raising the hat. “ Are these,” I asked,
“the polite Frenchmen of whom one reads?”
—not reflecting that I myself should not have
ventured on bowing to strange ladies in the
same position, without special instruction in
Portuguese courtesies. These little refinements
became, indeed, very agreeable, only alloyed by
the spirit of caste in which they were per-
formed, — elbowing the peasant woman off the
sidewalk for the sake of doffing the hat to the
Baroness. I thought of the impartial courte-
sies shown towards woman as woman in my
own country, and the spread eagle within me
flapped his pinions. Then I asked myself,
“What if the woman were black?” and the
eagle immediately closed his wings, and flapped
no more. But I may add, that afterwards,
attending dances among the peasants, I was
surprised to see my graceful swains in humble
life smoking and spitting in the presence of

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 305

white-robed belles, in a manner not to be wit-
nessed on our farthest western borders.

The position of woman in Portuguese coun-
tries brings one nearer to that Oriental type
from which modern society has been gradually
diverging. Woman is secluded, so far as each
household can afford it, and this is the key to
the Oriental system. Seclusion is aristocracy,
and if it cannot be made complete, the family
must do the best they can. Thus, in the lowest
classes, one daughter is often decreed by the
parents to be brought up like a lady, and for
this every sacrifice is to be made. Her robust
sisters go barefooted to the wells for water;
they go miles unprotected into the lonely moun-
tains ; no social ambition, no genteel helpless-
ness for them. But Mariquinha is taught to
read, write, and sew; she is as carefully looked
after as if the world wished to steal her; she
wears shoes and stockings and an embroidered
kerchief and a hooded cloak; and she never
steps outside the door alone. You meet her,
pale and demure, plodding along to mass with
her mother. The sisters will marry laborers
and fishermen ; Mariquinha will marry a small
shopkeeper or the mate of a vessel, or else die
single, It is not very pleasant for the poor girl
in the mean time; she is neither healthy nor
happy ; but “let us be genteel or die.”

306 OUTDOOR STUDIES

On festa days she and her mother draw their
hoods so low and their muffling handkerchiefs
so high that the costume is as good as a yash-
mak, and in passing through the streets these
one-eyed women seem like an importation from
the “ Arabian Nights.” Ladies of higher rank,
also, wear the hooded cloak for disguise and
greater freedom, and at a fashionable wedding
in the cathedral I have seen the jewelled fin-
gers of the uninvited acquaintances gleam from
the blue folds of humble broadcloth. But very
rarely does one see the aristocratic lady in the
street in her own French apparel, and never
alone. There must be a male relative, or a ser-
vant, or at the very least a female companion.
Even the ladies of the American Consul’s fam-
ily very rarely go out singly, — not from any
fear, for the people are as harmless as birds,
but from etiquette. The first foreign lady who
walked habitually alone in the streets was at
once christened “The Crazy American.” A
lady must not be escorted home from an even-
ing party by a gentleman, but by a servant with
a lantern ; and as the streets have no lamps, I
never could see the breaking up of any such en-
tertainment without recalling Retzsch’s quaint
pictures of the little German towns, and the
burghers plodding home with their lanterns, —
unless, perchance, what a German friend of

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 307

ours called innocently a “ sit-down chair” came
rattling by, and transferred our associations to
Cranford and Mr. Winkle.

We found or fancied other Orientalisms. A
visitor claps his hands at the head of the court-
yard stairs, to summon an attendant. The solid
chimneys, with windows in them, are precisely
those described by Urquhart in his delightful
“Pillars of Hercules;” so are the gardens, di-
vided into clean separate cells by tall hedges of
cane; so is the game of ball played by the boys
in the street, under the self-same Moorish
name of a@vrz ,; so is the mode of making butter,
by tying up the cream in a goatskin and kick-
ing it till the butter comes. Even the archi-
tecture fused into one all our notions of Gothic
and of Moorish, and gave great plausibility to
Urquhart’s ingenious argument for the latter
as the true original. And it is a singular fact
that the Mohammedan phrase Orald, “ Would
to Allah,” is still the most familiar ejaculation
in the Portuguese language, and the habitual
phrase by which religious aspiration is expressed
in books.

We were treated with great courtesy and
hospitality by our Portuguese neighbors, and
an evening party in Fayal is in some respects
worth describing. As one enters, the anteroom
is crowded with gentlemen, and the chief recep-

308 OUTDOOR STUDIES

tion-room seems like a large omnibus, lighted,
dressed with flowers, and having a row of ladies
on each side. The personal beauty is perhaps
less than one expects —though one sees some
superb dark eyes and blue-black hair — and the
dresses are borrowed from rather distant French
fashions. Presently a lady takes her seat at
the piano, then comes an eager rush of gentle-
men into the room, and partners are taken for
cotillons, —large, double, very double cotillons,
here called contradangas. The gentlemen ap-
pear in scrupulous black broadcloth and satin
and white kid; in summer alone are they per-
mitted to wear white trousers to parties ; and
we heard of one anxious youth who, about the
turn of the season, wore the black and carried
the white in his pocket, peeping through the
door, on arrival, to see which had the majority.
It seemed a pity to waste such gifts of discre-
tion on a monarchical country, when he might
have emigrated to America and applied them to
politics.

The company perform their dancing with the
accustomed air of civilized solemnity. Changes
of figure are announced by a clapping of hands
from one of the gentlemen, and a chorus of such
applauses marks the end of the dance. Then
they promenade slowly round the room, once
or twice, in pairs; then the ladies take their

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE — 309

seats, and instantly each gentleman walks hur-
riedly into the anteroom, and for ten minutes
there is as absolute a separation of the sexes
as in a Friends’ Meeting. Nobody approves
this arrangement, in the abstract ; it is all very
well, they think, for foreign gentlemen to re-
main in the room, but it is not the Portuguese
custom. Yet, with this exception, the manners
are agreeably simple. Your admission to the
house guarantees you as a proper acquaintance,
there are no introductions, and you may address
any one in any language you can coin into a sen-
tence. Many speak French, and two or three
English, — sometimes with an odd mingling
of dialects, as when the Military Governor an-
swered my inquiry, made in timid Portuguese,
as to how long he had served in the army.
“ Vinte-cinco annos,’ he answered, in the same
language ; then, with an effort after an unex-
ceptionable translation, “ Vat you call, twenty-
cing year!”

The great obstacle to the dialogue soon be-
comes, however, a deficit of subjects rather
than of words. Most of these ladies never go
out except to mass and to parties, they never
read, and if one of them has some knowledge
of geography, it is quite an extended educa-
tion; so that, when you have asked them if
they have ever been to St. Michael, and they

310 OUTDOOR STUDIES

have answered, Yes, — or to Lisbon, and they
have answered, No, —then social intercourse
rather flags. I gladly record, however, that
there were some remarkable exceptions to this,
and that we found in the family of the late emi-
nent Portuguese statesman, Mousinho d’Albu-
querque, accomplishments and knowledge which
made their acquaintance an honor.

During the intervals of the dancing, little
trays of tea and of cakes are repeatedly carried
round, — astonishing cakes, in every gradation
of insipidity, with the oddest names: white
poison, nuns’ kisses, angels’ crops, cats’ tails,
heavenly bacon, royal eggs, coruscations, cocked
hats, and esgueczdos, or oblivion cakes, the butter
being omitted. It seems an unexpected symbol
of the plaintive melancholy of the Portuguese
character that the small confections which we
call kisses they call sighs, suspzvos. As night
advances, the cakes grow sweeter and the dances
livelier, and the pretty national dances are at
last introduced, though these are never seen
to such advantage as when the peasants per-
form them on a Saturday or Sunday evening
to the monotonous strain of a viola, the musi-
cian himself taking part in the complicated
dance, and all the men chanting the refrain.
Nevertheless they add to the gayety of our
genteel entertainment, and you may stay at

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 311

the party as long as you have patience, — if till
four in the morning, so much the better for
your popularity ; for though the gathering may
consist of but thirty people, they like to make
the most of it.

Perhaps the next day one of these new friends
kindly sends in a present for the ladies of the
party: a bouquet of natural flowers with the
petals carefully gilded ; a folar, or Easter cake,
being a large loaf of sweetened bread, baked in
a ring, and having whole eggs, shell and all,
in the midst of it. One lady of our acquaint-
ance received a pretty basket, which being
opened revealed two little Portuguese pigs,
about eight inches long, snow-white, scented
with cologne, and wearing blue ribbons round
their necks.

Beyond these occasional parties, there seems
very little society during the winter, the native
ladies seldom either walking or riding, and
there being no places of secular amusement.
In summer, it is said, when the principal fami-
lies resort to their vineyards at Pico, formalities
are laid aside, and a simpler intercourse takes
place. But I never saw any existence more
thoroughly pitiable than that of the young men
of the higher classes ; they had literally nothing
to do, except to dress themselves elegantly and
lounge all day in an apothecary’s shop. A very

312 OUTDOOR STUDIES

few went out shooting or fishing occasionally ;
but anything like employment, even mercantile,
was entirely beneath their caste ; and they only
pardoned the constant industry of the Ameri-
can Consul and his family as a sort of national
eccentricity, for which they must not be severely
condemned.

A good school system is being introduced
into all the Portuguese dominions, but there
is no bookstore in Fayal, though some dry-
goods dealers sell a few religious books. We
heard a rumor of a Portuguese “ Uncle Tom”
also, but I never could find the copy. The old
convent libraries were sent to Lisbon, on the
suppression of the monasteries, and never re-
turned. There was once a printing-press on
the island, but one of the governors shipped
it off to St. Michael. “There it goes,” he said
to the American Consul, “and the Devil take
it!” The vessel was wrecked in the bay.
“You see,” he afterwards piously added, “the
Devil as taken it.” It is proper, however,
to mention that a press and a newspaper have
been established since our visit, without further
Satanic interference.

Books proved to be scarce on the island.
One official gentleman from Lisbon, quite an
accomplished man, who spoke French fluently
and English tolerably, had some five hundred

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE | 313

books, chiefly in the former tongue, including
seventy-two volumes of Balzac. His daughter,
a young lady of fifteen, more accomplished than
most of the belles of the island, showed me her
little library of books in French and Portuguese,
including three English volumes, an odd selec-
tion, — “The Vicar of Wakefield,” Gregory’s
“Legacy to his Daughters,” and Fielding’s
“Life of Jonathan Wild.” But, indeed, her
supply of modern Portuguese literature was al-
most as scanty, — there is so very little of it, —
and we heard of a gentleman’s studying French
“in order to have something to read,” which
seemed the last stage in national decay.

Perhaps we were still more startled by the
unexpected literary criticisms of a young lady
from St. Michael, English on the father’s side,
but still Roman Catholic, who had just read
the New Testament, and thus naively gave it
her indorsement in a letter to an American
friend: “I dare say you have read the New
Testament ; but if you have not, I recommend
it to you. I have just finished reading it, and
find it a very moral and nice book.” After this
certificate, it will be safe for the Bible Society
to continue its operations.

Nearly all the popular amusements in Fayal
occur in connection with religion. After the
simpler buildings and rites of the Romish

314 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Church in America, the Fayal churches impress
one as vast baby houses, and the services as
acted charades. This perfect intermingling of
the religious and the melodramatic was one
of our most interesting experiences, and made
the Miracle Plays of history a very simple and
intelligible thing. In Fayal holiday and holy-
day have not yet undergone the slightest sepa-
ration. A festival has to the people necessarily
some religious association, and when the Amer-
icans celebrate the Fourth of July, Mr. Dab-
ney’s servants like to dress with flowers a
wooden image in his garden, the fierce figure-
head of some wrecked vessel, which they boldly
personify as the American Saint. On the
other hand, the properties of the church are as
freely used for merrymaking. On public days
there are fireworks provided by the priests;
they are kept in the church till the time comes,
and are then touched off in front of the build-
ing, with very limited success, by the sacristan.
And strangest of all, at the final puff and bang
of each remarkable piece of pyrotechny, the
bells ring out just the same sudden clang which
marks the agonizing moment of the Elevation
of the Host.

On the same principle, the theatricals which
occasionally enliven the island take place in
chapels adjoining the churches. I shall never

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 315

forget the example I saw, on one of these dra-
matic occasions, of that one cardinal virtue of
Patience, which is to the Portuguese race the
substitute for all more positive manly qualities.
The performance was to be by amateurs, and a
written programme had been sent from house
to house during the day; and this had an-
nounced the curtain as sure to rise at eight.
But as most of the spectators went at six to
secure places, —literally, places, for each car-
ried his or her own chair, — one might suppose
the audience a little impatient before the ap-
pointed hour arrived. Yet one would then sup-
pose very incorrectly. Eight o’clock came, and
a quarter past eight, but no curtain rose. Half
past eight. No movement nor sign of any.
The people sat still. A quarter to nine. The
people sat still. Nine o’clock. The people sat
perfectly still, nobody talking much, the gentle-
men being all the while separated from the
ladies, and all quiet. At last, at a quarter past
nine, the orchestra came in! The performers
sat down, laid aside their instruments, and
looked about them. Suddenly a whistle was
heard behind the scenes. Nothing came of it,
however. After a time, another whistle. The
people sat still. Then the orchestra began to
tune the instruments, and at half past nine the
overture began. And during all that inexplica-

316 OUTDOOR STUDIES

ble delay of one hour and a half, after a prelim-
inary waiting of two hours, there was not a
single look of annoyance or impatience, or the
slightest indication, on any face, that this was
viewed as a strange or extraordinary thing.

We duly attended, not on this occasion only,
but at all ecclesiastical festivals, grave or gay,
—the only difficulty being to discover any per-
son in town who had even approximate infor-
mation as to when or where they were to occur.
We saw many sights that are universal in
Roman Catholic countries, and many that are
peculiar to Fayal: we saw the “ Procession of
the Empress,” when, for six successive Saturday
evenings, young girls walked in order through
the streets white robed and crowned ; saw the
vessels in harbor decorated with dangling effi-
gies of Judas, on the appointed day; saw the
bands of men at Easter going about with flags
and plates to beg money for the churches, and
returning at night with feet suspiciously un-
steady; saw the feet washing on Maundy-
Thursday, of twelve old men, each having a
square inch of the instep washed, wiped, and
cautiously kissed by the Vicar-General, after
which twelve lemons were solemnly distributed,
each with a silver coin stuck into the peel; saw
and felt the showers of water, beans, flour,
oranges, eggs, from the balcony windows dur-

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 317

ing Carnival; saw weddings in churches, with
groups of male companions holding tall candles
round kneeling brides; saw the distribution to
the poor of bread and meat and wine from long
tables arranged down the principal street, on
Whitsunday, —a memorial vow, made long
since, to deprecate the recurrence of an earth-
quake. But it must be owned that these things,
so unspeakably interesting at first, became a
little threadbare before the end of the winter ;
we grew tired of the tawdriness and shabbiness
which pervaded them all, of the coarse faces of
the priests, and the rank odor of the incense.
We had left Protestantism in a state of ve-
hement intolerance in America, but we soon
found, that, to hear the hardest things said
against the priesthood, one must visit a Roman
Catholic country. There was no end to the
anecdotes of avarice and sensuality which were
told to us, and there seemed everywhere the
strangest combination of official reverence with
personal contempt. The principal official, or
Ouvidor, was known among his parishioners by
the endearing appellation of “The Black Pig,”
to which epithet his appearance certainly did
no discredit. There was a great shipwreck at
Pico during our stay, and we heard of two hun-
dred thousand dollars’ worth of rich goods
stranded on the bare rocks; there were no ade-

318 OUTDOOR STUDIES

quate means for its defence, and the peasants
could hardly be expected to keep their hands
off. But the foremost hands were those of the
parish priest ; for three weeks no mass was said
in his church, and a funeral was left for days
unperformed, that the representative of God
might steal more silks and laces. When the
next service occurred, the people remained
quiet until the priest rose for the sermon; then
they rose also tumultuously, and ran out of the
church, crying, “ Ladrio!” “Thief!” “But
why this indignation?” said an intelligent
Roman Catholic to us; “there is not a priest
on either island who would not have done the
same.” A few days after I saw this same cool
critic, candle in hand, heading a solemn ecclesi-
astical procession in the cathedral.

In the country villages there naturally lingers
more undisturbed the simple, picturesque life
of Roman Catholic society. Every hamlet is
clustered round its church, almost always mag-
nificently situated, and each has its special fes-
tivals. Never shall I forget one lovely day
when we went to witness the annual services at
Praya, held to commemorate an ancient escape
from an earthquake. It was the first day of
February. After weeks of rain there came at
one burst all the luxury of June; winter seemed
to pass into summer in a moment, and black-

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 319

birds sang on every spray. We walked and
rode over a steep promontory, down into a
green valley, scooped softly to the sea; the
church was by the beach. As we passed along,
the steep paths converging from all the hills
were full of women and men in spotless blue
and white, with bright kerchiefs ; they were all
walking barefooted over the rocky ways, only
the women stopping, ere reaching the church,
to don stockings and shoes. Many persons sat
in sunny places by the roadside to beg, with
few to beg from, — blind old men, and groups
of children clamorous for coppers, but propiti-
ated by sugarplums. Many others were bring-
ing offerings, —candles for the altar; poultry,
which were piled, a living mass, legs tied, in
the corner of the church; and small sums of
money, which were recorded by an old man in
a mighty book. The church was already so
crowded that it was almost impossible to enter ;
the centre was one great flower garden made
of the gay headdresses of kneeling women, and
in the aisles were penitents, toiling round the
church upon their knees, each bearing a lighted
candle. But the services had not yet begun,
so we went down among the rocks to eat our
luncheon of bread and oranges; the ocean
rolled in languidly, a summer sea; we sat be-
side sheltered, transparent basins, among high

320 OUTDOOR STUDIES

and pointed rocks; and great, indolent waves
sometimes reared their heads, looking in upon
our retreat, or flooding the calm pools with a
surface of creamy effervescence. Every square
inch of the universe seemed crowded with par-
ticles of summer.

On our way past the church, we had caught
a glimpse of unwonted black smallclothes, and
slyly peeping into a little chapel, had seen the
august Senate of Horta apparently arraying
itself for the ceremony. Presently out came a
man with a great Portuguese flag, and then the
senators, two and two, with short black cloaks,
white bands, and gold-tipped staves, trod state-
lily towards the church. And as we approached
the door, on our return, we saw these dignita-
ries sitting in their great armchairs, as one
might fancy Venetian potentates, while a sono-
rous Portuguese sermon rolled over their heads
as innocuously as a Thanksgiving discourse
over any New England congregation.

Do not imagine, by the way, that critical re-
marks on sermons are a monopoly of Protest-
antism. After one religious service in Fayal,
my friend, the Professor of Languages, who
sometimes gave lessons in English, remarked
to me confidentially, in my own tongue, “ His
sermon is good, but his exposition is bad; he
does not expose well.” Supposing him to refer

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 321

to the elocution, I assented, — secretly think-
ing, however, that the divine in question had
exposed himself exceedingly well.

Another very impressive ceremony was the
Midnight Mass on New Year’s eve, when we
climbed at midnight, through some close, dark
passages in the vast church edifice, into a sort
of concealed opera box above the high altar,
and suddenly opened windows that looked down
into the brilliantly lighted cathedral, crammed
with kneeling people, and throbbing with loud
music. It seemed centuries away from all mod-
ern life, — a glimpse into some buried Pompeii
of the Middle Ages.

More impressive still was Holy Week, when
there were some rites unknown to other Roman
Catholic countries. For three days the great
cathedral was closely veiled from without and
darkened within, — every door closed, every
window obscured. Before this there had been
seventy candles lighting up the high altar and
the eager faces: now these were all extin-
guished, and through the dark church came
chanting a procession bearing feeble candles
and making a strange clapping sound, with
matracas, like watchmen’s rattles ; men carried
the symbolical bier of Jesus in the midst, to its
symbolical rest beneath the altar, where the
three candles, representing the three Maries,

322 OUTDOOR STUDIES

blazed above it. During the time of darkness
there were frequent masses and sermons, while
terrible transparencies of the Crucifixion were
suddenly unrolled from the lofty pulpit, and
the throng below wept in sympathy, and
clapped their cheeks in token of anguish, like
the fluttering of many doves. Then came the
Hallelujah Saturday, when at noon the mourn-
ing ended. It wasa breathless moment. The
priests kneeled in gorgeous robes, chanting
monotonously, with their foreheads upon the
altar steps; and the hushed multitude hung
upon their lips, waiting for the coming joy.
Suddenly burst the words, Gloria in Excelszs.
In an instant every door was flung open, every
curtain withdrawn, the great church was bathed
in meridian sunlight, the organ crashed out tri-
umphant, the bells pealed, flowers were thrown
from the galleries, friends embraced each other,
laughed, talked, and cried; and all the sea of
gay headdresses below was tremulous beneath
a mist of unaccustomed splendor.

I cannot dwell upon the narrative of our
many walks : to the Espalamarca, with its lonely
telegraph station; to the Burnt Mountain, with
its colored cliffs; to visit the few aged nuns
who still linger in what was once a convent ;
to Porto Pim, with its curving Italian beach, its
playing boys and picturesque fishermen beneath

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 323

the arched gateway ; to the tufa ledges near by,
where the soft rocks are honeycombed with the
cells hollowed by echini below the water’s edge,
a fact then undescribed and almost unexam-
pled, said Agassiz on our return ; to the lofty,
lonely Monte da Guia, with its solitary chapel
on the peak, and its extinct crater, where the
sea rolls in and out; to the Dabney orange
gardens, on Sunday afternoons; to the beauti-
ful Mirante ravine, which we sought whenever
a sudden rain had filled the cascades and set
the watermills and the washerwomen all astir,
and the long brook ran down in whirls of white
foam to the waiting sea; or to the western
shores of the island, where we felt like Ariad-
nes, as we watched ships sailing away towards
our distant home.

And I must also pass over still greater
things, —the winter storms and shipwrecks,
whose annals were they not written by us to
the New York “Tribune”? and the spring
Sunday at superb Castello Branco, with the
whole rural population thronging to meet in en-
thusiastic affection the unwonted presence of the
Consul himself, the feudalism of love ; and the
ascent of the wild Caldeira, when we climbed
height after height, leaving the valleys below
mottled with blue-robed women spreading their
white garments to dry in the sun, and the great

324 OUTDOOR STUDIES

Pico peeping above the clouds across the bay,
and seeming as if directly above our heads, and
nodding to us ere it drew back again ; and, best
of all, that wonderful ascent, by two of us, of
Pico itself, seven thousand feet from the level
of the sea, our starting-point. We camped half
way up, and watched the sunset over the lower
peaks of Fayal ; we kindled fires of faya bushes
on the lonely mountain-sides, a beacon for the
world ; we slept in the loft of a little cattle-
shed, with the calves below us, “the cows’
sons,” as our Portuguese attendant courteously
called them ; we waked next morning above the
clouds, with one vast floor of white level vapor
beneath us, such as Thoreau alone has de-
scribed, with here and there an open glimpse
of the sea far below, yet lifted up to an appar-
ent level with the clouds, so as to seem like
an arctic scene, with patches of open water.
Then we climbed through endless sheep pas-
tures and over great slabs of lava, growing
steeper and steeper ; we entered the crater at
last, walled with snows of which portions might
be of untold ages, for it is never, I believe,
wholly empty; we climbed, in such a gale of
wind that the guides would not follow us, the
steeple-like central pinnacle, two hundred feet
high ; and there we reached, never to be forgot-
ten, a small central crater at the very summit,

FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 325

where steam poured up between the stones,
—and oh, from what wondrous central depths
that steam came to us! There has been no
eruption from any portion of Pico for many
years, but it is a volcano still, and we knew
that we were standing on the narrow and giddy
summit of a chimney of the globe. That was a
sensation indeed !

We saw many another wild volcanic cliff and
fissure and cave on our two days’ tour round
the island; but it was most startling when, on
the first morning of that trip, as we passed
through one of many soft green valleys, sud-
denly all verdure and all life vanished, and we
found ourselves riding through a belt of white,
coarse moss stretching from mountain to sea,
covering rock and wall and shed like snow or
moonlight or mountain-laurel or any other pale
and glimmering thing; and when, after miles
of ignorant wonder, we rode out of it into green-
ness again and were told that we had crossed
what the Portuguese call a Misterio, or Mys-
‘tery, —the track of the last eruption. The
white moss was the first garment of vegetation,
just clothing those lava rocks once more.

But the time was coming when we must bid
good-by to picturesque Fayal. We had been
there from November, 1855, to May, 1856; it
had been a winter of incessant rains, and the

326 OUTDOOR STUDIES

first essential of life had been a change of um-
brellas ; it had been colder than usual, making
it a comfort to look at our stove, though we
had never lighted it; but our invalids had
gained by even this degree of mildness, by the
wholesome salt dampness, by the comforts of
our hotel with its good Portuguese landlord and
English landlady, and by the constant kindness
shown us by all. At last we had begun to feel
that we had squeezed the orange of the Azores
a little dry, and we were ready to go. And
when, after three weeks of rough sailing, we
saw Cape Ann again, although it looked some-
what flat and prosaic after the headlands of
Fayal, yet we knew that behind those low
shores lay all that our hearts held dearest, and
all the noblest hopes of the family of man.

ew

POEMS

TO
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,
Schoolmate and Fellow Cotonsman,

THESE POEMS ARE INSCRIBED.

“ Alter ab undecimo tum me jam ceperat annus.
Jam fragiles poteram a terra contingere ramos.”

“Ver erat eternum; placidique tepentibus auris
Mulcebant zephyri natos sine semine flores.”

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., U. S. A,,
1889.

POEMS

PRELUDE

I DREAMED one night that the calm hosts of
heaven

Had lost their changeless paths ; and as I stood

Beside the latticed window, I could watch

Those strange, fair pilgrims wandering from
their shrines.

Up to the zenith rose the moon, and paused ;

Stars went and came, and waxed and waned
again,

Then vanished into nothing ; meteors pale

Stole, soft as wind-blown blossoms, down the
night ;

Till I awoke to find the cold gray morn

Hymning its lonely dirges through the pines.

Were it not better that the planets fail,

And every heavenly orbit wander wide,

Than that this human life, its years like stars,

Should miss the accustomed sequence of con-
tent ?

All times are good ; life’s morning let us sing,

330 POEMS

Its sunny noon, high noon, the whole world’s
pause,

Nor less that sweet decline which ends in eve.

Life were monotonous with its morning hours,

Came not the hurrying years to shift our
mood,

Unfold an altered heaven and spread its glow

O’er the changed landscape of time’s afternoon.

THE TRUMPETER

I BLEw, I blew, the trumpet loudly sounding ;
I blew, I blew, the heart within me bounding ;
The world was fresh and fair, yet dark with
wrong,
And men stood forth to conquer at the song
I blew, I blew, I blew.

The field is won ; the minstrels loud are crying,
And all the world is peace; and I am dying.
Yet this forgotten life was not in vain ;
Enough if I alone recall the strain

I blew, I blew, I blew.

SONNET TO DUTY 331

SONNET TO DUTY

@eds tis Zor? ev juiv.
EURIPIDES (Fragm.).

Licur of dim mornings; shield from heat and
cold ;
Balm for all ailments ; substitute for praise ;
Comrade of those who plod in lonely ways
(Ways that grow lonelier as the years wax
old) ;
Tonic for fears ; check to the over-bold ;
Nurse, whose calm hand its strong restriction
lays,
Kind but resistless, on our wayward days ;
Mart, where high wisdom at vast price is

sold ;
Gardener, whose touch bids the rose-petals
fall,
The thorns endure; surgeon, who human
hearts

Searchest with probes, though the death-
wound be given ;
Spell that knits friends, but yearning lovers
parts ;
Tyrant relentless o’er our blisses all ; —
Oh, can it be, thine other name is Heaven ?

332

POEMS

A JAR OF ROSE-LEAVES

Myriap roses fade unheeded,

Yet no note of grief is needed ;
When the ruder breezes tear them,
Sung or songless, we can spare them.
But the choicest petals are

Shrined in some deep Orient jar,
Rich without and sweet within,
Where we cast the rose-leaves in.

Life has jars of costlier price
Framed to hold our memories.
There we treasure baby smiles,
Boyish exploits, girlish wiles,

All that made our early days
Sweeter than these trodden ways
Where the Fates our fortunes spin.
Memory, toss the rose-leaves in !

What the jar holds, that shall stay ;
Time steals all the rest away.

Cast in love’s first stolen word,

Bliss when uttered, bliss when heard ;
Maiden’s looks of shy surprise ;
Glances from a hero’s eyes ;

Palms we risked our souls to win :
Memory, fling the rose-leaves in!

SUB PONDERE CRESCIT 333

Now more sombre and more slow
Let the incantation grow !

Cast in shreds of rapture brief,
Subtle links ’twixt hope and grief ;
Vagrant fancy’s dangerous toys ;
Covert dreams, narcotic joys
Flavored with the taste of sin:
Memory, pour the rose-leaves in !

Quit that borderland of pain !

Cast in thoughts of nobler vein,
Magic gifts of human breath,
Mysteries of birth and death.

What if all this web of change

But prepare for scenes more strange;
If to die be to begin ?

Memory, heap the rose-leaves in!

SUB PONDERE CRESCIT

Can this be he, whose morning footstep trod
O’er the green earth as in a regal home?
Whose voice rang out beneath the skyey

dome
Like the high utterance of a youthful god ?

Now with wan looks and eyes that seek the sod,
Restless and purposeless as ocean foam,
Across the twilight fields I see him roam
With shoulders bowed, as shrinking from the

rod,

334 POEMS

Oh lift the old-time light within thine eyes!
Set free the pristine passion from thy tongue!
Strength grows with burdens ; make an end

of sighs,

Let thy thoughts soar again their mates among,
And as yon oriole’s eager matins rise,
Abroad once more be thy strong anthem

flung !

THE PLAYMATE HOURS

Dawn lingers silent in the shade of night,
Till on the gloaming Baby’s laughter rings.
Then smiling Day awakes, and open flings
Her golden doors, to speed the shining flight
Of restless hours, gay children of the light.
Each eager playfellow to Baby brings
Some separate gift,—a flitting bird that
sings
With her; a waving branch of berries bright;
A heap of rustling leaves’; each trifle cheers
This joyous little life but just begun.
No weary hour to her brings sighs or tears;
And when the shadows warn the loitering sun,
With blossoms in her hands, untouched by
fears,
She softly falls asleep, and day is done.
M. T. HL

THE BABY SORCERESS 335

THE BABY SORCERESS

Our baby sits beneath the tall elm-trees,
‘A wreath of tangled ribbons in her hands ;
She twines and twists the many -colored
strands,
A little sorceress, weaving destinies.
Now the pure white she grasps; now naught
can please
But strips of crimson, lurid as the brands
From passion’s fires, or yellow, like the sands
That lend soft setting to the azure seas.
And so with sweet incessant toil she fills
A summer hour, still following fancies new,
Till through my heart a sudden terror thrills
Lest, as she weaves, her aimless choice prove
true.
Thank God, our fates proceed not from our
wills !
The Power that spins the thread shall blend
the hue.

336 POEMS

HEIRS OF TIME

INSCRIBED TO EDWARD BELLAMY

© Aucun homme ne peut aliéner sa souveraineté, parcequ’il ne
peut abdiquer sa nature ou cesser d’ étre homme; et de la souve-
raineté de chaque individu naft, dans la société, la souveraineté
collective de tous ou la souveraineté du peuple, également inalién-
able.” — ABBE DE LA MENNAIS, Le Livre du Peuple (1837).

From street and square, from hill and glen

Of this vast world beyond my door,
I hear the tread of marching men,

The patient armies of the poor. re

The halo of the city’s lamps

Hangs, a vast torchlight, in the air ;

I watch it through the evening damps:
The masters of the world are there.

Not ermine-clad or clothed in state,
Their title-deeds not yet made plain ;
But waking early, toiling late,

The heirs of all the earth remain.

Some day, by laws as fixed and fair
As guide the planets in their sweep,
The children of each outcast heir
The harvest-fruits of time shall reap.

The peasant brain shall yet be wise,
The untamed pulse grow calm and still ;

SIXTY AND SIX 337

The blind shall see, the lowly rise,
And work in peace Time’s wondrous will.

Some day, without a trumpet’s call,
This news will o’er the world be blown :
“ The heritage comes back to all!

The myriad monarchs take their own!”

SIXTY AND SIX: OR A FOUNTAIN OF
YOUTH

“ Fons, delicium domus.”
MARTIAL,
Joy of the morning,
Darling of dawning,
Blithe little, lithe little daughter of mine!
While with thee ranging
Sure I’m exchanging
Sixty of my years for six years like thine.
Wings cannot vie with thee,
Lightly I fly with thee
Gay as the thistle-down over the lea.
Life is all magic,
Comic or tragic,
Played as thou playest it daily with me.

Floating and ringing,
Thy merry singing
Comes when the light comes, like that of the
birds.

338 POEMS

List to the play of it !
That is the way of it ;
All’s in the music and naught in the words.
Glad or grief-laden,
Schubert or Haydn,
Ballad of Erin or merry Scotch lay ;
Like an evangel,
Some baby-angel
Brought from sky-nursery stealing away.

Surely I know it,
Artist nor poet
Guesses my treasure of jubilant hours.
Sorrows, what are they?
Nearer or far, they
Vanish in sunshine, like dew from the flowers.
Years, I am glad of them;
Would that I had of them
More and yet more, while thus mingled with
thine.
Age, I make light of it,
Fear not the sight of it,
Time’s but our playmate, whose toys are divine.

THE SOUL OF A BUTTERFLY 339

“SINCE CLEOPATRA DIED”

“ Since Cleopatra died,
T have lived in such dishonor that the gods
Detest my baseness.”

“Since Cleopatra died!” Long years are past,
In Antony’s fancy, since the deed was done.
Love counts its epochs, not from sun to sun,
But by the heart-throb. Mercilessly fast

Time has swept onward since she looked her last
On life, a queen. For him the sands have run
Whole ages through their glass, and kings

have won
And lost their empires o’er earth’s surface
vast

Since Cleopatra died. Ah! Love and Pain
Make their own measure of all things that be.
No clock’s slow ticking marks their deathless

strain ;

The life they own is not the life we see ;
Love’s single moment is eternity :

Eternity, a thought in Shakespeare’s brain.

THE SOUL OF A BUTTERFLY

OVER the field where the brown quails whistle,
Over the ferns where the rabbits lie,

Floats the tremulous down of a thistle.
Is it the soul of a butterfly ?

340 POEMS

See ! how they scatter and then assemble ;
Filling the air while the blossoms fade, —
Delicate atoms, that whirl and tremble
In the slanting sunlight that skirts the glade.

There goes the summer’s inconstant lover,
Drifting and wandering, faint and far ;

Only bewailed by the upland plover,
Watched by only the twilight star.

Come next August, when thistles blossom,
See how each is alive with wings!

Butterflies seek their souls in its bosom,
Changed thenceforth to immortal things,

DECORATION
“ Manibus O date lilia plenis.”’

Mop the flower-wreathed tombs I stand
Bearing lilies in my hand.

Comrades! in what soldier-grave
Sleeps the bravest of the brave?

Ts it he who sank to rest

With his colors round his breast ?
Friendship makes his tomb a shrine ;
Garlands veil it : ask not mine.

DECORATION

One low grave, yon trees beneath,
Bears no roses, wears no wreath ;

Yet no heart more high and warm
Ever dared the battle-storm,

Never gleamed a prouder eye

In the front of victory,

Never foot had firmer tread

On the field where hope lay dead,

Than are hid within this tomb
Where the untended grasses bloom,
And no stone, with feigned distress,
Mocks the sacred loneliness.

Youth and beauty, dauntless will,
Dreams that life could ne’er fulfil,
Here lie buried ; here in peace
Wrongs and woes have found release.

Turning from my comrades’ eyes,
Kneeling where a woman lies,

I strew lilies on the grave

Of the bravest of the brave.

341

342 POEMS

“THE SNOWING OF THE PINES”

SorTErR than silence, stiller than still air,
Float down from high pine boughs the slen-
der leaves.
The forest floor its annual boon receives
That comes like snowfall, tireless, tranquil,
fair.
Gently they glide, gently they clothe the bare
Old rocks with grace. Their fall a mantle
weaves
Of paler yellow than autumnal sheaves
Or those strange blossoms the witch-hazels
wear.
Athwart long aisles the sunbeams pierce their
way ;
High up, the crows are gathering for the
night ;
The delicate needles fill the air ; the jay
Takes through their golden mist his radiant
flight ;
They fall and fall, till at November’s close
The snowflakes drop as lightly — snows on
snows.

THE LESSON OF THE LEAVES = 343

THE LESSON OF THE LEAVES

O tHov who bearest on thy thoughtful face
The wearied calm that follows after grief,
See how the autumn guides each loosened

leaf
To sure repose in its own sheltered place.

Ah, not forever whirl they in the race
Of wild forlornness round the gathered sheaf,
Or hurrying onward in a rapture brief
Spin o’er the moorlands into trackless space.

Some hollow captures each; some sheltering

wall

Arrests the wanderer on its aimless way ;

The autumn’s pensive beauty needs them all,

And winter finds them warm, though sere and

gray.

They nurse young blossoms for the spring’s
sweet call,

And shield new leaflets for the burst of May.

344 POEMS

VESTIS ANGELICA

[Set to music by Francis Boott, Esq.]

It was a custom of the early English church for pious laymen
to be carried in the hour of death to some monastery, that they
might be clothed in the habit of the religious order, and might die
amid the prayers of the brotherhood. The garment thus assumed
was known as the Vestis Angelica. See MoRONI, Dizionario di
Erudizione Storico-Ecclesiastica, ii. 78 ; xcvi. 212.

O GATHER, gather! Stand
Round her on either hand!
O shining angel-band
More pure than priest !
A garment white and whole
Weave for this passing soul,
Whose earthly joy and dole
Have almost ceased.

Weave it of mothers’ prayers,

Of sacred thoughts and cares,

Of peace beneath gray hairs,
Of hallowed pain ;

Weave it of vanished tears,

Of childlike hopes and fears,

Of joys, by saintly years
Washed free from stain.

Weave it of happy hours,
Of smiles and summer flowers,

TO MY SHADOW 345

Of passing sunlit showers,
Of acts of love ;

Of footsteps that did go

Amid life’s work and woe, —

Her eyes still fixed below,
Her thoughts above.

Then as those eyes grow dim
Chant we her best-loved hymn,
While from yon church-tower’s brim
A soft chime swells.
Her freed soul floats in bliss
To unseen worlds from this,
Nor knows in which it is
She hears the bells.

TO MY SHADOW

A MUTE companion at my side
Paces and plods, the whole day long,
Accepts the measure of my stride,
Yet gives no cheer by word or song.

More close than any doggish friend,
Not ranging far and wide, like him,
He goes where’er my footsteps tend,
Nor shrinks for fear of life or limb.

I do not know when first we met,
But till each day’s bright hours are done

346 POEMS

This grave and speechless silhouette
Keeps me betwixt him and the sun.

They say he knew me when a child ;
Born with my birth, he dies with me;
Not once from his long task beguiled,
Though sin or shame bid others flee.

What if, when all this world of men
Shall melt and fade and pass away,
This deathless sprite should rise again
And be himself my Judgment Day ?

TWO VOYAGERS

Wen first J mark upon my child’s clear brow
Thought’s wrestling shadows their new strug-
gle keep,
Read my own conflicts in her questions deep,
My own remorse in her repentant vow,
My own vast ignorance in her “Why?” and
“How?”
When my precautions only serve to heap
New burdens, and my cares her needs o’er-
leap,
Then to her separate destiny I bow.
So seem we like two ships, that side by side,
Older and younger, breast the same rough
main
Bound for one port, whatever winds betide,

SEA-GULLS AT FRESH POND 347

In solemn interchange of joy or pain.
I may not hold thee back. Though skies be
dark,
Put forth upon the seas, O priceless bark !

SEA-GULLS AT FRESH POND

O Lake of boyish dreams! I linger round
Thy calm, clear waters and thine altered
shores
Till thought brings back the plash of child-
hood’s oars, —
Long hid in memory’s depths, a vanished
sound.
Alone unchanged, the sea-birds yet are found
Far floating on thy wave by threes and
fours,
Or grouped in hundreds, while a white gull
soars,
Safe, beyond gunshot of the hostile ground.
I am no nearer to those joyous birds
Than when, long since, I watched them as a
child ; ;
Nor am I nearer to that flock more wild,
Most shy and vague of all elusive things,
My unattainable thoughts, unreached by
words.
I see the flight, but never touch the wings.

348 POEMS

THE DYING HOUSE

SHE is dead ; her house is dying ;
Round its long-deserted door,

From the hillside and the moor,
Swell the autumn breezes sighing.
Closer to its windows press

Pine-tree boughs in mute caress ;
Wind-sown seeds in silence come,
Root, and grow, and bud, and bloom ;
Year by year, kind Nature’s grace
Wraps and shields her dwelling-place.
She who loved all things that grew,
Talked with every bird that flew,
Brought each creature to her feet
With persuasive accents sweet, —
Now her voice is hushed and gone,
Yet the birds and bees keep on.

Oh the joy, the love, the glee,
Sheltered once by that roof-tree !
Song and dance and serenade,

Joyous jest by maskers played ;
Passionate whispers on the stairs,
Hopes unspoken, voiceless prayers ;
Greetings that repressed love’s theme,
Partings that renewed its dream ;

All the blisses, all the woes,

THE DYING HOUSE 349

Youth’s brief hour of springtime knows, —
All have died into the past.
Perish too the house at last !

Vagrant children come and go

’Neath the windows, murmuring low ;
Peering with impatient eye

For a ghostly mystery.

Some a fabled secret tell,

Others touch the soundless bell,
Then with hurrying step retreat
From the echo of their feet.

Or perchance there wander near
Guests who once held revel here:
Some live o’er again the days

Of their love’s first stolen gaze ;

Or some sad soul, looking in,

Calls back hours of blight or sin,
Glad if her mute life may share

In the sheltering silence there.

Oh, what cheeks might blanch with fears,
Had walls tongues, as they have ears!

Silent house with close-locked doors,
Ghosts and memories haunt thy floors!
Not a web of circumstance

Woven here into romance

F’er can perish ; many a thread

Must survive when thou art dead.

350 POEMS

Children’s children shall not know
How their doom of joy or woe

Was determined ere their birth,
’Neath this roof that droops to earth,
By some love-tie here create,

Or hereditary hate,

Or some glance whose bliss or strife
Was the climax of a life,

Though its last dumb witness falls
With the crumbling of these walls.

A SONG OF DAYS

O RADIANT summer day,

Whose air, sweet air, steals on from flower to
flower !

Couldst thou not yield one hour

When the glad heart says, “This alone is
May”?

O passionate earthly love,

Whose tremulous pulse beats on to life’s best
boon !

Couldst thou not give one noon,

One noon of noons, all other bliss above?

O solemn human life,
Whose nobler longings bid all conflict cease!

TREASURE IN HEAVEN 351

Grant us one day’s deep peace
Beyond the utmost rumor of all strife.

For if no joy can stay,

Let it at least yield one consummate bloom,
Or else there is no room ‘
To find delight in love, or life, or May.

TREASURE IN HEAVEN

IF messengers we fear
Should hither come to-day,
And beckon me away

From all that earth holds dear ;

And I should trembling turn
' And cling to glowing life,
Yet in the fiercest strife
Feel.heart and reason burn ;

Then look into love’s face,
And see with anguish wild
Our rosy little child

With all her baby grace,

And stretch my feeble hand
To keep the darling near, —
My fainting soul would hear

A voice from spirit-land.

.

352

1883.

1880,

POEMS

That voice would set me free,
With joy my pulses thrill,
“Mamma, I need you still!

Have you forgotten me?”

BENEATH THE VIOLETS

SaFE ‘neath the violets
Rests the baby form ;
Every leaf that springtime sets
Shields it from the storm.
Peace to all vain regrets
Mid this sunshine warm !

Shadows come and shadows go
O’er the meadows wide ;

Twice each day, to and fro,
Steals the river-tide ;

Each morn with sunrise-glow
Gilds the green hillside.

Peace that no sorrow frets
In our souls arise!

Over all our wild regrets
Arching, like the skies ;
While safe ‘neath the violets

Sleep the violet eyes.

“THE KNOCK ALPHABET” 353

“THE KNOCK ALPHABET”

[Mr. Kennan tells us that Russian prisoners converse with each
other in a complex alphabet, indicated by knocking on the walls of
their cells.]

LixE prisoners, each within his own deep cell,
We mortals talk together through a wall.
“Was that low note indeed my brother’s

call ?
Or but a distant water-drop which fell?”

Yet to the straining ear each sound can tell
Some woe that might the bravest heart

appal,
Or' some high hope that triumphs over all :
“Brother, I die to-morrow.” “Peace!”

“ All’s well!”
Oh, could we once see fully, face to face,
But one of these our mates, — once speak
aloud,
Once meet him, heart to heart, in strong
embrace, —
How would our days be glad, our hopes be
proud !
Perchance that wall is Life; and life being
done,
Death may unite these sundered cells in one.

354 POEMS

THE REED IMMORTAL

INSCRIBED TO THE BOSTON PAPYRUS CLUB

[Pliny tells us that the Egyptians regarded the papyrus as an
emblem of immortality]

REED of the stagnant waters,
Far in the Eastern lands,
Rearing thy peaceful daughters
In sight of the storied sands !
Armies and fleets defying
Have swept by that quiet spot,
But thine is the life undying,
Theirs is the tale forgot.

The legions of Alexander
Are scattered and gone and fled,
And the queen who ruled commander
Over Antony is dead ;
The marching armies of Cyrus
Have vanished in earth again,
And only the frail papyrus
Still reigns o’er the sons of men.

Papyrus! O reed immortal,
Survivor of all renown!

Thou heed’st not the solemn portal
Where heroes and kings go down.

DAME CRAIGIE 355

The monarchs of generations
Have died into dust away ;
O reed that outlivest nations,
Be our symbol of strength to-day!

DAME CRAIGIE

{Lines read at the. Longfellow Memorial Reading, Cambridge,
February 27, 1888.]

In childish Cambridge days, now long ago,
When pacing schoolward in the morning
hours,
I passed the stately homes of Tory Row
And paused to see Dame Craigie tend her
flowers.

Framed. in the elm-tree boughs before | her
door
The old escutcheon of our town was seen, —
Canker-worms pendent, yellowing leaves in o7,
School-boys vegardant, on a field grass-green.

Dame Craigie, with Spinoza in her hand,
Was once heard murmuring to the insect
crew,
“T will not harm you, little restless band!
For what are mortal men but worms, like
you?”

356 POEMS

The trees are gone: Dame Craigie too is gone,
Her tongue long silent, and her turban
furled ;
Yet ’neath her roof thought’s silk-worms still
spun on, ,
Whose sumptuous fabric clothed a barren
world.

GIFTS

A FLAWLESS pearl, snatched from an ocean
cave,
Remote from light or air,
And by the mad caress of stormy wave
Made but more pure and fair ;.

A diamond, wrested from earth’s hidden zone,
To whose recesses deep

It clung, and bravely flashed a light that shone
Where dusky shadows creep ;

A sapphire, in whose heart the tender rays
Of summer skies had met ;

A ruby, glowing with the ardent blaze
Of suns that never set, —

These priceless jewels shone, one happy day,
On my bewildered sight :

DWELLING-PLACES 357

“We bring from earth, sea, sky,” they seemed
to say,
“ Love’s richness and delight.”

“For me?” I trembling cried. “Thou need’st
not dread,”
Sang heavenly voices sweet ;
And unseen hands placed on my lowly head
This crown, for angels meet.
M., T. H.

DWELLING-PLACES

Wuezz is thy home, O little fair head,

With thy sunny hair, on earth’s clouded way ?
“On my lover’s breast ; and I take my rest,
And I know no terror by night or day.”

Where is thy home, O little fair heart,

With thy joyous hopes in life’s shadows dim ?
“In my lover’s heart ; and we never part,
For he carries me round the world with him.”

Where is thy home, O little fair soul,

So brave ’mid the old world’s sorrow and care?
“ My home is in heaven. To me ’t is given
To win my lover to meet me there.”

358 POEMS

TO THE MEMORY OF H. H.

O sout of fire within a woman’s clay !

Lifting with slender hands a race’s wrong,

Whose mute appeal hushed all thine early
song,

And taught thy passionate heart the loftier
way, —

What shall thy place be in the realm of day?
What disembodied world can hold thee long,
Binding thy turbulent pulse with spell more

strong?
Dwell’st thou, with wit and jest, where poets
may,

Or with ethereal women — born of air
And poet’s dreams — dost live in ecstasy,
Teach new lovethoughts to Shakespeare’s

Juliet fair,

New moods to Cleopatra? Then, set free,
The woes of Shelley’s Helen thou dost share,
Or weep with poor Rossetti’s Rose Mary.

VENUS MULTIFORMIS

THREE men on a broken deck-plank,
With the reef and its roar ahead,

Floated on, through a fair June morning,
To a doom that was sure and dread.

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 359

Said one, “ My years have been wasted
On a woman’s terrible charms ;

But oh! to see death draw near me,
And to die outside of her arms!”

Said another, “Through surge and through
tempest
My eyes are fixed on her face ;
I forget the tumult of ocean
In the joy of her last embrace.”

Said the third, “TI can die unflinching
Wherever my fortune lies ;

But oh! her endless bereavement,
And the rivers of tears from her eyes!”

While the woman they all had worshipped
Walked out from the gray church-door

Amid smiles and greetings and music,
And followed by prayers of the poor.

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

At dawn of manhood came a voice to me
That said to startled conscience, “Sleep no
more!”
Like some loud cry that peals from door to
door
It roused a generation ; and I see,

360 POEMS

Now looking back through years of memory,
That all of school or college, all the lore
Of worldly maxims, all the statesman’s store,
Were naught beside that voice’s mastery.
If any good to me or from me came
Through life, and if no influence less divine
Has quite usurped the place of duty’s flame;
If aught rose worthy in this heart of mine,
Aught that, viewed backward, wears no shade
of shame, —
Bless thee, old friend! for that high call was
thine.

CAMBRIDGE, December 17, 1887.

WAITING FOR THE BUGLE

[Read before the Grand Army Post (56) of veteran soldiers, at
Cambridge, Mass., May 25, 1888. Set to music by Francis Boott,
Esq.]

WE wait for the bugle; the night-dews are
cold,

The limbs of the soldiers feel jaded and old,

The field of our bivouac is windy and bare,

There is lead in our joints, there is frost in our
hair,

The future is veiled and its fortunes unknown, ~

As we lie with hushed breath till the bugle is
blown.

ASTRA CASTRA 361

At the sound of that bugle each comrade shall
spring ,

Like an arrow released from the strain of the
string ;

The courage, the impulse of youth shall come
back

To banish the chill of the drear bivouac,

And sorrows and losses and cares fade away

When that life-giving signal proclaims the new
day.

Though the bivouac of age may put ice in our
veins,

And no fibre of steel in our sinew remains ;

Though the comrades of yesterday’s march are
not here,

And the sunlight seems pale and the branches
are sere, —

Though the sound of our cheering dies down
to a moan,

We shall find our lost youth when the bugle is
blown.

ASTRA CASTRA

SOMEWHERE betwixt me and the farthest star,
Or else beyond all worlds, all space, all
thought,

362 POEMS

Dwells that freed spirit, now transformed
and taught
To move in orbits where the immortals are.
Does she rejoice or mourn? Perchance from
far
Some earthly errand she but now has sought,
By instantaneous ways among us brought,
Ways to which night and distance yield no
bar.
Could we but reach and touch that wayward
will
On earth so hard to touch, would she be
found
Controlled or yet impetuous, free or bound,
Tameless as ocean, or serene and still?
If in her heart one eager impulse stirs,
Could heaven itself calm that wild mood of
hers?

MEMORIAL ODE

[Read before the Grand Army Posts of Boston, Mass., on Memo-
rial Day, May 30, 1881, by Mr. George Riddle.]

I.

Joy to the three-hilled city !— for each year
Heals something of the grief this day records ;
Each year the plaintive lay
Sounds yet more far away,

MEMORIAL ODE 363

And strains of triumph suit memorial words.
The old-time pang becomes a thrill of joy ;
Again we turn the page
Of our heroic age,
And read anew the tale of every patriot boy.
A modest courage was their simple wont,
The dauntless youths who grew to manhood
here:
Putnam and Savage, Perkins and Revere.
It needs no helmet’s gleam,
No armor’s glittering beam,
No feudal imagery of shield or spear
To gild the gallant deeds that roused us then, —
When Cass fell dying in the battle’s front,
And Shaw’s fair head lay ’mid his dusky men.

II.

All o’er the tranquil Jand
On this Memorial Day,
Coming from near and far,
Men gather in the mimic guise of war.
They bear no polished steel,
Yet by the elbow’s touch they march, they
wheel,
Or side by side they stand.
They now are peaceful men, fair Order’s sons ;
But as they halt in motionless array,
Or bow their heads to pray,
Into their dream intrudes

364 POEMS

The swift sharp crack of rifle-shots in woods ;
Into their memory swells
The trumpet’s call, the screaming of the shells ;
And ever and anon they seem to hear
The far-off thunder of besieging guns, —
All sounds of bygone war, all memories of the
ear.
III.
A little while it seems
Since those were daily thoughts which now are
dreams.
A little while is gone
Since, the last battle fought, the victory won,
We saw sweet Peace come back with all her
charms,
And watched a million men lay down their
arms.
But at this morning’s call
We bridge the interval ;
And yet once more, with no regretful tears,
Live back again, though now men’s blood be
cooled,
Through the long vista of the fading years
To days when Sumner spoke, and Andrew
ruled.

Iv.

Courage is first and last of what we need
To mould a nation for triumphal sway :

MEMORIAL ODE 365

All else is empty air,
A promise vainly fair,
Like the bright beauty of the ocean spray
Tossed up toward heaven, but never reaching
there.
Not in the past, but in the future, we
Must seek the mastery
Of fate and fortune, thought and word and
deed.
Gone, gone for aye, the little Puritan homes ;
Gone the beleaguered town, from out whose
spires
.Flashed forth the warning fires
Telling the Cambridge rustics, “ Percy comes!”
And gone those later days of grief and shame
When slavery changed our court-house to a jail,
And blood-drops stained its threshold. Now
we hail,
After the long affray,
A time of calmer order, wider aim,
More mingled races, manhood’s larger frame,
A city’s broader sweep, the Boston of to-day.

Vv.

They say our city’s star begins to wane,

Our heroes pass away, our poets die,

Our passionate ardors mount no more so high.
’T is but an old alarm, the affright of wealth,
The cowardice of culture, wasted pain !

366 POEMS

Freedom is hope and health !
The sea on which yon ocean steamers ride
Is the same sea that rocked the shallops frail
Of the bold Pilgrims; yonder is its tide,
And here are we, their sons ; it grows not pale,
Nor we who walk its borders. Never fear!
Courage and truth are all!
Trust in the great hereafter, and whene’er
In some high hour of need,
That tests the heroic breed,
The Boston of the future sounds its call,
Bartletts and Lowells yet shall answer, “‘ Here!”’

SERENADE BY THE SEA

[Set to music by M. Albert Pégou.]

O’ER the ocean vague and wide

Sleep comes with the coming tide.
Breezes lull my lady fair,

Cool her eyelids, soothe her hair,
While the murmuring surges seem

To float her through a world of dream.

Shadowy sloops are gliding in
Safe the harbor-bar within.
Silently each phantom pale
Drops the anchor, furls the sail.

THE FROZEN CASCADE 367

She, meanwhile, remote from me
Drifts on sleep’s unfathomed sea.

So may every dream of ill

Find its anchorage, and be still ;
Sorrow furl its sails and cease

In this midnight realm of peace ;

And each wandering thought find rest
In the haven of her breast.

THE FROZEN CASCADE
THE BRIDE OF THE ROCK

In beauty perfected, with lavish grace,
She casts herself about his rugged form,
With all her vesture on, of snowy white,
Nor left one pendant out, one dropping pearl.
Could she be fairer? Through her inmost
veins
The warm sun searches, as for some weak spot ;
But with a pride refined she smileth back :
“T gave myself in beauty to this Rock ;
Ancient he is, and reverend and strong ;
And I will fringe him with my snowy arms,
And lay my white cheek on his dark gray
brow,
Nor ever melt for all thy beaming eyes!”
Ss. L. H.

368 POEMS

THE THINGS I MISS

AN easy thing, O Power Divine,

To thank Thee for these gifts of Thine!
For summer’s sunshine, winter’s snow,
For hearts that kindle, thoughts that glow.
But when shall I attain to this, —

To thank Thee for the things I miss ?

For all young Fancy’s early gleams,

The dreamed-of joys that still are dreams,
Hopes unfulfilled, and pleasures known
Through others’ fortunes, not my own,
And blessings seen that are not given,
And never will be, this side heaven.

Had I too shared the joys I see,

Would there have been a heaven for me?
Could I have felt Thy presence near,

Had I possessed what I held dear?

My deepest fortune, highest bliss,

Have grown perchance from things I miss,

Sometimes there comes an hour of calm;
Grief turns to blessing, pain to balm ;

A Power that works above my will

Still leads me onward, upward still.

And then my heart attains to this, —

To thank Thee for the things I miss.
1870.

AN EGYPTIAN BANQUET 369

AN EGYPTIAN BANQUET

A CROWDED life, where joy perennial starts ;
The boy’s pulse beating ’mid experience

Sage ;
Wild thirst for action, time could ne’er as-
suage ;
Countless sad secrets, learned from weary
hearts ;
New thresholds gained, as each full hour de-
parts ;
Long years read singly, each an opened
page ;
Love’s blissful dreams and friendship’s price-
less gage ;
A name grown famous through the streets
and marts;
Knowledge advancing; thoughts that climb
and climb ;

Aims that expand; new pinions that unfurl;
Age that outstrips all promise of its prime;
Hopes which their prayers at utmost heaven

hurl, —

Till in an instant, in a point of time,

Death, the Egyptian, melts and drinks the
pearl.

370 POEMS

AN AMERICAN STONEHENGE

Far up on these abandoned mountain farms
Now drifting back to forest wilds again,

The long, gray walls extend their clasping arms,
Pathetic monuments of vanished men.

Serpents in stone, they wind o’er hill and dell

*Mid orchards long deserted, fields unshorn, —

The crumbling fragments resting where they
fell

Forgotten, worthless to a race new-born.

Nearer than stones of storied Saxon name

These speechless relics to our hearts should
come,

No toiler for a priest’s or monarch’s fame,

This farmer lived and died to shape a home.

What days of lonely toil he undertook !

What years of iron labor! and for what ?

To yield the chipmunk one more secret nook,
The gliding snake one more sequestered spot.

So little time on earth; so much to do;

Yet all that waste of weary, toil-worn hands!

Life came and went; the patient task is
through ;

The men are gone; the idle structure stands.

THE FAIRY COURSERS 371

THE HORIZON LINE

WE wander wide o’er earth’s remotest lands,
Yet never reach those wondrous realms that
are
Bounded in childhood by thy shadowy bar,
That ’twixt us and our fortunes ever stands.
Though Czesar tread. the globe with conquer-
ing bands
He cannot touch thine outline faint and far
That flies before him; and the heaven’s least.
star
Is not more safe from contact of his hands.
O spell forever vague and hovering,
Thou offerest endless balm for jaded eyes,
Dull with achievement! Man until he dies
Thy magic distance can no nearer bring, —
Alluring, soft, elusive, still it lies
On the vast earth one inaccessible thing.

THE FAIRY COURSERS

FLoaTiInG afar upon the lake’s calm bosom,
Whirled in blissful myriads, dart the dragon-
flies ;
Mingled in their mazes with bird and bee and
blossom
They sink with the rainclouds or on the
breezes rise.

372 POEMS

Little blue phantom around my dory flitting
Or poised in peaceful silence on the loom of
my oar,
Heaven has marked out for thee a labor that is
fitting
Though eyes dim and human may miss thy
secret lore.

Fairies that have fled from the grasp of earthly
forces, ,
Shielded from the view of us mortals dimly-
eyed,
These are their chariots, these their wingéd
horses,
Safe on these coursers the vanished fairies
ride,

RABIAH’S DEFENCE!

Go not away from us; stay, O Rabiah, son of
Mukad !

Soft may the clouds of dawn spread dew on thy
grassy grave,

Rabiah, the long-locked boy, who guardedst thy
women, dead.

1 The tradition may be found in Lyall’s Axcient Arabian
Poetry, page 56. The measure is an imitation of the Arabic
Tawil.

RABIAH’S DEFENCE 373

Fast rode the fleeing band, straight for the pass
al-Khadid,

Mother and daughters, wives, and Rabiah the
only man,

Fleeing for honor and life through lands of a
vengeful tribe. ,

Sudden a moving cloud came swift o’er the hill
behind.

Dark rode the men of Sulaim, and Death rode
dark in their midst.

“Save us!” the mother cried. “O boy, thou
must fight alone!”

“ Hasten, ride!” he said, calm. “I only draw
rein till a wind

Blowing this dust away gives place to look for
the foe.”

His sisters moaned, “He deserts!” “Have
you known it?” Rabiah cried.

The women rode and rode. When the dust
cleared, his arrows sprang

Straight at the following foe : the pride of their
host went down.

Swift turned Rabiah his mare, and o’ertook his
retreating kin,

Halted and faced again as the men of Sulaim
closed round. :

Ever his mother called: “Charge thou once
more, O son!

Keep off their hands from us all; meet them
with shaft on shaft.”

374 POEMS

Still he kept facing, and aimed till every arrow

was gone ;

Still rode the women on, — by sunset the pass
was near.

Still the black horses came, and Rabiah drew
his sword,

Checked for the last time there, and face to
face with a clan,

Then rode Nubaishah up, son of the old Habib,

Thrust young Rabiah through, and cried aloud,
“ He is slain !

Look at the blood on my lance!” Said Rabiah
only, “ A'lie!”

Turned and galloped once more, and faced when
he reached al-Khadid.

There had the women paused, to enter the pass
one by one.
“ Mother,” he cried, “give me drink!” She
answered, “ Drink, thou art dead,
Leaving thy women slaves. First save thou
thy women, then die!”

“Bind up my wound,” he said ; she bound with
her veil. He sang,

“T was a hawk that drove the tumult of fright-
ened birds,

Diving deep with my blows, before and again
behind.”

RABIAH’S DEFENCE 375

Then she said, “Smite again!” and he, where
the pass turns in,

Sat upright on his steed, barring the road once

- more,

Then drew the death-chill on; he leaned his
head on his spear,

Dim in the twilight there, with the shadows
darkening down.

Never a dog of Sulaim came up, but they
watched and watched.

The mare moved never a hoof ; the rider was
still as she;

Till sudden Nubaishah shrieked, “His head
droops down on his neck !

He is dead, I tell you, dead! Shoot one true
shaft at his mare!”

The mare started, she sprang ; and Rabiah fell,
stone cold.

Far and away through the pass the women were
safe in their homes.

Then up rode a man of Sulaim, struck Rabiah
hard with his spear,

Saying, “Thou Pride of God, thou alone of
mortals wast brave.

Never a man of our tribe but would for his
women die ;

Never before lived one who guarded them yet,
though dead !”

376 POEMS

THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE

A WINGED sunbeam flashes through the trees
And whistles thrice, as if the air took voice
And all the embodied springtime cried,

“ Rejoice!”
The jocund notes enchant the morning
breeze,

Now here, now there, still shifting as they

please, —
“© fear not ! all is well since I am here.”
The blind, the imprisoned, know that cry
of cheer,
And grief must yield to joy’s blithe litanies.

A myriad blossoms cluster round his feet,
And all the air is full of heaven-sent things,
Hark ! once again the jubilant treble rings,
Swift as that hurrying flight, though wild and
sweet.
What room is left for meanness or deceit
Or fear, in planets where the oriole sings?

NEMESIS 377

THE SLEEPING-CAR

Czlum non animum mutant.

WE lie with senses lulled and still
*Twixt dream and thought, ’twixt night and
day,
While smoke and steam their office fill
To bear our prostrate forms away.

The stars, the clouds, the mountains, all
Glide by us through the midnight deep ;
The names of slumbering cities fall
Like feathers from the wings of sleep.

Till at the last, in morning light,
Beneath an alien sky we stand ;

Vast spaces traversed in a night ;
Another clime, another land.

NEMESIS

THE stern processional ascends the steep
Of high Olympus, and the kings of song
With ceaseless note the antiphony prolong
Of those who robe in sackcloth. Sad and deep
Their voices who the unchecked remembrance
keep

378 POEMS

Of wandering passion. Fearlessly and strong

Did Shakespeare wail the expense of spirit’s
wrong,

And Burns the woe that poppied pleasures reap.

Easier for human hearts to bear a pain

Than to forego the rapture that they miss.
Men may repent, but how can they forget ?

Sin’s retribution dwells in longings vain, —
Not in remorse, but in the wild regret

And helpless yearning for disastrous bliss.

MAB’S PONIES

Far off among our pine-clad hills,
When night is on the forest glade,

Amid the shadowy rocks and rills
There roams a tinkling cavalcade.

We sometimes hear, half waked from sleep,
A nearer hoof, a phantom neigh,

Till breezes from Monadnock sweep
And bear the magic sounds away.

Their home is in the dusky woods ;

Their tramp is on the midnight sod ;
No eye descries their solitudes,

The uplands where their feet have trod.

THE MONK OF LA TRAPPE 379

Above the works of farmers dead,

Their fields untilled, their harvests gone,
Romance resumes its airy tread

Within the haunts of Oberon.

THE MONK OF LA TRAPPE

Tuat silent man, who gazes on the waves,
Clad in the garb which severs him from life
And bars all hope of home or child or wife,
Once knew the bliss that thrills, the grief

that raves.

Kings were his friends, and queens his meek-

voiced slaves.

Each crowded day with passionate impulse
rife,

He tasted hope, fear, anguish, longing, strife ;

Remorse that hates, yet seeks, condemns, yet
craves.

Perhaps some dream, as sinks yon evening sun,
Leads back the dramas of his stormy prime, —
Beauty embraced, foes quelled, ambitions

won, —

A tangled web of courage and of crime.

Those years, long wholly vanished, throb for
him
Like pangs which haunt the amputated limb.

380 POEMS

ODE TO A BUTTERFLY

TuHou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer ’mid the songful birds,
With Nature’s secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of
words,
Yet dear to every child
In glad pursuit beguiled,
Living his unspoiled days ’mid flowers and
flocks and herds !

Thou wingéd blossom, liberated thing,

What secret tie binds thee to other flowers,

Still held within the garden's fostering ?

Will they too soar with the completed hours,
Take flight, and be like thee
Irrevocably free,

Hovering at will o’er their parental bowers?

Or is thy lustre drawn from heavenly hues, —
A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky,
Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues
With sudden splendor, and the treetops high
Grasp that swift blazonry,
Then lend those tints to thee,
On thee to float a few short hours, and die?

ODE TO A BUTTERFLY 381

Birds have their nests; they rear their eager
young,
And flit on errands all the livelong day ;
Each field-mouse keeps the homestead whence
it sprung;
But thou art Nature’s freeman, — free to stray
Unfettered through the wood
Seeking thine airy food,
The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.

The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee,
O daintiest reveller of the joyous earth !
One drop of honey gives satiety :
A second draught would drug thee past all
mirth.
Thy feast no orgy shows ;
Thy calm eyes never close,
Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives
birth.

And yet the soul of man upon thy wings
Forever soars in aspiration ; thou
His emblem of the new career that springs
When death’s arrest bids all his spirit bow.
He seeks his hope in thee
Of immortality.
Symbol of life, me with such faith endow!

382 POEMS

THE TWO LESSONS

“ Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem ;
Fortunam ex aliis.” — Aineas to Ascanius (Zeid, xii. 435).

LeEarw, boy, from me what dwells in man alone,
Courage immortal, and the steadfast sway
Of patient toil, that glorifies the day.

What most ennobles life is all our own,

Yet not the whole of life; the fates atone
For what they give by what they keep away.
Learn thou from others all the triumphs gay
That dwell in sunnier realms, to me un-

known.

Each soul imparts one lesson ; each supplies
One priceless secret that it holds within.

In your own heart — there only — stands the
prize.

Foiled of all else, your own career you win.
We half command our fates ; the rest but lies
In that last drop which unknown powers

fling in.

CROSSED SWORDS

My grandsire fought for England, sword in
hand ;
My other grandsire joined in high debate,
To free a nation and to mould the State.

AN OUTDOOR KINDERGARTEN — 383

Within my blood the two commingled stand,
Yielding this heart, still true to its own land,
A mingled heritage of love and hate.
The peevish pens of London cannot prate
So coarsely, but I feel the eternal band
That binds me, England, to thy low-hung shore,
Thy dainty turf, smooth stream, and gentle
hill,
So alien from our spaces vast and wild.
Were England dying, at her cannon’s roar,
I think my grandsire’s sword would stir and
thrill, ;
‘Though when this land lay bleeding, England
smiled.

AN OUTDOOR KINDERGARTEN

O mists that loiter, vague and wild,
Along the enchanted stream,

Come lend your lesson to my child,
And teach her how to dream.

O wood-thrush, murmuring tender lays
From pine-tree depths above,

Make her thy pupil all her days,
And teach her how to love.

Thou oriole, in thy blithesome chant
A fearless counsel give ;

384 POEMS

Thy brave and joyous influence grant,
And teach her how to live.

And guard her, Nature, till she bears,
These forest paths along,

A heart more joyous than thine airs,
And fresher than thy song.

DIRGE
A SCOTTISH ECHO

Heart of the oak-grain, full of trembling love
(Oh and alas-a-day, oh and alas-a-day !),
Glad eyes that looked around, within, above,
(Ten thousand times good-night, and peace
for thee !)

Up the long hillside through the moonlit glade
(Oh and alas-a-day, oh and alas-a-day !),
Serene and pure, thine innocent steps have
strayed
(Ten thousand times good-night, and love for
thee !) ;

But now released at length from life’s low glen
(Oh and alas-a-day, oh and alas-a-day !),
Where shall thy paths be when we meet again?
(Ten thousand times good-night, and heaven
for thee !)

THE MADONNA DI SAN SISTO = 385

THE MADONNA DI SAN SISTO

[These verses, written and published at the age of nineteen, are
here preserved, partly from their association with my dear old friend
and college teacher, Professor Longfellow, who liked them well
enough to include them in his “ Estray,” in 1847.]

Loox down into my heart,
Thou holy Mother, with thy holy Son!
Read all my thoughts, and bid the doubts
depart,
And all the fears be done.

I lay my spirit bare,
O blesséd ones! beneath your wondrous eyes,
And not in vain; ye hear my heartfelt prayer,
And your twin-gaze replies.

What says it? All that life
Demands of those who live, to be and do, —
Calmness, in all its bitterest, deepest strife ;
Courage, till all is through.

Thou Mother ! in thy sight
‘Can aught of passion or despair remain ?
Beneath those eyes’ serene and holy light
The soul is bright again.

Thou Son! whose earnest gaze
Looks ever forward, fearless, steady, strong ;

386 POEMS

Beneath those eyes no doubt or weakness stays,
Nor fear can linger long.

Thanks, that to my weak heart
Your mingled powers, fair forms, such counsel
give.
Till I have learned the lesson ye impart,
I have not learned to live.

And oh, till life is done
Of your deep gaze may ne’er the impression
cease !
Still may the dark eyes whisper, “Courage!
On!”
The mild eyes murmur, “ Peace

iad

POEMS FROM “THALATTA”

[The two poems which follow are from a volume called “ Thalatta ;
a book for the Sea-side,” edited by my friend Samuel Longfellow
and myself in 1853.]

I.
CALM.

’T 1s a dull, sullen day, —the dull beach o’er
In rippling curves the ebbing ocean flows ;
Along each tiny crest that nears the shore
A line of soft green shadow rises, glides, and
goes.

POEMS FROM “THALATTA” 387

The tide recedes, — the flat smooth beach grows
bare,
More faint the low sweet plashing on my ears,
Yet still I watch the dimpling shadows fair,
As each is born, glides, pauses, disappears.

What channel needs our faith except the eyes ?
God leaves no spot of earth unglorified ;
Profuse and wasteful, lovelinesses rise ;
New beauties dawn before the old have died.

Trust thou thy joys in keeping of the Power
Who holds these faint soft shadows in His
hand ;
Believe and live, and know that hour by hour
Will ripple newer beauty to thy strand.

II.
THE MORNING MIST.

The mist that like a dim soft pall was lying,
Mingling the gray sea with the low gray sky,
Floats upward now; the sunny breeze is sigh-
ing,
And Youth stands pale before his destiny :
O passionate heart of Youth!
Each rolling wave with herald voice is crying ;
Thou canst delay, but never shun replying,

388 POEMS

It calls thee living or it calls thee dying,
Though beauty fade before the glare of truth.

Thou wanderest onward ’neath the solemn morn-
ing,
It seems like midday ere the sun rides high,
The soft mist fades, whose shadowy adorning
Wrapt in a dreamy haze the earth and sky ;
The Ocean lies before !
Oh thou art lost if thou discard the warning
To make hot Day more fair than fairest dawn-
ing,
Till eve look back serenely on the morning
When Youth stood trembling on the ocean-
shore.

THE FEBRUARY HUSH

Snow o’er the darkening moorlands, —
Flakes fill the quiet air ;

Drifts in the forest hollows,
And a soft mask everywhere.

The nearest twig on the pine-tree
Looks blue through the whitening sky,
And the clinging beech-leaves rustle
Though never a wind goes by.

JUNE 389

But there’s red on the wildrose berries,
And red in the lovely glow

On the cheeks of the child beside me,
That once were pale, like snow.

JUNE

SHE needs no teaching, — no defect is hers ;
She stands in all her beauty ’mid the trees.
"Neath the tall pines her golden sunshine

stirs
And shifts and trembles with each passing
breeze.

All the long day upon the broad green boughs
Lieth the lustre of her lovely life,

While too much drugged with rapture to
carouse
Broods her soft world of insect-being rife.

So without effort or perplexing thought
She comes to claim all homage as her own,
Clad in the richest garments Nature wrought,

Melting the strongest with her magic zone.

O wondrous June! our lives should be like
thee,
With such calm grace fulfilling destiny.
Ss. L. H.

390 POEMS

HYMNS

[Three of these hymns were written at about the age of twenty-
two, and were published anonymously in a collection edited by my
friends Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson. They are here
inserted mainly because they have secured for themselves a sem-
blance of permanent vitality in hymn-books, and are not always cor-
rectly printed. The fourth was an occasional hymn written a year
or two later.]

I.
I WILL ARISE AND GO UNTO MY FATHER.

To Thine eternal arms, O God,

Take us, Thine erring children, in:

From dangerous paths too boldly trod,

From wandering thoughts and dreams of sin.

Those arms were round our childish ways,
A guard through helpless years to be;
Oh leave not our maturer days,

We still are helpless without Thee!

We trusted hope and pride and strength:
Our strength proved false, our pride was vain,
Our dreams have faded all at length, —

We come to Thee, O Lord, again!

A guide to trembling steps yet be!
Give us of Thine eternal powers!

So shall our paths all lead to Thee,
And life smile on like childhood’s hours.

HYMNS 391

II.
THE HOPE OF MAN.

Tue Past is dark with sin and shame,
The Future dim with doubt and fear ;
But, Father, yet we praise Thy name,
Whose guardian love is always near.

For man has striven, ages long,

With faltering steps to come to Thee,
And in each purpose high and strong
The influence of Thy grace could see.

He could not breathe an earnest prayer,
But Thou wast kinder than he dreamed,
As age by age brought hopes more fair,
And nearer still Thy kingdom seemed.

But never rose within his breast
A trust so calm and deep as now;
Shall not the weary find a rest?
Father, Preserver, answer Thou!

’T is dark around, ’t is dark above,

But through the shadow streams the sun ;
We cannot doubt Thy certain love ;

And Man’s true aim shall yet be won!

392 POEMS

ITI.
PANTHEISM AND THEISM.

No human eyes Thy face may see,

No human thought Thy form may know ;
But all creation dwells in Thee,

And Thy great life through all doth flow!

And yet, O strange and wondrous thought !
Thou art a God who hearest prayer,

And every heart with sorrow fraught

To seek Thy present aid may dare.

And though most weak our efforts seem
Into one creed these thoughts to bind,
And vain the intellectual dream

To see and know the Eternal Mind, —

Yet Thou wilt turn them not aside

Who cannot solve Thy life divine,

But would give up all reason’s pride

To know their hearts approved by Thine.

So, though we faint on life’s dark hill,

And thought grow weak, and knowledge flee,
Yet faith shall teach us courage still,

And love shall guide us on to Thee!

HYMNS 393

IV.

HYMN SUNG AT THE GRADUATING EXERCISES
OF CAMBRIDGE DIVINITY SCHOOL, HARVARD
UNIVERSITY, 1847.

To veil Thy truth by darkening or by hiding :
To stand irresolute or shrink appalled ;
To deal vague words of customary chiding,
Father! to no such work Thy voice has
called.

Our eyes are dim, yet can we see the duty.
Our souls are weak, yet can we shun the
wrong.
’T is not in vain that here amid the beauty
Of Thy deep teachings we have stayed so long.

Some wounds are turned to pearls ; some limbs
offending
We have had strength to seize and rend
away ;
Some passionate earthly songs are changed in
ending
To choral anthem and triumphant lay.

To build ‘mid gentle hearts Thy church, the
peerless ;
To speak the truth in love, whate’er befall ;

394 POEMS

To make our brothers humble, tireless, fear-
less ; —
This is the work to which Thy spirit calls.

Some seeds we sow may blossom into flowers
And those yield fruit to ripen ‘neath Thy
sun,
And Thou wilt bear these trembling hearts of
ours
On to that peace where aim and deed grow
one.

SAPPHO’S ODE TO APHRODITE
TlowctAd@pov’, abdvar’ *Appdéiira.

BEAUTIFUL-THRONED, immortal Aphrodite !
Daughter of Zeus, beguiler! I implore thee
Weigh me not down with weariness and an-
guish,
O thou most holy !

Come to me now! if ever thou in kindness
Hearkenedst my words, —and often hast thou
hearkened,
Heeding, and coming from the mansion golden
Of thy great Father,

Yoking thy chariot, borne by thy most lovely
Consecrated birds, with dusky-tinted pinions,

SAPPHO’S ODE TO APHRODITE = 395

Waving swift wings from utmost heights of
heaven
Through the mid-ether ;

Swiftly they vanished, leaving thee, O God-
dess !
Smiling, with face immortal in its beauty,
Asking why I grieved, and why in utter longing
I had dared call thee ;

Asking what I sought, thus hopeless in desir-
ing,
*Wildered in brain, and spreading nets of pas-
sion —
Alas, for whom? and saidst thou, “ Who has
harmed thee?
O my poor Sappho!

“ Though now he flies, ere long he shall pursue
thee ;
Fearing thy gifts, he too in turn shall bring
them ;
Loveless to-day, to-morrow he shall woo thee,
Though thou shouldst spurn him.”

Thus seek me now, O holy Aphrodite!
Save me from anguish, give me all I ask for, —
Gifts at thy hand! And thine shall be the

glory,
Sacred Protector !

396 POEMS

FORWARD

FROM THE GERMAN OF HOFFMANN VON FALLERS-
LEBEN

It is a time of swell and flood ;
We linger on the strand,

And all that might to us bring good
Lies in a distant land.

Oh, forward ! forward! why stand still ?
The tide will not run dry ;

Who in the flood ne’er venture will,
That land shall never spy.

NATURE’S CRADLE-SONG

FROM THE GERMAN OF RUCKERT

“ Dreimal mit dem weissen Kleide.”

THRICE with winter’s whitest snows
Has thy mother decked thy bed,

Thrice ’mid summer’s loveliest glows
Twined green garlands o’er thy head,
Asking yet uncomforted,

“ Still thy slumber art thou keeping ?”

— Thou art still in cradle sleeping.

NATURE’S CRADLE-SONG 397

Thrice have come the soft spring showers
Where thy quiet form reposes ;

Thrice have blown the snowdrop flowers,
Thrice the violets, thrice the roses,
Murmuring oft with sweetest closes,

“ Still thy soul in slumber steeping ?”

— Thou art still in cradle sleeping.

Thrice three hundred nights and morrows
Moon and sun have watched thy dreaming ;
Now they look with ceaseless sorrows
O’er thee once with rapture gleaming ;
Silent asks their steadfast beaming,
“ Comes no light through darkness creeping ?”
— Thou art still in cradle sleeping.

Thrice spring zephyrs in their flowing
Soft have rocked thee to repose ;
Thrice rude Boreas, wilder blowing ;
Every wind thy slumber knows,
Striving, while the season goes,
Which shall hold thee in his keeping.
— Thou art still in cradle sleeping.

398 POEMS

SONNETS FROM CAMOENS

[Mrs. Browning in “ Catarina to Camoens” represents her as be-
queathing him the ribbon from her hair ; but she in reality gave it to
him during her life as a substitute for the ringlet for which he
pleaded.]

(42.)

“ Lindo e subtil trangado, que ficaste.”

O RIBBON fair, that dost with me remain
In pawn for that sweet gift I do deserve,
If but to win thee makes my reason swerve,
What were it if one ringlet I could gain?
Those golden locks thy circling knots restrain,
Locks whose bright rays might well for sun-
beams serve,
When thou unloosest each fair coil and curve,
Oh is it to beguile, or slay with pain?
Dear ribbon, in my hand I hold thee now ;
And were it only to assuage my grief,
Since I can have thee only, cling to thee,
Yet tell her, thou canst never fill my vow,
But in the reckoning of love’s fond belief
This gift for that whole debt a pledge shall
be.

SONNETS FROM CAMOENS 399

“For we had been reading Camoens, — that poem, you remember,
Which his lady’s eyes were praised in, as the sweetest ever seen.”
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

(186.)

“Os olhos onde o casto Amor ardia.”

THOSE eyes from whence chaste love was wont
to glow,
And smiled to see his torches kindled there ;
That face within whose beauty strange and
rare
The rosy light of dawn gleamed o’er the
snow ;
That hair, which bid the envious sun to know
His brightest beams less golden rays did
wear ;
That pure white hand, that gracious form
and fair:
All these into the dust of earth must go.
O perfect beauty in its tenderest age !
O flower cut down ere it could all unfold
By the stern hand of unrelenting death !
Why did not Love itself quit earth’s poor stage,
Not because here dwelt beauty’s perfect
mould,
But that so soon it passed from mortal
breath ?

INDEX

INDEX TO PERSONS

Apams, Joun, 82.

fEneas, 81.

Agassiz, Alexander, 67, 218, 323.
Agatha, St., 2.

Agnes, St., 2.

Ambrose, St., 1.

Andral, Gabriel, 13.

Anne, Countess of Winchelsea, 81.
Arnold, Thomas, 6.

Athanasius, St., 1.

Atlas, 171.

Audubon, J. J., 151, 153, 155, 156,

100.
Augustine, St., x.

Bacon, Lorp, 26, 59.
Balzac, Honoré de, 6, 313-
Baratier, Jean P., 16.
Barbara, St., 2.
Basil, St., 1.
Bede, the Venerable, 83.
Beecher, Catherine, 10, 20.
Bentley, Richard, 4.
Bigelow, Jacob, 67.
Blanche, Queen, 128.
Bonpland, Aimé, 104.
Bovary, Madame, 236.
Brahma, ro2.
Bremer, Fredrika, 29.
Brentano, Bettine, 47, x11.
Brewer, T. M., 155.
Brown, John, 222.
Browne, Sir Thomas, 62.
Browning, Robert, 8, 225, 264.
Buckle, H. T., ae

‘on, G. L. L. C., Comte de, 151.
Bullar, J. and H., 273.
Bunyan, John, 211.

Cassar, JULIus, 115.
Calvin, John, 4.
Camors, Vicomte de, 236.

Carotto, J. F., 2.

Catherine, St., 2.

Cecilia, St., 2.

Ceres, 116.

Charlemagne, 128.

Charles V., King, 9.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 59, 64, 125, 224.
Chittagutta, 3.

Christopher, St., 2.

Chrysostom, St., 1.

Cleanthes, 4.

Cleopatra, 99.

Clovis, 128,

Coleridge, S. T., 116, 231.
Collins, Wilkie, 122.

Columbus, Christopher, 270, 283.
Constable, John, 123.

Cooper, Susan F., 37, 72.
Cromwell, Oliver, 115.

Dasney, C. W., 281, 293, 314) 323
Dante at Alighieri, 11.

Darwin, Charles, 138.

De Bernard, Charles, 6.

De Musset, Alfred, 6.

De Quincey, Thomas, 122.
Dickens, Charles, 137.

Dobell, Sidney, 225.

Dupont de Nemours, 149.

Eu Arsut, 180.

Embla, 59.

Emerson, R. W., 38, 41) 126, 171,
196, 197, 273-

Eustace, St., 2.

Fazer, F. W., 263.
Fielding, Henry, 313.
Flagg, Wilson, 63.

GALEN, 14.
George, St., 2.

402

Glaisher, James, 182.
Goethe, J. F. W. von, 208.
Gray, Asa, 37, 41, 61.
Gregory, George, 313.
Gregory, St., 1.

Hamppen, JOHN, 115.
Harper, F. P., a
Hanis, T. W.6
Hawthorne, Nathaniel,
245- toe
Heine, Heinrich, 243.
Hennepin, Father, 82.
Henri Quatre, 128.
Henry, Alexander, 194, 195.
Heérem, St., 128.
ace 100),
ogg, James, 189-194.
Holmes, O. W., 247.
Homer, 81, 125, 196.
Hone, William, 64.
Hopper, Isaac, 242.
Horace, 81.
Hubert the Hunter, St., 2.
Humboldt, Baron F. H. A. von, 46,
81, 283, 293.
Hunt, Leigh, 243.

211, 225,

Ivo, 225.

Jerome, ST., 1.

Jones, Sir William, ro2.
Josselyn, John, 82.
Juvenal, 4.

Kang, E. K., 12, 187.
Keats, John, 126, 157, 269.
Kepler, Johann, 200.
Knishna, 105.

Lapp, H. O., 251.
Lamb, Charles, 180.
Lamb, Mary, 20, 116.
Lamballe,, Princesse de, 128.
Layard, A. H., 100.
Leslie, . R., 123.

Ling, P. H., 20.
Linnzus, Charles von, 67.
Little, William, 250.
Lotis, 108.

Lowe, E. J., 182.
Lowell, J. R., 196, 262.
Luther, Martin, 4, 118.

MacGituivray, WILLIAM, 151.
Malmesbury, William of, 83.
Mann, Horace, 8.

Martin, St., 2.

Marvell, ‘Andrew, 98.

Masius, "Andreas, 149,

INDEX

Mather, Increase, 197.
Maurice, St., 2.

Mayhew, Henry, 234, 237.
Melbourne, Lord, 235.
Merrill, James, 252-255) 260, 268.
Michael, St., 2.

Midas, 131.

Milton, John, 125, 180.
Minerva, 134-

Motley, J. L., 9.

Murray, W. H. H., 218.

Nazianzen, Grecory, ST., 1.
Newcastle, Duchess of, 82.

Oscoop, J. R., 251.

Ossian, 126.

Ossoli, Margaret (Fuller), 27.
Ovid, $2, 131.

Pan, 116,

Parent-Duchatelet, A. J. B., 234.
Park, Mungo, 130.

Parsons, Solomon, 215, 217.
Paul, Jean. See Richter.
Peirce, fo 5.

Phaieat Kis

Philip II King, 283, 284.

Pitt, ilifam, 235.

Plato, 4, 226, 228.

Pliny, 104.

Plotinus, St., 1, 4.

Prescott, Harriet. See Spofford.
Pythagoras, 4, 23, 138.

RAPHAEL SANZIO, 228.
Reade, Charles, 26.
Richardson, James, 180.
Richelieu, A. J. D. de, 128.
Richter, j. P. R., 238.
Rousseau, +) 2I1,
Ruskin, John, 126,

Scuitier, J, C. F., von, 21, 208,
Scoresby, William, 182,

Scott, G. H., 251, 252.

Scott, Walter, 257.

Sebastian, St., 2.

aaa, William, 83, 114, 126,

Sidney, Sir Philip, 8.

Sismondi, J.C. L. S. de, 9.
Socrates, 4.

Southey, Robert; 6

Spenser, Edmund, 213, 225.
Spofford, Harriet "Prescott, 51, 139
Standish, Miles, 66.

Stowe, Harriet B., 10.

Sue, Eugéne, 6.

Souli¢, M. F., 6.

INDEX

Tayior, BAYARD, 210.

Tennyson, Alfred, 126, 127, 205.

Thales, 75.

Thaxter, L. L., 61.

Thoreau, H.D., 41, 77, 89, 124, 159,
160, 19,29 29522978 225, 253, 324.

Tissot,

Trench, Mrs. "Richard, 231.

Tyndall, John, 183, 186, 187.

Utyssgs, 196.
Urquhart, David, 307.

Vasari, GIORGIO, 2.
Venus, 133.

» II

403

Virgil, 81.
Vishn Purana, roo,
Vishni Sarma, 23.
Voltaire, F. M. A. de, g.
Wa rote, Horace, 273.
Walton, Isaak, 69.
Wasson, D. A, 8.
Wells, William, 15.
Whittier, J. G., 225.
Wilberforce, William, 235.
Wilson, Alexander, 160,
Woodcock, Elizabeth, 181.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 20.
Wordsworth, William, 5, 38, 81, 116,
122, 123, 126, 217.

.

INDEX TO PLANTS AND ANIMALS

ALDER, 31, 40, 58, 78, 84, 91, 94, 129,
163, 174, 224.

Almond, 61.

Amelanchier Canadensis, 75, 91.

Andromeda poltfolia, 67.

Anemone, 63, 71.

Anemone, Blue, 33, 36, 59-

Anemone, Rue-leaved, 61, 62.

Anemone thalictroides, 61, 62.

Anemone, Wood, 62, 126.

Ant, 29.

Apple-tree, 79, 106, 146.

Aquilegia, 72.

Araucaria, 293.

Arbor-vita, 171, 185.

Arbutus, Trailing, 59, 71-

Arethusa, 67, 70.

Arethusa, Adder’s-tongue, 46.

Aronia, 75-

Arrowhead, 91.

Aster, 47, 50, 51) 70) 91, 177.

al Pink, 42, 44, 53, 68, 72,91,
136+

BamsBoo, 293-
Banana, 292, 293-
Bat, 139.
Bead-Ruby, 72.
Bean, 291, 316.

Bear, 232, 249, 253) 255+
Beaver, 97.

Bee, 94, 206.

Beech, 73, 168.
Beetle, Whirlwig, 76.
Bellwort, 36, 63, 71.

Birch, 51, 58, 75, 86, 91, 126, 135):

(172) 174) 214+
Bishop’s Cap, 37-

Bittern, 96.

Blackbird, 56, 84, 96, 244, 292, 318.

Blackbird, Red-winged, 64, 146, 150.

Bladderwort, sr.

ae quadricollis (Americana
mi

Bloodroot, 34, 35, 63, 66, Lia

Blue Anemone, 33, 36, 59.

ee a 56, 57, 64, a 146, ISI,
15

Blue-eyed grass, 71.

Blue Jay, 96, 177, 206.

Bob-cat, 254.

Bobolink, 78, 125, 150, 152) 154, 155)
159-

Broom, 290.

Brown Thrasher, 153.

Buckbean, 39, 129-

Buffalo, 232.

Bull-frog, 58, 76, 130-

Burdock, 66.

Buttercup, 42, 66.

Butterfly, 95, 131, 147, 232+

Button-bush, 91.

Cappis-worm, 76, 84, 85.
Calla, 292.

Calla, Ethiopic, 39.

Calla, Wild, 39.
Calopogon, 46.

Camellia, 292.
Campanula, 71.
Camphor-tree, 293.
Canary, 292.
aukkermom, 75+
Carabus, 69.

Cardinal Flower, 49,67, 91, 213-
Cat, 149.

404

Catamount, 249, 254.

Catbird, 78, 129, 146, 150, 152, 154,
I 55) 206,

Cattle, 149.

Celandine, 66.

Cherry, 61.

Chestnut, 73, 86, 87, 129, 217.

Chewink, 150, 157, 158.

Chickadee, 160, 176.

Chickweed, 63, 66.

Chipping Sparrow, 78, 140, 156,
I

Christmas Rose, 30.

Chry

the , 66,

gt. :
Chuck-will’s-widow, 223.
Cicada, 208.

Cicindela rugifrons, 68.
Cinquefoil, 36, 63, 7x.
Cinquefoil, Mountain, 48.
Cistus, 58, 70.

Claytonia, 33, 64, 126.
Clematis, 49, 70, 91, 119, 132, 136.
Clethra, 68, 70, 91, 136.
Clintonia, 36, 67.

Clover, 42, 53.

Coltsfoot, 30.

Columbine, 71.
Convallaria, 71.
Convallaria trifolia, 67.
Cool-Wort, 72.
Corallorhiza verna, 68.
Cork-tree, 293.

Corn, Indian, 291.

Cornel, Dwarf, 39, 42, 257-
Cornel-tree, 38.

Cornus florida, 67.
Corydalis, 37, 63, 68.
Cow, 131, 161, 204.
Cowslip, 36, 63, 127.
Cowslip, English, 72.

Cranberry, Mountain, 257.
Cricket, 58, 161.
Crocus, 64.

Crow, 148, 154, 159, 160, 161, 177,
213.

Cucumber-root, 71.
Cupid’s Tears, 29.
Cypripedium, 41, 68.
Cypripedium parviflorum, 42.
Cypripedium, yellow, 68.

DaFFopIiL, 64.

Daisy, 64.

Damsel-fly, 95.

Dandelion, 36, 45, 63, 66, 129.
Deer, 176, 219, 249) 255, 256, 262,

264.
Desmocerus palliatus, 94.
Dewberry, 207.

INDEX

Diervilla, 72.

Dog, 150, 254, 255+
Donacia metallica, 95.
Donkey, 275, 277, 288.
Dor-bug, 84.

Dove, 133.

Dracena borealis, 68.
Dragon-fly, 85, 133, 136.
Dragon-tree, 293.

Duck, Wild, 84, 85, 162.
Dutchman’s Breeches, 37, 68
Dytiscus, 84.

Eacte, 138.
Easter-flower, 62.
Elm, 73, 76, 139.
Ephemera, 94.
Epigza, 63, 65, 84.
Epigaa repens, 59.
Equisetum, 66.
Eupatorium, 91, 173.

Fair Marp or FEBRUARY, 64.
Faya, 291, 324.

Fringe-Cup, 72.

Gay-WunGs, 72.
Gentian 67, 70.
Gentian, Barrel, so.
Gentian, Fringed, 50.
Geranium, 70, 292.
Geranium, Wild, 42, 215.
Gerris, 76, 84.
Ginseng, 36.
Ginseng, Dwarf, 67.
cue 94 245+
oldenrod, 47, 49) 51, 91, 173-
Goldthread, 70. ”
Goose, 143.
Grapevine, Wild, 51, 74, 84, 215:
224.
Grasshopper, 58, 161.
Grosbeak, Blue, ee
Grosbeak, Pine, 152, 155.

INDEX

Grosbeak, Rose-breasted, 152, 155,
159+

Ground Robin, 157

Grub, 79.

Hatrreirp, 78, 156.

Harebell, 46, 71.

Hawk, 56, 96, 141, 148, 149, 159.

Hawk, Fish, 161.

Hawk, Red-tailed, 159.

Hawk-moth, 95.

Hawkweed, 45.

Hazel, 56.

Heather, 291.

Hedgehog, 233, 254.

Hellebore, 30.

Hellebore, Sr 66, 257.

Helluo preusta, 68.

Hemlock, 74, 27, 167, 169, 170 172,
177.

Hen, 253, 275-

Hepatica, 31, 32, 60, 63, 65, 71, 84

Hepatica pies 59.

Hobble-bush, 37.

Hollyhock, 97.

Honeysuckle, 72, 100.

foria, 69.

Hornbeam, 130.

Horsetail, 66.

Hottonia, 67.

Houstonia, 36, 45, 63.

Hommingbird,, 66, 138, 139, 141.

Hyacinth, 40, 64.

Hydropeltis, 92.

Hyla, 58.

IctiNEUMON-FLY, 94.
Indian devil, 254.
Indigo, ‘Wild, 45-

Tris, 70.
Jay, BLuE, 95, 154, 160, 161, 177,
Jonquil 64.

Karypip, 58, 94, 161.
Kingbird, 4o, 158.
Kingfisher, 96, 143, 167.

Lasrapor TEA, 37,
res 185.

act
eek arg 54) 7%
Lady-bird,
Lady’s Slipper, 41.
Land Lizard, 77.
Larch, 146, 170.
Laurel, 9 JO, ae 136.
Laurel, OUD!
Laurel, Moment, 43) 91.

405

Ledum, 37.
Lemon, 280.
Leopard, 120.
Lepture, 94.
Libellule, 94.
iene 49»

i
Lily a the Valley, Wild, 36.
Lily, Meadow, 47, 48, 22.
Lily, Pond. See Lily, ater.
Lily, Water, 45, 50, 51, 84-111, 130,

6

136.

Lily, Yellow, 92, 99, 106.
Lime, 280.

Linnea, 37, 68, 70, 110, 257, 268.
Linnet, 243.

Lion, 116.

Liverleaf, 59, 71.
Liverwort, 33, 59+
Lobelia, 70.

Lonicera, 72.

Loon, 162, 220,221.
Loosestrife, 45.

Lotus, 99-104.

Lotus Zizyphus, 100.
Loup-cervier, 249, 254.
Lousewort, 71.

Lucivee, 254.

Luna moth, 57.

Lupine, 40, 129, 135, 291+

MaGwnoti, 105, 293.

Maidenhair Fern, 51.

Maple, 39, 525 73s 74, 214-

Marigold, Marsh, 36, 64, 72; 127.

Martin, 140.

Martin, Purple, 147.

Mavis, 153-

Mayflower (see, also, Epigza), 31,
32, 33, 58, 59, 60, 63, 66, 71, 163,
174.

May-Wings, 72.

Meadowlark, 143, 150, 157.

Meadow Mouse, 176.

Meadow Sweet, 48.

Medeola, ig

Medlar, 9

Menyanihes trifoliata, 39.

Midge, 94.

Milkweed, 51, OTs 94-

Mink, 84, 97, 176, 254.

Minnow, 96, 232.

Miskodeed, 33.

Mitella, 37.

Mitella diphylla, 183.

Moccason Flower, 41-

Moccason Flower, yellow, 42.

Mockingbird, 152, 153,

Monkey Flower, 49, 91-

Moose, 97, 176.

406

Morus multicaulis, 292.
Moss, Feather, 34, 185.
Moss, Reindeer, 215.
Moth, 94.

Mourning-cloak Moth, 50.
Mouse-ear, 63.

Mullein, 66, 173.

Muskrat or

Narcissus, 64.
Necrophagi, 178.
Nelumbiacez, 105.
Nelumbium, 92.

Neottia (now Spiranthes), 71.
Newt, Water, 76, 96.
Nightingale, 126.
Nightshade, 66, 224.
Notonecta, 76, 84, 132.
Nuphar, 92, 99.
Nymphza, 100,
Nymphzacez, 105.
Nymphza alba, o2.
Nymphaea cerulea, 99.
Nymphz, Lotus, 99.
psi ed odorata, 92.
Nymphaea sanguinea, 92.
Nympheza Victoria, 104.

OAK, 73, 77) 95s 123, 128, 150, 172.
Oak-a apes 133+

Omophron, 69.

Orange, 280, 281, 2935 316, 319.
Orchid, 41.

Orchis, 46, 215.

Orchis spectabilis, 68.

Orchis, White, 26s.

Oriole, 139-141, 154, 155-
Oriole, Golden, 152.

Oriole, Orchard, 152.
Osmunda, 66, 173.

Otter, 97.

Oven-bird, 143.

Pam, 293.

Panageus fasciatus, 69.
Papaveracex, 105.
Partridge, 143, 161, 176, 253, 257.
Pasque-flower, 62.
Passion-flower, 293.

Pea, 291.

Peabody-bird, 262.
Pedicularis, 71.

Peony, ¥9.97-

Pewee Flycatcher, 157.
Phryganea, 94.

Pickerel, 96, ee 125, 130.
.Pickerel- frog, 96
Pickerel-weed. 50; g2.
Pigeon, 149.

Pine, 146, 167, 172, 213.

usquash, 84, 97, 176.

INDEX

Pine, Norfolk Island, 73.
Pine, Norwegian, 73.
Pitch, Pine, 73.

Pine, White, 73-
Pittosporum, 293-
Plantain, 67,

eee diatata, 259

ppp mIA 46.

Polygala, 37, 50.
Pond-weed, 93, 130,
Pontederia, 92.

Poppy, 105.
Potamogeton, 93.
Potato, 291.
Potentilla, 71.

Pout, 96.

Primrose, 30, 45, 7.
Primrose, English, 77.
Primrose, Evening, 53.
Pulsatilla, 62.

“ QuILL-PIG,” 254.
Quince-tree, 393.

Rassit, 176,

Ranunculacez, 105.

Raspberry, Wild, 65, 175, 250, 256.

Raven, 1 ee

Red-eye Eetnet 155) 159.

Redstart, 146.

Reed, ‘Water, 85.

Rhexia, 67, 68.

Rhododendron, 37, 44.

Rhodora, 38,67, 68, 70, £10, 129.

Robin, 56, 57, 72) 77) 140, 141, 146,
1§0, 15%, 154, 1§5) 157, 160, 162,
“177, 206,

Rock Tripe, 71.

Rose, ae:

Rose, White, 98.

Rose, Wild, 46, 48, 224.

Rush, Horsetail or Scouring, 66.

Rye, 129.

SABLE, 253, 254.

Salamander, 77.

Saint John’s-wort, 173.

inaria, 68, 71.

Saxifrage, 36, 63.

Scarlet tanager.
let.

Scouring-rush, 66.

Sea-Anemone, 82.

Seal, 245.

Sedge, 173.

Self-heal, 71.

Serpent, 77 7.

Shad-bush or Shad-blow, 75, gr.

Shad-spirit, 75.

Shaddock, 280. .

See Tanager, Scar-

INDEX

Sisyrinchium anceps, 71.

Skullcap, gz. sa

Snake, 76, 135.

Snakehead, 91, 257.

Snowbird or Snowflake, 160, 177,

245.

Snowdrop, 30, 64.

Solomon’s Seal, 42, 71.

Sorrel, Wood, 257, 268.

Sparrow, 168, 178, 206.

Sparrow, Chipping, 78, 140, 156, 160.

Sparrow, Field, 35.

Sparrow, Song, 56, 57, 64, 77) 78, 86,
146, 150, 157.

Sparrow, White-breasted, 159.

Sparrow, Wood, 150.

Stpheroderus stenostomus, 68.

Sphex, 94.

Sphinx, 95.

Spider, 88,

Spirzea, 47-49, 70, 91.

Spring-Beauty, 33, 64, 126.

Spruce, 170, 185, 207.

Squirrel, 57, 161, 169, 176, 253, 254,

257.
Squirrel-Cup, 33, 72.
Strawbell, 71.
Strawberry, 36, 63.
Swallow, 96, 141, 146, 206, 232.
Swallow, Barn, 147.
Swallow, Chimney, 147.
Swallow, Cliff, 147.
Swallow, Sand, 147.
Sweet fern, 174.
Sycamore, 79, 202.

TADPOLE, 76, 84, 85.

Tanager, Scarlet, 43, 129, 159.
Tangerinha, 280.

Thistle, 48, 66, 91, 232.

Thrush, 72, 151, 153, 156.

Thrush, Golden-crowned, 143, 157+
Thrush, Hermit, 152.

Thrush, Red, 35, 140, 143, 152-155.
Thrush, ‘Tawny, 152, 156.

Thrush, Wood, 129, 152, 155) 207,

215.
Tiarella, 37, 70.
Toad, 58, 76.
Tortoise, 134.
‘Touch-me-not, 70, 91.
Trailing arbutus, 59, 71.
Tree-toad, 58.
Trientalis, 70.
Trillium, Painted, 37.
Trillium, Red, 36,
Triton, 76, 77.

407

Turtle, 76, 85, 96, 130, 132, 161.
Tyrant Flycatcher, 158.

UMBILICARIA, 71.
Utricularia, 93.
Uvularia, 71. See, also, Bellwort.
VEERY, 53, 150) 152, 153, 214
Veratrum, 66.

Vervain, 49, 70, 91.

Viburnum, 51, 93-

Victoria Regia, 104, 107-109.
Villarsia, 93.

Viola acuta, 68.

Viola debilis, 67, 68.

Viola rotundifiora, 64.

Violet, 36, 63, 64, 70) 110.

Violet, Dog-Tooth, 35, 63, 126.
Violet, smaller yellow, 64.

Violet, White, 135.

Violet, Yellow, 36, 42, 67.

WaLnut, 73,75:

Wasp, 94, 178.
Water-boatman, 76, 84, 132.
Water-Lily. See Lily, Water.
Water-Newt, 76, 96.

sh ltl 108.

Water-Ranunculus, 93.
Water-shield, 92.
Water-skater, 76, 84.
Waxwork, 51.
Whip-poor-will, 58, 129, 154.
Whirlwig, 95.

White man’s footstep, 67.
White Pine, 73.

Whiteweed, 66, 71.

Wildcat, 254.

Wild Indigo, 45.

Willow, 58, 167, 175.
Willow, Swamp, 91.
Wind-flower, 62, 71.
Witch-Hazel, ;31, 50, 51, 57) 65,

gt.

Wolf, 176, 256.

Woodbine, 119.

Woodchuck, 206.

Woodpecker, 79, 168.
Woodpecker, Golden-winged, 75.

Yarrcw, 66, 70.

Vellow-bird, 78 129.
Yellow-throat, Maryland, 35, 157.
Yrupe, 107.

Zamboa, 280.
Zizyphus Lotus, 100.

Che Vivergide press
Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass, U.S. A.