No More Learning

Surely good courage will not flag
here on the Atlantic border, as long as we are flanked by the Fur
Countries. There is enough in that sound to cheer one under any
circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock, and the pine will not
countenance despair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do
forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that
the Esquimaux sledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the
northern night the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and
walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who
would toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do
better than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other
busy living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's
consolation. What is any man's discourse to me, if I am not sensible
of something in it as steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? In
it the woods must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am
not constantly greeted and refreshed as by the flux of sparkling
streams. Surely joy is the condition of life. Think of the young fry
that leap in ponds, the myriads of insects ushered into being on a
summer evening, the incessant note of the hyla with which the woods
ring in the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly carrying accident
and change painted in a thousand hues upon its wings, or the brook
minnow stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of whose scales, worn
bright by the attrition, is reflected upon the bank!

We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which
is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the
universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's
axle; but if a man sleep soundly, he will forget it all between sunset
and dawn. It is the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cupboard,
which the great pulse of nature vibrates by and through each instant.
When we lift our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears with smoke
and rattle like the cars on a railroad.
When I detect a beauty in any
of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired
spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible
privacy of a life,--how silent and unambitious it is. The beauty there
is in mosses must be considered from the holiest, quietest nook. What
an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life!
Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far
more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior. I am pleased
to learn that Thales was up and stirring by night not unfrequently,
as his astronomical discoveries prove. Linnaeus, setting out for
Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and
"gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a
park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the
man is admirable. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird,
quadruped and biped. Science is always brave; for to know is to know
good; doubt and danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks
in his hurry, she calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer
for the array of arts that follow in her train. But cowardice is
unscientific; for there cannot be a science of ignorance. There may be
a science of bravery, for that advances; but a retreat is rarely well
conducted; if it is, then is it an orderly advance in the face of
circumstances.

But to draw a little nearer to our promised topics. Entomology extends
the limits of being in a new direction, so that I walk in nature with
a sense of greater space and freedom. It suggests besides, that the
universe is not rough-hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will
bear the closest inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with
the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.