From a New England hillside; notes from Underledge

M PO I

FROM A NEW ENGLAND
HILLSIDE

MACMILLAN'S
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I. SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND. By

~ ."ill- n Winter May.

II. THE RIENDSHIP OF NATURE. By

M->bel Osgood Wright . . . June.

III. A T.<IP TO ENGLAND. By Gold-

win Smith July.

IV. FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

By William Potts August.

V. THE PLEASURES OF LIFE. By

Sir John Lubbock September,

VI. OLD SHRINES AND IVY. P.y

William Winter October.

VII. THE CHOICE OF BOOKS. By

Frederic Harrison November.

VIII. GRAY DAYS AND GOLD. By

William Winter December.

IX. THE AIMS OF LITERARY STUDY.

By Hiram Corson, LL.D. . . January.
X. THE NOVEL — WHAT IT Is. By

F. Marion Crawford .... February.
XI. AMIEL'S JOURNAL, Vol. I. Trans
lated by Mrs. Humphry Ward. March.
XII. AMIEL'S JOURNAL, Vol. II. Trans
lated by Mrs. Humphry Ward. April.

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FROM A NEW ENGLAND
HILLSIDE

NOTES FROM UNDERLEDGE

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AND LONDON
1895

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COPTEIGIIT, 1894,
BY MACMILLAN AND CO.

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Can rules or tutors educate
The semi-god whom we await?
He must be musical,
Tremulous, impressional,
Alive to gentle influence
Of landscape and of sky,
And tender to the spirit-touch
Of man's or maiden's eye:
But, to his native centre fast,
Shall into Future fuse the Past,
And the world's flowing fates in his
own mould recast.

— EMEKSON.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND
HILLSIDE.

I HAVE not spent October in the country
for nearly forty years : —

As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the
air, —

I roam among these hills and look out over
the valleys with quite indescribable emo
tions.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they

mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

How fortunate it is that some have been
gifted with the power of expression, "that
the thoughts of many hearts might be re
vealed." My friend objects to Sir John

1! I

2 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

Lubbock's "Pleasures of Life" for the
same reason, though not from the same
cause, that the old lady objected to Shake
speare — that it is made up of quotations.
Now I wholly disagree with him. This is
a work-a-day world, and blessed be the
man with the time and happy taste to
gather and put before us the choice bits
which reveal us to ourselves.

The late rains of summer after a long
drought made the fields and woods so green
that the autumn glory has been long in
coming, but is now spreading abroad so
rapidly that one can scarcely keep pace
with it. The fields are still full of flowers.
On Sunday afternoon I noticed the follow
ing in one old pasture : Golden-rods and
asters of various species, blind gentian,
grass of Parnassus, thistles, spearmint, a
lobelia, yarrow, wild carrot, brunella, fra
grant ladies'-tresses (which White of Sel-
borne calls ladies'-traces), life everlasting,
purple polygala, thoroughwort, turtle-head,
two kinds of knot-weed, wild strawberry,
and a yellow flower which I ought to know
but do not. On my way crer that morn
ing, I found a spot glorious with the fringed
gentians, and during to-day's stroll I found
them by the hundreds — yes, I think, thou-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 3

sands. I will not toll you where, for I
want to keep that spot to myself.

I have also found the yellow oxalis, but
ter- and-eggs, dandelions, oxeyed daisies,
cardinal flowers, water-cresses, looking for
all the world like sweet alyssum, evening
primroses, and others, and yesterday I was
surprised to find the witch hazel in full
bloom, the yellow leaves still mostly cling
ing to the stems, and last year's seed-ves
sels only turning brown. This is one of
our most plentiful shrubs, and I am fond
of its quaint irregularity. The hop horn
beam is another of our favourites among the
shrubs or small trees, and these are found
in company. A less satisfactory neighbour
is the venomous swamp sumach, lovely but
treacherous. Like the fringed gentians, —
and fishing, — it is not to be found just
here, but is all around us, and those who,
like myself, are susceptible to its malignant
power, must exercise caution in their inter
views with it.

The golden-rods are past their prime, but
this cannot be said of the asters, unless
their mellow autumn is richer than their
summer. The roadsides in some places
are purple and in others white with them.

The chicken grapes hanging upon hedges

4 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

recall the spring fragrance of the blossom
ing vines, which vie with the ground-nut
(Apios) of later summer in making scented
aisles of our pathways. The berries of
the bitter-sweet hang in golden clusters,
but have not yet opened their hearts to the
breeze, and the red hips of the wild roses
promise to be with us all winter. Under
the trees the berries of the mitchella are
scattered thickly on the carpet formed by
the round green leaves on the vines.

Our sounds are the sounds of the late
harvest, and this is nearly over. The ripe
corn is stacked in the fields, revealing gold
en pumpkins galore, with certainty of un
ending pies, while here and there a blossom
shows that the vigour has not yet all gone
out of the vines. The birds are mostly
quiet, a catbird, with its noisy note, doing
most to attract my attention during my
morning walk. We shall see and hear
more of the birds, but the cheery songs
will only come to us again with the opening
spring.

From my window I can hear the katy
did's iteration all day long, — that terrible
insistence, with the counter denial, which
make you feel so sure that, whatever it
was that was done or was not done in the

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 5

long, long past, we never shall know the
truth of the story while the world endures.
The morning was bright and sunny, and
the hills and fields were all aglow. The
humming wires along my way sent my
memory back over more than forty years
to the time when the telegraph, then a com
paratively new contrivance, was built along
the high road through my father's little
farm in Pennsylvania. We youngsters lis
tened to the messages going through, as we
thought, and wondered that the birds could
rest upon the wires with impunity. Per
haps this morning the wires were bringing
to" this peaceful spot some message of the
desolation which has just been wrought in
the distant South. But it is not always so
peaceful even here. A month ago a great
gale passed through and shattered some of
our noble trees, and to-day the barometer
has been falling, the afternoon has been
overcast, and we expect to take our share
in the common lot.

OCTOBER 6, 1893.

6 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

II.

THE night brought us only light and re
freshing showers, though these were accom
panied by the ripening leaves, which fell
thick and fast, and strewed the ground this
morning with a carpet of red and gold.
But the sun came out between the clouds
with his face washed clean for the holiday,
and brought back with him the warmth of
summer. As I passed down the village
street I had to dodge the horse-chestnuts,
which have become ripe enough to fall, and,
bursting their burrs as they reach the path,
scatter shell and nut on either side.

(And apropos, as I was writing this I 'be
came conscious of a bombardment in my
room at intervals, the cause of which I
found in something of the same nature.
Yesterday I placed a flowering branch of
witch hazel above my piano. The dry air
of the room has rapidly matured the last
year's fruit, and the shells opening from
time to time with a snap, send the seed
scurrying across the room to find an un-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 7

congenial resting place upon the table or
floor.)

This has been a stirring and eventful week
with us. Thursday was the opening day at
the school, and the girls have been flocking
back by ones and twos and threes and dozens,
with trunks and bags and bundles, and the
old-time lumbering stage and baggage wag
ons have been kept employed to the extent
of their capacity. And not only the new
girls, and those not new are here, but the
ancients, the old timers, the girls of the past,
who come only on account of old attractions
and to meet each other and to see the new
girls, are here in force, and have taken pos
session of the pleasant inn, and make its
low-studded rooms resound with their busy
chatter.

Beauty may indeed be only skin deep,
but it warms the cockles of an old man's
heart to see the lovely faces, and witness
the fulness of life and boundless enthusi
asm of these young maids. It may be con
fessed that it has a chastening effect upon
him of the more muscular sex to see how
absolutely independent of any of his kind
are all of this body of Amazons. As he
takes his accustomed course along the
street he shrinks within himself, and mani-

8 FKOM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

tests, quite involuntarily, a half apologetic
air for showing himself unasked in such a
goodly company.

I must add to my list of flowers still in
bloom the slender gerardia, which I found
this afternoon. My stroll took me up over
the ledge and through the rocky sumach-
covered pasture, where I kicked over now
a yellow boletus, and now an Agaricus cam-
pestris, much the worse for wear, and won
dered when our people would realize that
they must know mushrooms as they know
turnips before they eat them, and that then
they could add very freely to the delicacies
upon their tables.

My way led past our own reservoir, where
the varied coloured trees, climbing the hill
on the farther side, in the full glow of the
westering sun, were reflected in the water,
which, all of a tremor with a passing breeze,
mingled their shades in a shimmer as of
crinkled Venetian glass. — How odd it is, by
the way, that we continually go to the arti
ficial to find a simile for the natural effect
which often so far surpasses it !

Leaving the crest of Rattlesnake Moun
tain oil my left (how necessary it is for
these hill towns to have a Rattlesnake Hill
or Mountain in the neighbourhood — 1 hope

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 9

only as a survival in culture, an evidence
of a past industry), and wandering along
the soft, sandy road, I came to a tree where
the boys — presumably they were boys —
had been clubbing chestnuts, the prickly
burrs of which are now just opening. Of
course I picked up a stick and tried my
hand in the old way — just for a flyer, as it
were. And what a flyer it was indeed ! It
reminded me of the way my sisters used to
do it, only I fear that the infrequency with
which the stick hit the tree would have ex
cited the derision of even those well-mean
ing maidens. The baseball player who
would have been able to "get on to my
curves," would have shown a miracle of in
genuity. The net result of my industry
was two chestnuts, not by any means ripe,
I am sorry to say, but chestnuts neverthe
less in the making. " While I was musing,
the fire burned." While I was chestnutting,
the sun sank behind the western hills, and
I hastened on, hoping soon to find my road
bending to the right and emerging into the
valley. But alas ! what had been a well-
beaten country road with a stone wall on
one side, and a fence on the other, gradually
changed into a mere open cart track and
strayed away into the woods ; first the

10 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

stone wall left me, and then the fence ;
instead of turning toward the valley I was
gradually tending around the shoulder of
the hill, and burying myself deeper and
deeper in the woods. "And all the air a
solemn stillness held," a silence which
seemed no less a silence though it was full
of the hum of crickets and other insects.
By the way, have you ever lain awake at
night, even in the depth of the winter, and
found your ears filled with a humming
and a rustling, until you wondered whether
it would be possible to distinguish any
other sound through it all, and then specu
lated whether there was really any sound —
whether it was all the music of the spheres,
whether it was external to you, whether it
was the rushing of your own life's tide
through your blood-vessels, or whether it
was after all pure imagination ?

The damp air of the evening, like the
warm sun of midday, brings out the pleas
ant smell of the fallen leaves, and their
rustle under the feet is agreeable ; but I
feared lest I was being caught in a cul-de-
sac, or perhaps should be led out into the
highway at too many miles' distance from
home for so late an hour. 1 therefore
retraced my steps, and was astonished to

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. II

find the brightness of the lemon glow in
the west, when I emerged from the shad
owy aisles of the wood, while on the other
side of me the flame-coloured leaves of the
sassafras and the light yellow garments of
the hickories and birches, relieved against
their darker brethren, seemed the fore
runners of another day.

Passing along the road, here and there
a warm breath from across the drier grass
clove the cool, damp air of the gathering
twilight ; the glow on the sky changed
from lemon to deep orange, against which
the hills rested in nearly black masses ; the
glow narrowed, and above it in surprising
brilliancy shone the evening star like a
glittering gem, while in front rose our
lovely tapering church spire, of which we
are proud, — that familiar finger post of
the Christian world which we all love what
ever be the peculiarities of our various
theories.

OCTOBER 7, 1893.

12 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

III.

THIS has been a typical autumn day ;
glittering and cool in the morning with
high wind ; thermometer fifty -six degrees ;
a clear blue sky gradually flecked with
passing clouds ; then heavier and denser
masses, becoming more and more numerous
until the whole heavens formed a leaden
vault in delicately shaded tones, with here
and there a break from time to time,
through which the bright sun lighted up
for a moment the tinted landscape.

I started to explore the woodland road
wherein darkness overtook me last week.
Passing through the village street, the fra
grance of the late apples carried me back
at once to the great show at Chicago. You
cannot help remembering, if you were not
so unfortunate as to have missed it, that
the most refreshing experience at the Fair
was a walk through the fruit-lined passages
of the Horticultural Building, the delicious
odour of the ripe fruit appealing more
directly to your sense of bien-etre than

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 13

their magnificent size or gorgeous colour.
It is well known, by the way, that the
sense of smell awakens the memory and
recalls the past through association of
ideas more promptly than any other.

The road I was travelling passed, you
will remember, to the westward of Rattle
snake Mountain. As it buried itself deeper
in the wood, it likewise climbed higher,
curving round and clinging to the side of
the hill, here gently sloping. The fallen
leaves, which were soft and moist last
week, have now become crisp and much
more numerous. Who does not delight in
scuffling through them, and in the rustling
sound, although this is anything but musi
cal in the ordinary sense !

The foliage upon the trees has been
thinned so much that the hillside shows
massive rocks hitherto clothed with verd
ure, and from the summit protrudes in
bold relief the rugged core of the moun
tain. Curving more and more to the left,
the path emerged at length into an open
field on the yonder side, in the midst of a
herd of cattle peaceably grazing there ; all
around forest-clad hills, a very flower-gar
den in colour, with a depression on the
northeast, where, in the middle distance,

14 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the gilded dome of the Capitol shone in a
passing gleam of sunlight, against the blue
hills on the further side of the great river.
Skirting the edge of the wood, which for
a time shut off the view of the higher
ground, the path at length wholly deserted
me as I found myself near the foot of the
talus from the cliffs which formed the
summit.

I was left to take my chances among
the woodchuck holes, the hypothetical rat
tlesnakes, and upon the sliding fragments
of rock. But remembering that the latter
naturally found for themselves a position
of stable equilibrium, I ventured upon
them with the care which every one is
bound to take in such a place, increased
to the nth power by the reflection of the
cautious man upon the serious predicament
in which he would find himself in case of
a mishap occurring in an unfrequented
locality.

Clambering around among great detached
masses of rock which stood out boldly midst
the trees, and speculating upon the possi
bility of in some way scaling the highest
of these, I became conscious of the pleas
ant odour of burning leaves, but also
apprehensive lest disastrous tire might bo

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 15

running loose in the woods. Approaching
a fissure among the rocks, however, I per
ceived a thin smoke issuing therefrom and
learned the source of the odour, and after
a few minutes I came in sight of two little
girls, to whom a pleasant " Good-morning "
introduced me sufficiently to obtain for me
an invitation to go into the "cave," where
Grandpa had just built a fire for their
delectation.

Grandpa proved to be a native, succes
sor to several generations of such, sturdily
loyal to the neighbourhood and intelligently
familiar with its localities, characteristics,
and traditions. The cave, which with a
little labour might be made into a comforta
ble enough residence, was formed of heavy
masses of basaltic rock leaning against each
other, and some hundred years ago it was
the occasional home of one of those "her
mits " whom tradition has scattered through
the land, — restless geniuses, who, for one
reason or another, found it more to their
taste to " go back to nature ' ' than to live
in houses made with hands. This one bore
the distinction of having left a name be
hind him, and had been personally known
to the grandmother of iny new friend.

My new acquaintance was quite an acqui-

1 6 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

sition. By him I was led by a circuitous
but easy path to the very highest point of
the cliff, which had hitherto been quite
concealed from me by the wood. Seen
from this spot the horizon comes full
circle, save as slightly broken here and
there by the very tops of the most enter
prising trees. It was formerly selected as
a post for the observations of the coast and
geodetic survey, and from it the eye takes
in a thousand square miles of valley and
rolling hills. As we stood on the bare
summit, it blew a gale which it was diffi
cult to withstand. The sun was shrouded
with heavy clouds, and the miles on miles
of forest-clad hills, and shaded valleys,
among which the scattered fields seemed
unimportant, showed the rich but soft and
subdued colours of a well-chosen oriental
rug. (Again that comparison of great
things with small.)

We stood for a little while bracing our
selves against the wind, and noting the
city a few miles away, and the scattered
towns, becoming distinct now that the leaves
are falling, with hills and mountains in every
direction, none very high, — not more than
fourteen or fifteen hundred feet, even in the
extreme distance ; but the gale freshened,

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. \J

and making a mental note to come and
come again to this point of vantage, I beat
a retreat into the more sheltered valley.

I must add to the flowers still to be
found, the red clover, the wild pepper-
grass, and herb Robert. I never realized
how beautiful the latter was until I found
it to-day with its delicately divided leaves
and lovely pink blossoms, emerging from
between and overlaying the basaltic blocks
over which I climbed. I cannot say so
much in favour of its fragrance, but this
was quite atoned for by the catnip against
which I brushed on the hillside, and the
sweet fern through which I waded near
the summit.

OCTOBER 15, 1393.

1 8 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

IV.

Over the river, on the hill,
Lieth a village, white and still ;
All around it the forest trees
Whisper and shiver in the breeze ;
Over it sailing shadows go
Of soaring hawk and screaming crow,
And mountain grasses low and sweet
Grow in the middle of every street.

Over the river, under the hill,
Another village lieth still.
There I see in the cloudy night
Twinkling stars of household light,
Fires that gleam from the smithy's door,
Mists that curl on the river's shore;
And in the roads no grasses grow,
For the wheels that hasten to and fro.

THUS sang Rose Terry in her cottage
overlooking the river, and with that vision
always before her, I do not wonder that the
song came to her. On the steep hillside the
streets of white marble climb toward heaven
from the busy manufacturing village, and
their quietness in the broad glare of day

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 19

contrasts as strongly with the bustle below,
if not so impressively, as under the cold light
of the moon. My companion reminded me
of the poem as our horses climbed the steep
road, and told how the singer herself now
reposes (as to the physical part) in that
village on the hill where there's

Never a clock to toll the hours.

These people are as hospitable as one
could ask to find. Here comes a good lady
day after day and picks me up and carries
me in the smoothest rolling of carriages far
away among the hills, from which we can
look back at our village at long range, or
down into new valleys or over distant ridges.
This time it was past Mrs. Rose Terry
Cooke's former home, and by a winding
river which tumbled and brawled over the
rocks in pleasant fashion, and then upon a
broad summit whence we could look over
toward a region which, perhaps, from its
contorted mass of hills and ridges, or per
haps from the unconventional habits or man
ners of its denizens has earned from the
inhabitants of the neighbourhood the not
too complimentary name of " Satan's king
dom."

Here and there still glows a brilliant

20 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

oak or maple, and now and then we see
the whole gamut of colour on a sunlighted
hillside, where the green leaves of the
silver pines form a soft background for the
brighter foliage. But many trees are bare,
and show the full grace of their lines, and
hi numerous places we see as through a
thin veil the secrets which the summer had
concealed from our eyes.

I have repeatedly found myself after
nightfall plodding along some unwonted
wood path iu the gathering darkness until
I have begun to be apprehensive lest I
might be compelled to pass the night in the
damp, cool autumn air without shelter. On
the last occasion I more than once nearly
gave up extricating myself before morning.
For these roads often start bravely with
well-beaten tracks, but gradually show less
and less evidence of use, and branch and
branch until you are quite sure you do not
know where you are. And the clouds cover
the moon, and the darkness grows apace,
and the shadows deepen about you ; and
you hear no sound save the katydids and
crickets.

We have miles of woodland, broken here
and there by open fields, and none of it
primeval forest. Unhappily the primeval

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 21

forest in this region is a thing of the past.
Once in a while we see a fine old tree,
usually in the village streets; an elm or a
plane tree, a pine, a maple or an oak. But
most of the wood is " second growth," or
more frequently a third or fourth growth,
and yet much cutting is going on, and some
of it is very, very evil. These steep, rocky
hillsides can never be made productive,
and the removal of the forest covering will
merely destroy their beauty and lead to the
washing away of the slowly accumulated
soil, and the consequent demoralization of
the springs. In some places there are indi
cations that former clearings are again grow
ing up into wood but more frequently the
young timber is being removed while of
little value in itself. Occasionally the soil
uncovered in the swales may be readily
worked and made productive, but usually it
is closely strewn with big and little masses
of trap-rock which will forever render
profitable cultivation practically impossible.
And all the time you are conscious that the
ground already cleared is inadequately tilled,
and that a wise economy would turn all this
labour into another channel.

As I walked through aisle after aisle of
the Agricultural Building in Jackson Park,

22 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

and examined the products of the great
western farms, and the means by which
these products were obtained, I wished
over and over again that the farmers of
New England could be with me, and see
for themselves why it is that they do not
meet with success in the old style of gen
eral farming, and why the competition in
which they are engaged is necessarily a
losing one, and New England shows so
many "abandoned farms." I am sure
there is a future for them, and a pros
perous one, but it must be under other
conditions, with a consideration of their
situation and the character of the market.
I thought a few weeks ago that I had
gathered my last fringed gentians, but I
found a few to-day in my special preserve,
opened wide to receive the comforting rays
of the sun after last night's rain. I have
left many to scatter their seed for next
year, and I hope that the lovers of this
beautiful flower will learn to keep their de
mands within moderate limits, for like the
mayflower it threatens to leave frequented
neighbourhoods. It is, I believe, a biennial,
and not like the mayflower an evergreen
perennial, and is therefore not so great a
sufferer as that because of the ruthless

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 23

dragging up by the roots to which it is ex
posed ; but I have found a pair of pocket
scissors not inappropriate in gathering it,
and would modestly suggest to others the
use of such, both for the fringed gentian
and the mayflower.

To my list of plants in blossom must
be added the charlock, the common and
the French mullein, all found during the
past week. But the flowers are rapidly
becoming fewer. The asters are scarce and
even the wild carrot, which continues so
long to adorn the fields and roadsides with
its beautiful lace-like blossoms, seems likely
ere long to fail us. As the leaves fall, the
orange berries of the bitter-sweet, of which
we have a profusion, make more and more
of a show, especially now that they have
opened and exhibit the deeper orange of
the ripe seeds within, while the red berries
of the black alder gleam in the lowlands
with their wonted brilliancy.

OCTOBER 28, 1893.

24 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

V.

I HAVE been re-reading Ruskin's "Ele
ments of Drawing." He may be as bad an
instructor as the art critics say, — I think
perhaps he is, — but we cannot possibly do
without him. Who has eyes if he has not ?
What a love for the facts of Nature ! What
a sense of the poetry of form and colour
and motion ! And what a vigorous pen and
what strong muscular English ! Yes, and
what magnificent prejudices and splendid
egotism ! Reject all his instructions, if you
like, and take some other course of study,
but do not fail to read and ponder all that
he has to say to you. And make sure that
if you do not look at Nature as lovingly as
he does, you will never do your best at
finding out her secrets and revealing them
(in confidence) to others.

By the way, I do not know anything else
so preposterous as the claim made by some
who assume a special love for the spec
tacle of Nature, of her glorious clouds and
sparkling skies and sturdy trees and beau-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 25

tiful flowers, — that you must bury your
self in ignorance concerning them, in order
to estimate them at their true value. With
great superiority they tell you that they
want to look upon the flowers and in
hale their perfume, not to pull them to
pieces and find out how they are made ;
to watch the clouds rolling through the
heavens, not to know that they are masses
of sun-lighted vapour, and that the barome
ter is rising or falling. Is it so easy to un
ravel the mystery of life ? Do you have
but to turn your hand, to discover that the
great earth as well as your small globe is
hollow, and that all dolls, big and little,
are stuffed with sawdust ? How petty the
awful universe must seem to such people !
Have they ever thought, after the ancient
poet, " When I consider the heavens, the
work of thy hands, the moon and the stars
which thou hast ordained, what is man that
thou art mindful of him, or the son of man
that thou regardest him ? "

I have sometimes watched those who
have expressed themselves as I have above
indicated, but I have failed to discover in
them any peculiar intensity of passion for
grace of form, glory of colour, smoothness
of melody, or richness of harmony. I have

26 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

failed to find that they bared their heads
in more reverent awe before the majesty of
the night, or thrilled with a greater tremu-
lousness at loveliness of hue or delicacy of
structure or fineness of tone, — at the rich
life of the opening blossom, or the infinite
expressiveness of the receding hills and
valleys, fading away into the vast unknown
of the distant horizon.

I do not mean that there are not some
minds in which interest in a system or in
a method of classification, takes the place of
interest in the things classified. There un
doubtedly are such dry-as-dusts in all de
partments of science — in all departments
of life. A member of an important gov
ernmental commission has sometimes de
scribed a colleague as " always seeming
more interested in the papers in a case
than in the case itself." But this is noth
ing to the point. It takes all sorts of peo
ple to make up a world. You cannot know
how much more enjoyment you could find
in flowers and trees until you have looked
into their history and studied their faces,
learned their characters, their habits and
their dispositions. You must lie down
upon the same hillside, look up at the
same sky, drink in the same air. You

FROM A NEW ENGLAN-D HILLSIDE. 27

must learn to feel your oneness with them,
and the strong family tie which makes
everything that concerns them a matter of
interest to you.

Novalis called Spinoza " a God-intoxi
cated man." Intoxication is not a pleas
ant word, — enthusiasm is better, — en-the-
osiasm, — and it is this enthusiasm, the gift
of Nature and the imagination combined,
the offspring of poetry and fact, — that is
the greatest, the richest, blessing of life. " I
do not see in Nature the colours that you
find there," said the lady to Turner. " Don't
you wish you couldr madam ?" was the
reply.

Suppose you try to look a little deeper,
see a little further, turn the microscope upon
your blossom, and discover a thousand beau
ties, the existence of which you had never
suspected ; turn your telescope upon the
heavens, and find them bursting into bloom,
— world beyond world receding into the
vast, unfathomable depths of space ; be
lieve me, you will not become blase1 with
the extent of your knowledge, will not feel
that the bloom is wholly gone from the
peach, the perfume from the rose, the foam
from the bounding wave.

It seems to me that I have frequently

28 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

heard talk about" the law of contradicto
ries." I haven't the least idea what "the
law of contradictories" means, but I think
that, without serious trouble, I could de
fine such a law. Kuskin says in this vol
ume : " No touch or form is ever added to
another by a good painter, without a men
tal determination and affirmation." The
same day that I read this, I read in the
introduction to "The Rosenthal Method of
Practical Linguistry " : "No action can be
done well which is not done unconsciously."
Both are true statements; this is an illustra
tion of the many-sidedness of life. If you
have read the late William M. Hunt's
"Conversations upon Art," you will re
member that he asserts at one moment the
diametric opposite of that which he strenu
ously insists upon at another. He is right :
we must view both sides of the shield, if
we would know it for what it is.

But how can I contend that that which
is the result of a mental determination can
be unconscious ? Easily. The time was,
when the act could only be done con
sciously and painfully. But llu-ii, as llos-
enthal says, it could not be well done. It
must be "word upon word, line upon line,
here a little and there a little," until both

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 2g

mind and hand are trained, not to do the
thing in a perfunctory way, but to do it in
the right way ; to do one thing after an
other because such is the necessary order
and relation, as the player upon a musical
instrument often does perfectly, without
looking, that which he would stumble over
horribly if he should try to follow, note by
note, as he did in the times which are past.
That which he has learned has become
embodied in his mental structure ; it is
now a part of his endowment, like the
faculty of breathing or walking without
thought of the process.

OCTOBER 30, 1893.

30 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

VI.

THE frost this morning was not by any
means the lirst of the season, but it was by
much the most severe. The fields were al
most as white as if a light snow had fallen,
and each leaf and blade of grass was bor
dered with a delicate fringe of spicular crys
tals and encrusted with a coat of gems. The
pools were frozen over, and here and there
on the roadsides the ice took curious curly
forms that seemed to defy explanation.

My morning stroll took me over the ledge
and the hilltop, among the sumachs, cedars
and young oak trees. My object was to
ascertain whether the conical mountain
upon our most distant horizon is actually
that well-known peak which popular belief
asserts it to be. But alas ! it was the old
story of the sun and the wind over again.
Only here it was the delicate haze pervad
ing the Indian summer air, which had effect
ually effaced the pile of rugged trap-rock
of which I was in search, leaving for me
alone — but how large an alouu ! — the glo-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 3!

rious dissolving view of valley and distant
hills under the warm November sun.

From the pastures I heard the cawing of
the crows ; upon a tree trunk near me ham
mered a woodpecker ; afar through the
wood resounded the regular stroke of an
axe ; and the pleasant odour of burning
leaves tickled my nostril. But alas ! we
must sometimes pay dearly for our pleas
ures. Yesterday in driving along a pictu
resque wood road among wild and rocky
hills, I crossed a line of fire, fully a third
of a mile long, steadily marching through
the fallen leaves, and eating up in its path
shrubs and herbs, and the surface of the
soil itself, with the upper roots and the
innumerable seeds which had been shed
upon it and buried within it. Merely from
the wad from a sportsman's gun probably,
but it was wiping out acre after acre of
sylvan beauty, damaging to some extent
the trees themselves, and leaving an ashy
waste beneath them — and all to make an
American holiday.

Then along comes the brave woodchopper,
and down go the saplings and seedlings,
chestnut and oak, maple and beach, pine
and hickory, — and for what? Firewood,
simply. Cord wood takes the place of the

32 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

promising timber, which a little judgment
would have left to attain respectable size,
when by judicious selection and care it
might be made to furnish a profitable an
nual crop, while the woodland should re
main a beauty and a joy forever.

The wild flowers are now very scarce.
This morning I found none but the witch
hazel, the golden-rod, an aster, the wild
carrot, chamomile, and pepper grass. A
more extended and careful search would
probably have been rewarded by buttercups
and daisies (or white-weeds), — among the
first to come and last to go, — by yarrow,
chickweed and the mulleins, all of which I
have found within two or three days. Even
the fringed gentian showed a few of its
lovely blue blossoms in a protected meadow
only the day before yesterday, their third
" last appearance " for the season. Dande
lions I have heard of, but have not seen for
several weeks. Doubtless we shall have
them from time to time throughout the year.
I have found them in the Brooklyn park in
January and February.

We have now one of the greatest pleas
ures of which the leafy summer deprives
us, the sight of the graceful stems and
branches of the trees, with all their won-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 33

derful variety of angle and curve, of nigged
strength and graceful flexibility ; the deeply
scored trunks of the strong and massive
oaks, the smooth bark of the beeches, with
their pendulous branches, the sharp spines
of the honey locust — a veritable "monkey
puzzle " or natural cat-teazer, and the cork-
wiuged twigs of the liquidamber.

And over the hillsides is that delicate
warm glow of the young branches of this
year's growth, which will become richer as
the spring draws on, and life comes nearer
and nearer to the surface, until a tender juicy
green spray overspreads them all, gradually
shrouding their delicate limbs from honest
as well as vulgar eyes. This beauty of the
trees comes to me as a revelation each day,
" new every morning and fresh every even
ing," and I am sure that we ought to be
of finer stuff than others, who have the
privilege of seeing it, and seeing it against
the limpid sky, not cut into squares and
triangles and trapezes and dodecagons and
whatnots formed by street lines and house
roofs, but the very vault of heaven, resting
with the softest, gentlest touch upon the
distant hills, and throwing over us its wide
protecting arch.

NOVEMBER 11, 1893.

34 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

VII.

WHEN I reached the station last evening
on my return after a week's absence, I
found the ground covered with snow, and
the stage awaiting me on runners. The
heavens were shrouded in cloud, a few
flakes were falling, and the wind blew
fiercely. But inside the closed conveyance
we were snug enough — eight of us; and
there was an unwonted pleasure in the glid
ing of the craft over the roads which had
recently been rather rough and jolting.

This morning the scene was changed.
Cowper's lines very nearly describe the
situation : —

The night was winter in his roughest mood ;
The morning, sharp and clear.

Indeed, a more perfect day for the season I
do not believe ever blessed this goodly land.
About five inches of snow covers the ground,
in some places crusted over firmly enough
to sustain one's weight by the freezing
after Sunday1s rain. " White as the driven

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 35

snow " is the received expression to describe
that which is perfectly spotless, and noth
ing is conceivable which in its kind could
be more perfect. Yet there is whiteness and
whiteness, as there are deacons and deacons.
As the angle varies at which you see it, so
varies the light reflected from it, and in this
gorgeous sunshine my shadow as it precedes
me over the fields is as deep and pure a blue
as the artists would make it.

What a friendly companion is this same
shadow ! The experiences of Peter Schle-
mihl appear perhaps a trifle extravagant,
and I am not willing to be responsible for
the statement that he actually did at one
time possess Fortunatus's purse, and con
secutively le nid invisible, and the seven-
league boots ; but I am sure that he must
have had one or other or all these to console
him effectually for the loss of his friendly
shadow. How "closer than a brother" it
sticks to us, modestly walking behind when
we advance toward the sun, and throwing
itself boldly in our path as we turn our
back upon the light ! And how ridiculously
it imitates our slightest motion, a veritable
monkey as a mimic, and with the monkey's
delicacy of feature !

It is only upon the smooth lawois and

36 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

paths that the snow spreads a spotless,
unbroken sheet. On the open fields and
pastures it is broken by the stems of the
wild roses, bearing their brilliant red hips,
the hardhack, the wild carrot which lills
its cup with it, the fluffy seed-plumes of
the golden-rods. The branches of the trees
soon shake off its downy flakes, and, look
ing athwart the landscape, the pure white
spaces form but a minor part of the whole-
scene, broken by house and fence and
woodland, which are clearly outlined against
its whiteness.

Clear as the air is, — the sun shining from
a cloudless sky, — the valley stretching away
at my feet in the afternoon becomes suffused
with mystic light as of Indian summer, and
as the day advances, the distant hills seem
to float in a warm haze in which they fade
away, carrying the eye to the limit of vision,
and leaving it fixed upon the glow which
shrouds but glorifies the far horizon.

Near by, the village spire is bathed in
the fading light ; no — I should not say fad
ing light, for the sun is still above the
horizon, and the spire stands out clearly
against the sky. But it is the reverse of
Wordsworth's fading " into the light of
common day," — it is rather, as it were.-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 37

"trailing clouds of glory " that, lighted by
the sinking sun, it lifts itself into the air
above the tree-tops.

And the tree-tops themselves, those deli
cate sprays which now we see prodigally
scattered around us, as if they were not
' ' of beauty all compact, ' ' partake of the
illumination, and to the very tips of their
bud-crowned twigs thrill with the flooding
light of the parting day.

DECEMBER 6, 1893.

38 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

VIII.

A NUMBER of my friends appear to be in
a complete maze as to what inducement
can be strong enough to lead me, in the
dead of winter, to desert the pavements,
the trolley cars, and the throng of the city
for the hilly dirt-roads, the snow-covered
wood-paths, and the rocky hillsides of the
country. A great portion of our reading
and thinking people, or those whom we
deem such, seem to have become cockney
to the core. In nothing perhaps is the
modern tendency toward urban life more
strikingly shown than in this change of
mental attitude wrought by habit and asso
ciation, this loss of appreciation of the de
lights of rural life. I sincerely trust that
the wave has reached its highest point, and
that ere long we shall begin to see a reac
tion toward a more healthy ideal.

After the warm sun and rapid thaw of
yesterday, I woke this morning to find the
air full of the soft falling snow, and the
discoloured track in the middle of the road

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 39

again decently covered with a veil of white.
The snow continued to fall throughout the
morning, not heavily, but steadily, and
toward noon, covering myself with a long
mackintosh, I sallied forth to get the benefit
of it at first hand. I took the mountain
road : on the left the ground fell away rather
gently to the broad intervale, while on the
right, beyond a narrow valley, at a few
hundred yards' distance, the hillside rose
steeply to the height of several hundred feet,
— here covered with dense wood, and there
by scattered trees and rocks, now and then
accented by a bold cliff ; the ground all
robed in white, and the trees, especially the
numerous evergreens, singly or in groups,
all heavily weighted with their downy gar
ments.

"Fast fell the fleecy shower." There
were as yet only two or three inches of new
fallen snow, and walking, though warm
work, was not very difficult, as it would
have been had the snow been deeper. Trav
elling on foot in heavy snow, though excit
ing and exhilarating, is hard enough for a
man ; for a woman, with skirts, it must be
something appalling. One of my neighbours
told me last night how in her girlhood she
had suddenly been seized one day with a

40 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

desire to see how the wood looked in win
ter. She started alone, and had travelled
some distance from the house before she
realized what she had undertaken. The
weather was mild, and the snow was up
to her knees ; but she struggled on, becom
ing hotter and hotter, but fearing to stop
for a moment to rest. The work became
heavier and heavier as her strength dimin
ished ; she was a mile from shelter, and
discomfort gradually gave place to alarm
and something approaching terror. There
was nothing to be done but to struggle on
through that unending lonely waste, which
yet ended at last, when, completely ex
hausted, she found herself again under a
friendly roof. And how did the wood look
in winter ? Alas ! she had to confess to
her sisters that she not seen the wood
through which she had made her way ; the
burden of the walk had been much too
great.

We see what our minds are fixed upon,
and we consciously see little else. Occa
sionally, I think, visions come back to us
of scenes which we luive not noticed at the
time, which have yet in some way recorded
themselves upon the tablets of the mind.
But ordinarily we see and hear that with

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 41

which our thought is concerned. Have you
not ever been in a great factory, where the
whirr of the machinery and the din of the
hammers filled the air as though all bedlam
had broken loose, until it seemed, as the
common saying is, that you could not hear
yourself think, and yet, after a little time,
found that you could, when you would, dis
criminate a particular sound, now one, and
now another, — apparently a solo with an
accompaniment ? Or in a well-balanced
chorus, have you not sought a certain voice
and followed it through the labyrinthine
harmony ? So with sight, but to a much
greater degree, and with much more impor
tant and very potent results.

Tramping over the hills south of the vil
lage a few weeks ago, on a very sunny
morning, my attention was drawn to a
sloping pasture, over which, as is the case
with numerous others in the neighbourhood,
there were scattered many tiny cedars. As
I have said, the morning was sunny, and
these dense cedar bushes cast dark shadows
on the hillside. These shadows first caught
my eye, and 1 was suddenly conscious of a
field covered with dark spots, without any
immediate conception of the cause. My
reason being excited to activity, I at once

42 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

realized the objects casting the shadows,
and as I did so, the shadows themselves lost
their prominence and almost passed from
notice. And so for a few moments I stood,
amusing myself with seeing first shadow,
then object, then shadow, as my mind
turned from one to the other, and it was
only with a certain effort of the will that I
could attain what might be called a com
prehensive view of the scene, bringing its
various elements into due relation.

In this, it seems to me, there is a not
unimportant lesson touching the art of the
day. Art in painting is Nature seen through
trained human eyes, and interpreted by
skilled human hands. The human and in
dividual element in it is the essential ele
ment, and true art must be as varied as
are the individuals through whom it comes
to us. Just what I see, my friend does
not see ; and just the impression that it
produces upon me is not the impression
that it produces upon him. But we are the
servants or interpreters, and not the mas
ters of Nature, and we must try to see
truly, in our own way, and not falsely. Is
this what all our artists do ? Is it not
rather with many of them, that they seek
for the bizarre, — for a reductiu ad absiir-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 43

dum? Receiving a certain impression from
Nature which they have not noticed before,
do they not straightway fal' down and
worship it, and, forsaking all others, cleave
only unto that, to the destruction of their
art and their own usefulness ?

Monet looks at a haycock in the broad
sunlight of a summer's day, and sees that
on the edges of the grass blades the rays
of light are broken into the prismatic
colours ! Presto ! the harvest field goes off
in a blaze of theatrical glory. The ninety-
nine per cent of the neutral tints are swept
into the limbo of nothingness, giving place
to a dust heap of broken rainbows, on a
crumpled field of crude pigments ; and all
the mysterious soft intricacy of Nature,
with its delicacy of suggestion, its harmony
and repose, are gone forever.

I do not mean that these men (I only
use Monet's name as an instance) have
nothing to tell us, but merely that what
they have to say they tell in such a way as
to convey a false message ; they sacrifice
themselves, their art, and the interests en
trusted to them, by a false perspective.
They fail to see truly through their own
eyes, or else fail to report truly what they
see, which latter is the proper function of

44 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the artist, qualified only by the proviso,
that he must always see something fine,
beautiful, ennobling, or helpful.

But I was climbing the hillside through
the fast-falling flakes. Crossing the crest
of the ridge between the files of hooded
cedars, standing —

Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,

the road wanders down across a lateral
valley through which runs the "Great
Brook," — then climbs the hill beyond,
sinks into another valley, and toils up
through the closer wood towards the top
of the ridge. At the crossroads I stop and
hearken. There is no wind, and not a sound
breaks the silence excepting the soft alight
ing of the snow, and the dull rumble of a
train of cars upon a railroad five or six
miles away. As I listen, the latter fades
in the distance beyond the hills to a scarcely
perceptible murmur, and nothing is left but
the sound of the falling flakes, now grad
ually changing to sleet, and beginning to
make a Liliputian rattling upon the crisp
leaves of the oaks and beeches. Between
the trunks and branches of the trees my
eye wanders down into the valley ; the
woodlands, the fields, and the lines of wall

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 45

and fence become more and more blurred
and vague, and before reaching the hills
which mount beyond, sink into the bosom
of the thick atmosphere which shuts us in
from the noise and bustle of the outer
world.

FEBRUARY 9, 1894.

46 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

I AM a thorough believer in temperance.
Perhaps temperance is a more or less elas
tic term. It is universally understood that
this climate of ours is a temperate climate.
Yesterday morning the thermometer stood
at five degrees below zero ; this morning it
stood at forty-five degrees above. It is in
averaging these that you find the temper
ance. Temperance seems to require an
accent, and the accent yesterday morning
was quite sharp.

"Give me neither poverty nor riches,"
was the prayer of Agur. And we all say
Amen, — but sometimes we find the accent
too low, and sometimes too high — though,
to tell the truth, we rarely notice the latter.
Each of us, at least, is sure that Agur was
quite sound when he continued, "Feed me
with food convenient for me." About this
there is no mistake, and we know what is
convenient.

And, after all, I am convinced that when
we have gone the round of a goodly assort-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 47

mont of viands, there are certain stand-bys
which are pretty sure to be acceptable day
in and day out ; and roast beef is very
good as a steady diet, if only now and then
we can have just a soup<jon of horseradish
to make the accent. In media tutissimus
ibis, but we hardly know how much we
are enjoying ourselves there unless now and
then we have an opportunity to knock our
shins against the curbstone on one side or
other of the path.

Homekeeping youth have ever homely wits,

and in the endeavour to avoid this reproach
in my own case, I once upon a time made
a voyage to the Bermudas. And such a
voyage ! Was it ever your fortune to cross
the Gulf Stream in January or in February
on board the Trinidad or the Orinoco? If it
was, nothing more needs to be said. Since
that time, when I have made the stormy
passage in the frail ferry-boats between
New York and Brooklyn, or risked the
waves of the wild Atlantic on the way to
Staten Island, I have thought of the revolu
tionary efforts of that other craft in the
Sargasso Sea, and have contented myself
with the spice of memory as a sufficient
flavour for the mild joys of the present.

48 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

And, if need be, I am sure that it will
last me for my time. Have I not been in
foreign parts ? Have I not lived under
strange skies and looked upon strange
waters ? And what waters ! Ah ! when I
remember that first hour in Castle Harbour,
after the terrible voyage, it seems to me
that I then attained the impossible. If
that actually was, there was nothing which
might not be. The common, every-day
world was no more, for I was in Shake
speare's "still vex'd Bermoothes."

By the way, is it not odd that we are in
the habit of placing the scene of " The Tem
pest " in the Bermudas, when that is almost
the one sole spot of all the globe which
Shakespeare excludes ? Ariel says : —

Safely in harbour
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where

once

Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermootlies, there she's

hid:

The mariners all under hatches stow'd ;
Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd

labour,
I have left asleep; and for the rest o' the

fleet,

Which I dispers'd, they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean llote,
Bound sadly home for Naples.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 49

But it doesn't mako any difference ; we
know that we are on the island of the wise
Prospero and the gentle Miranda ; we hear
Ariel, that tricksy spirit, in the tamarisk
trees among the ragged rocks by the beach,
singing : —

Come unto those yellow sands,

And then take hands :

Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd

(The wild waves whist,)

Foot it featly here and there ;

And, swuot sprites, the burden bear.

Full fathom five thy father lies ;

Of his bones are coral made ;
Those are pearls that were his eyes ;

Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell ;
Hark ! now I hear them, — ding-dong bell !

And we are just as sure that Caliban
made his home in the Devil's Hole as we
are that his dam's god Setebos once ruled
the island. It is simply impossible to real
ize that you are on a part of the common
work-a-day world. The shell roses and
freesias bloom at your feet ; the rich bou-
E

50 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

gainvillea drapes your doorway ; royal
palms wave over your path ; the loveliest
maiden-hair ferns hangs a curtain at the
roadside ; under the pearly waves the corals
blossom, and around you stretches a waste
of waters — a million square miles with
out solid land so much that a fly could rest
his foot upon it. And as you listen to the
wind blowing against your upper window at
the Hamilton, you momentarily expect the
whole mysterious structure to sink beneath
you : —

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.

But this, you will think, is not that tem
perance of which I spoke. Ah ! but it is
the spice, the nectar, the little touch of
pure colour among the neutral tints which
brings the whole together and makes every
most insignificant part as essential as every
other. Do 1 want Burgundy every day ?
Must I go from birds of paradise to night
ingales' tongues ; seek for turbot in the
pools in the intervale, and gather manna
from the top of Rattlesnake Mountain ?
Nay. Tartarin may go hunt his lions in the
desert or creep upward upon the arete of
the Weisshorn or the Matterhorn, but I — I

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 5!

have seen the world. Henceforth I may
rest at Underledge, looking out upon the
valley. I know that the river runs fast
between its banks, though the elms and
maples quietly stand guard by its side and
conceal it from iny view ; the snow lies
white over the fields, and beyond, the hills
climb skyward to meet the brave cloud
fleets sailing the ocean blue. Softly the*
retreating lines sink into each other in the
gray distance ; no musical note reaches my
ear. I only catch the distant bark of a dog
or the crowing of a cock ; but I close my
eyes, and lo ! the angel fish sparkle in the
pools at Westover ; the roses bloom again
by my side, and the air is rich with their
perfume ; the waters, emerald and gold and
turquoise, lap the sands at my feet, and I
hear Ariel singing : —

Where the bee sucks, there suck I ;

In a cowslip's bell I lie ;

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer, merrily:

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

FEBRUARY 18, 1894.

52 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

X.

BY the force of circumstances I was
obliged to spend in the great city the day
dedicated to the memory of the Father of
his country, and having much writing to
do, I spent the greater part of the day at
the club.

And what, of its kind, could be pleas-
anter ? I may take mine ease in mine inn,
but where, excepting by his own fireside,
can one so thoroughly take his ease, and
feel so completely how good life is, as he
can in the library of his club, — provided his
club is our club ? Around him are ranged
tier above tier the goodly volumes to which
he may refer if necessity require ; upon the
desk before him are all the conveniences
for his labour ; the temperature is just right ;
the light falls over him broadly and softly ;
the admonition to "silence" faces all as
they enter the room ; the heavy carpet and
rugs deaden the footfalls ; and as the stu
dent from time to time raises his eyes, they
rest here and there upon the poet, the

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 53

painter, the musician, the divino, the man
of affairs, each at home and each an equal
citizen of this true republic, following the
bent of his own inclination quietly and un
disturbed.

When my stint had been accomplished,
and the time for relaxation had arrived,
soothed by the sense of leaving a completed
task, what reward could possibly be more
inviting than a soft easy-chair beside an
incandescent lamp, and the latest instal
ment of the serial story for which we all
impatiently wait from month to month ?

In these latter days we have heard much
of naturalism, and especially of naturalism
in fiction, and there seems to have been a
very strong assumption upon the part of
many that naturalism is necessarily nasty.
I repudiate the thought with all the vigour
of my being. Nature is pure, and nothing
can compare for naturalism with purity.
Give us the blue skies, the fresh winds, the
sturdy trees, the dainty flowers, the bright
clean souls and loving hearts.

"f is as oasy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,
"Tis the natural way of living.

Let us drink deep draughts of this natu-

54 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

ralism, — we can ask nothing hotter. But
do not forget to flood it with the glow of
imagination ; that also is natural, and the
highest thing in Nature, — anil Zola himself,
deep as lie may burrow, dare not venture
to despise it.

We often complain of the unsatisfactori-
ness of reading serial stories, but there is
something to be said on the other side. It
is somewhat in these as in the romances of
our own lives, and the lives of those whom
we see around us ; we are present and ob
servant while character and fate are making,
and from month to month we await the
unfolding of the drama, as we wait in sus
pense for the thing that shall be. The
members of the cast have taken their places
upon the stage ; the curtain is up, — the
action proceeds. What is to be the fate of
these new friends of ours ? Let us not an
ticipate ; let us wait and see.

In the evening I looked upon quite a
different scene. The Neighbourhood Guild
in the sister city had a little entertainment
in honour of the day at its modest home
down near where they build the big ships
which carry the nation's flag over the
broad seas. When the time for refresh
ments came, there were seated at the tables

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 55

perhaps a hundred, of all ages and both
sexes, gathered from homes where comfort
abounds, where friends and books and pict
ures and meat and drink can be had when
they are wanted, and from homes, some of
which can perhaps be identified as such
only by remembering the saying that
" home is where the heart is." And per
haps in some of these places — who knows ?
— even that redeeming feature may be
wanting. But here all were on common
ground, and good fellowship, contentment
and happiness shone on every face.

The presiding officer at the simple feast
was one still young, from a neighbouring
home, who a few years ago, when the en
terprise took form, was among the first to
accept, rather distrustfully, the invitation
of those who had ventured to invade the
region. Now, thoroughly imbued with its
spirit, he is one of the strongest of the con
necting links in this social chain.

" But," says my good friend Blondin at
the club, " you have convicted yourself with
your own pen. You have been lauding the
Arcadian life at Underledge and inviting
us to leave our comfortable clubs and our
municipal experiments and follow you out
among the hypothetical shepherds oil your

56 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

dreary hills ; but now you have been com
pelled to flee to the city, and under the in
evitable revulsion of your feelings you are
obliged to paint in glowing colours the very
advantages which we are constantly holding
up to your view. What have you to say to
this?"

Just this, 0 Blondin, I reply. Though I
have sought the fields, the woods and the
hills, I have not therefore deserted your club,
and my club, have I ? Nor have I ceased
to be one of those who are at home at the
Guild, one whose co-operation is as wel
come there as in the Current Topics Club
at Underledge. But this is not the whole.
There is a time for all things under the sun.
And there is social life, culture and enjoy
ment even at Underledge.

Yesterday the wind came out of the north,
and it waxed high, and the mercury fell, and
it fell, and it fell. But the stars were in the
.sky, and we all gathered at the town hall, for
there the Troubadour was to recite stories to
us, and to sing to us the Creole songs. And
he told us about the charming Nareisse and
his wonderful skill in Chi-og-aphy, and phy
siognomy, and how he ever abstained from
borrowing (a gaudiK), and how fond he was
of gay clothing ; but also how he weut

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 57

bravely to his death at last, one of the innu
merable offerings upon the altar of the lost
cause. And he told us how the coy Widow
Kiley was won at last. And we heard the
drum beat once more, and we that were old
enough remembered anew those long and
weary days and nights which seemed as
though they would last forever, but which
are now so far away in the past that the
young folks around us can look upon them
as they can upon the times of Cambyses and
Alexander.

And then he ended with the story how
Mary made her way through the lines in the
darkness of the night, whereat Phillis and
1'hollis honestly bubbled over. And then
we four went out under the stars, and the
heavens were all covered from the zenith
to the horizon with mystic lambent flames,
which pulsed and flashed and throbbed and
glowed, while we stood and watched them
with wonder and awe. To Phollis it was,
moreover, a revelation ; for the first time
she gazed upon this splendour.

Then we passed on to the temple of learn
ing, but, behold ! the door was shut both
to the foolish virgins and the foolish men.
And so we wandered along the slippery
way, in the face of the icy blast, which was

58 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

not so very cold after all, though the ther
mometer was at five degrees above zero (it
was at six degrees below, this morning),
until we reached the hospitable portal of
Madame Liquidambar, which Mademoiselle
quickly opened to us.

And there we found a fire of logs blaz
ing upon the hearth, around which we all
gathered, and the Troubadour discovered a
guitar, which he strung, and upon which he
played while he sang the song of Suzette,
and then another and another and another,
until it was quite time for us to start if we
were to get home with the girls before the
morning.

And Phollis asked why it was that the
Scribe always seemed so happy, and the
Scribe could not tell for the life of him,
unless it was because he enjoyed so many
things, and enjoyed them so much.

FEBRUARY 24, 181)4.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 59

XI.

EIJKEKA ! Shall I say it ? Nothing less
would seem appropriate after the mile upon
mile that I have rambled and scrambled and
tangled this afternoon in search of the trail
ing arbutus. I have been in the most proba
ble places, and I think that I may frankly
say in the most uncomfortable. The climax
was capped when I found myself upon a
hillside in the midst of a wood of shrubs
and saplings, over which fire had evidently
passed within a few years, so weakening
the young trees that they had subsequently
fallen under the stress of storms, and lay
crossed in all directions, with frequent briars
among them, as always happens after a fire
in the wood. Once caught in such a tangle,
progress seems almost hopeless, and no in
ducement is offered to return. In that di
rection you know it is bad ; there is always
something to be hoped for in the unknown.
And so I struggled onward, tripping and
slipping, the twigs springing back and strik
ing my glasses, the thorns clinging to me

60 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

closer than a brother. But even such un
comfortable places as these have a boun
dary, and that boundary I reached at last,
and I breathed freely and would have felt
wholly repaid had I but found what I
sought.

But courage ! Just over there, upon that
southward facing wooded slope, is the spot
of spots for the vine that I seek. And
again a climb and a scramble, and while
clinging to the rocky and precipitous hill
side I find a bit of saxifrage with its whorl
of green leaves, crowned with a little but
ton of white flowers, just coming into bloom,
and nestling snugly close to the ground, not
proudly standing erect upon a six-inch stem,
as it would have been a littde later, if I had
not plucked it out of the crevice in the rock
and carried it off home. And here is our
sole cactus, the prickly pear, not in bloom,
but almost looking as if it were, sonic of
the fleshy lobes having a bright pink tinge.
I pulled up two or three specimens to bring
with me, to the decided detriment of my
lingers, and had to spend most of the re
mainder of the afternoon in pulling out the
prickles, which engaging occupation I trans
ferred to Cara mea when I intrusted one of
the Tartars to her at the tea table.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 6 1

But this was not the mayflower, and there
below me wound the river, and yonder was
the bridge which should bear me over the
first limb of the horseshoe (if horseshoes
have limbs. What is it that horseshoes
have, — arms or limbs ?). I took my way
homeward, mourning, for I had not found
it, and the day was overcast, and the sun
was shrouded in gloomy clouds, and gener
ally speaking my cake was dough.

Up in my own wood this morning I
gathered a little cluster of hepaticas, —
squirrel cups, I like to call them, — blue and
white, and as dainty as you could possibly
think. They made their appearance a
fortnight ago, while the snow still lingered
in shady places on the northern slopes, so
early that Phollis said they could not vent
ure out without their furs on, the dear little
things. The columbines are showing their
leaves, and the dogstooth violets and a few
others, but excepting the symplocarpus
(the euphemistic name of the skunk-cab
bage) and the chickweed, I have seen no
other wild herbs in blossom. Of trees and
shrubs there are a number, the maples, the
elms, etc., but most of the vegetable family
are biding their time well. They were not
beguiled by the lovely days of early March,

62 FROM A NK\V ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

and here, at least, the bitter winds of a week
ago found few victims.

As I tramped across the fields this after
noon and looked at the evidences of the
patient toil that had been spent in prepar
ing them for the production of the scanty
crops which can now be wrung from them,
I wished that some of our closet philan
thropists who are very wise upon the sub
ject of taxes — in books and speeches — and
who talk glibly on the relation of land and
improvements and the unearned increment,
would just once in awhile take to the coun
try and look at the thing itself. (I am sure
that I am talking quite correctly, and in the
true orthodox philosophical fashion, when
I say "das ding an sich.") Here island
which, with the buildings upon it, might
bring in the market perhaps fifteen dollars
per acre. To say that labour to the extent
of fifty dollars per acre had been expended
upon it to fit it for the pasturage or other ser
vice that is now obtained from it, in clear
ing it of trees and shrubs, in removing and
piling up the stones in long walls and heaps,
or in digging great holes and trenches in
which to bury them — which is, I find, a
favourite way here of getting rid of them —
would be to make a very modest statement.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 63

And this is what the groat leader of this
school considers an immaterial item ; the
improvements upon land are the buildings.
Well, what these buildings cost, I do not
know. People live in some of them and
house their cattle in others. I am quite sure
that upon some farms the cattle have the
better time. I have been in three or four of
the houses. When I started out last summer
I thought that I wanted an "abandoned
farm." I did not take one.

But this is a side issue. Did you hear
the frogs to-day ? Not the great croakers
with their hoarse voices calling out strange
threats to frighten small children, but the
musical little fellows, singing in all the
swampy places that ' ' Spring has come ! ' '
" Spring has come ! " " Spring has come ! "
I heard them first less than two weeks ago,
and their cheery note was as inspiring as
that of the birds.

And the birds are here too, — the blue
bird and the song sparrow, the robin and the
red-winged blackbird, and a host of others,
making merry early in the morning and
late in the day, and I dare say going a-court-
ing as young folks will. About the house,
Chanticleer and Mrs. Chanticleer, or the
Mesdames Chanticleer, have changed their

64 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

note, and the lady vociferously tells the
whole town what she has been about, "so
early in the morning."

Ah, well — one generation passeth away
and another conieth, and if the future is
not for us, but for those that are to follow,
is there anything sweeter in life than to try
to make the world wholesome and lovely to
live in, and to give the newcomers a fair
start upon their journey onward and up
ward ?

APRIL 1, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 65

XII.

OUR old village cherishes its comparative
seclusion, and it has been with somewhat .
jealous, though withal kindly feelings, that
it has listened for the past year to the more
or less audible murmurs of a proposed in
vasion by the all-conquering "trolley."
Should we lose our rather distinctive char
acter as a place apart, an old-fashioned New
England village of farmer-folk, where once
in the days of stage coaches and post-roads,
merchandizing was active, but which in the
new railroad era had been left as an aside,
dedicated to studious repose, and freedom
from the world's annoy ? This was not an
unimportant question to many, both of such
as were to the manor born and had grown
up with the place, and such as had been
beguiled hither by the characteristics by
which it is marked. Our school, which has
been for many years under one successful
management, insomuch that it is famed
throughout the land, is our joy and our
pride, even if we do not all quite realize it,

66 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

and we view all changes as they may affect
that centre of our activities.

But the day of debate seems to be over
past, and that of experiment is rapidly ap
proaching. The posts and ties lie along
our northern street, and we hear that the
unfruitful trunks, which are nevertheless
hereafter to bear the lightning, have been
planted close up to our borders. The neigh
bouring city is to be admitted to a glimpse
into our Eden, and expectantly, though a
little coyly, we await the approach of its
citizens. Do not, we pray them, bring with
you your city habits and city ways to mar
the fair tablets of our rural simplicity.
Come but as men and brothers (and sisters),
and we will receive you with open arms.
But remember that we are unsophisticated
folk ; that we do not know the wiles of the
great world, and that we rely upon you to
cherish as your motto, noblesse oblige, and
not abuse our ignorance and (comparative)
innocence.

It has been one of my fancies that per
haps the extension of the electric railway
lines throughout our rural districts, in which
they seem to be forming, as it- were, vast
spider webs, might turn out to be one of
our greatest blessings, in serving to scatter

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 67

the population which year after year has
tended more and more to gather into the
cities and great towns. If this may indeed
be so, and thereby the congestion may be
relieved, which has forced the municipal
problem upon us as one of the most serious
of the dangers which we have been com
pelled to face, we cannot be too grateful,
even though there be drawbacks which
somewhat temper our joy. The age of elec
tricity, succeeding the age of steam, and
suddenly developing with an almost blind
ing flash, finds us in an attitude of wonder,
anticipation, and awe. Is there any limit
to the direction and extent of the channels
which this delicate and powerful agency
will open ? We are whirled from one de
velopment to another so rapidly that we
have no opportunity to assimilate them in
our consciousness, and a new application
of this multiform power is old and hack
neyed before it has a chance to be even a
nine-days' wonder.

And what possibilities of disaster are we
laying up for ourselves with all this men
agerie of partly tamed denizens of the wild
which we are trying to hold in leash ?
Chained in great storage houses, sent flash
ing through the air or through the ground

68 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

or under the water in every direction, on
what mad errand may they sometime go,
if once the native instinct get the bettor of
our imperfect control ! Perhaps it may grow
to be an everyday matter, and safe experi
ence may remove all apprehensions ; but
the old-fashioned among us, while accepting
gladly all the aid which this new servant
is bringing us, cannot quite feel sure that
lie is not merely biding his time for a day
of reckoning when all scores shall be paid
off.

I have actually found it, — the mayflower,
I mean. This morning I made another
expedition, not so long as that of a few
days ago, but more successful than that. It
is true that the clusters of blossoms were
small, and that there were more buds than
blossoms, and more vines than buds, but
nevertheless there were the delicate fragrant
pink blossoms in ftact, and one blossom con
tains the promise and potency of a world of
delight. The most trying experience of the
morning was the finding of a mile of wood
land freshly burned over, in the very heart
of what should have been my best foraging
ground. I saw the fire across the valley
two days ago, and I thought it was merely
that the fanners were engaged in burning

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 69

brush. But it was probably a railroad fire,
one of the thousands upon thousands that
occur every year all over the land, destroy
ing millions of dollars' worth of valuable
property, and impoverishing the soil over
which they run. Is it not about time that
the railroad corporations were compelled to
take care that such disasters should not
occur ? It is not as if they could not be
prevented. They can be, and that without
serious difficulty. It is merely because we
are only partly civilized that we permit
them.

To-day the Easter holidays are ending,
and the girls are trooping back to us,
rejoicing, as I am sure they always do, at
regaining their freedom among these hills,
though perchance with hearts aching a little
from the home partings. Then a few more
busy weeks at the books while all sorts of
distractions are calling upon them from
without, the whole world waking up again
to a new life, the white and fleecy clouds
floating in the blue sky, tree and shrub and
herb rushing exuberantly into blossom, the
birds singing, and the bees humming ; while
the steady old earth, which has already seen
so many, many summers, revolves upon its
axis — shall I say, like a turkey on a spit ?

70 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

— no, that would be quite too material;
like nothing but its dear own self, bringing
every part in time under the flood of sun
shine pouring joy into the veins, as it were
liquid lire, like unto the ichor of the gods.

APRIL 5, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XIII.

I WAS absent from home at the time of
the great storm on the eleventh, and on my
return yesterday found the snow only scat
tered in patches instead of completely cov
ering the country as it had done two or
three days before. Yet even this morning
there were some drifts remaining of a foot
or two in depth. With the temperature
above sixty degrees, however, these cannot
last long.

My morning walk was rewarded by a
good handful of hepaticas, together with
two or three yellow stars of the cinque-foil,
which I found on a sunny slope, its first
appearance. This afternoon I found many
buds of the dog's-tooth violet just ready to
open, though none quite expanded. At
sunset the air was full of the ringing musi
cal notes of the frogs. I suppose one should
rather call it a chirping than singing, but
by whatever name it be called, it is very
pleasant to those that are fond of it. I
heard them first as I neared the bed of the

72 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

old canal, which the rapid thawing of the
snow had refilled. They were all talking
at once in the merriest humour possible ;
but though I approached quietly, and then
stood still, they gradually became conscious
of my presence, and, fearful lest I should
betray their secrets, one by one fell into
silence, until at length all had become as
still as mice. Shortly after I had passed
on, I heard them take up the tale again,
narrating, I suppose, each after his own
fashion, how "The frog he would a-woo-
ing go."

The smaller river is out again over its
banks, but the water has run off with sur
prising rapidity, and no damage will be done.
The frost being all out of the ground, much
water has soaked in, to our relief, and we
shall begin the season with the springs well
filled.

I brought with me from the city the ar
chitect's plans, specifications, etc., for the
cottage that is to be, and the business now
begins to take on a serious aspect. I have
often amused myself as I have looked be
tween the uncovered ribs of a skeleton
house, with imagining the life that should
be lived therein, its joys and sorrows and
various incidents, and birth and death.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 73

And now I look through the vacant space
on the terrace upon the hillside, within the
boundaries which I have roughly marked
by four fragments of trap-rock, and all the
multitudinous interests and queries of
human life rise before my imagination.

Can we see the ghosts of what is to be,
as well as of what has already been ? So
far no very terrible ghosts have appeared
to me. It seems easy to think of the cot
tage as growing naturally out of the ground,
the moss-covered masses from the ledge
and the old stone fences taking their places
in the walls, and offering a welcome to the
vines that may come to cling to them. And
the sunlight will stream easily through the
broad windows, and glow upon book and
picture, where now the free winds play
and leave no track. And music of dulcimer
and of sackbut and psaltery and harp in
their modern concentrated form will take
the place of the winds that whistle free,
and mayhap the wind itself, moulded upon
delicate vocal cords, may sing the finer
airs of the great human composers.

And where now there are only flashes of
light and pulses of free air, there may per
chance be flashes of thought, gleams of
imagination, heroic impulses. For who

74 FKOM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

knows but some of the great ones may stray
thitherward ? And even if they do not,
there may be at least brave hopefulness
and honest endeavour and a helpful spirit.
And if there should hap to be at times un
satisfied longings, and even a weary cry,
that is but the common lot, and without
these the life would hardly seem human.

But I am a poor prophet if in that dwell
ing which is yet unborn the sunny days
shall not be more numerous than the sad
days. Whence we come we know not ;
whither we go we know not. And it is
said that "man is born unto trouble as the
sparks rly upward." Yet in this little
space between the silences, is there a great
flood of life with which the whole universe
pulses ; over us is the blue vault of heaven
with its spinning worlds, world beyond
world, to the outer reaches of the imagina
tion ; the soil and the surface of the rock
and the depth of the waters are budding
and blossoming and seeding from hour to
hour ; the light waxes and wanes in infi
nite gradations of loveliness ; the waters
roar and the tempests wail, but anon deli
cious music fills the air and soothes the
heart ; it is given to us to feed our minds
with all that is and was and shall be, and

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 75

human heart touches heart, even though
tongue be mute, and there may seem to be
between one and another a great gulf fixed.
And so though we stand in the awful
presence of the unknown, and looking
backward see nought but an impenetrable
shade, and looking forward, behold only
a golden haze ; though there be days of
pain and doubt and sorrow ; though the
grasshopper may sometimes seem a bur
den ; yet shall the warm blood of the life
that is fill the veins, and health and peace
will come in the frank acceptance of the
experiences that are sent, while the torrent
is tamed, the winds are tempered, and the
rough places are smoothed before those
that are to come after.

APRIL 15, 1894.

76 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XIV.

THE wild flowers have been slow in show
ing themselves, having doubtless learned
caution from past experience, but the week
just gone, with its many hours of warm
sunshine, followed by soft April showers,
has brought great changes. Within two or
three days I have found, besides the hepat-
ica, the first comer, the cinque-foil, the
dandelion, the common duckweed, shep
herd's purse (is the size of the seed vessels
of this a true indication of the small wants
or only of the small attainments of the
pastoral part of the community ?) the dog's-
tooth violet in quantity, the bloodroot, the
lovely, modest little quaker lady or inno
cence, and the purple trillium, which has not
very often happened in my path in the
times that are gone. Nothing could be
more dainty than the houstonia— the little
quaker lady. And it is very trustful and
confiding withal, and will bloom just as
courageously and perseveringly in a saucer
at your window if you take up a clump of

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 77

it, and keep it properly moistened. It is
a thirsty little creature, but then it only
drinks the most harmless of beverages.
One of iny neighbours found a root of it
as late as Thanksgiving Day last year, and
put it into a tiny vase, which was lent to
me for a few days more than a month
ago, crowned with over fifty delicate blos
soms, just touched with a tint of the vernal
sky.

A marvellous change has taken place in
the appearance of the fields and of the
trees and shrubs since the showers began.
On the sward Nature has been spreading
her green tints with a lavish hand, — the
willows have hung out their golden plumes,
and are now putting on a green mantle, and
everywhere the buds have been swelling
and unfolding, so that the woods and shrub
beries have become more dense and richer in
colour. A writer in the " London Spectator"
has told very daintily the story of the com
ing of the buds and blossoms of trees as
they are seen in old England, and says that
to know them aright there, one must begin
to observe them from the first day of the
new year. And I remember that White of
Selborne finds some of the spring flowers
even in December. In our climate they are

78 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

not so enterprising, and I am inclined to
think that we enjoy them the more at their
coming, because we have had such a long
period when life seemed wholly to have
passed from the fields and woods.

I am tempted to quote here some verses
of my own, published a good many years
ago in another place ; they were written for
children — but are we not all children in
the spring ?

Glorious sunshine flooding the earth

Richly with golden showers,
Filling our hearts with gladness and mirth,

Bringing the birds and flowers;
Joy giving sunshine, happy are we
In the new life that eomes from thee !

Softly the raindrops, falling in showers,

— Each like a tiny ball !
Bring down unstinted life; to the (lowers,

Manna to feed them all!
But see! the sunshine gleaming through,
Showeth in heaven a gate of blue!

Over the fields the grasses are creeping,

Spreading a velvet screen!
Into the light the blossoms are peeping,

Sparkling amid the green !
Joy-giving sunshine, happy are we
In the new life that comes from thee !

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 79

Hark ! 'tis the birds that blithely are singing

Thanks for the sunny hours !
Hark ! 'tis the busy bees that are clinging

Round the just op'ning flowers!
Busy and cheerful workers are ye!
What is your secret, bird and bee?

My neighbours are raking the dry leaves
from their lawns, and putting their gar
dens in order ; the road-makers are abroad,
spreading soft mould over the driveways,
to provide deep mudholcs to burrow in
when the rain comes ; the farmers are busy
in the fields preparing for the early crops.
And even upon that portion of my "moun
tain meadow " which I design for a garden
and orchard, the plough has been turning the
rich soil up to the sun to be aired and sweet
ened, and what here and there appear to be
only arbitrary pitfalls for the unwary are
the destined homes of apple and peach and
pear and cherry and plum and quince and
apricot ; and elsewhere, of the elm tree
and the white birch.

I wonder if the latter, which so gener
ously clothes the neglected and forgotten
fields, and which mounts the rough edge
of the deserted gravel pit and plants its
little cohorts upon the scarred hillside, will
form as graceful a cluster at my bidding, to

8o FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

shut off too long and straight a line of wall,
and mark the border of the " home-place."

On the two mornings immediately pre
ceding the rain it was interesting to observe
the casts of the earthworms thickly strewn
everywhere alongside the paths, and in the
pathways themselves, excepting where they
had become most solid. Not a worm itself
did I see, but there was scarcely a space of
five inches anywhere which did not show
its little curlicue of fresh soil from beneath.
Not more marvellous are the great oaks that
grow from the little acorns than are the
stupendous changes that are effected upon
the surface of the earth by these soft, limp,
almost structureless bodies, as Darwin has
shown. If any one has a lingering doubt
as to the value of individual effort on the
part of the ordinary mortal, albeit uncon
scious effort, and without conscious pur
pose, let him read the " Earthworms and
Vegetable Mould," and be encouraged and
consoled.

Undoubtedly it is the exceptional mor
tals, the thinkers, the giant workers, the
strong, the great, that mark epochs and
lead the race forward. We see them above
others as we look back over the past, like
vigorous trees in the forest, like mountain

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 8l

peaks o'ertopping lesser hills. Mankind
will not forget them. Theirs are

— the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.

But, as Walt Whitman says, "I sing"
the great unknown, the unnumbered com
monplace, who go about their daily tasks
with only the ordinary hopes and fears,
joys and aspirations, wants and woes, vir
tues and faults, which are the common lot
of the human race. Perhaps even some of
these take themselves quite seriously, and
are fully aware that the machine would go
to pieces if their peg should not be in its
place. But there are numberless others
who believe themselves of no account, and
untold multitudes who think that if only
things were somewhat different, then would
they be able to give this great world the
boost that it needs to send it spinning free
adown the ages, or at least might be able to
give that little aid of which they now feel
incapable.

Courage, good friend ! Perhaps " this is
the very place God meant for thee," and out
of it thou wouldst be lost, and it also. Till
thine own acre. A good people is only
made out of good individuals, and the strong

82 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

and courageous leader can only make a
strong and courageous nation by inspiring
others with his strength and courage. A
stream will not rise higher than its source,
but the fuller the spring, the surer will it
" to higher levels rise."

APKIL 22, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 83

When Adam dolvo, and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman ?

Din you ever hear an easier conundrum
in your life ? The journeyman gardener
who could not guess this at the first attempt,
is not worth his salt.

I have been at it for two days. After
many hours' labour, I am forced this after
noon to confess that it is easier in theory
than in practice. How can there be so
many stones in so small a piece of ground ?
Why will the teeth of the rake catch in
the edge of the sod and turn it up, and
compel me to pull and push and beat it in
order to work out the rich mould, before
the grass can be thrown off upon the border
or left to wither upon the surface ? And
why, O why, is it such a labour to get the
kink out of the back, and put some flexi
bility into the spine once more ?

Ah ! but when I raise my eyes ! There,
before me are the everlasting hills, "from

»4 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

whence cometh my help," in all their glory
and mystery. And marshalled in mighty
hosts, the great clouds, majestic in form
and magnificent in colour, — sometimes vast
piles of snow, and then deep-toned, sombre
masses, march across the heavens, and anon
the hills are shrouded as with a veil, a sud
den gust of wind passes down the valley,
and the rain drops, in serried files, are driven
across the fields. And then the sun breaks
through in the west and dazzles my eyes,
and as my neighbour calls from the adjoining
orchard, I turn eastward, and behold a per
fect bow, which, resting at both ends upon
the earth between me and my own woodland,
spans the site of the future home. Shall I,
just for this once, be a trifle superstitious,
and accept the token as a welcome harbin
ger of the better days that are to be ?

APRIL 24, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 85

XVI.

$a§ Graig--2Bcibltcf)e
3icf)t un§ fyinan.

AMATI, Stradivarius, Guarnerius, — O
sons of Cremona, what subtile spirit
taught you how to shape and tune that
divine instrument which can express as
no other all the aspirations and passions
of the human heart ? How its tones twist
and twine around our nerves, until we vi
brate in unison with its quivering strings,
and are played upon as though we our
selves were the instrument ! And she that
handles the bow, how fine her dower, to be
able to evoke at will that mystic charm,
and rule our ear and heart and soul, with
a greater spell than that of the Pied Piper
of Hamelin-town, leading us all a-dancing
through the charmed aisles of wonderland.
We that have not the gift can do no less
than render just homage where it is due,
not unmingled, perhaps, with a righteous
envy of the power to confer upon others
so great a draught of pleasure. So Viola

86 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

played this afternoon, and we all rejoiced.
And Brunella, from the cold ivory keys,
drew a fitting harmony upon which the
lingering and sparkling tones of the violin
floated and danced, as upon the crest of the
waves. And then from the same keys rip
pled the tripping melody, and deep and
solemn chords responded to an assured and
sympathetic touch.

What can one do or say in return for such
a pleasure ? The scribe ventured only to
remark that what was so charming to the
hearer must be even a greater delight to the
performer. Brunella suggested that the per
former suffered sometimes from a conscious
ness of unsympathetic hearers. But what
hearers could fail to be sympathetic under
such a spell ? Ah ! doubtless there are dull
ears, and nerves so heavy or so weary,, that
they fail to respond to the message borne
by the pulsing air. And perhaps there may
be hearts that are not wholly awake to the
finer melodies and harmonies of the uni
verse, to which these tones are but as sound
and fury, signifying nothing.

I sometimes wonder why it is that so
many people miss the finer shades of mean
ing in this harmony that we call life, and in

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 87

very good faith do their little best to con
vert it into unlovely discord.

The scribe is, as it were, admitted here
into the very realm of the Princess Ida, with
out even the moral support that he might
have, were Cyril and Fjorian with him. The
one black sheep amid a flock of ewe lambs
this afternoon, he could but shelter himself
in a quiet corner, and bless his stars that the
lambs were so gentle, and that they were
not wolves instead. The man who does not
feel abashed in the presence of a pure and
noble woman, .must himself be very free
from tarnish by the world, or he must be
very callous. If she be —

A creature not too bright or good
For liumau nature's daily food ;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Fraise, blame, love, kisses, tears aiid smiles.

******

The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command:
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light, —

she is surely the crown of life so far as it
has yet appeared upon the work-and-play
ground of our mother earth.

88 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. •

One must, however, encourage one's self
with the thought that she cannot dispense
with him in the long run, — that there

must be —

Everywhere

Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life,
Two plummets dropped for one to sound the

abyss

Of science, and the secrets of the mind:
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:
And everywhere the broad and bounteous

earth
Should bear a double growth of those rare

souls,
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the

world.

Man needs collision of intellect and inter
change of thought with his fellow-man, and
woman needs to range herself alongside her
sister. But more than all else, each needs
the inspiration that comes from the other.
Their attitude of mind, thought, and feeling
is different : —

For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse : could we make her as the man,
Sweet Ix>ve were slain : his dearest bond is
this,

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 89

Not like to like, but like in difference :
Yet in the long years liker must they grow ;
The man be more of woman, she of man ;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the

world ;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward

care,

Nor lose the child-like in the larger mind ;
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words ;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full summ'd in all their pow
ers,

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other ev'n as those who love.

I was struck by Phillis's suggestion in at
tempting to account for a certain lack of
interest in outward nature and natural
science which appeared to be visible in her
sisters, that their thought and feeling were
by constitution more centred upon the in
dividual human being, and personal rela
tions. Whether this be so, I cannot say,
but certainly there seems to be with them
a definite tendency toward measuring by
the concrete, and ignoring abstract rela
tions and wide affinities and deductions,

go FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

as compared with their brothers. And
withal, there appears to be a certain intui
tive unreasoning clearness of perception in
some directions, where all man's careful
study occasionally leads him astray, or
befogs his vision.

A truce to the absurd discussion as to
which is the greater power. In a certain
volume which used to be widely read, it is
written, " So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he
him ; male and female created he them."
And I think that I speak as by authority
for one-half of the human race, in saying
that out of the smoke of the battle, and
out of the dust and heat of the conflict of
life, we of the rougher, coarser sort look up
for needed refreshment to those who may
be a little removed from the worst of this
soiling contact ; ask for an occasional breath
of a higher, purer air, for a touch that will
cool and freshen us, a guiding hand to lead
us to the serener heights, whence we can
gaze into the infinite distances. And we
hope that the time may never come when
we cannot repeat, as now we fervently
say : —

The ever-womanly leadeth us.

APKIL 23, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE,

XVII.

A NOT ungentle touch upon the shoulder
brought me to myself, and to a realization
of the fact that there was an outside world,
and I found the conductor standing quietly
by my side in that expectant attitude which
demands recognition.

I was speeding on my way homeward,
with a heavy burden lifted from my mind,
but with a leaden weight resting upon my
weary eyelids, after long night watches.
But how great a contrast in these weights !
A glance from the car-window fully awak
ened me. The spotless heaven smiled back
upon the rollicking fruit trees, bursting
everywhere into blossom, as into tumultuous
laughter ; the rich green of the pastures,
and the softer shades of the various trees
of the wood vied with each other in their
effort to refresh the eye ; there were the
meadows, —

— with daisies pied, and violets blue,

excepting that it was still too early for the
daisies, at least for the common white-

92 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

weed which we dignify by that name, and
I had to take the buttercups instead ; but
there were violets a-plenty, and on the
slopes, the tender blue of that of the bird's-
foot, the loveliest one of all ; there were the
moss pinks, the crowsfoot geranium, the
wild azalea, and what-not. How bright it
all was, and how happy they looked !
They toiled not, neither did they spin, and
yet " Solomon, in all his glory, was not ar
rayed, — was not arrayed, like one of these,
— like one of these." It seemed as if
work were needless, and that we, too,
should vegetate only, in a world so full of
life.

But no such immunity from the com
mon lot is needful. What do I say ? — no
such immunity is desirable or grateful, ex
cept for the moment. It is the weight
upon the heart that crushes. The knowl
edge of personal wrong-doing is the worst,
or perhaps the best, in that it brings with
it its own antidote, in the healthful im
pulse, but next to this, and in a certain
sense the worst of all, is the fact of being
cruelly misconceived and misjudged. Ah !
this is the burden which we feel cannot be
borne, the wrong for which there appears
no remedy, the damned spot which seems

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 93

as though it will not out. The heavens
grow black, and the waters of the river of
life run muddy and sullen. How horrible
it all is, — the taint that spreads as a drop
of oil upon the face of the waters, until
every point we touch is mastered by it, but
in how different a fashion !

When, however, the hideous charin is
broken, ah ! then comes the light ! As now
the sunlight gleaming through the tender
gray green leaves, dancing upon the blades
of grass, flashing from the ripples upon the
water, sparkling in the blue of the sky ;
while the brooks murmur and the birds
carol as though they were but an embodied
joy-

MAY 10, 1894.

94 FROM A NEW ENGL.l N'D HILLSIDE.

XVIII.

I said that it was a great bore,
Phollis remarked in that exasperating way
that some young women have of dulling
the fine points made by their elders, fur
whose gray beards and bald pates they
should have more respect, that I "must
have got that off before, it came so easy."
I was speaking of the big hole which I
own upon the hillside. I never owned so
long a hole before in all my life, and now I
cannot take it away with me and make it
of any service.

The fact is that workmen have set up a
steam engine with other appropriate para
phernalia upon my building site, and for a
week past they have been drilling away
with a very blunt chisel in search for water.
They tell me they have already gone down
about seventy-two feet, and have as yet
secured a very inadequate supply of that
useful commodity. They tell me also that
they are on hard pan, and this makes me
feel at home, so many of us have been situ-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 95

ated in the same way for the past year.
And it also has a familiar sound when they
add that they do not know how long this
condition of affairs may continue.

I looked into the hole, which they have
lined with an iron pipe about six inches in
diameter, and a very' black hole it is, and
far on the road toward Calcutta. We all
supposed that we should strike rock within
a few feet from the surface, and find a suit
able supply of water shortly after. Hut
fortune did not favour us, and now I am
tied, as it were, to the interior of the earth
by a mysterious channel. It is a precious
possession. Nobody else in the neighbour
hood owns such a hole, and though I some
times hear of depredations in the village or
on the surrounding farms, fruit taken or po
tatoes dug, or, as, alas ! in a recent case,
even a horse stolen, I am not afraid of any
one pulling this up and carrying it off. It
is one thing which I shall be able to keep,
and I shall make the most of it.

And now I am going to let out a little
secret, which will betray my own ignorance.
When I had written that word "parapher
nalia" a little way back, it being a rather
formidable word, I did as I often do in such
cases, — I referred to a small dictionary to

96 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

make sure that my spelling was correct.
I used the small dictionary to save time,
notwithstanding that Ions experience should
have taught me that I always have to refer
to the larger work before I get through.

Well, I referred to a certain " rocket
Dictionary of the English Language " which
has in times past been the cause of much
of this sort of trouble, and read, to my dis
may, this definition : " Paraphernalia, goods
of a wife beyond her dower." A pretty
mess I had made of it. Let us see how the
phrase runs with the substitution: "A
steam engine with other appropriate goods
of a wife beyond her dower." Woe is me !
Would any one have supposed in advance
that a steam engine should naturally be
classed among the appropriate goods of a
wife beyond her dower ? This opens a large
iield for speculation, and points to the great
extension and importance of the manufac
turing era, but also to an extension of the
scope of woman's activities. A steam engine
would doubtless, in certain emergencies, be
a good thing to have in the family, but it
lias its disadvantages. Phollis told me this
afternoon that my bluff rock had been her
favourite place of resort for study and quiet
reading, but that during the past week she

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 97

had been driven from it by the dull and
monotonous thud, thud of the engine. And
I quite shared in her feeling. We do not
desire to shirk labour here, but it is hand
labour and head labour and heart labour
that is to our liking, and naught that re
minds us strongly of the great hives of in
dustry which we have left behind us.

And what of those hives? I do not know
whether it is particularly profitable to spec
ulate about the effect of inevitable and un
avoidable conditions, or relations which
must be lived through. I am inclined to
think, though, that there are certain advan
tages to be derived from sometimes trying
to get them into proper perspective, and
from picturing to ourselves their causes and
consequences, their necessity and value or
uselessness, their transitoriness or perma
nence.

When Hero of Alexandria constructed
his seolipile or James Watt his workable
steam engine, how little either of them
thought that he was dealing with an agency
which should not only transform the world,
but should transform the race also ! Think,
if you can, of what the world would be to
day had the steam engine never been in
vented. No communication between place

H

Qo FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

and place excepting by row-boat or sailing
vessel on the water, or by animal-power
or on foot on the land ; no stupendous dis
emboweling of the earth for the fuel stored
therein by the sun in ages past, or for
the metals, lead and iron and zinc, copper
and silver and gold ; no spanning of mighty
rivers by great bridges ; no vast workshops,
swarming with hundreds and thousands of
men and women, gathered at the call of im
mense machines, whose servants they be
come, to make millions of copies of a single
pattern, and often of such a pattern as was
never seen on any mount of vision ; and
to work, mind upon mind, in a narrow
circle, on the one side increasing and de
veloping mental action, and on the other
limiting, deforming, twisting it, and cramp
ing the individual into the pattern of the
class.

I have particularly in mind just now the
two points to which I have last alluded :
The flooding of the world with countless
copies of articles exactly similar, for whose
form and character their putative makers
have practically no thought or responsibil
ity ; and the effect upon these makers of
their herding together. In both respects
the bad and the good are inextricably mill-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 99

gled. You can indicate them, but you can
not disentangle them. In the first instance,
possessions have become democratized. The
convenience or the ornament, which once
was only for the select few, or even not for
these, b'lt non-existent, is strewn broadcast
among the multitude, — sold for a song.
But alas ! it has lost its soul. No loving,
thoughtful care goes into it ; it has no per
sonality ; it has descended, as from a man
to a manikin.

And the workers, what of them ? From
the free air, under the broad light of heaven,
they have been drawn into these immense
caravansaries, where their ears buzz with
the whirr, their nerves tremble with the jar,
their nostrils are rilled with the mixed efflu
via of many things which are not nice ; to
perform a certain act over and over and
over and over again, plodding through a
tread-mill life ; meeting hour after hour,
anil day after day, and week after week,
and month after month, with others strug
gling under like limitations ; forced to hear
and parry or accept ideas, and therefore
forced to think, but shut in one eternal
round, with the little of life they see visi
ble as through a distorting lens ; how is it
possible that the world should be to them

100 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

as it is to those who view it as free individ
uals out in God's sunshine ? Is it strange
that all sorts of exploded theories, chimeri
cal schemes, and absurd conceptions of
"natural rights" and millennial possibilities
should find in such congregations a congenial
soil, and that we are from time to time con
fronted with a problem which it seems im
possible to solve : how to clarify this vision,
to couch the suffering eyes before it is too
late, and the incurable disaster falls upon
us ? The wonder under these conditions is,
I think, that sanity continues to be the rule
and has not become the exception, and that
somehow there is in the individual a suffi
cient repulsive power to enable him or her
for the most part to resist what would seem
to be the inevitable consequences of the
position.

But these reflections cause one to pray
for some loop-hole through which humanity
may creep into a freer air, where the soul
can be regained. And I sometimes won
der whether the relief which we seek may
not yet be found in the age of electricity,
which is following upon the heels of the age
of steam. May it not be that the time is
coming, and even not far in the distant
future, when through storage battery or in

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. IOI

some other way the skilled workman may
obtain the added power which he now needs,
and have it brought to his own dwelling,
and thus be enabled to retire " far from the
madding crowd," and by personal thought
and individual touch impress upon the
thing which he creates that character and
merit which will conquer for it a place in
the affection and in the markets of the
world ? Let us hope so.

But where was I ? As I live, looking out
the meaning of the word paraphernalia in
the dictionary. Come, come — no more tri
fling with this little affair ; let us see what
the " Century " has to tell us. Ah ! here it
is ; number three will save me, but only as
by fire ; "miscellaneous possessions," and
1 will positively refuse to pay any attention
whatever to the rest of the sentence, "as
the numerous conveniences of a traveller,
small decorative objects, and the like."

MAY 11, 1891.

102 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

" Look here, upon this picture."

Is it possible that I have permitted seven
months to pass without a second visit to
Kattlesnake Mountain ? Even so ; and
again a stiff breeze is blowing, but laden
now with the odours of spring, and full of
the promise of the summer days. As we
climb the mountain side, Phollis and I, we
are greeted now and again by the fragrance
of apple blossoms, by the spicy breath of
the cedars, exhaling their rich aroma at the
solicitation of the warm sun, by the mint
which we crush beneath our feet, by the
thousand mingled perfumes of tree and
shrub and herb which surround us, and of
the earth from which they spring, with its
carpet of dried leaves.

The notes of many birds come to us
through the branches, and we see them
fluttering from tree to tree, occasionally
showing a bright wing sparkling in a slant
sunbeam. Song-sparrow, Maryland yellow

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 103

throat, wood robin, redstart, oriole, gros
beak, thrush — how I wish I knew them
all, and the meaning of their joyous calls !
It scarcely seems as if it would require the
intervention of the cruel uncle to induce us
to lie upon this warm sun-flecked slope, and
be overspread with a leafy counterpane.
But I hardly think that our red-breasted
thrush, masquerading as robin redbreast, as
the white weed in its turn does as the

Wee, modest, crimsou tipped flow'r,
is really fully aware how

Robin redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves,

and, just possibly, even now we might run
the risk of a late frost. But how good it is
here !

Under the greenwood tree

Who loves to lie witli me,

And turn his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat —
Come hither, come hither, come hither !

Here shall he see

No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun,

IO4 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

Seeking tho food he eats

And pleased with what he gets —
Come hither, come hither, come hither !

Here shall he see

No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

We commit ourselves to the uncertainties
of an unknown path which opportunely
presents itself, and plunge into the intri
cacies of the wood. The trees and shrubs
are all in leaf, but the leaves — like Little
Buttercup — are young and tender, inviting
to reckless experiment with teeth and pal
ate, —

Seeking the food he eats
And pleased with what he gets, —

that we may be prepared, if peradventure
we be lost in the wood, and forced to seek
sustenance from sources hitherto untried.
I do not advise too free an indulgence in
' this sort of investigation, however, by those
who have not already some knowledge of
the organic world in its unsophisticated in
digenous forms. But there may be great
possibilities here. Did not Lorelei teach us
on Cape Cod last summer that the limpets
upon the shore were dainties to be prized,
and did I not seriously meditate housing

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 105

myself in a cabin within sight of the surf,
and, luxuriating upon this delicious diet,
loafing and inviting my soul on the beach
throughout the long summer days ? As I
think of it, memory brings before me the
stretch of yellow grey shore with the rip
pling edge of the water gently lapping the
sand at my feet as the tide turns, with here
and there protruding the gaunt ribs of a
wrecked coaster, covered with barnacles,
and with waving streamers of seaweed.

Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair ? —
A tress o' golden hair,
O' drowned maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea ?

Behind me is the crumbling bank with its
ragged edge of roots and overhanging grass,
and with the pitch-pines and scrub-oaks
clinging for dear life to the top of the bluff,
while away, away in front stretch the shal
low waters toward Martha's Vineyard and
Nantucket, which perchance are just lifted
by the mirage upon the edge of the distant
horizon.

And just here a blundering, crooked
branch of witch-hazel stretches across the
path, and we are again on Kattlesnake
Mountain, in the aisles of the merry green-

106 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

wood, where many of the young leaves are
yet so small as to permit the eye to penetrate
between them into the heart of the forest.
And in return, I cut a good forked branch
of the witch-hazel to test its traditional
virtues, and trim it to the satisfaction of my
companion. Is it to be wondered at, that in
the hands of the seeress thus equipped, it
shortly pointed toward the centre of the
earth, upon a spot beneath which doubtless
pulses a restless spring, eager to be released ?
Far be it from us to suggest a distrust of
such an indication, by trying to pry into
the heart of Nature's secrets. Much more
proper was it to show our loyalty by erect
ing upon the spot a monument consisting of
the wand itself.

The convenient path winds around the
side of the hill, here a scarcely marked
track, and there deeply gullied by the late
winter torrents, but now dry and irregularly
strewn with loose stones. At length the
bolder rocks come into view upon our right,
and leaving the path we climb from head
land to headland until we are upon the very
summit, with the world of town and city,
farm and forest spread at our feet.

The long-wished-for rain has not come,
and the Last year's leaves are dry, and miles

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 107

away to the northward a vast cloud of grey
smoke from fiercely burning woods rises in
puffs high into the air, and spreads itself in
gradually attenuated sheets until we trace
it thinly in delicate wreaths, far toward the
southern horizon. And anon comes to us a
whiff of its agreeable odour, a faint apology
for the cruel wound the fire is making upon
the distant mountain -side.

After viewing the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them, we sit upon the
weather-worn rock, which is lined here and
there with delicate intersecting ridges of
harder material, looking, as Phollis says,
like the interlaced markings upon the back
of a Brobdignagian hand. And from his
capacious pocket, the scribe, playing an an
cient and familiar trick, — familiar at least
to him, produces an old-fashioned blue and
gold volume. How dainty this style seemed
to us, six lustrums ago, before the begin
ning of the flood of handsome and handy
books with which the publishers have fa
voured us in these latter years ! And we
prize them yet, and this among the best,
this book of dough's, of our poet immigrant
of forty years ago, that earnest but restless
spirit, whom some loved so much, both those
who knew him personally, and those of us

I08 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

who did not, and whom now so few remem
ber. Some things that he wrote they can
not escape knowing : the —

Say not, the struggle naught availeth,
and

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,

Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce, long leagues apart descried ;

and

Come back, come back! behold with strain
ing mast

And swelling sail, behold her steaming
fast;

ending with the fine

Come back, come back !

Back flics the foam ; the hoisted flag streams

back;
The long smoke wavers on the homeward

track ;
Back fly with winds things which the winds

obey :
The strong ship follows its appointed way.

And some of these things the scribe read
aloud to his companion. But there are
many more that they ought to know, others
of the minor poems, and the " Bothie," and

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. log

parts of the "Amours de Voyage," and
"Dipsychus." There is a resonance, a lilt
in his language, as in the accumulation of
Scotch names in

Wherefore in Badenoch then, far away, in

Lochaber, Lochiel, in
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and

Ardnamurchan,

but there is more than the resonance and
the lilting. And as the scribe reads the
familiar words, again the mountain fades
away, and he is a boy once more, reading
aloud on a long carriage journey "The
Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich," as it was first
called, his heart even then filled and swell
ing with its music, and its suggestions of
another and far different world, and a life
covered with the glamour of romance.

MAY 17, 1891.

IIO FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XX.

" — and on this."

LAST evening we gathered in the village
hall, and La Signora Alba beguiled our ears
with old Volkslieder ; with pure tone and
sympathetic touch, interpreting alike the
lover's appeal, the exile's regret at parting,
and the rich phrases of the chorale. And
then we went out into the night, and found
the path necked with moonbeams, and each
wished to see the other safe at home, and
we reached the end of the village street ere
it seemed time to turn and retrace our steps.
And a tiny nerve fibre somewhere under the
scribe's epidermis vibrated pleasantly when
Phillis said that certain sketches by an un
known writer seemed fated to make her
cheerful in spite of herself.

Left alone in the night, I remembered
that I wished to mark the true meridian
upon my building site, so that the cottage
may be set at the proper angle. It is to
face exactly toward the northwest, partly

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. Ill

because the hill slopes in that direction,
and partly that the sun, which dominates
our life, may at some time on every bright
day send its purifying rays into each of
its rooms. If the wild flowers of the field
need the caressing touch of the sunlight,
how much more do we, of the larger and
fuller, if not nobler and more beautiful
growth !

So I mounted the hill, and climbed the
bars into the meadow. (I do not readily
become accustomed to this term as applied
to elevated grounds and hillsides. In the
Middle States I have only heard it used in
relation to valley lands.) Notwithstanding
the drought, the grass is well grown, but I
found it perfectly dry, though the night was
not cloudy. I remember that a certain
writer whose interesting essays I have re
cently read, apparently speaking with au
thority, tells us that the dew ascends from
the soil, and in part is exuded directly by
the grass and other plants. If this be true,
— and the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia
Uritannica does not confirm it, — I do not
wonder that the grass was not wet. All
the soil in holes dug to-day in which to
plant some belated fruit and shade trees,
was found to be dry and crumbling.

112 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

My scheme contemplated an observation
of the pole star, which was visible, but only
dimly, because of the moonlight, and be
cause the atmosphere was full of what ap
peared to be a dry haze, presumably smoke
and dust. I chose this plan because the
variation of the needle here is considerable
and uncertain, and near these trap ledges
the compass is apt to be a false and treach
erous guide.

I first drove a slender stake into the
ground, and then taking another a few feet
to the southward of it, and humbling my
self with my eye close to mother earth,
took repeated observations until I had sat
isfied myself that I had secured a range as
accurate as possible. Then I drove in my
second stake firmly also, and the thing was
done.

From the woodland along the ledge,
sounded the melancholy note of the whip-
poor-will ; from a distant kennel came the
bark of an uneasy dog ; lamps shone from
windows here and there ; and all the valley
was suffused with the soft light of the
moon, in which every object finally disap
peared in a nebulous haze. It was the first
time that I had stood at this hour upon the
spot with which the future is to make me

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 113

so familiar in all its phases. At such a
place, at such a time, one has a curiously
mingled sense of solitude and companion
ship. No one was near me ; no one knew
where I was, — perhaps no one greatly
cared : —

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

Sweep through her marble halls !
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

From the celestial walls !
I felt her presence, by its spell of might,

Stoop o'er me from above ;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

As of the one I love.

But before and below me, here and there,
twinkled the home stars, around which were
gathered father and mother, sister and
brother — yes and doubtless

— a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet than all other.

Might I not venture to claim a part in all
this home-life, and, resting upon my solitary
terrace, drop a gentle thought to mingle
with, perhaps to fructify and stimulate the
lives which it should touch ?

MAY 17, 1894.

114 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XXI.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky.

IT has been absolutely superb. The long
storm with which the drought closed has
finally passed away, and it has left us with
the atmosphere washed clean, but with great
floating masses of cloud, lagging, not by any
means superfluous, upon the stage, but so
as to present to us every variety of beauty
that we could desire.

I have spent nearly the whole day, sit
ting in the shade of my own ash tree, read
ing and receiving sundry callers, and listen
ing to the birds of all sorts and sizes, as
merry as grigs ; and anon looking across
the field of the cloth of gold made by the
buttercups, upon the valley and the distant
hills, where the shadows of the slowly
moving clouds produced an ever- vary ing
play of light that was infinitely beautiful.

And I have been travelling in delightful
familiar paths, and steeping myself in the

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 115

joys of the past, tempered by that regret
which must now always endure, as I have
read the manuscript pages of the story of
the life of our Bayard, our knight without
fear and without reproach, Curtis, whom,
alas ! we shall see no more on this earth
forever. What joy he would have taken in
this day and in this spot ! There were no
need of Tit bottom's spectacles, and the
finest castles in Spain could not rank as real
estate at a higher value than the invisible
cottage outlined by cords, arid surrounded
by rough boarding here at my side, which
he would so gladly have seen complete and
tenanted.

How can it be possible that any one who
was so fortunate as to be baptized with the
holy chrism of the love and confidence of
this sweet and tender spirit, should ever
thereafter do an unworthy thing or think
an unworthy thought ! Alas ! that it should
be so ! As I read, and the years of the
past are recalled, I again become conscious
of the noble presence, I feel once more the
touch of the gentle hand, I see the tender,
affectionate look in the true eye, and I hear
the musical voice which is now silent for-
evermore. Ah ! me ! it is worth having
lived to have had such a friend ; and how

Il6 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

wide and rich was his capacity for friend
ship !

Last week it was my fortune to attend
a meeting at the club of those who are
charged with the duty of preparing some
appropriate memorial which shall testify to
coming generations of the supreme regard
in which he is held by many of the best of
this. There was the ex-mayor, who is rap
idly building a somnolent college into a
great university ; there was the poet-editor
who lately sang of the blossoming and the
evanishment of the great White City ; there
was the genial essayist, my neighbour — still
going with good cheer on his little journey
in the world ; there was the representative
of the time-honoured publishing house of the
Cheerible brothers ; there was the barrister
by whom rogues most dread to be cross-
examined, the doctor for whom the profes
sion does not afford a field broad enough
for his energies, the painter who knows
how to catch the very spirit of the New
England village, and the general who can
hold an audience hanging upon his word,
and who can tell, because he saw it with
his own eyes, how his great chief received
the sword of Lee under the tree at Appo-
rnattox. And there were the best of words

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 117

from the wise and shrewd bishop who can
drive in double harness in perfect amicable-
ness such curiously mismated clerical
steeds, and over the vibrating wire came
the voice of our good friend who gives me
the privilege that I have enjoyed to-day.
It was a noteworthy company, and testified,
as it has been testified in many ways, to the
strong and vital influence which he of whom
I write, whether in the field of political
conflict, upon the rostrum, at the desk, in
the Easy Chair, or by the fireside, has exer
cised upon the best of his generation.

As I turn over these pages, I strike upon
passages which bring up vividly picture
after picture. As this, in a letter written
on the 20th of April, 1861 : " This day in
New York has been beyond description,
and remember, if we lose Washington to
night or to-morrow, as we probably shall,
we have taken New York.'1'1 Do you real
ize that in that crisis it really seemed that
Washington must go, and that it is most
singular that it did not ? It was completely
at the mercy of the southern troops. In
April, 1892, while a party of us were on
our way to Baltimore, our friend the gen
eral — not the general of whom I spoke a
moment ago — told us the story of how he

Il8 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

reached Washington by stealth in those
days of suspense, bearing dispatches which
conveyed to the President and the cabinet
from the governor of this state of ours, the
first news which they received of the rising
in the North, — the good news that the boys
had begun that great inarch which was to
last four weary years. The enemy com
manded the city, and must have failed to
occupy it simply because they did not know
that they had but to march in and take
possession. And then a few hours, and the
news came that the troops were near by,
and our friend was told to watch the flag
staff upon the Senate end of the capitol,
because the flag would be displayed there
from the instant the boys came in sight.
And then a few moments more of suspense,
and behold the flag was flung to the breeze,
and Washington was saved.

Or this fragment from a letter of April 4,
1865 : " I thought of you all the day yester
day as the news of the crowning mercy came
rolling in. The merchants and brokers in
Wall street came out of their dens and sang
' Old Hundred ' and ' John Brown.1 " Do I
not remember it as though it were yester
day ? What an inexpressible joy there was
in the air, and how we all tried to do what

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 1 19

we could to express it ! The leaders stood
in the great dark colonnade of the custom
house, but the day was bright, and our hearts
were full ; the street was crowded as far as
one could see, and we sang and sang, until
we were all hoarse. How dark the cloud
had been, and how long and dreary the
days ; but now the cloud was lifted, the end
had come !

And I see another picture. Peace had
lasted for almost a generation, and we, a
non-combatant body-guard, accompanied
the orator on his way to deliver the address
on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the battle
of Gettysburg, in July, 1888. Of the dozen
who formed the party then, alas! already
the chief and three others have joined the
majority. But then were three perfect
days, in which Walter Howe, who was to
leave us in his prime, catered for the party
as though he had been to the manner born.
Pearson told us of the trials which encom
pass the man who undertakes to do his
simple duty in a great office, and Barlow
showed us where he fought, bled, and almost
died in the good cause. And the leader hal
lowed us all by his presence, and focussed
in himself the interests and the aspirations
of all. And we explored the wildnesses of

120 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the Devil's Den, and became appropriately
confused between Seminary Hill and Ceme
tery Hill, and looked upon the sea of faces
from the North and from the South, and
listened to the silver tones of the orator of
the day at the gathering place in the na
tional cemetery, and to the manly words of
Longstreet and of Gordon, who had been
leaders in the invading army.

And again : I see the streets of the Monu
mental city in April, 1892, and then a great
company gathered around a festal board.
And as the leader rises to speak, so rise
also all the members of the company, with
cheer upon cheer, and with eyes moist with
the dew that comes to men only when the
heart is touched. And before me now lies
the pencilled draft which so inadequately
recalls that speech as it was delivered, that
choicest of after-dinner speeches. And I
hear him conclude: "Whatever may be
come of us, fellow pioneers, I say to you as
Latimer said to Kidley at the stake: 'Be
of good cheer, Brother Ridley, for we shall
this day light such a candle in England as
shall never be put out.' If I were to pro
pose a legend for the league, I should turn
again to the episcopate, and take the reputed
words of the most famous of English church-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 121

men, the cardinal who was the great master
of statecraft in his time, whom Shakespeare
re-created for the English-speaking race,
'Corruption wins not more than honesty.'

" It is the spring of the year, and it is the
springtime of reform. It is not the har
vest, but it is the sowing. The blossoms
that open in this soft spring air are flowers
only, not yet fruit. But they are promises
of the summer, and the fruit is sure. They
are voluntary pledges of nature, and in its
benign administration in which seed-time
and harvest never fail, those pledges will
be completely fulfilled. The little twig of
Magna Charta has become the wide-spread
ing tree of English liberty. Our bud of
reform will become a system of honester
politics."

And then as we rumbled through the other
wise silent streets, he and I, on the way to
our temporary abiding place in the hospi
table mansion of our good friend, whose
countenance so strongly reminds us of the
First Consul — as well it may, — the stars
beaming and the moon flooding our path
with its limpid light, softened and touched
and exhilarated by the loyalty, the affection,
the generous emotion which had been shown
him on every hand, and with the knowledge

122 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

that the good cause, the purification of the
public service and of methods of adminis
tration, was moving steadily forward, —
though never so full of life, it seemed as
though he might have sung his " nunc
dimittis." And is it any wonder that we
felt it hard, even at that small hour, to seek
our couches ? —

— the best of all ways
To lengthen our days,

Is to steal a few hours from the night, my
dear.

Tom Moore's lines never came more appro
priately than as he quoted them then, look
ing out upon the night ; but indeed the
night, that night of nights, seemed speeding
all too soon.

MAY 27, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 123

THE boring of the well was stopped at a
depth of seventy-eight feet, a tiny stream
from some mysterious source having been
intercepted, which promises an ample sup
ply for all time to come. And yesterday
the spade was put into the ground, and now
the gasli then made in the fresh green turf
has grown into a long and broad rectangular
hole, with certain projections, in which the
cottage is to be planted. It is to be set
upon the hardpan, and firmly adjusted to
the hillside and tied to the soil by the roots
of embracing vines, thus becoming by graft
a permanent part of the field, as it is to be
hoped that the life which it will enshrine
may become a permanent part of the life
of this village.

In no respect, perhaps, is our condition
at so great a disadvantage when contrasted
with that of the old world, as in the lack of
ancestral homes. We are continually on
the move. We are always new. We never
let our roots have time enough to become

124 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

attached to the soil, but are incessantly
tearing them up and breaking off all the
delicate fibres through which they should
drink in the life needed to sustain us for
fine social uses. We not only ''have no
continuing city" here, — which would not
be so bad, since we have no city which as a
whole is yet worthy of continuance, — but
we have no continuing country, either.
We are like the people at Mt. Desert ;
some of us are cottagers, and some of us
are boarders, and some of us are hauled
inealers, and some are only mealers.

Perhaps this is the most inappropriate
place in the country in which to indulge
such reflections, for in this village there is
a certain permanence, and one finds around
him owners of one or other of nearly all
the names which appear upon the records
of two hundred and fifty years ago. This
is one of the great attractions of the village,
and it is much to be hoped that if it should
gradually lose this distinction of permanence
it will only be through the increase in that
quality on the part of other localities. For
I am persuaded, not that immovability is a
supreme virtue, but that a vital attachment
between a family and its environment is a
good thing. And this refers both to the

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 125

relation between the family and the com
munity, and to the relation between the
family and its home. It is a good thing to
be born, to live, and to die in the same
house ; to have associations with every
nook and cranny, to be in touch with every
turn and corner ; to have associations of
childhood and of youth, of manhood or
womanhood and of old age. And it is a
good thing to have generation follow gener
ation, or if fate may not be so kind, to have
still a continuous family-life by some sort
of incorporation or adoption, which may go
on from age to age.

I care not whether it be objective or
simply subjective, the kindred feeling which
grows strong between the animate tenant
and the inanimate domicile, its stones, its
beams, and its projecting roof ; it is just as
real and just as true. Even in the great
city hive, with its numberless cells, our
own particular cell soon seems to receive
us with a friendly welcome all its own.
But this is merely a proof of the strength
of an imperious instinct. It is out under
the blue heaven, where there are trees and
grassy fields, where a house has four sides,
and all open to the winds and the seasons ;
where there are individual stepping-stones

126 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

worn by the outgoing and incoming of gen
erations ; where there is a fireside at which
have been whispered tender vows, where
merry peals of laughter have been heard,
and jest and roundelay ; where hearts have
bled and heads have been bowed in sor
row ; it is only here that human life seems to
become really and truly a settled and inte
gral and organic part of the world life.

MAY 30, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 127

XXIII.

IT set me thinking. What was it ? Why,
the other evening in the cloister, we had a
little concert by the Kneisel quartet; it
was this which set me thinking.

In the first place, I wondered whether it
were possible that those whose ears are
trained to all the niceties of musical com
position and expression, whose knowledge
makes that of tlie mere layman seem as
nothingness, could have an enjoyment in
this wealth of sound in proportion to their
knowledge. I confess that I found myself
a little inclined to skepticism. I remem
bered the princess who tossed and tossed
upon her bed, because of the rose-leaf hid
den beneath — how many mattresses was
it ? Extreme delicacy and sensibility bring
with them a certain penalty, and possibly,
after all, we of the grosser natures have
our compensation, and in the long run
drink a deeper draught of life. I will not
push the suggestion, for I am not by any
means sure that it is true. The s

128 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

moments pay for ages of commonplace and
of suffering. Against those who hold that
the days of childhood are one's happiest
days, I shall always boldly contend. It is
not possible. Perhaps it may appear so
from the outside, and upon a superficial
view. The accumulating years bring sor
row in their train, pain and deep distress,
and desolation. But they bring also the
wider and fuller capacity for enjoyment,
and for most — can I not say, for all ? —
moments, at least, of delight compared with
which the pleasures of a child are as a
glow-worm's tiny spark to the giant search
light which threw its beam athwart the
sky from the roof of the Hall of the Liberal
Arts.

I can only say that if the enjoyment of
these knowing ones is so much greater
than ours, it is impossible to understand
how they can endure it. It seems as if the
nerves must reach such a tension at a cer
tain point in their vibration that they must
of necessity give way, and the individual
must dissolve into his original elements, as
the Prince Rupert's drop, when the point is
broken, rlies into an impalpable powder.

And then I thought of the stages by
which this sensibility has been reached,

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 129

of the long journey which our race has
travelled, and the races which preceded it,
since time began. Modern music and the
ear to which it commends itself are but a
few hundred years old, but far back of this
period, the ear that was not pleased with
concord of sweet sounds, was doubtless
already fit for treasons, stratagems, and
spoils, although the sounds which were
sweet then, might not now so seem to us.
And farther still in the distance, we should
reach the tom-tom and its contemporaries.
Hut this is still in modern times. Away,
far, far beyond, the thought is carried,
back to the dawn of that which • we call
life, to the point where the inorganic (who
shall dare to say that it has not life ?)
merges indistinguishably and by slow de
grees into the organic.

We talk of the five senses, but how many
senses there may be we do not know. ID
this early dawn of which I dream, hearing
was not, nor sight, taste was not, nor smell,
and feeling was but about to be born.

Have you ever lived with a microscope
of high power, watching those infinitesimal
vegetable specks, the diatoms, travelling
around in the vast waste of the minutest
drop of water that you could lift upon the
K

130 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

point of a needle, wandering from place to
place, crossing, meeting, and passing on,
each delicately and exquisitely marked
with a myriad lines and dots, every one
according to his kind ? Already you are
far from the beginning. You must go back,
far back of these until you reach the verge
of the amorphous, until you can hardly
more than guess that there exists either
form or motion or individuality. You find
at length that which gives evidence of at
traction or repulsion at its lowest term, at
a point a thousand ages before anything
that you can predicate as consciousness.
Between-this point and the point to which
I called your attention at the opening of
this note, lies the gulf which has been
crossed ; this is the journey of life of which
I speak.

Realize it if you can. Try to picture to
yourself this great march of the living uni
verse ; the life born in the atom, growing
and spreading and reaching forward, life
added to life, life piled upon life, life ever
richer and fuller and deeper and higher ;
touch and taste and smell and sight and
hearing ; thought and memory and reflec
tion ; imagination and speculation ; love
and honour and reverence and devotion.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 13!

And ever as the sight grows stronger and
the vision clearer, the horizon widens, and
the inscrutable power which includes, em
braces, and controls us becomes more in
timate, more majestic, more absolutely
^indefinable, more awe-inspiring, —

a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling in the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

JUNE 6, 1894.

132 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XXIV.

"DOUBTLESS God could have made a
better berry, but doubtless God never
did." Thus genial Izaak Walton quotes
Dr. Boteler concerning the strawberry.
Upon the hill-top and in the meadow, the
ripe, wild berries are now sparkling, a vivid
red amid the green in the occasional sun
shine, staining the dainty fingers of the
picker, and telling tales upon the rosy lip
even though the toll be light. This after
noon I found them so plentiful over a con
siderable space, that I could not put my
foot down among them without crushing
some. These wild berries are small, but
they have a pleasant flavour of freedom
about them. I wonder whether this would
flee as soon as we tried to tame them ?

I see that it is said that our present cul
tivated berries are descended from a Chili
strawberry, this having succeeded an ear
lier form developed from the Virginia
berry. Perhaps it might not be amiss to
take a new start. The markets of our

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 133

great cities call for such enormous supplies
of fruit, that they must be brought from
vast distances, and as a consequence those
varieties are encouraged which will bear
preservation and transportation. In soft
fruits, therefore, especially strawberries and
peaches, there is a tendency to sacrifice
flavour and delicacy for these qualities of
permanence, until Dr. Boteler, or Butler,
might not be able always to recognize the
berry that he loved.

One of my neighbours called upon me yes
terday to accompany her over the hill to
investigate a shrub or small tree which had
aroused her curiosity. It proved to be the
prickly ash or toothache tree, of which I
have many in my wood, a tree worth cul
tivating, especially on account of its bright
berries. This particular specimen showed
a peculiarity which I have not noticed in
others, a tendency in some of the branches
to flatten at the joints or intersections, and
to form ridges something like acock's-comb.
The books do not seem to refer to this. I
shall have to examine further to determine
whether it is constitutional, simply an
idiosyncrasy, or due to insect or fungoid
igency. The two latter causes of peculiar
egetable growth are so multifarious in

134 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

their forms of working, and withal so mar
vellous, that the specialist alone can make
much headway in their investigation.

We saw in the same locality a specimen
of the viburnum opulns or bush-cranberry,
which I am glad to discover in my neigh
bourhood. It was quite new to me when I
found it last summer, up in the neighbour
hood of "Sky farm" and Mt. Everett, its
profusion of richly coloured berries putting
to shame the tame prim crudities of the
mountain ash. I thought it much more at
tractive than its cultivated descendant, the
guelder rose or snowball of our gardens.

The heavy and frequent rains which fol
lowed the brief drought have produced a
great development in the leafage, and I
think that I never saw the forest more
dense or luxuriant. The scaffolding of the
hills is concealed, and only here and there
can we now trace from a distance the
lines of crag. Upon the fields we find a
succession of colours, pleasant to look upon,
though not always gratifying to the fanner.
At first I thought that I was to have a beau
tifully uniform crop of hay, — the turf
seemed so green and smooth. Then it be
came sprinkled here and there with quaker
ladies or bluets, as if some careless body

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 135

had been trying to cover the sky with a
coat of whitewash, with just a tint of blue
in it, and had allowed the colour from his
brush to spatter all over the carpet. After
this came the buttercups, and made a very
sea of gold, which* I fear as a circulating
medium would prove almost as worthless
as the silver which our western friends
desire us to accept, though certainly much
more beautiful. And now we have the ox-
eye daisy, known by those upon whom is
imposed the duty of trying to exterminate
it as the whiteweed, but christened by Lin-
meus with the imposing name of chrys
anthemum leucanthemum. Myriads and
myriads of the starry disks look up into the
sky to see their fellows of the firmament.
Phollis says that they are small and degen
erate and not worthy representatives of the
race, but I know better. And besides, I
am glad that they are small ; such are the
best kind.

But as I look over the field I seem to
hear the grass saying in the popular slang:
"Where do I come in?" My neighbour
over the way has purchased my crop of
hay in advance, and I hope that he may
find it. I know one spot where it is lush
and high, and here among the long thick

136 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

green leaves, you may discover the most
glorious heads of the red clover that you
ever saw, full of honey, too, which I envy
the bees. And there comes a great buzzer
who lias found the store, and means to con
test with us the possessiifn of the Held. And
I am sure that he is armed for the fray, and
that courtesy requires that I should speed
the parting guest, the stranger within my
gates, who carries away some of my berries
and a bit of my heart as well, and so pluck
ing a handful of the showy heads I grace
fully retire from the contest without breaking
a lance.

And what if we linger at the bars, while
I try in vain to parry, to find fitting defence
and reply to the verbal arrows which are
shot at me ? One must sometimes — to him
self only, mind you — admit defeat, and
learn to find a wholesome enjoyment in the
same.

JUNE 7, 1891

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 137

XXV.

" GOD tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb." Though it was Laurence Sterne
that wrote it, I am sure that no indignity
has been done the Bible by its common
attribution to that source, and it is no less
truly descriptive of the fact than if it were
to be found upon the pages of the holiest of
books. For though his ways are said not
to be as our ways and his thoughts not to
be as our thoughts, and though the sun rises
upon the evil and upon the good, and the
rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike,
nevertheless the winds are tempered in a
very real fashion. For what matters it
how biting the blast, if we do not feel it ?
And is it not the universal human experi
ence that how sore soever troubles may be,
the neck gradually becomes accustomed to
the yoke, the new conditions are accepted
as a part of the natural order, and we grad
ually find ourselves adjusted to them ? Even
though at first it seems as if all the sweet
ness had gone out of life, as if in future,

138 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

summer and winter, seed-time and harvest,
would be for us as it' they were not, at
length we see the sunlight again, we hear
the lark sing, we inhale the fragrance of
the rose ; as it was in the beginning, we
look upon creation, and behold it is very
good.

The adjustment takes a little time ; we
have to become accustomed to the new con
ditions ; new channels must be opened ; but
the fact that stunned us in the morning —
by the evening we have always known it.
If our fortunes have suddenly changed, and
all seems lost, wait but a few hours and we
are busy with new devices, seeking out new
combinations, finding hope where hope
there seemed none.

I remember that at one time in my boy
hood I was engaged in an office in the
neighbourhood of a great town clock — it
was that of Independence Hall in Philadel
phia. The peals of the bell striking the
hour seemed loud enough to wake the dead.
But after a while it became a thing of cus
tom. I would say to myself, "I will look
at my watch and compare it when the clock
strikes twelve," and then I would go on with
my writing, and some time later suddenly
remember and take out my watch and find

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 139

that the great bell must have rung out its
twelve heavy strokes a half-hour before, yet
the accustomed nerve of sense had conveyed
no message to the brain.

Sometimes the friction endures, and the
note of pain reaches the bystander after
many days, months, or years. I have been
sitting in the wood, and as the wind swayed
the branches I would hear the appeal of
some dryad among them, moaning in her
pain. Sometimes it has required quite a
long search to discover the sufferer, but at
length it would be found, a branch which
year after year had borne the burden of
another, ever becoming heavier and more
insistent as the years rolled on, and grind
ing its way into the vital substance. And
then again I have found instances where as
time had passed the two had become incor
porate, and the wood nymph had escaped
her torture by appropriating her burden as
an integral part of her substance.

It is well when strength can thus be con
quered from calamity. Each time Antseus
was thrown to the ground, his vigour was in
creased ; contact with mother earth gave
strength to her child. So it should be al
ways, and so, I fondly hope, it usually is.

But when I began, I was thinking more

140 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

particularly of the beneficence of the ar
rangement by which that which at first is
the cause of much perplexity, of great dis
tress, of sore grief, soon becomes diluted
as it were, mixed with other ingredients,
and even before any solution is found, any
issue is discovered, ceases to be the terrible
thing it was in the beginning. Sometimes
this is doubtless simply because the tired
brain becomes numbed, and the nerves re
fuse any longer to bear so acute a current.
But this in itself is a part, and a large part
of the "tempering" of which I spoke. The
wind bloweth where it listeth, and it still
beats about the devoted head ; but the
blast is silent, or as on the harp of vEolus,
the shriek of agony dies away in a plain
tive murmur.

JUNE 10, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 141

XXVI.

PHOLI.IS made a little exclamation and
stopped me as I was about to step upon a
mottled brown snake, which lay in a slightly
waving line across the middle of the sandy
wood-road. The compensating curve of its
body was really very graceful, but it was
difficult to conjure up any emotion of pleas
ure as we looked at it. It seemed at first
perfectly still, but on examining it narrowly
the motion of its breathing apparatus could
be discovered. I have an invincible repug
nance for all snakes, noxious and innocuous
alike, which, nevertheless, I try to conquer,
and I touched it with a light branch which
I had in my hand, to ascertain whether its
sluggishness were only assumed. It imme
diately flattened and hollowed its neck for a
length of several inches, and darted out its
forked tongue in very vicious fashion. I
looked about for a loose stone or heavy stick
with which to make a demonstration in
force, but meantime the reptile softly glided
away among the bushes and was lost.

142 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

When I described it to my neighbour
afterward, he said that it was probably a red
adder, one of the few poisonous serpents of
these parts. It was not very red, and may
not have been an adder, or a nadder as it
seems we should properly say, but it was
dangerous enough in appearance to bu any
thing of the kind you might name. 1'ossibly
it was a copperhead, that unseemly reptile
which strikes unexpectedly and without
warning, and which a generation ago lent
its name to those rebel sympathizers in the
North who formed our weakest spot in the
war days, and doubtless to many others
whom it was cruel injustice to class with
these. For when the nation was in dire
peril, people did not stop to make nice dis
criminations, and sometimes conduct which
was simply the result of a more delicate
conscientiousness or more philosophical ap
prehension upon the part of the individual,
was attributed to a much less worthy cause.

We have not a great many venomous
reptiles, and I believe that I never knew
a person who had been bitten by one. And
yet I have a constant and very lively dread
of them, as I have intimated, and I believe
that this feeling is largely shared by others.

The snake is perhaps more graceful in its

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 143

motions than any other living thing, — even
than a kitten, — and yet instead of enjoying
these, similar motions in other beings ex
cite in us a certain repulsion, at least poet
ically, because of this association. Is not
this really, in part, at least, a "survival in
culture," — a result of the traditional iden
tification of the serpent with the supposed
embodiment of the principle of evil ?

We are magazines, full of these remnants
of the past, which sometimes wear out, but
often long endure to colour our opinions
and our reasoning, and control our action.
Our whole social structure is based upon
them, and the e|fort to effect a sudden rev
olution is as senseless as anything of which
you can conceive. Why is it good form to
sell certain things by the ton, but ignoble
to sell them by the pound? Why is ser
vice in a store or office respectable, and
service in a house menial ? Why is a cer
tain kind of service paid for at a certain
rate, and another service, just as simple,
paid for at four times that rate ? Why, a
thousand things that pass before us every
day without attracting our observation, sim
ply because we have always been accus
tomed to them? We do not know anything
more, than that under the interaction of the

144 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

various forces which have controlled human
development, — an infinite variety of forces,
— they have worked out so. We may not
feel wholly satisfied with the result. We
may think that the burdens are borne un
equally by different classes and individuals.
We may try to modify the existing order.
But there is no use in " getting mad " about
it ; that will not help matters. The pope's
bull against the comet was of little service.
Canute did not stop the incoming of the
tide. The vis inert ice is a mighty power,
and you may as well take it into account.
Keep your head level. See what is possible,
and do that. Do not allo\t yourself to be
come a scold, and on the other hand do not
permit yourself to be merely as a cork float
ing upon the top of the wave. Find out if
you can in which way the permanent chan
nels lie, whither the current must ultimately
run, toward what point the eternal trade
winds blow ; head your bark thitherward,
and pull with all the might that is in you.

But I am afraid that we did not think
of all these things as we strolled along that
afternoon. It was warm, but fortunately
a mantle of cloud covered us with a grate
ful shade, and when we entered the pine
wood we were flooded with the spicy

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 145

fragrance from the trees. The purple
cypripediums long eluded us, but there
they were at last, and the lupines, and by
the brookside the fleur-de-lis.

And here on the edge of the sandy road
is the inconspicuous and unattractive sheep
laurel ; had our tramp carried us farther
away among the hills, we should have found
its nobler cousin the mountain laurel, now
in its prime, with great white and rosy
masses of most lovely blossoms. There
upon my chiffonier are some splendid clus
ters, which have been gradually opening in
water during the past six days. Nothing
else upon our hillsides is quite so fine as
this royal shrub. The native rhododendron
is massive but pale. The pink azalea is
rich, but not so plentiful or pronounced.
The laurel is the prince of the June woods,
and holds a royal state. I think that no
where else will you find it quite equalling
the display that it makes around Lake
Mohonk, but it bi'avely holds its own over
a vast territory.

Some time ago, when there was consider
able talk about a national flower, this was
suggested as especially suitable, the leaves,
the buds, and the blossoms alike being fine,
and peculiarly adapted to effective use in
L

146 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

decorative work. Were it possible to select
a "national flower" out of hand, perhaps
no more happy choice could be made than
this. But what an absurd idea it is ! I
fear that we are hardly poetic enough as a
people to be entitled to a national flower.
If we were, we should know that this is a
matter to be determined by feeling, by nat
ural growth, by common consent, not by
popular vote. In the state of New York a
ballot for a state flower was taken among
the children of the public schools. The
majority voted for the golden-rod. But
what golden-rod ? I think there are said
to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of
seventy species, varying in all sorts of ways,
and, graceful and beautiful as some of them
are, they are not definite and distinctive
in flower, but rather attractive masses or
sprays.

Let us have a national flower, if you
please, and all other good things, when the
time comes and we deserve them, but do
not let us reach them by way of the factory
system. Perhaps it is one of many indica
tions that we are outgrowing our first crude
national stage that the question is raised,
but we can afford to go slowly until ideas
of this kind cease to be novel. Let us reso-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 147

lutely refuse to bury ourselves in the clutter
of material things, and I fancy that we
shall find our perceptions opening to a flood
of impressions which cannot fail to leave a
finer stamp upon our spirits and our hearts.

JUNE 12, 1894.

148 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XXVII.

NINETY-TWO in the shade. It was at
seventy -eight when I saw it last at night ;
this morning it was at seventy -three. The
cocks were crowing and the hens cackling
as usual, the robins, sparrows, and other
birds were singing their accustomed matin
song ; far away in the woods the air was
filled with a murmur which did not fully
reveal itself, but may have been the warn
ing note of the coming swarm of " seven
teen-year locusts," upon the eastern border
of which we should find ourselves. As
the day waxed older, the mercury climbed
higher, and the parched air brought to us
no note of comfort. The church-going, or
pleasure-going teams (there must be some
thing wrong where the church-going teams
are not also in some true sense pleasure-
going teams, — wrong in the goers or in the
churches) filled the air with a dnst so fine
from the dry roadways, that much of it
floated high into the slightly moving air.

Some of the little ones must have turn-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 149

bled out of bed the wrong end foremost.
So we used to put it, but I suppose that we
shall have to admit that it was only the
extra fever in the blood that caused the
fractious ways which manifested themselves
where all is generally serene. I am sure
that the babies — God bless them ! — do not
know how the endless little shrieks and
fretting wear upon the nerves, themselves
undergoing a sort of disintegration. " Tom
won't give me this," and "Hal won't let
me have that, mamma," and "I don't
want to," and all the negative situations
possible, come to the surface. And then a
little clear laugh or gurgle of delight tells
us that joy has not quite gone out of the
world.

And we all compare notes upon the mo
mentous subject. "Isn't it hot!" and
" It's going to be hotter than yesterday,"
and " Were you ever in such a hot place
before in your life?" and "Oh, if we
could only have a shower ! " and " Proba
bilities says that we shall have one this
afternoon," and "That's the worst news
I've heard yet ; then we're sure not to have
one." All the familiar phrases come along,
as new as ever.

The hammocks are filled and swinging ;

150 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the enormous and abominable metropolitan
Sunday newspapers lie strewn upon the
porch and on the grass, filled to overflow
ing with things that nobody wants to know,
or ought to want to know, with here and
there a little pure true thought, a breath of
natural life, a lift of imagination, a glimpse
into the ideal.

The scribe had some writing to do, and
he has discovered after not one or two,
but after many experiences, that as the
way in which to resume specie payments
was to resume, so the way in which to keep
cool, is to keep cool. Don't fret. "Fret
not thyself because of evil-doers," the good
book says, and they are golden words,
worthy of all acceptance, and to be repeated
daily in the synagogue. But "fret not
thyself at all" is a good saying. Quietly !
Quietly ! Don't fret ! The scribe attended
to his writing, and when he came down
among the others, where some of the older
folk were fuming very much as the babies
were, they said: " Why, you don't look
hot at all ! " But, nevertheless, he was
undeniably warm.

Arm-chairs and rocking-chairs were car
ried out under the trees and pitched here
and there, wherever a tremor in the leaves

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 15!

promised a breath of life-giving air. Around
the house the grass was green and fresh,
although in spots the ground had been worn
bare by passing feet, or left exposed be
cause of the denser shade ; beyond, daisies
in myriads mottled the fields. Over the
porch a tulip tree carried its golden and
green cups high into the upper air. For a
moment the branches would rustle over
us, and a passing breeze would fan our
cheeks, then die away into utter stillness.

Scattered groups of two or three or more
appeared under the different trees, lads and
lasses here, feeling perhaps the glow of
warmth within equalling that without, or
perhaps merely skimming along the surface
in the irrepressible effervescence of youth ;
there pater and mater familias exchanging
the weekly Sunday greetings, with the rest
less young ones playing around in the grass,
or running out into the dusty road. The
scribe found an arm-chair shaded by a dense
maple and linden, and sank into it, armed
with a number of " Good Government,"
a volume of Thackeray's " Philip," and an
other of Moliere. As in duty bound he
gave his attention first to the periodical,
and having done his duty in that direction,
fell back upon "Don Garcie." But as the

152 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

light breeze gently stirred the leaves, the
hot sun blinked through between them, and
the heavy air weighed upon the eyelids.
The book was closed, feet were thrust out,
and the head rested on the back of the
chair, while in the debatable land between
sleep and waking, thought floated aimlessly
among things present and absent, fact and
fancy.

Through eyes half-opened, a little toddling
figure in white is seen approaching, with
blue eyes and rosy cheeks and pouting lips.
" Won't you please get me some Marguer
ites ? " " Of course I will, my little one,"
and off we go hand in hand, among the
daisies. Again the border of dreamland is
reached, and then a red head ending in a
black nose is thrust into my hand, and the
owner thereof manifests a tendency to be
all over me at once. " Down, Hover, lie
down ! " and with a push the affectionate
brute, for whose attentions I fear his mas
ter is not sufficiently grateful, is induced to
stretch himself out at my feet, breathing
heavily in the nervous fashion which the
distemper has bequeathed to him.

Passing along the village street toward
the post-office as the day is waning, the
reflection from the dry earth makes hot-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 153

ter the hot air. Across the green of the
valley the distant hills and mountains rise
through the dusty haze, tier beyond tier,
clearly marked, like giant wave lines on a
mighty sea, disappearing gradually toward
the horizon. Behind the cloister, stretched
upon the fresh green grass under broad
spread ing trees on westward sloping ground,
clad in white, lie maidens exchanging
maidenly confidences. The term is draw
ing to an end. The day of parting comes
on apace. For many, the school days are
ending, and closely knit friendships which
years have strengthened must now be sub
jected to the test of separation, of new as
sociations, of widening occupations, duties,
pleasures. The " curtain raiser " has been
played out ; the curtain is about to fall ;
then comes the prompter's bell, and it is
rung up again for the drama: what shall
this be ? Ah ! that for all there could be
something more of the rural simplicity, the
grateful repose of this favoured spot, than
our great cities with their feverish life
afford for many. May the heart burnings
be few, and while the recollections remain
always tender, may there not be intense
and bitter longing for that which cannot
return, for "the days that are no more."

154 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

Ah ! the heart sickness that must sometimes
come : —

I have had playmates, I have had compan
ions

lu my days of childhood, iii my joyful school
days;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

— Some they have died, and some they have
left me,

And some are taken from me; all are de
parted;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Bon voyage, Fhillis and Hiollis, one
going to meet the rising, one following the
setting sun. May the wild Atlantic quiet
her grim waves and bear the pilgrim safely
to the farther shore ! It is not for all of us
to tread historic paths ; to stand where the
brave deeds have been done which history
records, whatever brave deeds we may be
called upon to perform in the privacy of
our own lives ; not for us all to look upon
the monuments which attest past glory, to
see the noble remnants of olden art, the
quaint peculiarities of varying civilizations,
the finished culture of a riper world. May
the old world kindly receive the child of the
new, and may all the winds blow fair,
and safely guide the wanderer home again !

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 155

But let her beware of the lotos : —

— evermore

Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, " We will return no

more ; "

And all at once they sang, " Our island home
Is far beyond the wave ; we will no longer

roam/'

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music than gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes:
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the
blissful skies.

And in that newer world across the
prairies, which used to be the far West,
and has grown to be almost a part of the
East, whither the sun travels to shake off
upon the broad fields the drip of the sea,
may the welcome be a kindly one also, but
not so kindly as to cause Underledge to
fade away in the misty distance. There
be many paths among these green hills
yet untrod, many mysteries yet to be re
vealed.

JUNE 17, 1894.

156 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XXVIII.

DURING the past week the frequent clink
of the hammer has been heard upon the
hill, and the walls have grown apace, heavy
walls, with mighty stones in them, which
make the inclosed space of the cottage
look curiously small. But no hammer
stroke has been heard on the face of the
stones, and as they rise above the surface
of the ground, the lichens and mosses give
them an appearance of ancientness which
is good to see. The masons have become
interested in carrying out the enterprise as
it was planned, and bid fair to produce a
work with which they may quite properly
be content.

The well has proved refractory, and it
may yet need to be carried further into the
bowels of the earth. But the fruit trees
and most of the other plantings have taken
kindly to their new home, and notwith
standing this second dry spell, with its
intense heat, I must on the whole be sat
isfied with the appearance of the growing

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 157

things. To-morrow or the next day, the
favoured feathered bipeds, Leghorns and
Plymouth Rocks, and Light Brahnias
and Minorcas, should arrive from the city
and take possession of the palatial quarters
prepared for them, and if they do not in
continently take to laying at once, and lay
with energy, they will be most ungrateful
creatures. I am sure that any hen with
the least aesthetic taste should feel proud
to be so raised above the world, and pro
vided with all the comforts of a luxurious
home.

JUNE 17, 1894.

158 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XXIX.

WE stand with bowed heads as the angel
with the inverted torch passes swiftly by
us. " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away ; blessed be the name of the
Lord."

Let sorrow have her way. "The heart
knoweth his own bitterness ; and a stranger
doth not intermeddle with his joy," neither
with his sorrow. But it is permitted to
others to shoulder in part the burdens of
those that suffer most, and to go down into
the dark valley with them. Do not try to
smother the sorrow ; it is the one right of
the human being which none can question.
We stand upon the brink and look out upon
the vast unknown, and to our call no
answer comes from the silence. Let us
indulge the heartache, and commune with
our own. The day was so fair ; the bark
kept on an even keel : —

Where lies the land to which the ship would

go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 159

We look again, and not a speck floats
upon the surface of the waters. The call
has gone forth, "and the spirit shall return
unto God who gave it." We cannot quite
realize it at first ; we cannot understand it
at all : wait a little ; by and by we shall
stand under it. The sad days of the past
will grow dim in our memory ; the dear,
rich, happy days will come back once more
to stay with us forever.

And as the years go by, and we gradu
ally learn that there is only one thing for
us to do, — to shower richer blessings around
us, our own that would have been for
him, and his, for whom we have become
trustees, and whose trust we must fulfil to
others, — then is the load adjusted, and we
begin to understand.

And ever before us go the spirits that
have left us, those

— we have loved long since, and lost awhile ;

and when the long day wanes, and we feel
aweary, the sounds of the present may at
tract us less, and in the future we may seem
to see something of the past, and coupled
with it that which we so much have longed
for, — peace.

JUNE 19, 1894.

l6o FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

As I stand upon the hillside and look
across the green valley, where, notwith
standing another drought, the crops are mak
ing good headway ; when I remember that
whereas once great famines were a common
occurrence, now, thanks in good part to the
practice of forestalling, there is ever food
enough for all those that live upon the earth,
though here and there there are some who
fail to obtain it ; that, thanks to wonderful
labour-saving appliances, most articles of
necessity have been greatly reduced in cost,
and a vast number of things which were
once luxuries unattainable by any, are now
easily accessible by all but the very poor
est ; that spite of "bad business" and
" hard times " there is enough and to spare
for all, while there are those always ready
to come to the assistance of the few whom
temporary conditions have thrown out of
their ordinary relation to the industries of
the community, — when I remember these
things, and that we are heirs of all the ages,

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. l6l

with the record of human experience lying
as an open page before us, and yet see the
wave of barbarism which is sweeping over
the earth, I feel weak.

The immediate prompting to this reflec
tion is the dastardly assassination of Car-
not, which took place last night. In all
ages there have been assassinations of
rulers, and we have had previous instances
of the untimely taking off of those upon
whom in some measure depended the im
mediate progress of nations or of the race.
But here we have one of a constantly pro
gressive series of incidents resulting from
deliberately organized barbarism. Society
in many countries is undermined in the
interest merely of destruction. This is
one, but perhaps not the most dangerous
aspect of the situation. Ideas and princi
ples, as well as society and customs, are
undermined, and there is scarcely a truth
in business or social relations which history
and experience have taught, which is not
boldly repudiated and defied.

What is the cause of this, and what are
we to expect ? It is difficult, I am not sure
that it is not impossible, to say. It all
seems so unnecessary, and yet we are ap
parently so impotent to prevent or cure it.
M

162 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

That the facts which I stated in opening
are facts cannot be truthfully denied. The
world is better off in material things than
it ever was before. It has more oppor
tunity for intellectual improvement than
it ever had before. There is more chance
for individual progress than there ever was
before. Material development is more
rapid than it ever was before. And yet
all this seems to be accompanied by a con
dition of mental and moral collapse on the
part of a considerable percentage of the
human race.

If this condition only appeared in those
who a hundred years ago would naturally
have been classed as social nonentities, but
who have now been brought forward as
factors in nation and society, in an imper
fect state of development, the problem
would be an easier one. Unfortunately
this does not seem to be the case. Exam
ples appear in all ranks and among all
classes, even the most favoured. Society's
enemies are those of its own household, as
well as those who have been forgotten.
There seems to be a physical, mental, or
moral fever running through the nations.
May it prove but a transient epidemic, to be
succeeded by a wholesome convalescence.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 163

I cannot help thinking that it is not im
probable that the disease is in some good
measure the result of the immensely rapid
development of discovery, invention, and
manufacture, of the stupendous changes of
the past century. These have been too
much for us. Animal and vegetable organ
isms need time to fit them to new relations ;
we are out of key with our surroundings ;
we are in a state of ferment and unstable
equilibrium, of moral and mental mix.

We need to get away a little distance
Irom the crowd, to bare our foreheads to
the breeze and cool our throbbing temples.
Here we may lie among the daisies, and rest
ourselves until we can draw our breath in
steadiness and quite unconsciously. At
first the song of the lark or the bobolink
may hardly impress our ear. But after a
while we see the flashing of a wing, and
mayhap begin to realize a refreshing fra
grance in the air. And probably it may
occur to us that there are such things as
false standards, and ignoble contests, and
wasted lives. What does the man or
woman need, after all ? Food and clothing
and shelter, a lift to the imagination, and
good companionship, — and how little they
cost ! A pest upon your gross ambitions !

164 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

Let us have again plain living and high
thinking : the high thinking, at all events ;
for the plain living, fecund nature will
hardly permit us that, unless we are de
termined to have it whether or no.

There is enough for us all and to spare,
if we want only the very best things ; and
we know at least this much of the secret
of the conversion of the world, — that each
of us is the master of one life which can be
turned to a good account.

I have been interested in the discussion
caused by Mr. Godkin's suggestion that edu
cated men distrust or regret universal suf
frage. My observation leads me to believe
that we are all, or most of us, more and
more inclined to think forms of govern
ment of comparatively small account. All
roads lead to Rome. Pretty nearly any
form of government will work well in good
hands ; and without good citizens the best
form which can be devised is valueless.
We have said many proud things of our
republicanism, and New York has trusted
its fortunes to "the people." And what
are we having revealed to us to-day ? A
closely knit combination of the sworn offi
cial conservators of the peace with the
dregs of society, to prey upon and plun-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 165

der the law-abiding members of the com
munity.

Pah ! Let us, at least for a while, get
out where we can fill our lungs with God's
own fresh air. And then let us put on the
helmet and cuirass which may be appro
priate, and with new strength in our arm,
grasp the good sword Excalibur, or $lo*
ttjumi, if you please, and in knightly
fashion throw ourselves into the thick of
the fray, in defence of truth, justice, and
purity.

JUNE 25, 1894.

1 66 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XXXI.

As I cross the meadow and climb the
hill in the morning to watch the growing
walls, the tantalizing fog veiling and soft
ening the heights but holding out little
promise of rain, Mr. and Mrs. Robert of
Lincoln give me their daily greeting. I
fear that it is not all a manifestation of
affection, but rather of alarm and solici
tude for the brood hidden somewhere near
by, among the tall grass. Mrs. Lincoln
speaks prose in a pleasant chirping tone,
but Robert has a very musical voice, and is
lavish in its use. According to Wilson, he
should now be changing his colour, and
growing like unto his mate, but my friend
is brilliant, a dSep black on his breast and
under side, and bright creamy yellow and
white upon much of the upper part of his
body and wings, much richer than my
copy of Wilson represents him ; while
madam, on the contrary, is considerably
duller than as represented, having a gen
eral brownish tone, tinged with yellow.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 167

They circle around me, fluttering and soar
ing, and alight here and there upon the
stalks of timothy, which bend but do not
break under their weight, though from the
size of the birds one would expect them to
be much too heavy for the slender grass.

When I reach the upper part of the
field I find the harvesters at work, the
daisies, and such nutritious growth as they
have permitted among them, going down
crisply before the sharp scythes. I sup
pose that in time we may learn to see a
like poetry in the action of the mowing
machine with the driver riding atop ; but
as yet there is something which appeals to
me much more strongly in the free swing
and graceful swaying motion of the men
as they follow one another step by step
across the field, the grass falling in swaths
at their side ; while the musical ringing of
the scythe stones upon the steel at inter
vals, I fear, is quite inimitable, and not to
be compensated for by any substituted
sound.

My poultry yard has received its con
signment of fowls. They have been domes
ticated here for less than a week, and were
at first disposed to be very timid and flighty.
But already they have become accustomed

1 68 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

to Nicholas John and myself, and this morn
ing the handsome Minorca rooster came
and took grain from my hand, with many
encouraging expressions to the members of
his harem. His interest in their welfare,
however, did not prevent him from devour
ing what was before him as rapidly as he
could, and disposing of it all, just before
the ladies became ready to show the same
confidence in my good intentions.

My Brown Leghorn cock appears very
much discouraged. Since Sunday morning
he has been dull and moping, supporting
himself about as much upon his head as
his heels ; and wild as he was before, he is
not now disposed to take more than a step
or two when I put my hands upon him,
and only eats and drinks when assisted.
I fear that his belligerent propensities have
led him to try conclusions with the huge
Plymouth Hock rooster in the next yard,
and that he has come to grief in the meshes
of the woven wire fence between them.

I suppose that you do not realize that I
am merely beating about the bush. To
day the term ends, and the cloisters are
closed. The dear old lumbering stage
coach with its various tenders have made

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 1 69

their several trips, laden inside and out
with hopes and fears, sorrows and joyful
anticipations, as well as with human bodies.
Hands and kerchiefs have been waved, and
kisses thrown, and the teary eyes tried
bravely to seem as though there were no
showers within hail. But ah ! there is no
drought that long affects the fount which so
readily flows at the tap of the affections.

Go up, thou bald-head ! Has life so
worn with thee that all thy papillae have
become seared and callous, no longer re
sponding to the touch of thy fellows ?
Has all sentiment come to seem mere sen
timentality, and naught real and true ex
cept bonds and stocks, and quotations in
the market, line carriages and fast horses,
dollars and cents ? If so, I pity thee.
Good by, bathos and spectacle, — a good
riddance to you. Do not try to pump feel
ing from wells drilled in the social hard-
pan. .But if there be anything truer,
richer, more lasting, and more worthy than
the strong attachments of human beings, I
know not what it is. If we may not testify
to the tie which binds heart to heart, until
the eyelids are closed, and the cool pit is
opened, and the dull clods fall upon the
straw, then let usr like the stricken deer,

170 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

quietly creep away, and lie down for the last
time in the solitude of the remote forest, for
life has no more for us within its gift.

My brothers in arms, have we not sum-
mert'd and wintered together, have we not
had a common playtime, and have we not
fought side by side in social and political
frays, as with beasts at Ephesus ? Have we
not tested each other's temper, and found
what manner of men we are ? Do we not
know that so long as life holds out we shall
be ready to rally at the call, and present a
bold front to the ills that threaten any one
of us, or the commonweal ? Then go to !
Let us join hands, and look into each other's
eyes, and frankly confess that we are kin
dred spirits, and in our feeling a little more
than kin and not less than kind.

And now the footfall is silent on the
doorstep. Away in the distance, the rum
bling coach takes its course over the val
ley, and the dust has fallen upon the track
which it made. Close the windows and
draw the curtains, and permit the spiders
to weave their webs across the sashes.

Let us go up upon the mountain, and
look for the locusts.

JUNE 26, 1SSM.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XXXII.

I THINK that it is nearly four weeks since
we have had a shower sufficiently heavy
to soak through the dust on the roads, and
the ground is parched as though it had been
baked in an oven. And yet the forests and
the meadows remain green, and even where
the hay has been harvested, the grass does
not seem burned to a crisp. Day after day
we watch the storm-clouds forming around
us ; we hear the muttering of distant thun
der, and, as night approaches, see the elec
tric signals flash from cloud to cloud ; it is
thunder to right of us, thunder to left of us,
thunder in front of us ; occasionally a cool
breeze from another valley conies to in
form us of the grateful showers that have
fallen there. The ladies tell me that the
air is laden with moisture, and that conse
quently dainty dresses, quietly hanging in
the closet, contract their skirts by inches,
as if to escape contact with a wet earth ;
nevertheless, the would-be welcome rain
tarries yet in the offing.

172 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

I have a new Brown Leghorn rooster,
master of the clan vice the first incumbent,
incapacitated, and since transferred to an
other sphere. And he is a true squire of
dames, brilliant in his plumage, imposing
in his carriage, and withal courtly and
generous in his manners. In the latter
respect, I confess that he greatly surprised
me, after my experience with his cousin
from Minorca. He quickly ventured to
take grain from my hand, or from the
ground close beside me, but instead of im
mediately swallowing it, would hold it in
his beak, clucking an encouraging invita
tion to the ladies of his family, and, as if
realizing that their enterprise might not
be sufficient to bring them quite so close
to the great ogre, man, would move off
two or three steps, and lay the grain upon
the ground, continuing his cheering calls.
Often he has to pick up and lay down the
same grain two or three times, before he
finds a customer for it, but at length it will
be called for, and he will look on most
benignly while it is being disposed of.
Sometimes it is necessary for him to go
through the process of laying down the
grain, and scratching about it, before his
coy consorts can be encouraged to approach.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 173

Occasionally he swallows a grain, just to
keep up his strength for the work in hand ;
but I do not think that he takes more than
one out of a dozen, which is much less than
his share.

But he has the defects of his virtues, and
is a good deal of a swash-buckler. He is
of the time of Louis XIII. and XIV., and
reminds me now of the dainty Aramis, and
now of Athos, Porthos, and the rough
and ready D'Artagnan. lie will vary his
amusements by periodically facing his
neighbour, the Plymouth Rock rooster in
the adjoining yard, like his lamented prede
cessor ; and this morning he managed to get
over the high fence, and to give the latter
such a drubbing that he was fain to retire
into the privacy of his own apartments,
with both eyes closed, and generally such
a wreck as was pitiful to behold. I hope
that this interview has so far settled their
differences that hereafter peace may reign
upon the confines of their dominions.

Strangely enough, the locusts have not
invaded the precincts of the village. Two
or three days ago, I saw one fluttering
through my dining-room that is to be, but
it was the only one that I have seen this
side of the hills. In the hottest part of

174 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the day we still hear the distant buzzing of
their calls ; but it is not near so loud as it
was ten days ago, and it does not attract
our attention in the early morning as it did
then. Wings are found here and there
upon the street, the related bodies having,
I imagine, been disposed of by the birds.

A week ago, I went up on the hills to
make a nearer acquaintance with the com
pany. When fairly among them, the air
rang with their note, as if with the whir
ring of a considerable collection of light
machinery and gearing, with now and then
a curious rising inflection. It is quite
unlike the hot, dry rattle of our ordinary
locusts. I saw many of the insects them
selves, but they were far from being as
numerous as I remember them in the
Pennsylvania brood of a certain year that
shall be nameless. May I not have my
reticences ? If there was a pre-diluvian
period which I can look back upon, let us
assume it to have been vaguely a Saturnian
era, a Golden age, without beginning and
without end, the glamour of which still
lingers upon the hills of to-day.

On this recent excursion, I did not see
any of the insects emerging from their
shells, as I frequently did in those early

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 175

days ; but I saw many of these shells, some
times two or three of them left upon a
single leaf, having the opening in the back
through which the insect escaped. And
many of the locusts were busily at work
boring the holes in which to deposit their
eggs. This they do most industriously,
and it is far from being an easy task. I
watched one for perhaps nearly ten min
utes, effecting a single perforation ; and
sometimes these appear at intervals of a
half inch or so, for a distance of as much
as a foot, or a foot and a half, along a
single branch, apparently, though I cannot
say certainly, made by a single female.

The ovipositor is a horny, sting-like ap
pendage attached near the middle of the
lower side of the body. It is about a third of
an inch long and slightly curved backward,
and the perforation is effected by gripping
the branch or twig tightly with the feet, and
contracting the legs so as to force the in
strument diagonally through the bark into
the wood. The muscular exertion required
must be very great, and the ovipositor is
nearly withdrawn and again thrust into
the wood over and over before the work is
completed.

I suppose that it is well known that little

176 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

or no serious damage is done by the insects
through eating in this stage of existence.
The devastation produced in the woods and
among the scattered trees is caused by the
destruction of innumerable twigs and small
branches by the boring for the deposit of
eggs, this resulting shortly in the death of
these twigs. I think it is not improbable
that some active poison is inserted at the
time the egg is laid. At all events, in most
cases the twig quickly dies and becomes
brittle, and is broken off by the wind, and
then falling to the ground, the new genera
tion is permitted, as soon as released from
the egg, to sink below the surface and begin
the period of seventeen years of subterra
nean existence, from which these which I
have been observing have just emerged.

JULY 2, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 177

XXXIII.

How beautiful is the rain !

After the dust and heat,

In the hroad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain !

THE leaden clouds gather around us and
shut off the hot rays of the sun, and the
thunder comes nearer than we have had it
in many weeks. But we have become in
credulous, and I hear the patter of the fall
ing drops upon the leaves over my head
before I realize that there is any need for
me to gather up my books and papers, and
seek shelter under the neighbouring roof.
For a moment the drops fall merrily, and
bury themselves in the finely powdered dust
upon the drive outside the window ; but
before the surface has been moistened all
over, the supply is cut off, a break appears
in the curtain which covers the heavens,
and the sun gleams through again as though
like the clown at the circus, to say, " Here
we are again ! "

178 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

But never mind ; there are three or four
little puddles upon the floor of the porch,
large enough to reflect the branches waving
in the freshened breeze, a grumble is heard
now from one quarter and now from another
where heavy clouds cover most of the sky,
and " we may be happy yet."

Yesterday, when I parted from Blondin
after our cosy lunch in one of those quiet
little foreign places which you will find here
and there in old dwelling-houses upon the
cross streets in the metropolis, and took my
way to spend an hour at the club before
train time, the sunshine came almost as hot
from the blistering pavement of the dusty
and noisy street as from the heavens above.
But on an inner balcony at the club-house,
which I had quite to myself at this hour,
it was gratefully cool and quiet. My hour
passed all too quickly, and I soon found
myself amid the throng at the neighbouring
station. The bull reigns in the zodiac, and
the air is heavy and the pulse high as the
holiday crowds, flushed and flurried, gather
in the long trams to flee away from the
city for a breath of fresh country air. It
is not until the Bronx comes in sight, with
the appropriate accent of a blanchisscuse
upon the bank, with clean white garments

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 179

scattered upon the grass around her, that
the weight lifts a little, and we realize once
more that life is worth living. Even here
much is sordid and mean, and it is but a
touch now and then which lets us out into
the infinite. "Hop" Smith, the versatile,
tells me that " A Day at Laguerre's" was
drawn with absolute truth, and I am sure
that he believes it. But then he is of the
fortunate ones who evolve their own facts
from the nature of their constitution, and
carry with them an atmosphere which
causes the light to touch with a tender glow
the most common things. And who would
not rather see Mambrino's helmet than a
barber's basin, and find an inspiration to
knightly deeds in the Dulcinea del Toboso ?
If I may not think my geese all swans, let
me never keep a flock to squawk at my
coming.

But the French at Laguerre's are retiring
before Guiseppe and Pietro and Giacomo,
and the peasants of sunny Italy are, tempo
rarily at least, taking the place of the vola
tile and genial Gaul ; and they have brought
their barbarisms with them. They are not
our barbarisms, of the counting-house and
the shop and the mine, but the hot blood of
the South, the quick word, and the knife.

l8o FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

Whether is better the mean tawdry life of
vulgar commonplace, high or low, gilded or
unvarnished, or the life that rests on a word,
a Hash, a blow, — good-night ! — Say rather,
which is worse ?

At least this is to be said, — while there
is life there is hope, and it takes so small
an aperture for the soul to creep through !
'"Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide
as a church door ; but 'tis enough, 'twill
serve." Our vulgarisms are the meanest of
the mean, and we have enough of them,
Heaven knows. But if " There is some soul
of goodness in things evil," as Shakespeare
says, we have a right to hope that in the
coining days there may be ever more of the
sweet and wholesome growing therefrom, as
the richest flowers spring from the soil where
we have buried most of that which was
noisome and vile.

While I have been writing, we have had
another shower, and again the sunlight lies
upon the freshened fields. The contribution
has not been large, but perhaps the charm
of the evil eye has been broken, and better
days are in store for us.

JULY 4, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. l8l

XXXIV.

IT is said that every man should be the
architect of his own fortunes, and I think
that each should be, at least in a degree,
the architect of his own house. It is not a
bad plan for him to be to some extent its
builder also. It should represent his ideas,
if he has any, in its arrangement and con
struction ; he should watch it grow under
his eyes, look after the setting of the roots,
follow it up into the air, place a loving hand
on its stones and timbers, know intimately
what is contained in its walls and partitions
as well as what is contained between them,
and do something himself toward putting
them together.

I know that it is said that a shoemaker
should stick to his last, and that when a
man is his own lawyer, he has a fool for a
client. And there is much truth in both of
these statements. The professional is, or
should be, indispensable ; but he cannot
replace the client in his knowledge of the
thing which is most appropriate to him.

1 82 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

One would not wish to have some one else
select all his books and pictures for him, or
even his wife and children.

I have followed with a critical and caress
ing eye the growth of the cottage on the
hillside, and have experienced a glow of
satisfaction in seeing the manner in which
the irregular blocks found their places, and
I hope the lichens will take kindly to the
new angle at which the sun and wind must
reach them. When the cellar was covered
I went down into the cool shadow, and felt
myself in a manner at home, though the
outlook was somewhat as through the port
holes of a ship, excepting that the deep blue
sea was replaced by the green valley and
the deep blue hills on the horizon. And I
walked the rough floor, as a captain might
walk his quarter-deck, and looked through
the door-frames, and the irregular apertures
where the window-frames ought to be, and
began to realize more fully that all this vast
outdoors is mine, whatever futile efforts my
thousand neighbours may make to retain
their proprietorship.

To-day I went up on the side of the ledge
and selected certain special stones which I
desired to have worked into the walls. And
some of them I brought down myself upon

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 183

a rickety wheelbarrow. How astonishingly
a wheelbarrow wobbles when you have a
somewhat heavier load on board than you
are quite equal to ! It really is the tipsiest
sort of a conveyance, and you feel yourself
a kindred spirit. But I succeeded in com
pleting the journey with all but the heavi
est, and for the raising and transfer of this
I was compelled to call for assistance. And
then came the placing, in which I became a
free and accepted inason, pushing with my
little might to swing the boom of the derrick
into place, and handling the crowbar in the
adjustment upon the corner. It is true that
I had the assistance of the professionals, or
rather, assisted them, which being inter
preted means that they probably wished me
in Ballyhack, wherever that may be. How
ever, they were very amiable, and let me
have my way, and I am sure that the house
will be a better house — for me — because I
have had a hand in its construction.

The trap-rock of which I am building
will stand any amount of pressure when
well placed, but it is very brittle when
struck, and sometimes breaks anywhere
but where one desires, and Hies into a
dozen pieces. Therefore we have, so far
as possible, to secure such masses as will

1 84 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

serve us without alteration, and it being
understood that the best face is to be
shown to the world, this costs a good deal
of time. But the game is amply worth the
candle. I verily believe that no such beau
tiful wall, considering its location and pur
pose, could be erected of any other mate
rial. The softer mosses, I suppose, will
all disappear under the greater exposure,
and perhaps some of the larger and coarser
lichens also; but the finer and more delicate
ones, I am sure, will remain and continue to
grow. And the weather stains are also cer
tainly permanent. When the cement in
the cracks is thoroughly dried, it is covered
with a whitish efflorescence, which is very
effective, though perhaps it has rather too
much accent. It will doubtless, however,
gradually tone down under the action of
the dust, little of this though there be,
which can wander hitherward across the
fields ; certainly none that can be perceived
in the air. The vines, I am sure, will take
kindly to this rough surface, and I shall
only hesitate to let them cover too much
of it.

JULY 9, 18»i.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 185

XXXV.

LOST !

CAN you imagine anything that could
cause a more hopeless sinking of your heart
than to have it suddenly announced to you
in the gloaming that your child had strayed
away and was lost ? The light lingers on
the edge of the sky above the hills, the steel
gray showing that the dust has recently
been washed out of it. The stars be-gem
the vault overhead, and the crescent moon
has just begun to throw down a faint re
flected light, a suggestion only of what she
may do when she grows older and stronger.
There is an uncertain mingling of the day
light, which is fast fading, and the lamp
light, which hai'dly serves to do more than
to make the coming darkness visible, and
the dew is falling, and there is a suspicion
of a chill in the air, —and the child is lost.

Quick ! The darkness grows apace.
Whither shall we go ? Down behind the
inn to the brook, or by the road to the

186 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

river ? Or may it possibly be along the
village street that he strayed? Or — you
remember Charley Ross?

Hurry ! He has not been seen for half
an hour, — an hour. Look — everywhere !
Bring the horse and the buckboard. Let
us fly !

Well, well ! .It was a false alarm. The
little fellow had strayed away some hun
dreds of yards, and had been hospitably
entreated by a thoughtless neighbour ; and
here he is by his mother's side again, and
all is well. And the full eyes of the mother
say, Good friends, pardon me. I am very
sorry to have alarmed you so, but — but —
he was lost ! My child was lost !

JULY 9. 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 187

XXXVI.

I SUPPOSE it was fated that Pandora should
lift the cover from the box. We may wish
that she had sat upon it, or tumbled it into
the sea, or disposed of it in some other way,
but it is of no use. The box was to be
opened. That way lay the path of the race,
and take any by-road you might, you were
sure to come out upon the same track at last.

But I think that the Greeks only had a
forecast of what might be, and that the box
was not really opened until very recently.
The ancients thought that they had puzzling
questions to deal with, but they were mis
taken. They might badger their brains
about "Fixed fate, freewill, foreknowledge
absolute " ; but these, being insoluble riddles
which they might take or leave, were simply
personal problems, as were most others with
which they had to deal. It was left to the
age of the printing press, steam, and electri
city, above all to the age of the " walking
delegate," to propound puzzles which must
be dealt with if human society is to continue

188 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

to exist, but with which we are apparently
powerless to deal.

Up on the slope atUnderledge the ground
is not now as moist as we should like it to
be, though the weather is absolutely perfect.
Some of us are very poor, and none of us
feel very rich ; but we get something to eat
almost every day, and if we do not have a
good thick juicy beefsteak at each meal, we
remember having read of persons who had
made a fair repast upon shoe leather. We
look about us, and we see labouring men of
moderate calibre, who have never had more
than a labouring man's modest wages, who
have married and brought up families,
and who, withal, have established and own
comfortable homes in which they live under
their own vines and cherry trees. They get
their dollar and a half a day when they can
earn it, and when they cannot earn it they
dig in the garden, or tend the baby, and
hope for the time when they can.

Most of us receive a daily newspaper, or if
we do not take one ourselves, we borrow our
neighbour's, or we hear what the paper con
tains when we go down to the post-office.
And nowadays the paper contains the most
remarkable tales. It appears that millions
of dollars worth of property has been burned

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. l8g

or otherwise destroyed ; that many more
millions worth of damage has been effected
by the derangement of business ; that num
bers of lives have been sacrificed, and incal
culable misery has been inflicted over a vast
extent of territory by combinations of men
banded together to prevent other men, if
possible, from doing just what our labouring
men have done at Underledge, just what the
intelligent and industrious workingman has
been doing for several thousand years past,
— the best that he could do for himself and
his family, as an honest, self-respecting
member of society.

This is the situation as it appears to us.
We suppose that a man can give up work
ing if he chooses, if he thereby breaks no
contract, and does not compel others to
support him in idleness; but there, so far as
we can perceive, his right ends. When he
undertakes to prevent others from work
ing who desire to do so, he is acting as an
enemy of the first principle upon which
civilization and society rest ; he is guilty
of treason against the race, and there is
no punishment which the race can impose
which is a fit measure of his guilt. This
treason must be put down if it takes every
able-bodied man, and the cripples also, and

IQO FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

every dollar's worth of property in exist
ence ; it must be put clown at the cost of
everything which society possesses ; at the
cost, if need be, of wiping off the face of the
land all that has been put upon it during
the past four hundred years, leaving a clean
page, upon which, let us hope, to write a
more cheerful history.

This is the way it looks to us at Under-
ledge, and we are ready to do our part, if
called upon, to correct the abuse. But it
seems to us a not unimportant fact in
connection with this time and the future,
that there are said to be hundreds of thou
sands of persons throughout the country,
scattered here and there all over the land,
who are associated in this movement, or
who sympathize with it, or who, under
slightly different conditions, would take
similar action, and that it is impossible to
show them the utter folly of their beliefs,
and of their course ; that governors of
states, United States senators and repre
sentatives, and lesser officials innumerable,
give aid and comfort to them ; that min
isters of the gospel and college professors
pander to their fallacious fancies and stim
ulate their wild hopes, and thus promote
their destructive work. Not that all these

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 19 1

counsel or countenance the illegal and
violent acts referred to, but that that which
they advocate or approve or suggest will
lead to such results, just as surely as night
follows the day. And all the while we
remember that this is a "popular" govern
ment, and that in these times a popular
government usually means in practice not
a competition for the suffrages and support
of the intelligent and thoughtful, but bids
by the machinists of both the leading par
ties, and often of the outlying factions,
for the votes of all the crack-brained, the
turbulent, the dissatisfied, and the lazy.

So we do not look upon the field of the
immediate future, either here or abroad, as
a bed of roses. It seems much more likely
to be the paradise of the demagogue and
the visionary, and the inferno of the quiet
citizen who wishes to "live in the spirit."

Nevertheless, we desire to keep our heads
level. We remember that somebody wrote
recently "Don't fret," and we intend to
remember the charge. We recall that dur
ing the July riots in New York, in 18(53,
there came a heavy shower, and the mob
scattered like sheep. And we hope for some
cooling baptism that will send people back
to their homes where they can collect their

IQ2 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

thoughts, and perhaps recall, or have a rev
elation of the fact, that salvation does not
come to masses, but to individuals. We are
an inventive people, and we have machines
performing a great variety of operations ;
but, so far as we have heard, none has
yet been received at the patent office war
ranted to make the world over again as
good as new, but upon a different plan ; and
we would suggest to the various philoso
phers who are busily employed in devising
such machines that an honest day's work
can be much more easily and effectively
performed by strengthening, polishing, and
lubricating the machinery already in use,
and by doing themselves, and inducing
others to do, a little more faithful labour
than has been hitherto accomplished. These
are homely remedies, but wholesome, like
the cooling herbs of our grandmothers, more
reliable than any patent medicines, and
likely to prove more efficient than the drugs
of Debs, Bellamy, Most, et id genus omne.

JULY 10, 1891.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. K

XXXVII.

LAST night the heavens came down in
grateful showers. They were not all that
we desired, but they were more than we
had had before in many weeks, and we rec
ognize the bounty. And so I am sure do
tree and vine and herb, if there is any vir
tue in the expressions with which they have
greeted the morning. The wilted leaves
have become again firm and green, the
branches and twigs graceful and elastic,
the blossoms bright and clear.

Upon the unwritten domestic calendar
the memorandum appears, "About this
time look out for young chickens," and
therefore my first visit on my return was
to the poultry-yard. And I hope that I
was duly thankful when I found one little
elliptical fluffy duffer as the net result of
two good "clutches" of eggs. And I hope
that he or she — or "he-sh," should I say ?
— feels in a proper degree the responsibility
thrown upon "himr " as the sole represen
tative of so many promising beginnings,
o

194 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

Already within the brief period of my ab
sence the infant had pecked a way into the
world through the crisp limestone wall by
which he had been surrounded, and had
begun to push "hisr" pin-feathers. Its
voice was at least twice as big as its body,
and attested as good a pair of lungs as one
could wish. Yet a little while, and doubt
less the infant prodigy will bridle and strut
with all the dignity appropriate to the first
born on the new estate.

The house has made good progress, and
the masons are completing their work.
Four walls with many and large port-holes
form the hull of the vessel, and we shall
soon be ready for the top-hamper.

The persistency with which most of the
inhabitants of the garden continued to grow
during the drought was a constant marvel.
Doubtless last night's rain will help them
greatly, although the ground is not soaked
for a depth of more than from one to four
inches, in reverse degree according to its
firmness. But even before this came, the
general appearance was good, and some
things were doing finely. My sweet peas,
my "sweet sixteen," the sole representa
tives in the garden of those that neither toil
nor spin, gave me a great jar full of blus-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 195

soms yesterday morning, and there were
more in the afternoon, and again to-day.
And how lovely they are ! People almost
seemed to have forgotten them until ten
years ago; they were flowers of the "old
gardens." And then Dame Fashion took
them up, — by a strange inadvertence mak
ing a happy choice, — and strangely enough
she has not yet discarded them. They were
too lovely for her favour to spoil them ; but I
am not sure that those of us who love flowers
for what they are, will not find them sweeter
and dearer when she shall have passed
them by.

The season is waxing older. The fragrant
odour of the milkweeds here and there fills
the air, the wild carrot lifts its jewelled lace
over the recently mown fields ; two days
ago I saw the golden-rod by the roadside in
the old Bay State, and the dark red clusters
of the chokecherry bedeck the hedgerows.
The days grow perceptibly shorter, ere yet
the year has reached its climax.

Familiar faces are missing at the inn,
and familiar voices are silent. Already
their owners are doubtless far, far away,
speeding over the summer seas, perhaps — I
hope surely — to find balm in the Gilead of
another clime and other scenes, among an

196 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

alien people. We shall miss them sorely,
but what would you ? "As ships that pass
in the night." Yea, verily. Through the
years it is " Hail ! " and " Farewell ! " But
is it not a pleasant thought that here and
there, scattered over the wide, wide world,
there are those whom you may never again
meet, but with whom you have memories
in common, those into whose eyes and hearts
you have sometime looked far enough to
see truth therein, and to know that there is
an unbound freemasonry in which you and
they are forever comrades for weal or for
woe ? What matters it though seas roll
their waves between, though ripening years
sink away into the eternal silence ? " Age
cannot wither" the unchanging past.

And so, as through the night watches
the stanch vessels pass, and fade away in
the darkness, we breathe a loving benison
upon the disappearing craft, and bid them
godspeed. It may be that the storm clouds
lower, the lightning flashes, the thunder
reverberates from mass to mass, the surg
ing waves plunge angrily before the driving
gale. But above it all, the stars are shining
silently in the infinite spaces, and beyond
the tempest, and sometimes even in the
heart of it, there is peace.

JULY 22, 18!)4.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 197

XXXVIII.

IN times of drought such as this, the foun
tains of nature seem to get into the condi
tion of a pump which has ceased to " draw,"
at which you may work and work to heart's
content, or discomfort, but nothing conies.
Parturiunt mantes, nascitur ridiculus
mns. Yesterday the mercury in the ther
mometer mounted higher and higher during
the day, like the price of gold upon the
famous Good Friday, until it hovered on
the edge of ninety-eight degrees, and the
aerial currents marked an even temperature
with the vital ones. Then came the gath
ering of a tempest ; thin clouds formed over
the sky, becoming from moment to moment
more dense ; heavy and threatening cumu
lus masses arose in the south, and gradually
covered the heavens, south, east, and west ;
magnificent thunder-heads climbed toward
the zenith ; a deep leaden-blue veil spread
over all that portion of the vault, occasion
ally rent by sharp flashes of lightning, fol
lowed by reverberating thunder, and in a

ig» FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

brief time the whole sky was shrouded ;
we took our places on the front porch to
inhale the freshening breeze and watch the
oncoming of the anticipated torrents, some
what awed, as most are, by the outburst
of heaven's artillery ; but not one solitary
moistening drop did the storm vouchsafe
us. The clouds gradually thinned and parted
in the west ; with the coming night the stars
again looked out upon the lower world, and
the torrid earth radiated its burning heat
into the night air.

This morning the sun again stares down
upon the parched fields, and the mercury
again climbs slowly and steadily toward
the centennial mark. While walking along
the dusty road, and crossing the open fields,
the heat seemed almost to burn into the
brain and cause it to sizzle. The long sharp
rattle of the common locust marks the day
with its characteristic note. Hut here, sit
ting upon the bank at the border and in the
shade of my wood which masks the low
cliff, a pleasant breeze soothes my bare
brow and revives the spirit of life within
me.

I wonder whether I can picture the scene ?
Behind me the wind awakens a soothing
murmur among the trees, through which

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 199

the hot sunlight filters here and there, flick
ering pleasantly upon the moving leaves.
Before me fall away the gently undulating
slopes of the "mountain meadow," with
the poultry-yard between me and the high
way, close to the edge of the wood, from
which from time to time I hear the cackle
of the hens or the crowing of the cocks,
some of which, with characteristic curiosity,
stray down to the corner nearest to me and
watch me at my writing. Were I nearer, I
should also hear the pleasant chirping of
the downy chicks, now numbering a dozen
or more, clustered confidingly around their
careful foster-mother. The line of shadow
from the woods extends a short distance in
front of me ; then comes the open sunny
field, from which the hay was recently har
vested, now speckled over with the branch
ing stems and flat white crowns of the wild
carrot ; beyond and slightly to the left, the
slender village spire lifts itself against the
distant hills, overtopping a curtain of deep
green trees. It was of this that Elihu Bur-
ritt, " the learned blacksmith," said, that as
he, then a little urchin, looked down upon it
from Sunset Rock, he felt as one should do
in looking for the first time upon St. Peter's,
and thought that if the big rooster (which in

2OO FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

those days was really a crown) should crow,
"the rude forefathers of the hamlet" up in
heaven would certainly recognize his voice,
and know that he was an Underledge
rooster, and that he brought news of the
faithfulness of their successors.

Upon the slope directly in front of me, and
fifty or sixty yards away, are the drying
walls of the cottage, with their wide-open
eyes, and heaped around is the lumber for
the superstructure, which during the next
sennight will so greatly change the appear
ance of the building. The rapid fall of the
ground beyond conceals from my view, from
this point, the picturesque pasture and the
damp, green marsh ; but I see the orchard
beyond, then here and there a chimney or
bit of roof rising among the trees at the
north end of the village, then the line of
great elms and maples indicating the course
of the river. The farm lands of the, intervale
show varying shades of green and brown,
spotted here and there with scattered trees,
and divided by a few fences scarcely visible
from here, and wild hedgerows, with a
considerable farmstead in the middle dis
tance, two or three isolated houses and
barns, an occasional cluster of bits of
roof indicating a village, with now and

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 2OI

then a faint church spire. On a moderate
hill nearly to the north, and eight or ten
miles away, I see distinctly in the noon-
clay light the long walls of the great new
house of a New York merchant. To the
east of north, and on my right, runs out
the line of high hills which abut upon the
"second mountain" and form the rim of
our basin to the east, with gently sloping
cultivated fields between, and still show
ing on the hither side a remnant of the
old " Pilgrims' Path " of the colonial time.
Due north, and fifteen miles away, rise
from the valley the two singular hills
which form its portal.

Nearly the whole country seems covered
with forest, though most of it is young or
of moderate age, — probably none "prime
val," as I have heretofore said, — and here
and there in the distance I see a space
marked by recent severe cutting, or browned
by a late forest-lire. Beyond the valley the
hills lie in ranges, almost seeming, toward
"Satan's kingdom" in the northwest, or
thirty miles away in the far north, to float
in the hot and hazy air ; and they recede
until they become indistinguishable in tint
from the sky which falls to meet them.

Over all this spreads the sky, fading from

202 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

a translucent blue overhead to a warm pale
tint above the hills, with detached fleecy
clouds which seem as if every drop of
moisture had been squeezed out of them,
and they were of no more promise to the
vegetable or animal world than so much
gun-cotton ; while marshalled around the
horizon are the faint blue-pink heaps
which from hour to hour hold out to us
the promise which they never keep.

This is the scene upon which I look.
And as I write I hear the characteristic
note of the thistle bird as it plunges along
in its diving flight ; in front, flutters a yel
low butterfly, and above soar two or three
swallows seeking for insects ; the line of
shadow draws nearer to my feet, and I
notice the leaves of the melon vines wilting
in the fervent heat. And still the trees
wave and bend before the breeze, and I
seem to hear a low rumble as of distant
tl mnder. Hush ! Hark ! Yes, it surely is ;
but still the eye sinks far away into the
blue of the sky, and the hot sunlight beats
upon the hillside.

JULY 29, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 203

XXXIX.

D Sannenbaum, D Sannenbaum,
SSte treu fmb bctne 33tatter.
Tu griinft nid)t nur jur ©ommerjeit,
9letn, and) int SSinter roenn e§ ftfinett.
D aannenbaum, D Sannenbaum,
2!3ie treu nnb bcine 23fatter.

YESTERDAY morning we went up into a
neighbouring wood to select some cedar
trees whose trunks shall serve as pillars for
the porches. They are to be straight and
firm, and are to have the branches cut off
and to have the bark stripped from them,
but otherwise they are to be left in their
natural condition. Branches of the same,
not too pronounced in their eccentricity,
will be used for the balustrade and the
trellis beneath. Then honeysuckles and
other vines will be invited to lend their
graceful tracery in decoration, and their
grateful shade from the southern, eastern,
and western sun.

It is almost a pity that the living trees
cannot be taken and made to serve our

204 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

turn. They coine into om' lives in many
ways, and at all times and seasons. How
beautiful they were last winter, laden down
with the fleecy shower, the dark green of
their leaves contrasting with the whiteness
of their burden of snow ! And at the
Christmastide some of their race bore a
wondrous variety of fruit, of which the
gem of all was the kindly feeling which in
spired the festival. And now as the warm
sun upon their branches brings out the
spicy odours, we recognize the very essence
of the forest in its completeness. Below
us, winding about among the roots in the
bottom of the little valley, tumble and
gurgle the waters of the " Great brook," with
trout doubtless lurking here and there, seek
ing shelter from the heat under the shadow
ing banks of the deeper pools ; while on the
other side, above the slope, tall hemlock
trees spread their protecting branches until
they interlace, leaving open spaces below
quite clear of underbrush, carpeted with
brown leaves, and forming solemn, shadowy
aisles.

I hardly think that the first and strong
est impression that we get of the German
people as we see them in this country, is
the poetic. And yet how full they are of

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 205

music, and how their songs and their lit
erature are permeated by the impressions
derived from nature, and how strong a love
for it they manifest ! Some of us prefer to
take these things diluted with a smaller
amount of beer, and prefer the scent of
roses alone, rather than mixed with those
of tobacco and other things. But even these
are more like the odour of sanctity than some
things which are characteristic of our urban
life.

On a festival, the German instinctively
seeks the country and the woodlands.
The Schwarzwald and the Bohmerwald,
and the Tliiiringerwald maintain their
hold upon him, whether he comes from
their shadowy recesses or not. And it is
fair to believe that his homely wholesome
family life has some not unnatural connec
tion with this life in the open air, and
among our brothers who draw their sus
tenance directly from the soil.

The proper study of mankind is man.
Yes, doubtless. And the first claimant on
our aid and bounty, if we have them to
give, is likewise man. But there are many
ways in which this study can be made
and this aid extended, and it is not unfair
to assume that something can be gained

2O6 FROM A NKW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

even yet by " going back to nature." And
by this I do not mean throwing away what
has been earned in the past, and making
shipwreck of civilization, but rather the
attempt to assimilate this new food if we
have not yet become quite used to it, by
taking it in instalments, as we might test a
boletus or a coprinus atramentarius, falling
back for our mainstay upon good whole
some brownbread, potatoes, and roast beef,
which by long experience we have proved
to be reliable diet. But there, I am not a
I'aganini, and I think that I have played
upon that one string more than once before.
It is a good string, however, and susceptible
of infinite variations of tone, and I am not
sure that a master could not play upon it
all the music with which life is full.

JULY 29, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 207

XL.

I SUPPOSE that most people, at some time
or other in their careers, " get their come-
upance," to use the vernacular of these
New England States. This was my reflec
tion, as I went up from the inn yesterday
and turned into High street, when I beheld
upon the descending road an army of
dark-hued men from the shores of the Medi
terranean, not with banners, but with pick
axes and shovels, with great wires and
cross-ties and iron rails, digging and pulling
and hammering, drawing and quartering,
— and realized that vengeance was being
meted out to the Goths and the Vandals, the
Ostrogoths and the Visigoths, for their
descent upon the sunny South a millennium
ago. And taking refuge from Scylla, I came
near unto falling into Charybdis ; for there
in front of me, turning into the street at the
other end, was a wandering troubadour, pre
sumably of the same stock, with an instru
ment of torture like unto an upright piano
loaded upon a go-cart. I incontinently fled

2O8 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

into the fields, hearing behind me, but sub
dued in the distance, the mocking tintinnab
ulation of the fiend-like machine.

The trolley is knocking at our doors ; the
uncouth poles already mar the prospect, and
we hear the sharp ring of iron upon iron as
the spikes are driven home. It is no longer
a question of possibilities ; the emergency
is upon us, and there is little room left for
speculation as to what changes may be im
pending. With characteristic subjection of
common rights and convenience to individ
ual ease and advantage, our main highway
— outside of the village — which at places is
but narrow, is sacrificed to the intruder, and
wicked pedestrians, and riders upon horse
back, and drivers in carriages, must take
their chances of disastrous accident or
"electrocution."

So far, thanks to close supervision, no
serious damage has been done to our finest
trees, and we hope to save these from
destruction. If we succeed in this, we shall
be more fortunate than many; but we view
the possibility of an attack upon our Main
street with a shudder of apprehension. If
the cars were not so very heavy, we should
be disposed to say that they should only
pass that way, if at all, over our own

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 209

bodies. Halting a little short of this de
gree of self-devotion, we at least solemnly
vow that this outrage shall be endured
only when all legal preventives shall have
failed.

What a farce it is to call a country " civ
ilized," in which such questions are liable
from day to day to be presented, to chal-
k'nge the firmness and public spirit, and to
consume the time and strength of the intel
ligent citizen ! Such a proposition should
answer itself as promptly and conclusively as
a similar proposition is answered in the old
nursery rhyme : —

Said Aaron to Moses,

' Let's cut off our noses.'

Said Moses to Aaron,

' It's the fashion to wear 'em.'

I hope that we are gradually learning, — at
least some of us, — " that a man's life con-
sisteth not in the abundance of the things
which he possesseth," nor in the viands
which appear upon his table, nor in the
garments that he wears, though all these
things may in subordination contribute to it ;
and that the glory and merit of a village
no more consist in the number of its inhab
itants irrespective of their kind, in the

2IO FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

bustle upon its streets, nor in the gaudiness
of its decorations.

I think that one of the most singular ex
hibitions of folly that we have ever seen
was the struggle which followed the late
census, the emulation between different lo
calities, each seeking to establish its supe
riority by enumerating the bodies, not the
souls, of its inhabitants. As if a hundred
underfed, undereducated, undeveloped, and
unhappy families were worth one homely,
quiet household, full of the joy of life
and love and helpfulness ! As if the ideal
toward which the world is struggling were
a nest of squirming maggots !

It seems to me that there has been a
little chastening of this spirit within these
later years, and that quality is gradually
attaining something of its rightful recog
nition as compared with quantity. And
we, as we think of our pleasant old village,
and its quiet, shady street, and consider
the desolation that might come to it, turn
from the gifts which the interlopers bring
to us, and ask instead, " Beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of
praise for the spirit of heaviness."

AUGUST 3, 18W.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 211

XLI.

Ax last ! at last ! —

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again.

For some days there has been an increas
ing thickening in the atmosphere, and a
greater frequency in the storms which
come to naught. But day by day passed
by, and the dry grasses hung their dispir
ited blades in the face of high heaven. As
from time to time we saw the rain falling
upon the distant hills, or heard of the re
freshing showers in the neighbouring towns,
we began to wonder with them of old (it
seems to me that I remember some such
passage), " Were they wicked above all
others upon whom the tower in Siloam
fell ? " and were we wicked above all others
upon whom the rain did not fall ?

Tester evening as I left the hillside, my
builder pointed out this and that sign in
the lowering sky which augured well for
the morrow. But when I sought my downy

212 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

couch, faint stars still glimmered in the
quiet night.

Midnight was not long past, however,
before a steady pattering on the maple
leaves outside the window recalled me
from the land of No-whither into which I
had sunk. Had I but learned to "dream
true," I think that I should not have re
turned so easily, even upon so pleasant a
call. But alas ! I have not yet acquired
that faculty, though I mean to do so one
of these days. As it was, the sound was
balm to my spirit, and I lay for a long time
listening to the pleasant dropping, and
grudging to fall asleep again lest I should
waste a pleasant opportunity, and some
how, by carelessness, bring the shower to
an end. And so I continued waking and
sleeping, waking and sleeping, through the
night, keeping watch and ward over the
elements, and congratulating myself in an
incoherent way that the liquid chain did
not break.

The rain continued pretty steadily until
the middle of the morning, when occasional
flashes of lightning and rumbling of dis
tant thunder told us that we had to do
with an electric storm, and not with a full-
grown north-easter. And then the last

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 213

drops were wrung out, the expanding cir
cles ceased upon the pools, the rivulets ran
away from the newly stratified sand upon
the roadways, with their wave lines and
curves and ripples, and through a rift in
the gray clouds the sun poured down its
golden rays again upon the grass field,
already showing a fresh verdancy after the
unwonted refreshment.

The world goes up, and the world goes down.
And the sunshine follows the rain.

It is the first time in many, many weeks
that the ground has been soaked, and I do
not mourn over the deep pools in my cellar,
or begin to speculate upon the probability
of my being able to establish a domestic
trout pond in that convenient locality. I
merely realize gratefully that there is
scarcely a physical possibility that we shall
have it so dry again before the frost comes.

Some others of our home circle are gone,
soon to return, we hope, with the shorten
ing days and lengthening nights, these to
the Narragansett shore, and those to the
rocks of the Pine Tree State. And to-mor
row Monsieur and Madame Liquidambar
tempt the ocean surges in quest of the

214 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

green lanes and ivy-mantled towers of
Merrie England, and of the lakes and
mountains of misty Scotland. I wonder
whether mayhap in some al fresco repast
at Melrose or Dryburgh, or on Ellen's
Isle, they may taste the

Herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.

But the Scribe clings to his hillside, and
as again in the darkness of the deepen
ing night the fountains of the heavens are
opened, and empty themselves upon the
earth, he gratefully realizes the blessings
of the present, and would fain believe
that "contentment is better than wealth,"
and home more kindly than " abroad."

Not that in imagination he does not see

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous pal
aces,
The solemn temples,

which he would dearly like to view in
visible presence; not that he would not
tread with reverent awe the aisles worn
by the weary feet of unnumbered genera
tions seeking a disentanglement of the
insoluble riddle of life. Not that he dues
not esteem a certain discontent the main-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 215

spring of progress, and the hope of the
race.

But to the beatific vision which solicits
him with beckoning hand, he points to the
unfinished cottage upon the hillside, shows
duties to be performed, and obstacles which
cannot be surmounted. And accepting the
decree of the gods, he looks fondly upon
valley, hills, and sky, and to the vision he
saith : —

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the

sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take

the shape,

With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ;

But, O too fond, when have I answered thee?

Ask me no more.

AUGUST 4, 1894.

21 6 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XLII.

D Sannenbaum, D Sannenbaum,
SSte treu fmb Seine flatter.

A GOOD straight cedar tree stands upon
the end of the ridge-pole of the cottage. It
was planted there yesterday afternoon in
token of the fact that the summit had been
reached, the place of the dividing of the
waters, not the sweet vale of Avoca. At
length the bones are in place, and ready to
be clothed upon with the membranes which
are to give a seeming of continuity and
bodily substance to the structure.

We can now see the outline, in its general
character, and are able to judge as to its fit
ness for the location, and are called upon
to decide whether the building improves or
desecrates the position which it occupies.
I fear that this is a consideration all too
seldom taken into account. In this instance,
so far as expressed, opinions coincide, and
for myself I am quite content. Nature takes
kindly to her bosom the newcomer, which

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 217

seems at the beginning in good measure a
real part of herself, not a jarring note : prom
ising to become rapidly a true flower of the
landscape, and not a blot upon it, as I am
afraid that the majority of American houses
are.

And speaking of flowers, I wish that you
could see the glory in lace and purple and
gold of my pasture, which I look down upon
between the unclothed ribs of the building.
Upon the upper portion, near the woods, a
great bed of the richly-hued ironweed ex-
ceecjs in beauty, I think, any that I ever
saw before, while mingled somewhat with
it and spread more fully over the body
of the field, the wild carrot lifts its stately
jewels, and the golden-rod is beginning to
hang out its graceful plumes. In the marsh
at the foot the intense green is beginning to
be sprinkled with the white flowers of the
sagittaria and the grass of Parnassus, while
the wild clematis twines gracefully over the
heaps of stones, and the rich clusters of the
elderberries hang nodding in the hedge
rows. The rose-hips are beginning to show
an orange tinge, and here and there over
the slope dark young cedars lift themselves
above the tall " weeds " and grass.

On the other side of the house, the umlu-

21 8 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

lating mountain meadow is being ploughed
up after many years' rest, shortly to be
seeded down again to grass for firm sod and
mowing. If all goes well, I should next June
look from the triple window in my living
room across a smooth, unbroken sea of wav
ing spires to the line of the southern hills,
cut only by the elm and locust trees upon
the roadside five hundred feet away.

The katydids are here. Only for two
evenings have I noticed them, but during
those two, they have filled the air with the
iteration of their calls. With the same per
sistence as a year ago, they keep up the
charge and denial, appearing in fact to have
gained force and volume during the year
that has passed.

The days grow shorter, and it seems as if
the fall were fast approaching. The sky
is overcast, and after the heat of July the
air seems chill, and a grateful fire smoulders
upon the hearth at the inn. But the burn
ing sun will doubtless scorch us yet for
many days, ere the woods turn scarlet and
brown and gold, and the wanderers return
from their journeyings.

AUGUST 12, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 21 9

XLIII.

HAS it ever occurred to you how purely
conventional, arbitrary, and false are our
ordinary views of business and occupation ?
I will not say that the money test is the sole
one which is applied, but those which sup
plement it are usually much of the same
character. Undoubtedly the first consider
ation for all, is the maintenance of life, for,
as it is held on the border that the only
:;nod Indian is a dead Indian, so c converso,
it is felt, I suppose, by each of us, that we
can lie of precious little service unless we
are alive. Of course, in the case of many,
this impression could be effectually con
tested, and of such it could be proved that
nothing in their lives became them so well
as would their leaving of them. But speak
ing generally, the keeping of the breath in
the body is the primary object of each, and
the effort to do this accounts in a large
measure for the subserviency in a mercan
tile world to the test referred to. I was led
to reflect upon this subject at the moment

220 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

by recalling what a vast number of persons
there are, especially in the cities, who, hav
ing already acquired sufficient means for a
comfortable livelihood for themselves and
their families, and having no great taste for
the spectacular in living, or enjoyment in it,
yet keep on from year to year in the old
tread-mill round, because they or their
friends think that they ought not to "re
tire from business." Some of them are
old, some middle-aged, and some are young.
Some have inherited a comfortable compe
tency and never have needed to earn money.
But they must continue in "business";
they are too young to "retire." It does
not seem to make any difference what the
business is. It may be useful, it may be in
different, it may be positively harmful to the
community, — still it is business. It may be
something which no one else could do so
well, or something requiring a capacity pos
sessed by those of whom ' ' the woods are
full," who are only waiting for a break in
the line to rush into the place.

Without entering upon the question of
the relative importance of necessaries and
luxuries, which in its essence is largely a
question of tastes and desires sound in
themselves, and of a breadth or narrowness

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 221

of view as to what a well-developed, well-
rounded life requires — it may safely be said
that a very large percentage of the business
of the world is deleterious to its welfare,
and detrimental to the progress of the race ;
that those engaged in such business, which
may be their sole, or only a part of their
occupation, are stumbling-blocks in the
upward march. It is hardly necessary to
particularize ; in some directions each will
involuntarily draw a line under certain
familiar occupations. But leaving aside
the obvious instances, it is sufficient to
touch lightly only one or two spots, to show
what I mean. I suppose that there are very
few thoughtful, intelligent men even in the
journalistic fraternity itself, who would not
agree that it would be better that a vast
proportion of all the work done in connec
tion with the newspaper press, by editors,
reporters, telegraph operators, compositors,
printers' devils, distributors, in short, by all
hands, should be left undone ; that if such
were the case the world would be richer,
wiser, and saner than it is to-day. So like
wise with the general publishing business,
though possibly, probably, not to so large a
degree. The same may be said, mutatis
mutandis, of many other occupations. Yet

222 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

all these things are business, and so long as
a man is engaged in any one of them, he is
popularly supposed to be a useful member
of society, while if he has "retired," he
has ceased to be such, and has become
as it were simply as a " fifth wheel to a
coach."

Now, in the last analysis, nothing could
be more absurd than this. The only solid
basis which the idea rests upon, is just the
one which, practically, is wholly left out
of the account. That is, that in a social
world, each should do a portion of the
world's necessary work, and this according
to his ability to do it, and not necessarily
for pay, or because he needs the pay which
may be given for it. If the work which he
does is not a part of the work which helps
the world along, it is useless work, however
much he may be paid for it ; and if the
work is something which does help the world
along, even in the least degree, it is part of
the true world's work, even if it be any
thing but what is ordinarily called business,
.and even if the suggestion that it had a
money value would excite a shout of deris
ion from the thoughtless all over the land.
Indeed, it might belong in one of these
categories and yet be absolutely priceless.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 2?3

As an unmistakable example of what I
mean, to put an extreme case and yet an
impregnable one, I should say that he or
she who can by spirit and demeanour bring
a warm throb to the heart and a tremulous
smile to the lips of those sad or crusty ones
who are^ met in the course of the day, is
one whose price is above rubies.

Now be it remembered that I am speak
ing of those who do not need to toil to
earn a subsistence or comforts, but who
still remain in the familiar harness, and
their name may be said to be legion. It is
fair to assume that a large proportion of
them are engaged in fairly useful employ
ments. In the case of most of these, should
they leave their present occupations, their
places would be immediately filled by the
pressure from below, the world's work
would go on as well as ever, and many
would be benefited. Are they then to do
nothing ? Not so. The world has enough
work for all hands to do, and the farthest
vision cannot see a state where the same
may not truly be said. As society is organ
ized, it is impossible to place a money value
upon much of this work, which is of the
most necessary character, and if it is to be
done well, it must be done gratuitously or

224 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

without a material return by those whose
hearts are in it. Much time cannot be
given it by those who are engaged in busi
ness, because in business the rules require
the rigour of the game, and inattention to
these rules very surely must be followed
by its loss. It is therefore peculiarly the
work for those from whom the burden of
care for their personal future has been
removed.

The most obvious side of the work to
which I allude is the work which concerns
the public welfare, and this has many
branches ; the next is that which concerns
those individuals who have in a certain
sense been forgotten. In each direction the
field is so broad as to leave room for the im
agination to expand indefinitely, and I
might leave it to each to follow out for him
self the thread of thought suggested, in the
direction most congenial to him. Perhaps I
may feel moved to indicate some special
lines of activity and helpfulness which
come into my view. 15ut does it not ap
pear to you that the world might soon be
a very different world from the one we
know, if an earnest effort should be made
in the direction which I have indicated ?
And remember that 1 am not suggesting

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 225

a distasteful, laborious change of occupa
tion, but a choice of activity upon congenial
lines. As I said some time ago, find out
in which way the eternal stream is flowing,
and row with the current.

AUGUST 12, 1894.

226 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XLIV.

THE day is warm, and it is a trial to walk
along the hot and dusty road ; the distant
hills float and fade in the soft haze ; but
sitting here at the carpenter's bench in
my bay window and looking southward, a
refreshing breeze tempers the heat, and
though the currents in the fervid air rising
from the newly ploughed field cause a
flickering in the outlines of objects near the
surface, suggestive of a seven-tiines-heated
furnace, at a little greater height and dis
tance the finger-like motions to and fro of
the pendulous branches of slender elms, and
the multitudinous ripple on the surface of
dense maples and velvety locust trees, give
a sense of life and healthfulness. Here and
there the tops of chokccherries and other
shrubs peering above the curve of the roll
ing field, and now and then the upper rail
and the posts of a few panels of fence,
indicate the line of the highway, but, for
tunately, no unsightly telegraph poles

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 227

break the line of the horizon or otherwise
destroy the unity and beauty of the scene.
I wonder if Jeremiah was considered a
common scold. I think that the avocation
of a common scold must be classed among
the most praiseworthy. That is, if it be
possible by any means to awaken the aes
thetic sense in a people given over to a
crass barbarism. This morning I walked
for a mile or so along the highway, from
which almost anywhere, excepting where
recent grading had shut it in between high
banks, an outlook could be had upon scenes
beautiful enough to shame any but the
most callous. Along the way, sometimes
together and sometimes opposed to each
other, ran two lines of telegraph poles,
rough, bare, crooked trunks, carrying nu
merous wires, and to these has been added
another row for the trolley system, carry
ing two great cables in addition to the
bright copper conducting wire. The incon
gruity with the landscape was shocking,
the disfigurement atrocious. And the road
itself had a bed formed of imperfect or dis
integrating red sandstone, a sort of hard-
pan, rough and yet dusty, with irregularly
gashed banks, and no footway on either
side. Is this worthy of a civilized people ?

228 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

I remember reading somewhere an article
in which the writer accounted for the small
amount of walking done by our people, by
the absence of good footpaths along our
roads and through our fields. And, inade
quate as the reason may appear to some of
us, who were born with legs and were taught
in childhood how to use them, it is a reason
which has weight, and a reason which should
not be allowed to exist. The fact is an evi
dence of our imperfect development, but it
is a fact, that with comparative infrequency
do we find a comfortable path along any of
our ordinary country roads. lie or she who
goes from house to house or from village to
village on foot, which most have to do at
times, and all ought often to do, is compelled
to take to the dusty wagon track, or to
scramble up and down rough banks and
among the vines and bushes and weeds.
The vines and bushes and weeds are not to
blame. They often form the chief beauty
of the roadside, until some enterprising far
mer or road mender comes along and cuts
and hacks until he has left nothing but a
barren waste, naught but short stumps pro
jecting above prostrate saplings and seed
lings, upon which the unripe leaves wilt and
turn brown and rattle in the hot wind.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 229

No, we do not need that the rich growth
of the roadside should be shorn away, or
that the banks should be graded like city
sidewalks and planked or paved. What we
want is a simple, practicable way among the
bushes beside the road ; so located as to
avoid unnecessary jumping and climbing,
and to be protected from washing by
storm currents. And for the path itself,
the foot of the passer may be relied upon in
most cases to establish that, provided the
way be given. The proverb goes, that for
him who wears shoes all the world is covered
with leather, or words to that effect ; and
this leather, or even bare feet, if there be
enough of them, will soon make upon a
sound sod as good a path as one could wish.

So much for the highways ; but should
we always be confined to these ? A man's
house is, and undoubtedly should be, his
castle, and undoubtedly each has a right to
insist upon his own privacy. But this right
has its limitations. I always resent the pla
carding of large tracts with "Trespassing
forbidden," when merely walking over the
fields is assumed to be trespass. At many
points along the seashore now, it is almost
impossible for the stranger to dip his hand
into the salt sea waves, or even to come into

230 FROM A N7E\V ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

plain sight of the mighty deep. And in
some of our inland regions it is almost as
bad, or it would be, could owners accom
plish what they frequently attempt. There
is something very human in the old-world
prescriptive easements, which preserve to
the public the right of way over private
property by definite paths. How vastly the
pleasure of country saunterings is thereby
increased, to say nothing of the convenience
of the wayfarer ! That property suffers in
any way thereby, I do not understand to be
the case. I have been interested in some
discussion in " Garden and Forest," of the
use of paths versus the common use of the
meadows in public parks. I am strongly of
the opinion that the editor is right in the
position that for most people the paths to
walk upon, and the sod to look upon, afford
the essentials of enjoyment. Doubtless all
wish occasionally to feel the turf beneath
them. Doubtless also there is something in
individual bent, and something in age which
must be considered. I note that for myself,
I keep more to the beaten paths than I used
to do. It is said that with advancing years
there is a more and more pronounced lack
of the earlier flexibility in the joints. But
how should ice know ?

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 23!

Be that as it may, I am sure that a
proper provision of paths through private
lands, with turnstiles, gates, or bars where
necessary, would contribute vastly to the
comfort and enjoyment of the public, and
would not be to the detriment of the private
owners. I am strongly inclined to believe
that we should be better off, if the right to
use such paths should inure to the public as
an indefeasible right, as in the cases that
I have mentioned ; but without insisting
upon this, it is quite safe to say, that he
who offers to his neighbours the privilege
of such enjoyment of his domain, shows
that so far forth, at least, he has become a
civilized man.

AUGUST 19, 18<J4.

232 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XLV.

A SHORT time ago I had something to say
upon the matter of population, and the
assumed value of a dense population, a most
singular and elaborate piece of self-decep
tion. It is, I suppose, a natural, though
even in that case, a questionable policy,
which animates the West in encouraging
immigration, for with native resources
greatly in excess of the demands upon
them, a greater density in population may
aid in promoting prosperity and physical
— in some cases even mental and spirit
ual, well-being. But in the more fully occu
pied Eastern states this is much more
rarely the case : in many places it is not so
in any sense, and in the cities the contrary
is so, with great emphasis. The tendency
to congregate in the cities is notorious, and
this makes our municipal problems the most
serious with which we have to deal.

There has been in the past much contro
versy over the contention of Malthus that
population tends to increase with greater

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 233

rapidity than material resources ; yet I can
not see but that in its essence it is impreg
nable. The tendency is practically more or
less held in check, but mainly by misery
and disease. And in this connection, this
is to be noted : that as a general rule, — of
course with numerous exceptions, — the
higher in the grade of civilization, the fewer
the offspring, — the lower, the more prolific.
The consequences of this tendency are most
marked. The f requency with which families
which have been publicly known for several
generations, die out and disappear, is noto
rious. The small number of individuals in
such of these families as continue, is as
familiar. On the other hand, the magni
tude of the families of those who have small
resources, and whose demands, though con
siderable, are within a narrow range, is
patent to every one. There is a constant
tendency in our society to die at the top —
a constant tendency toward a dominance of
the lower stratum, which tendency, as I have
before said, is chiefly checked — at present
— by misery and disease.

There are several manifest causes for
this condition of things, and perhaps other
causes which are not so evident, — doubt
less some which we do not recoiruize. On

234 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the part of the well-to-do, or those who
make similar demands upon life because
of the character of their education or for
certain social reasons, there is undoubtedly,
in the first place, less of the simply animal ;
then there are usually much later mar
riages ; and, in the third place, there is
a very considerable amount of deliberate
prudence. On the part of the poor and
uneducated on the other hand, there is
undoubtedly greater fecundity accompany
ing a closer acclimation, as it were, to the
conditions in which they are placed ; there
are much earlier marriages ; and there is
apparently no restraint at all upon their
numerous increase : with each one it is
" Happy is the man that hath his quiver
full," — 'Until he finds that in his case the
saying should read, " Unhappy is the
man."

Now the trouble is that as among the
thoughtless poor, only necessity restricts
the growth of population, as a rule, any
sudden development of prosperity unac
companied by a significant enlightenment,
is pretty sure to be followed by a more
rapid increase in population, and therefore
in the demands upon the physical resources.
The spasm of prosperity dies away ; the

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 235

increased population is left to struggle for
subsistence, with diminished means.

The most acute investigators, especially
in the great cities, and notably in London,
have found no question half so difficult to
deal with as this. Penniless boys marry
before they can earn a livelihood for them
selves, and the most unsavoury and un
wholesome dens teem like ant-hills. What
is to be done about it ? Well, it is hard to
say what can be done about it, farther than
to use every effort to destroy this wild the
ory of which I have been writing, that a
numerous population is a good thing in
itself, and to instil into the minds of the
struggling poor the importance of self-
control and later marriages.

We have heard a good deal of the efforts
of the Anti Poverty Society in New York,
— a crusade as absurd and as futile in the
manner in which it was undertaken as any
thing ever devised by Don Quixote. I am
not sure that in the present prosperous con
dition of the world (I»do riot mean prosper
ous condition of " business " ; " business "
is not prosperous) there is any necessity for
poverty. I am sure that, if the age at
marriage could be raised by ten years
among the very poor and the people of

236 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

moderate means, and the number of chil
dren hereafter born decreased by one-half,
there would no longer be any necessity for
poverty, excepting on the ground of gross
incapacity ; but, on the contrary, within a
generation the " workingman " would find
prosperity at his beck and call.

AUGUST 19, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 237

XLVI.

I SEE that Lord Salisbury, in his address
as president before the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, takes occa
sion to speak at length of the things which
we do not know, — a very wholesome re
minder, and much needed by many people.
I fear that the rapid discovery of details in
regard to methods of growth and develop
ment, during late years, has produced an
undue feeling of extensive and comprehen
sive and commanding knowledge on the
part of the unthinking, not at all allied to a
cautious modesty. These things are enor
mously interesting and important, and it is a
source of great regret to me to find so many
people whose eyes have not been opened to
them, and whose time occasionally hangs
heavy on their hands — time which, under
other circumstances, would be filled to re
pletion with the joy of living and knowing.

But, after all, the startling, the appalling
thing is, not the extent of what we know,
but the extent of that which we do not

238 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

know. I find " I don't know" the house
hold words most familiar in my mouth.
" As our little lite is rounded with a sleep,"
so our little knowledge is rounded with an
illimitable ocean of nescience. Moreover,
it is well to remember that much of that
which we call knowledge, much of that
which is classed as "science" to-day, is
here and there founded upon hypotheses,
admirable for a working basis, but subject
to modification, or rejection, as investiga
tion progresses. For many people it is very
difficult to remember this, and they are
apt to talk and act as if there were con
ditions of positiveness about that which
is oftentimes merely tentative. So long
as a theory will explain all the known
facts, it is a good theory ; the moment a
discovery is made of something for which
it does not account, it falls to pieces like
a house of cards. And our knowledge, so
far as we have it, is relative : this, that, and
the other, stand in a certain proportion and
connection with each other ; beyond is the
infinite gulf, — we are suspended in mid
air. For the ancients, the world rested
upon the back of an elephant, and the ele
phant stood upon a tortoise : the tortoise
upon what ?

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 239

To-day, our notions are clearer, but we
are met by precisely the same problem,
and I am inclined to think that we shall
be so met forever. We no longer think
of the elephant and the tortoise, but of the
globe swinging in ether, with innumerable
other globes, bound together and kept
apart by the attraction of gravitation and
certain specified motions. But, as Lord
Salisbury says, what is the ether ? and
also what is gravitation, and what is be
yond the limits of the myriad orbs ?

Did it ever occur to you that the ultimate
things, the only things which are impregna
ble facts, the things that must be, are for the
human mind, unthinkable, or inconceivable,
except as a form of words ? It has been
customary to criticise severely the attitude
of mind of him who says, "I believe, be
cause it is impossible," and I wholly agree
with the ordinary application of this criti
cism. And yet, after all, the greatest things,
the outlying and unalterable facts, which are
not affected by hypothesis, and which we
are bound to accept, are impossible, in our
thought. Take, for example, two of the most
important, time and space. There are, so
far as I can conceive, but two alternatives
in regard to each of these. Either there

240 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

was a beginning of time, or there was no
beginning ; either there will be an end of
time, or there will be no end. So with
space : either there is a point beyond which
there is nothing — not even vacancy — or
there is no such point.

Now our rninds refuse to accept either
time or space with a limit beyond which it
does not extend. They ask forever, What
is beyond ? In like manner, they refuse
to accept anything which is interminable.
Even a future state of existence, which goes
on and on, and yet again on, becomes a
horror to thought, if dwelt upon, not only
because the feeling of change and rest is
sweet, but because we are bound to ask,
When will the end come ? And what conies
after the end ? We look into space and can
neither imagine a limit beyond which the line
cannot extend, nor can we imagine unlimited
extension of the line. Why, then, do we
properly feel satisfied that certain things are
facts, and chide him who says, " I believe,
because it is impossible" ? Because in the
field of relative knowledge which we have
investigated, we have accumulated a vast
hoard of antecedents and consequents, which
we have formulated into what we call laws
of nature, and it is in this field that we are

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 241

most apt to find the loose thinking and
superstition which we are compelled to crit
icise. But here again caution is most com
mendable. A law of man is a rule imposed
from without. A law of nature is simply
our formulation of the order of events as we
find them in nature. The evidence at our
disposal may be little, or it may be great;
the law may be firmly established by an
invariable sequence of occurrences through
the course of ages, or it may depend upon
a few observations within a limited field, and
may be subject to modifications upon fuller
and more extensive observation. Andrew
Lang and Professor Huxley seem to have
come into collision in a case of this kind,
and we cannot but feel that in this case the
literary man lias, in a degree, the better of
the scientific man, in that his attitude of
mind under the circumstances is more in
accordance with the temper of a philosophic
investigator, however ignorant he may be as
compared with his opponent relative to the
matter in hand.

There are more things in heaven and earth,

Horatio,
Thau are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Professor Huxley seems to have forgotten

242 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

for the moment what was clear to the poet,
and seems to an outsider to exhibit a little
too much cocksureness.

The prevailing philosophy of the time is
the evolution philosophy of Herbert Spen
cer, brilliantly illustrated, in a part of its
field, by the observations and demonstra
tions of Charles Darwin upon biological
questions in regard to the origin and devel
opment of species. Mr. Spencer's theory
harmonizes with the great mass of facts
which have been accumulated through the
ages, and the grasp of his mind is so great,
and the extent of his labours has been so
enormous, that he has compelled the admi
ration and enthusiastic devotion of a large
number of our scientific men. You remem
ber what Matthew Prior says : —

Be to her virtues very kind ;
Be to her faults a little blind.

This we are bound to do in regard to Mr.
Spencer, but, on the other hand, we ought
to remember that in the nature of things, a
stupendous work such as that which Mr.
Spencer is engaged upon is bound to con
tain errors, and the ready recognition of
this fact would be a safer attitude on the
part of those of us who feel ourselves his

FROM A NEW ENGLAN7D HILLSIDE. 243

disciples, rather than an unquestioning
acceptance of everything that he writes.
Moreover, may I not as a Spencerian pupil
safely say that it is too early to claim more,
for much of Mr. Spencer's philosophy, than
that it is a good, an admirable working
hypothesis, but still an hypothesis ? For
myself, I may say that it is the grandest
that ever opened before my vision, and that
it tills my mind and heart with an awe and
a reverence for the all-comprehending, all-
inspiring mystic essence which is at the
heart of things, which are unspeakable.
But it is this incomprehensible mystery,

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things,

that is the final incontrovertible fact, not
anything hitherto formulated regarding it.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1894,

244 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XL VII.

Iv one of my earlier notes I referred to

those who refuse to interest themselves in
the details of the structure and life of plants
and other objects about them, and quietly
scoffed at their apparent fear lest the mys
tery of life should be wholly explained, and
nothing be left to wonder at or reverence.
And I have just enforced this thought at
greater length, and tried to show that at the
best we are but as bits of floating down, sur
rounded by an unfathomable and incompre
hensible immensity.

Yet for the practical man of affairs, and
woman of society whose attention has not
been drawn to the larger questions, but
who have been alive to the surface changes,
there is a certain partial excuse for this
attitude of mind in the events of the past
century, and especially of the past fifty
years.

The material progress of the world since
the close of the American and the French
revolutions, the development of invention

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 245

with the resulting changes in methods and
manner of living and extent of intercourse,
the close observation of occurrences and
the analysis of processes, the co-ordination
of the results of this observation and analy
sis, and the deductions therefrom, have
combined to make an era unique in the
world's history, and which we cannot im
agine as continuing at the same rate of
progress for another hundred years, without
something akin to vertigo.

This is the fin de siecle / and I suppose
that we are all its children, with all that
that implies. The year 1900 is close upon
us. It is a pertinent inquiry, therefore,
what the twentieth century will bring to
us. Will our great cities increase in the
next hundred years in the same ratio as in
the past ; and will the enemies of private
ownership of land have succeeded in what
seems to be their darling project, — in so
controlling public affairs as to induce the
building over of all the breathing-places in
these cities, so far happily kept out of the
market ? If so, we must be prepared for
a great cockney population, whose sole
knowledge of the country and of plant life,
if they be readers, will be drawn from
history and current literature, and if they

246 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

be of the class of non-readers, which class
such a life must largely increase, must be
derived from the clothes poles with pulleys
in back yards, surrounded by ragged walls,
with purslane and plantains scattered over
the ground between, or from the wilted
vegetables at the corner grocery.

Another hundred years of manufactur
ing at the present rate of development,
according to careful computers, will ex
haust the supply of coal available at any
reasonable cost, and a much shorter period,
the valuable timber. One of three things :
either the rate of development must greatly
diminish, or second, our manufactories and
our railroads must come to a halt, or third,
some form of power now unused, or used
but to a small extent, must take the place
of that now derived from the consumption
of coal and wood.

There are three great storehouses still at
our disposal, and largely unused : that of
the sun, that of the air, and that of the
water. Ericsson experimented with the
first with great burning glasses, with inde
terminate, though, I think, rather hope
ful results. The probability of success in
this direction depends largely upon the
period of the year, and upon the climate.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 247

Success is most likely in the tropics, though
I think Uuderledge would have afforded an
especially promising field during the past
summer.

The wind has, in one way or other, been
harnessed to the chariot of progress since
the earliest time upon the sea, and through
many generations upon the land. It is in
the latter direction that we must expect
most progress to be made in the future.
Let us hope that the coming windmill will
not be such a blot upon the landscape as
those with which we have been afflicted
during the past half-century. I suppose
that we cannot expect anything so pictur
esque as the old mill of Holland.

Lastly we come to the water. Probably
the waters that come down at Lodore, as
well as those of Niagara, the falls of Min-
nehaha and of Montmorency, and all the
sublime and beautiful torrents that have
inspired art or literature, must ultimately
turn some one's mill wheel. But all the
power of the accessible streams combined,
is of small account when compared with
that stored up or available in the ocean
tides. Everywhere upon our eastern shore
bears the mass of the Atlantic. On the
west we have the Pacific, and on the south

248 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the Gulf of Mexico. Four times each day
these immense bodies of water are pouring
upon us, or away from us, as the sun and
the moon tug at the earth in opposition 01
together. Here are, let us say, more than
three thousand miles of coast-line, to say
nothing of the rivers in which the tide rises
and falls, upon which the tides move with a
height varying from a few inches up to forty
feet or more. In how many places this
power is now used, I cannot say — proba
bly but few. I know an old tide mill on
Sheepshead Bay, on the south shore of Long
Island, a favourite destination for a canter
or trot in the old times, which always inter
ested me ; but it is the only one I ever saw.
Now, that either or all three of these
great sources of power can be drawn upon
to an enormous extent to stimulate elec
trical energy, which seems likely to be the
immediate agent of the future for the dis
tribution of force, I take it that there can
be no reasonable doubt. It is simply a
question of gearing and application, a mat
ter for inventors to play with, and the
American inventor will disappoint just ex
pectation if he does not succeed in sur
mounting the difficulties which manifest
themselves at the outset.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 249

But reliance upon either of these sources
rather than upon fuel, implies great changes
in methods, — I hope that we may believe
changes for the better, at least in some
respects. Let us pray that it may produce
a tendency toward a decentralization of
population, and this we have a right to
hope. The human being is a social being,
and he not only likes, but he needs society
for his proper development. But there are
degrees of intimacy, different grades of
nearness in social relations, as there are in
expressions of disapproval.

Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But — why did you kick me dowu stairs 1

You can have all the company that is
good for you without continually touching
elbows with your neighbours upon either
side.

The question of the extent and character
of the mechanical power in use, is one of
the greatest questions affecting mankind,
as I have heretofore intimated, and, as I
have ventured also to assert, its increase
is not an unmixed benefit. I can imagine
the tone of the race as becoming higher,
while the proportionate weight of mechani
cal power in use becomes less, although I

250 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

would not say that this is a necessary rela
tion. Human development depends for
the most part upon mental stimulus, and
though probably greater productiveness
results from the present tendency to enor
mous aggregations of workers under com
paratively few " Captains of Industry," T
question whether this tendency does not
check mental activity with many. And
mental breadth is undoubtedly circum
scribed by too great a division of labour.
The extent to which this is now carried is
astonishing, and I was much struck a few
days ago by the statement made to me
by a friend, upon his return from one of
our hill towns, of the manner in which this
has even affected farmers of late years,
through the introduction of the creamery
and other establishments and methods of
co-operation. The saving virtue in this
particular instance is the enormous relief
afforded to the housewife.

I find that I have been beguiled into a
consideration especially of the recent and
prospective changes in material conditions.
But these are closely connected with revo
lutionary changes in theology, philosophy,
science, and art, all of which are in a fer
ment, in a chaotic condition, which forbids

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 251

close prophecy. A friend recently said to
ine that it would be interesting to know
what we, or those that shall follow us, will
be thinking, fifty or sixty years hence. It
would indeed ; but a thick veil shrouds the
future. Probably the most that we can
say is, that the past, and many of the ideas
of the past, are gone, and forever. The
latter were legitimate children of their time,
and they doubtless served their purpose,
but they are out of key with our larger
view, and no power exists by which they
can be revivified. We seem to see some
stable ground emerging from the troubled
waters of the present, but all that we can
certainly say, is, that whatever of vesture
fades and vanishes, the eternal verities
remain the same yesterday, to-day, and
forever ; and the time-spirit saitii : —

Here at the whirring loom of time I sit and

ply,

And weave for God the garment thou dost
see him by.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1894.

252 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

XL VIII.

Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

IP we could only say so much as that,
we should feel fairly well pleased. We
remember sympathetically the little girl in
the story, who, when she heard that some
neighbours had no bread to eat, expressed
her wonder that they did not then eat cake,
and we should try to get along bravely with
some other beverage. But, alas ! it is not
" water, water everywhere." A month ago
I recorded a refreshing rain, continuing for
several hours, and I congratulated myself
that there was scarcely a physical possibility
that we should have it so dry again before
the time of frost. But since then the drought
has once more settled down upon us, and we
have not had enough of a shower to lay the
dust. In the morning a fog covers the val
ley, and during the day a canopy of smoke
and haze covers the heavens, through which
the sun sometimes glows like a ball of red-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 253

hot iron, at which one can look without
flinching.

Only once has the smoke fallen low
enough for me to perceive its odour, and
this was at nightfall a few days ago, as I
drove over the hills some miles to the west
ward of the village. Yesterday in the after
noon, I suddenly perceived a flame on the
side of the mountain two or three miles to
the northeastward, but it lasted but a little
while, and I presume was looked after and
taken care of by vigilant watchers. This
afternoon the atmosphere thickened until
the sun wholly disappeared, and with it
most of the landscape, and people spoke of
the famous "yellow day," although the
colour was not so marked as it has been on
two or three occasions during the past
week ; but the barometer is high, and
mounts steadily higher.

My strawberry plants, which took a good
hold on the earth, are dying one by one,
and half are gone. But the melons seem
to revel in the dry soil and heavy air, from
which they have somehow extracted the
most delicious juices, while my tomatoes
and corn and potatoes defy competitors
through all the countryside. It should be
said, however, that we have had heavy dews,

254 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

and I suppose that this accounts for the veg
etation that has been saved. But since the
sower went forth to sow my grass field, I
desire something better.

The search for water leads me to the well,
and this, alas ! is still marked with an inter
rogation point. The permanent pump has
been put in place and finds a continuous
supply. But the supply, though gratefully
cool and refreshing to the taste, has still
the colour of cafe au lait, and seems to
promise a richness which is uncalled for.
The interesting question which the future
is asked to solve is whether we have struck
a quicksand, and if so, whether we shall
have to pump out a deposit of some thou
sands of cubic yards before we attain a clear
and wholesome beverage.

Down in the marsh the water still stands
here and there between the tussocks of
coarse grass, notwithstanding the long
drought, and on the margin of the meadow
there is an unmistakable spring, where the
frogs make merry. In an experimental way,
therefore, I have begun digging, with the
hope of forming a series of small pools, in
which pond lilies may float, while cardinal
flowers and marshmallows and other deni
zens of the low lands make gay the border.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 255

I would that I had a mountain brook, brawl
ing over the stones on the ledge, and gliding
through the meadow, but for this I fear
that I must look to the winter alone.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1894.

256 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

HIGHER and higher rose the barometer,
and denser and denser became the atmos
phere, until the valley nearly disappeared
and the heavens were covered by a leaden
veil. Yesterday we had seen some indica
tions of a mackerel sky beyond the smoke,
and at last, shortly before noon to-day,
first in tiny particles at long intervals, and
then more frequently, the moisture made
itself felt, until at length a real shower
was sweeping over the fields. Now we
were sure that the September rains had
begun in earnest, and those that were
upon the housetop came down, and those
who were in the fields sought shelter. But
alas ! the shower was but a fleeting show :
it had but little more than moistened the
surface, when it was gone.

Slight as it was, however, the effect upon
the atmosphere was wonderful. The smoke
had disappeared ; the sky was cobalt blue
once more, for the first time in weeks, and
the sun poured down a hot torrent upon us-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 257

I noticed a curious effect, such as might
easily have given rise to a wholly false im
pression. The rain had not been falling
more than five minutes, when behold the
brown and newly seeded field was sprinkled
over with spires of green grass from two to
four inches in height. It seemed like the
marvellous tricks of the Oriental conjurors,
-.vho are said to plant a seed, develop a tree,
and produce the fruit while you wait.

Now I have no doubt that this grass had
sprung up from the overturned sod, and
that it was all standing in the field ere the
rain began, but coated over with a fine
powder of dust, which the falling drops
washed away, leaving the field, though
sparsely, in verdure clad. Thus often the
senses deceive us, and false testimony may
unwittingly be given by the best-inten-
tioned.

It is pleasant to see the blue once more,
pleasant to catch a glimpse of the distant
hills, even if here and there we observe that
the finger of autumn has already touched
the trees and left a blush of crimson or a
golden glow upon them ; pleasant also is it
this evening to see the friendly moon and
stars once more lending their light to cheer
the night hours.
s

258 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

And through the clearer air comes to
me a soft little blossom of the Edelweiss,
plucked close to the snow on the Breithorn,
a fortnight ago. Yes, perhaps it is pecul
iar ; but it is nevertheless a brave survivor
of "the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune," and though it may come from the
very shadow of the eternal snows, I am sure
it brings to me a little warmth of kindly
human feeling in its heart.

SEPTEMBER 6, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 259

L.

AT last Polyphemus is here ; the great
one-eyed monster that has taken possession
of our highway, and bound it with iron
bars. An authority tells us that Polyphe
mus " fed upon human flesh, and kept his
flocks upon the coasts of Sicily." We
might have known as much. The other
Sicilians were here a month ago, as I re
marked at the time, and alas ! we be very
much afeared that the monster's appetite is
still unsated, and that human flesh will yet
have to be sacrificed to him. But Galatea
shall be secluded, if it be possible.

What a terror that glaring eye will be for
many a day to man and woman and beast,
as the car speeds its way through the night
along the common highway. With a rattle
and a whizz and a rush ; with the sulphu
rous looking sparks flying from overhead
as the revolving trolley makes and breaks
connections, the heavy vehicle bowls away,
bearing its human freight through the dark
ness along the dusty road, stirring the damp

2(3o FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

and heavy air, and startling crickets and
katydids from their monotonous and unend
ing conversations, while the occasional glow
worm by the roadside, in proportion to his
weight, outdoes the giant in his illumination.
Polyphemus is here, for weal or for woe.
When man makes a scar on the hillside,
a great grey or brown scar, where sand and
pebbles and clay drift down in ridges, and
the rain water cuts channels between, after
a while along come the moss and the cinque-
foil, the chatnomile, the asters, and the
golden-rod, and then the white birches, and
heal the scar and clothe it and bring it back
into harmony with nature as a part of the
land of the living. Perhaps, somehow, this
blot which marks our pristine freshness may
be turned to wholesome uses, and the path
of the monster may yet be embroidered
with flowers of the Spirit.

SEPTEMBER 6, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 261

LI.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.

COULD any simile produce a more defi
nite and wholly satisfying picture upon the
mind ? All through the morning the words
have been singing themselves to me as I
worked under shelter with saw and chisel,
hammer and nails, securely placing the new
foster mother which is to brood over the
coming generation of foundlings in my poul
try yard. Now more slowly, and now faster,
the light patter sounded upon the roof ; the
little fluffy bipeds without shook and
stretched themselves, and sought shelter
from a dispensation to which they were
unused, and the clean white elders gathered
about and dabbled in a muddy pool which
had quickly formed. Corn blades and grass
blades glistened after their bath, and the
dry earth of the newly tilled field eagerly
drank up the welcome drops, for which the
grass seed had been waiting for a week.

262 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

And I hoped that far away in the woods,
the rain might overtake the fell destroyer
on his fiery path, and quietly smother his
rage, even as balm may sometime light
upon the hearts of those whose homes and
hearths he has already made desolate.

The showers have come like a cool hand
softly laid upon a fevered forehead. The
rain has not been a very heavy one, and
now there is a halt as though the elements
were uncertain whether to continue their
bounties. But the darkness cometh on
apace ; already with the shortening day I
have to draw my chair close to the window
to obtain light enough for my writing ; I
have faith to believe that the fountains will
again be opened during the night watches.

I look out upon the leaves of the maple
tree near my window, washed clean of the
fine dust which has been borne upon the
wings of the wind for many a day, and
wonder what they are thinking all day long,
and week after week, now hanging motion
less and now swaying to and fro in the
passing breeze. For that they have life is
certain, and what is life without thought ?
I cannot quite rid myself of the feeling that
there is a certain consciousness even in the
leaves. Darwin has shown such acts of

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 263

deliberation upon the part of climbing
plants, as give us pause, and make us
occasionally feel that we must speak softly,
and perhaps be a little careful even of our
reflections in their presence. And have you
not heard how sometimes a great tree,
being athirst, will send its roots far around
a rock or a building to a well or spring, in
order to fetch it water ?

So when I go up into a high mountain,
where great oaks and lordly pines and hem
locks wave, or rind my way down through
a secluded valley wrhere a clear brook
tumbles over smooth worn stones, under
overhanging grasses and fronds of fern,
where the forget-me-not lifts its blue eyes,
and the proud cardinal flower sparkles, I
cannot quite think that my coming brought
thither the first throb of conscious life.
And when I see the lily sending its delicate
searching filaments deep down among the
noisome masses of decay and seemingly
useless waste, and drawing thence the ele
ments from which it elaborates a glory of
green leaf and spotless and fragrant blossom,
and then look upon "a lord of creation"
who should be " how noble in reason ! how
infinite in faculty ! in form and movement
how express and admirable ! in action how

264 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

like an angel ! in apprehension how like
a god ! " and see him confined to a petty
round, or filled with ignoble ambitions ;
defacing the lovely front of nature, or
cramping the souls about him, and soiling
all the fair pages that he touches, with no
responsive thrill to all the life impulses with
which the universe is ever palpitating, I
hardly have room to wonder which has the
nobler thoughts, or which is the purer and
truer channel for the current of the infinite
life.

SEPTEMBER 8, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 265

LII.

A DARK and sombre room, only lighted
by a lamp which stands upon a table at one
side covered with books, crucibles, alem
bics, retorts, and vessels of various kinds.
Books arranged in cases along the walls. Sit
ting by the table, bowed over the books, a
little old man with long grey hair and beard.
Music by the orchestra ; it is Gounod's.
Then the old man sings, and in the melody
and harmony the story of Dr. Faustus is
unfolded.

You can paint in high key or in low, in
black and white or in colour; tell your
story in prose or in poetry, in a monotone
or in melodious phrases ; given the medium
and keynote, and all falls into its place.
We do not, it is true, usually sing our solil
oquies with gesticulations, but this does not
make the opera untrue. We have been
transported to the kingdom of the muses,
where this is the universal custom, that is
all. And so it does not disturb us in the
least that as memory retraces the days that

266 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

are gone, and imagination calls up pictures
of the joys of the past, a great longing takes
possession of the soul of the scholar to walk
again the pleasant paths of youth, and
Mephistopheles emerges from the studious
gloom, and in harmonious accents tenders
his uncanny services.

How often, and in how many forms, the
story comes to us ! How to hold fast to life
and its joys ; how to turn the hour glass,
and see again the sands running gently from
the full to the empty bulb. In fact and in
fiction : Ponce de Leon in search of the
fountain of youth ; the alchemists and the
Rosicrucians ; Paracelsus ; Claude Frollo
in Victor Hugo's " Hunchback of Notre
Dame"; the Illuminati in George Sand's
" Consuelo " and " Countess de Rudolstadt "
and out of them : the famous French physi
cian of our own day, Brown-Sequard, with
his elixir of life. Life ! Life ! More life
and fuller is our cry, and we cling to the
receding years as one clings to a rope while
feeling himself drifting ever farther and
farther from shore upon an ebbing tide.

But exert ourselves as we may, we are
only conscious that like one caught by a
devil-fish, whose every writhing tends but
to tighten upon him the monster's tentacles,

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 267

or like one sinking in a quicksand, whose
struggles carry him deeper and deeper, our
efforts to escape are worse than vain. Ever
present with us is the vision of those who
long ago slipped beyond the curtain which
shrouds the vast unknown. We see them
as they were ; they said to us but ffMuf
SSkDerjefjen," and now, the river that parts
us, once but a tiny thread, has grown so
wide, so wide ! How easy for some, is the
way which for others is marked "No
thoroughfare ! " AVith an assured confi
dence, born, shall we say ? of lack of reflec
tion, they drop the pulseless hand, believing
that next week, next year, a generation
hence, they will grasp it again and take up
life in unchanged relations. Happy dream
ers ! Did it ever occur to you to try to realize
how the young mother who leaves her child
a prattling babe, and meets him again in
some other sphere, a hoary-headed nonage
narian, with his sons and his daughters,
his grandchildren and great-grandchildren
about him, shall orient herself, and take up
the old relation ? Ah ! my friends, I fear
that in that other land, that " undiscovered
country from whose bourne no traveller
returns," either idealism reigns, and each
will dwell in a fully equipped world of his

268 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

own, or we shall have to begin again where
fate may leave us. As the tree falls, so shall
it lie ; there is no retracing the steps which
have been taken.

How to grow old gracefully is the problem.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
may have whizzed for many a year around
our devoted heads, and the scars which we
could show, may be as numerous as the
sands of the sea. But the desires and hopes
of our youth still linger with us, as we linger,
mayhap, superfluous upon the stage. Have
you ever reversed your opera-glass in the
midst of the play and watched the tiny
actors afar off go through their mimic parts,
and seemed to hear their voices likewise
fade into the remote distance ? So we must
sometimes realize with a shock that while
through our glass of custom, which is ever
ready, we see the youths about us so near
that we can put our hand upon them, they
in their turn, with the inexperience of youth,
hold their glasses reversed, and view us far,
far away, a mere reminiscence of a life
which has been, our feeble voices just whis
pering on the breeze, a part of the accumu
lated burden of the past. We suddenly
catch sight of our reflection in the mirror,
and wonder what strange spell can have

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 269

transformed us so. Do you remember the
quandary of the little old woman ?

" But if it be I, as I do hope it be,

I've a little dog at home, and he'll know me ;

If it be I, he'll wag his little tail,

And if it be not I, he'll loudly bark and

wail! "

Home went the little woman all in the dark,
Up got the little dog, and he began to bark,
He began to bark, so she began to cry,
" Lauk-a-mercy on me, this is none of I! "

But, alas ! I am afraid it must be I, all
the same, or what is left of the I that was,
out from which may have gone so much
virtue, or so much weakness. Is the in
dividual but a passive instrument, a medium
only, through which power passes to effect
its end, as the wire bears the electric cur
rent ? Does he not sometimes transmute
the force, so that motion, as it were, be
comes heat, or electric power or attraction ?
Is he not a solvent, and may not his pres
ence now and then cause a rearrangement
of the atoms, and precipitate the fine gold ?

Helmholtz is dead, — he whose strong
hand reconstructed, or constructed ab initio,
the theory of the persistence of force.
Think of it ; since he published his paper
upon the "Conservation of force " in 1847,

270 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

the world, to philosophic eyes, has been
a new world, — and Hehnholtz is dead.
Dead ! What is that ?

One generation passeth away, and another
cometh : —

It is time to be old,
To take in sail :

— Ah ! but is it just that ? Let us see that
our garments have a fitting modesty of
colour and form ; let us withdraw to a quiet
corner and release the younger spirits which
cannot brook long confinement.

On with the dance ! let joy be nm-onnned ;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure

meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

But when the passing years have been
accepted, and the sceptre has been surren
dered into other hands, though we be old,
the world is yet young, and it has no re
tired list.

As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime.

It is not well to be always analyzing one's
sensations and one's character ; seeds will

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 271

not germinate if they are dug up very often
to see whether they have yet sprouted.
But a good merchant occasionally takes
account of stock, and at all events he knows
that he must have a clear idea of the rela
tion in which he stands to the market, and
to his associates and competitors. The
mariner takes an observation when the sun
crosses the line. It is worth while for a
man to know whether or not he is out of
his course ; worth while to know whether
the light at his prow is playing the part of
a will-of-the-wisp and leading other craft
into dangerous waters. And, dropping the
simile, it is worth while to avoid being a
bore, a grumbler, a marplot, a busybody,
a burden or a nuisance of any kind ; worth
while to remember that there is much to be
done by all who can work, before the human
race shall be all that the human race might
be, before the inhabited world shall be all
compact of grace and loveliness. So though

— you and I are old ;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ;
Death closes all : but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks :
The long clay wanes: the slow moon climbs:
the deep

272 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

Moans round with many voices. Come,

my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old

days
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are,

we are ;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in

will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

SEPTEMBER 15, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 273

LIII.

I HAVE planted a bit of sky in the marshy
ground ;it the foot of the pasture. When
I put it there I could only see in it gray
smoke and haze, with now and then a glint
of blue, with coarse grass and golden-rods
and asters reversed around the borders.
But last night I found the whole moon in
it, full and round, with two dainty stars,
far, far down in the depths of the earth
beneath, and to-day there are towering
masses of cumulus cloud with frills and
ripples along the edges, luminous above,
and deepening below to a tone the real
lightness of which you will never know
until you undertake to paint it. You do not
realize how delicate and graceful and subtile
are the lines of tree and herb, until you
watch their reflections in a sheet of water.
Nature is so lavish of her beauty that it is
itsually with us all as it was with Yankee
Doodle, who " Couldn't see the town for so
many houses." We need to have a tiny
morsel set apart and to concentrate our
T

274 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

attention upon it in order to see a little of
that grace of which the world is full.

I think if people only knew how much
easier it is to transplant the sky than it is
to transplant safely anything else, they
would always have a bit of it growing
within their line of vision. I mean people
who live in the country, that is, people who
actually live. Even those who survive in
the city, if they are so fortunate as to own
or rent a parallelepipedon (I believe that is
the word) twenty feet by a hundred, begin
ning at the centre of the earth and extend
ing into infinite space, might plant a bit of
the sky in their back yard, and so get into
near relations with something that is pure
and true, if changeable. But I am wrong as
to the shape of these little tuppenny-ha'penny
city possessions. The sides are not parallel,
but instead, each starts from an invisible
point at the centre of the earth, and, reach
ing the designated size at the surface, con
tinues to broaden and broaden out into
infinite space forever and ever, amen. And
the peculiarity of this little matter, infinity,
is that out there there is no need to quarrel
about boundaries, but how many soever
there may be of these closely packed muni
cipal neighbours, though their number be

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 275

infinite, in the last extremity (which is
never reached) each man's territory be
comes infinite in length and breadth as well
as in thickness. And so he has his escape
into the infinite.

And it is worth something to see the sky,
even at second hand. Worth, ah ! how
much ! to look out upon great stretches of
it, upon untold and untellable millions of
miles, with its cloud-capped towers, its gor
geous palaces, its solemn temples.

We are now in the full tide of the early
autumn, with its wealth of bloom. All the
old favourites are here : the asters and the
golden-rods, the cardinal flower, the fringed
gentian, the ladies'-tresses, the grass of
Parnassus, the wild carrot, the autumn
buttercup, — a wealth of bloom that defies
enumeration or computation or description.
And the green trees also are putting on
their ascension robes, not of white, but of
brown and of red and of gold.

But the summer lingers ; the air is still
and sultry ; portentous clouds gather on
the hills beyond the valley, and are cloven
from time to time by flashes of lightning, and
heavy thunder rolls around the welkin.

SEPTEMBER 16, 1894.

2/6 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

LIV.

" THE rains descended and the floods came
and the winds blew and beat upon that
house, and it fell not." And it rained, and
it rained, and it rained. It was really like
old times. The rain came on rather gently
and intermittently, but gradually gained
force and continuity until after nightfall,
and then we had it in earnest, a steady
downpour. The fountains of the heavens
were opened, and hour after hour the deluge
fell, making glad the thirsting fields and the
hearts of men. We remembered that in for
mer times, under the old dispensation, we
had had such rains, and there was a grateful
sense of something familiar which had quite
passed from our memory, but which had
suddenly been again brought to mind.

The following morning the sun came out
bright and clear. I went up the hill, pass
ing upon my way the pool in the marsh,
which I found full to the brim, and weeping
over its low embankment. The cottage was
in its place, but it held more water than I

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 277

hope it may ever hold again. The roof had
not been quite completed when the rain
began, and the temporary drains upon the
ungraded slope proved insufficient for the
emergency, so that a more than ample
supply was delivered through the cellar win
dows. But otherwise the building had not
suffered, and it was a small matter to open
the permanent drain already planned, and
draw off the accumulation, which fur a
time formed a mountain torrent in the fore
ground. The carpenters were stimulated to
renewed exertions by the warning, and set
to work iii good earnest to close the gap in
the roof (the stable-door, as it were), a
labour which they had just completed upon
the coming of another heavy shower in the
afternoon.

The new grass has sprung up freely over
the field, and its fresh green gives a pleasant
overtone to the brown earth, which it does
not yet, but soon will, cover.

The day after the storm I placed in my
brooder twelve downy little youngsters that
had just been hatched, and sent the mother
off to attend to other business. It was my
first experiment with the brooder, though
I had kept it heated for several days to test
its temper. One of the infants had not

278 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSTDE.

acquired quite strength enough to break
the shell, and was assisted in that under
taking by Nicholas John. It was then put
into the brooder with the others, but seemed
so weak and miserable, thus thrown so
untimely upon a cold and uncharitable
world, that it was placed for a few hours
in the incubator. This, by the way, con
tains about a hundred eggs, the tenants of
which are at present something more than
half way between this world and the world
to come, or between the other world and
this, whichever is the more appropriate
expression. (I get very much confused be
tween these different worlds. ) The outcome
of this experiment will be very interesting.
However it may result with the eggs, the
effect was quite satisfactory in the case of
the immature chick, which, after being put
back into the brooder, I found busy with
the others, the following morning, all being
engaged in earning an honest livelihood on
the floor of their wooden foster mother.

Thinking them now old enough to endure
a further experience of life, I removed
the slide which closed the approach to the
sunny outer world ; but it was an hour or
two before any ventured so far as into the
open air. At length I encouraged two or

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 279

three to go into the passageway, and then
continued my work outside. After a while
one gradually backed out of the passage,
but it was some moments before it turned
around and seemed to realize the new order
of things. With head erect, it gazed upon
the great universe, at the green leaves and
the blue sky and the great sun, and I am
sure it must have felt unutterable things.
At all events, it did not utter any, and
shortly afterward, with several others, it
was busily engaged pecking away at the
fresh earth near the mouth of the tunnel
leading to its artificial foster mother. And
before long, eleven little lumps of down, —
brown and black and yellow. Brown Leg
horn and Minorca and Light Brahma, were
scattered around over quite a space of
ground, as happily and naturally engaged
as if they had not been introduced into this
great world of ours a short ten minutes
before.

I counted only eleven, and hearing a
plaintive peep-peep-ing within, I examined
and discovered that Benjamin, the poor
foundling of the incubator, had not had
courage to make a sortie, but, lost in the
vast solitude of the otherwise empty box,
was making his sad plight known in the

280 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

manner most natural to him. Taking him
up in my hand, I conveyed him into the
yard, and put him down near the others,
and after a few minutes of amaze and un
certainty he joined them in their busy
investigation into the nature and character
of the soil.

I was especially interested to note an
exhibition of inherited, or so-called intuitive
knowledge. One of the hens in the ad
joining yard having given utterance to the
familiar note of alarm and warning, the
whole flock immediately huddled together
at the mouth of the tunnel. And this
reminds me of an incident that occurred
a day or two since, which both interested
and pleased me. A chicken several weeks
old, and rather too large to get easily
through the meshes of the wire netting,
found itself within an inclosure where it
was not intended to be, and tried in vain,
with much vociferation, to get out. Seeing
its difficulty, 1 went to its rescue, which I
could only effect by catching it. This I did
with some difficulty. While I was attempt
ing to do this, its outcries were naturally
redoubled, and that which especially pleased
me was the fact that the whole flock of
Plymouth Hocks on the other side of the

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 28 1

net flew to its defence, and made a most
vigorous, though vain, attack upon me for
my supposed brutality. They only desisted
when, having caught the chicken, I imme
diately released it among them, and I have
no doubt that they then congratulated
themselves upon having compelled me to
suspend my nefarious proceedings.

SEPTEMBER 24, 1894.

282 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

LV.

Oh ! Carry me back to ole Virginny.

THIS note is written really and truly from
Underledge — far from Underledge. At the
foot of the hill upon which stands the hotel,
flow the turbid waters of the Koanoke, un
der broad-leaved buttonwoods and smaller-
leaved persimmon trees. On the walls of the
hotel the Allamanda vines make a great
show, with their bright yellow blossoms, and
on the terrace the crimson hibiscus and the
motley lantana, with the broad-leaved ba
nana and rich green rubber plant, make
believe that they are in Bermuda. Around
us the mountains rise in every direction,
showing numerous CDnical peaks, the char
acteristic mountain forms of the picture
books of our childhood. It is a new sensa
tion to the eye accustomed to the long lines
of the elevated table-lands of New England,
to rest upon these forms, so different in
their details, so distinctly mountainous.
And as the mountains differ, so likewise

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 283

do all the other elements of the situation.
The southern colonel with his broad slouch
hat and his long legs and long beard, ap
pears in great force. So does the southern
negro in all degrees of picturesqueness.
From an elevated office window I look
down upon the open market-place with its
ox-carts and its wagon loads of water-
" millions " and vegetables of all sorts ; and
in the court-house, where the general quiet
ness and decorum in speech surprised me,
I have the opportunity to admire the skill
with which a learned advocate, in the
course of an impassioned address to the
jury, manages to "shoot off his mouth"
unerringly (I use the popular slang in a
literal sense) first in one direction and
then in another, at the spittoons stationed
many feet away from him, while I observe
evidences all around me of a lack of similar
skill upon the part of others.

As the train wound its circuitous way
through the Shenandoah valley two nights
ago, it seemed to pitch and roll almost like
a vessel in a storm at sea, insomuch as to
make walking from one end of the car to
another without support quite impossible ;
and even in one's berth, one was liable to
be overcome by qualms of conscience, — or

284 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

something else internal. But when morn
ing dawned, the beauty of the scenery com
pelled attention to that alone. The foliage
is yet but little changed by the coming of
autumn, but the drought here has been very
severe, and still continues. In the morn
ing and the evening light, the mountain
ranges take on an exquisite beauty of tone
and colour. There is, however, in many
places a sense of solitude and often of
desolation, which is depressing. The latter
as caused doubtless, in part at least,
by the occurrences of the times when
Sheridan was but "twenty miles away," is
visible here and there in the ruins of what
were probably at one time substantial and
prosperous homesteads. At other points
there are the even more discouraging mon
uments of the widespread real estate boom
of a few years ago.

The characteristic building throughout
most of the valley is the old log house,
usually more or less dilapidated, but occa
sionally carefully plastered between the
logs so as to produce the effect of a sec
tion of a zebra, set up on end. Often these
appear as a collection or line of negro cab
ins placed near the bottom upon each side
of a narrow valley or ravine, where the old

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 285

mammies stand in the doorways, or the
little pickaninnies lie around basking in the
sun. There is seldom any evidence of
effort to beautify the home-place by the
planting of trees, shrubs, or vines, or other
wise. The surroundings are usually bare
and unsightly. The house has the appear
ance not of a home as we think of it, but of
being a mere shelter from the inclemency
of the elements. This is doubtless largely
because of the great poverty of the people,
which everywhere forces itself upon the
attention ; but it cannot be only because of
this. Certainly in other localities you fre
quently find unmistakable evidences of
poverty accompanied by like unmistakable
evidences of a craving for something more
than food, clothing, and the shelter of a roof.
' ' The man on horseback ' ' is seen every
where where people are visible. The sad
dle is a natural home for a Virginian. I
cannot, however, say much for the grace
and comeliness of the ordinary Virginia
horse as I have seen him during the past
few days. I am inclined to think that he
must rather yield the palm to the mule,
whose long ears make their appearance
upon every side. Not many unfamiliar
crops appear in the fields. The tobacco

286 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

that I have seen would make a very poor
showing alongside that of Connecticut or
Massachusetts, but I cannot think that
that which I have seen can fairly repre
sent the region. Much of the corn crop
has been cut and stacked in shocks. That
which has not been cut has had the stalks
above the ears removed, and the ears hang
ing down, the fields have taken on a de
jected appearance. An occasional field of
ripening millet is perhaps the most unfa
miliar agricultural feature which has at
tracted my attention.

Here, in a great railroad centre, there is
a sense of incongruity in the mixture of
northern and southern elements, the laissez
faire of the natives, and the "get there"
of the invading Yankees. I cannot say that
either of them in the present stage im
presses me very pleasantly ; but then I sup
pose that it is characteristic of the born
optimist that to him the things of the pres
ent are always pretty bad — else how could
he be ever looking forward to the times
when things will be better? "There's a
good time coming, boys ; wait a little
longer."

SEPTEMBER 25, 181)4.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 287

LVI.

As I write, I am sitting under the mag
nificent arch of the Natural Bridge. I
have made the ordinary round, following
a lateral stream from the hotels, past the
great old gnarled arbor vitae trees, to Cedar
creek, and thence up along its course
through the gorge, under the great arch,
to the saltpetre cave, to Hemlock Island,
to Lost River, and Lace Water Falls. Then
by devious ways among great tulip and
hemlock and beech trees and along and
over steep hillsides, I gained the ruined
summer house or observatory from whence
one can see in all directions a multitu
dinous host of mountains : Purgatory
Mountain and House Mountain, North
Mountain and Cave Mountain, and scores
of others, with the famed Peaks of Otter
away in the southeast. Numerous cones
appear from this point, as from almost
every other in the valley. The view is
superb.

And then, still following the beaten track,

288 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

I came out at length upon the top of the
bridge, whence its imposing height is more
clearly discerned. The stream beneath
has suffered greatly from the long drought.
When it is full, as during the breaking up
of the accumulated snows of the winter,
the view must be most effective from this
point.

Here I parted from a chance travelling
acquaintance, and struck off into a bypath
through the woods, trusting that it would
ultimately lead me to an easy slope by
which I might make my descent again to
the bed of the stream, and in this I was
not mistaken. And so, following now the
conventional path, now stepping or spring
ing from rock to rock in the bed of the
creek, and now pushing my way among
trees and bushes, I at last find myself
alone in the fading evening light under
the bridge itself, with no sound in my ears
but that of the water as it makes its way
over its irregular rocky bed.

It is good to be here, — good to look up
at that vast arch with the pictures of which
we have all been so familiar from child
hood, but which so few of us see or think
that we much care to see. Let me tell you
to go to see it, and also to do what I cannot

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 289

do, remain long enough to know it in its
various aspects, and to steep yourself fully
in the beauty of this most beautiful region.

Having a reverent regard for the mem
ory of the father of his- and my country,
I have been trying — in vain — to discover
the point where that distinguished citizen
carved his name upon t^e bridge, an act
in the performance of wMch I sincerely
wish that he had been the }s>$t. He seems
to have been as ready will* his knife as
with his hatchet. And I lif^e also been
thinking, reminded thereby of Kobert
Lowell's poem, "Fresh Hearts, that Failed
Three Thousand Years ago,; ' with its
motto, "Men that were makers " its story
of the long and weary climb, a"d its pa
thetic ending, — "A boy — and yet no
name." Here, indeed, carved unon the
rock was the name of a man who ^as a
maker, the maker of an empire ; wno left
behind him, to last as long as records inay
endure and after this great bridge sha)'
have crumbled into the valley, a name to
be remembered.

But what boots it ? What is fame that

we should greatly desire it ? It is pleasant

to have the recognition of those whom you

know, of your countrymen, of your genera-

u

2QO FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

tion ; but better is it to know or to trust in
the secrecy of your own heart, that you are
at least one of the men who are makers, —
that in an evil time, you have laid a stone
or carried mortar or borne a message which
contributed to the strengthening of the em
pire which your forefathers builded. Grate
ful is it to the spirit — at least grateful it
•should be — to do something toward the con
struction of an enduring bridge between
the glories of the past and the greater
glories of the future. Pontifex Maximus
only one can be ; let us make sure that
each of us can name himself in his most
secret hour pontifex — and therewith be
content.

SEPTEMBER 26, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 29!

LVII.

THE scene changes. I am again at Un-
derledge. And after making allowance for
all that is sordid and mean in our life, for
the selfishness and self-seeking, for the
ignoble ambitions, for the waste of thought
and precious hours upon petty things, for
the prevalent crude materialism which
takes little note of the higher matters of
the imagination, for the dull aesthetic sense
which leads to the most frightful mon
strosities in omission and commission, at
which you will bear me witness that I have
not hesitated to grumble, I am bound to
admit that I approach my home with an
assurance that there are degrees in degrada
tion, and that we are not at the lowest
depth. Industry is a good thing, and we
are more industrious. Thrift is a good
thing, and we are more thrifty. Extended
knowledge is a good thing, and we know
more of the world. Neatness is a good
thing, and we are more neat. Beauty is a
good thing, and we strive in a way for

292 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

beauty, and sometimes achieve it, even if
our ways are often mistaken ones.

And I think that this is true not only of
an old village such as this, old in the
American sense, I mean, but I think that
it is also true of the more retired regions
of the Eastern States, whence cities are not
readily accessible, where the demands of
life are hard, and where intercommunica
tion between families and neighbourhoods
is difficult.

I am fain to believe that another genera
tion will effect considerable changes, and
changes for the better, in the region that I
have just left. Therefore I live in hope.
I saw there two distinct phases of life, — the
old life which suffers under the vis inertia:,
and which has hardly awakened to the pres
ent, and the disagreeable new life of what
seems almost like a border town (although
in fact one of the oldest in the country),
because it has recently been invaded by the
speculative immigrant from the North, with
all his shrewdness, and all his lack of
"sweetness and light." But grace and
beauty are sure to blossom in the end.

At the extreme south end of our village,
upon a low mound at the foot of a beautiful

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 293

green slope, below one of the finest points
of the ledge, which is here, as at most other
points, masked by forest trees, there stands
a large farmhouse built about a hundred
years ago. It is painted white, with green
blinds, in the ordinary New England fash
ion, and is surrounded by trees ; and from
the front, and the wide veranda at the
side, there is an uninterrupted view across
the valley to the western hills, winch, as I
looked upon them to-day just after the sun
had sunk behind them, lay firmly outlined
on the clear evening sky.

This is what we know as "The Lodge."
It is one of the numerous holiday homes
established in late years, for the benefit of
those whose ordinary life is that of the
shop and the tenemen1>house, many of
whom, doubtless, had no clear idea of what
the world was where there were no paved
streets and blocks of houses, until the op
portunity offered which these homes afford.
This one is supported by the alumnae and
others interested in our seminary, who
supply it with guests and watch over it with
loving care. In it twenty young women
and girls can be accommodated at once,
and fresh relays are sent from time to time
during the summer. They will be received,

294 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

indeed, at any season, but with the coming
on of the cooler weather comes the bustle
and hurry of business, and few can then
escape from their accustomed toils. Indeed,
the country in winter is a terra incoynita
to most citizens, — even those whose occu
pations do not tie them to the cities, — if I
were not constitutionally opposed to puns,
I should say a terror incognita. If it were
otherwise, and they really knew how beauti
ful the winter is, the exodus from the cities
would be so great that we should have to
go to them to find elbow room, excepting
that the country — " all out of doors " — is
so broad and hospitable. As it is, even in
summer time and on the border of our
village, some find it very lonesome at their
first coming.

The lodge has now been used as such for
about ten years. It is under the direct
charge of a farmer well on in middle life
(who was born in it), and his wife, who
are thus enabled to remain in their old
home, and at the same time effectively serve
the purpose of those responsible for the
venture.

It is pleasant to meet the pale inmates
strolling in the sun, and feel that some of
the humours of their common life are being

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 295

exorcised, and a more healthy tone, moral
and physical, is being established. And
whatever the dangers of ordinary charity
in the way of almsgiving or otherwise, I
think that none can find solid ground for
effective criticism of an enterprise like this.

SEPTEMBER 29, 1894.

296 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

LVIII.

SIXTY-NINE dear little fuzzy foundlings
have graduated from the incubator. There
should have been more, but, as fate would
have it, some never got ' ' out of the every
where into the here," and some, like nu
merous other promising enterprises of great
pith and moment, " died-a-bornin'."

And after all, the result of this first ex
periment is far from being contemptible.
As the time approached for it to culminate,
my watchfulness increased, and I hovered
over the machine and its precious contents
with a truly motherly interest and anxiety.
On the evening of the twentieth day, .by
intently listening, I could just hear the
slightest tap-tapping of the prisoners upon
the walls of their cells, and it was not until
the next morning that the three boldest
made their appearance, having accomplished
the Monte Cristo trick and emancipated
themselves for good or for ill. And awk
ward little miserable sinners they were.

Throughout that day and the next the

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 297

flock continued to grow, lots being trans
ferred to the brooder from time to time as
soon as they appeared to have got their sea
legs on, until all had been consigned to its
shelter. And a quizzical looking company
they were, but withal disposed rapidly to
put on the air of knowing it all, as if a
mother were of no account, and collectivism
were the only wear. And lively little ap
petites they have, and they know exactly
what to do with their bills. Should the
weather prove fair to-morrow, the trap door
will be opened, and then ho ! for the world,
the beautiful world !

My dainty Aramis, my Amadis de Gaul,
Thaddeus of Warsaw, Baron Trenck, Cas
anova, or whatever name he may be most
pleased to be called, has fallen from his
high estate. It is slanderously said that
every man has his price, and if this be
so, with some doubtless the price depends
upon the aesthetic sense.

The Leghorns are moulting, the last of
the tribes. And a sorry lot they are, all
save one. Even the prince himself shows
a shabby tail, bereft of its graceful sickles ;
but bte threaten are, as the phrase goes, a
sight to behold. During their days of pros
perity my gentleman maintained his courtly

298 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

demeanour, but the present situation imposes
too great a strain upon his nerves. The
only lady who still continues to dress well,
or who has passed through the day of small
things, I am not sure which, is permitted
to eat from the same dish with him, and
comes forward without hesitation. But
woe unto the miserable dowdies that ven
ture to pick up a crumb under my lord's
eye. They are put to the right about, and
sent packing without ceremony.

Alas ! that it should be so. Certainly in
so well regulated a family the motto should
be, bear and forbear, — but I must record
the situation as it is. And let us have
charity, and remember that we are neces
sarily subject to the defects of our virtues.
Here is one of those high-strung cases
where culture carries its own penalty.
There are many such. I have known mu
sical people surfer much from performances
from which I was ignorant enough to thrill
with pleasure.

OCTOBER 4, 1894.

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 299

LIX.

One-ery, two-ery, hickory Ann,
Phillis arid Phollis and Nicholas John,
Que-by, Qua-by, Sister Mary,
Single 'em, Sangle 'em, Buck begone!

IT was just a year ago yesterday that I
wrote the first of these encyclical letters.
As then, this morning was bright and
sunny, but it was cold, and with frost in
the lowlands. The day has continued ab
solutely cloudless, save just enough at sun
set to let it end in glory, — the sky a dome
of perfect blue.

Looking from the terrace, I see that
October has been tinting the foliage here
and there, now a touch of yellow or orange
en a sassafras, and now scarlet and gold on
a maple, or crimson upon sumach or wood
bine. In the steely atmosphere the lines
of the hills come out sharp and clear, and
even those upon my farthest horizon, thirty
miles away, approach to a friendly nearness.

I have tried many of the roads and paths
which cross the valleys and climb the hills,

300 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE.

•ever finding new beauties to rejoice in
and more simple marvels to wonder at. I
trust that I shall continue to wander into
new paths this many a day, and I am sure
that 1 shall not exhaust them, for their
name is legion. But over yonder is a moun
tain of which I shall never see the other
side. It is my Carcassone. I am sure
that this mountain conceals wonderful
things. I think that there I should find
the happy valley for which weary men so
long have sought. But I shall not explore
the recesses of this valley. I shall con
tinue, I hope, year after year to look up to
the summit of the mountain and picture the
wonders that the valley contains, and the
joys of those that dwell therein, and I shall
marvel at those wonders, and luxuriate in
those joys so long as I live. The valley
shall be to me the valley of dreams.

October is painting the drop curtain, and
upon the JEolian harp at the window the
freshening breeze is singing the swan song
of the waning year. And thinking of the
days that are lately gone, of the new friend
ships that have come into being, never, I
am sure, to be ended, and of the purer and
truer thoughts that have come out of the in
most life of Nature; touching with a caress-

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 301

ing hand the old gray rocks that have so
kindly lent themselves to build the cottage
walls, and gazing out upon the beautiful
world, which is already so old, and yet so
new that I look upon it each day with a
fresh surprise, it seems to me that I may
fairly say, ' ' The lines are fallen unto me
in pleasant places ; yea I have a goodly
heritage."

A year has slipped away into the silences,
— gone to lie in that great mausoleum where
the vanished years shall rest for aye.

" Sergeant, call the roll."

All present, or accounted for. Our high
ways and our byways are bright again with
Tarn o' Shanter and scarf and ribbon ; the
light-hearted equestriennes chase each other
over the hills ; merry voices break musi
cally upon the evening air ; the blinds are
thrown back, the cobwebs brushed away,
the pleasant halls of learning are reopened.
From Holland and the Swiss lakes and
mountains, and from the green lanes of
Merrie England come these, those from
neighbouring city or town, or from the
boundless West, where Nature seems to do
everything with a lavish hand, and upon a
mighty scale in keeping with the magnitude
of that great empire.

302 FROM A NEW ENGLAN'D HILLSIDE.

All present, or accounted for. But some
are scattered to the four winds about their
various missions, and some tarry under the
shadow of the eternal snows which lie upon
the massive flanks and upon the Aiguilles
of the Alps. And here and there, there are
fresh graves, and there are some which
though distant are often present to our
memory which are not fresh, but upon
which the grass grows thick and long, and
over which the eglantine strews its petals.
We look wistfully into the vast unknown,
if haply we may catch a glimpse of the
presence which we miss, and there remains
a touch of the old heartache, but we close
up the ranks, and feel more tenderly the ties
that bind us to those that are left.

As through the land at eve we went,

And pluck'd the ripen 'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O, we fell out, I know not why,

And kiss'd again with tears.
For when we came where lies the child

We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O, there ahove the little grave,

We kiss'd again with tears.

My friend once told me: "Old fellow,
you should not wear your heart upon your

FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 303

sleeve. Any one could see from your last
note that you had been going through deep
waters."

Ah, but suppose you must ?

Longfellow says, —

Look then into thine heart, and write !
and Lowell : —

" I consider every poem I write (whether
I publish it or not) as a letter to all those
whom I personally hold dear. I feel that I
have made a truer communication of myself
so than in any other way — that is, that I
have in this way written my friends a let
ter from the truer and better J. R. L., who
resides within, and often at a great dis
tance from, the external man, who has
some good qualities, but whose procrasti
nation is enough to swamp them all."

Shall we write the things that we feel,
or the things that we do not feel ? I pray
you, let us not fear to be honest. Do not
be a cry-baby if you can help it, but if you
love your friend, tell him so ; if he is in
trouble, put your arm about him ; and if
you get nipped between the upper and the
nether millstones, do not hesitate to let
him know the fact.

ME. P. MABION CRAWFORD'S WORKS.

THE RALSTONS.

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I

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