No More Learning

We could get no further into the AEneid than

-- atque altae moenia Romae,
-- and the wall of high Rome,

before we were constrained to reflect by what myriad tests a work of
genius has to be tried; that Virgil, away in Rome, two thousand years
off, should have to unfold his meaning, the inspiration of Italian
vales, to the pilgrim on New England hills. This life so raw and
modern, that so civil and ancient; and yet we read Virgil mainly to be
reminded of the identity of human nature in all ages, and, by the
poet's own account, we are both the children of a late age, and live
equally under the reign of Jupiter.

"He shook honey from the leaves, and removed fire,
And stayed the wine, everywhere flowing in rivers;
That experience, by meditating, might invent various arts
By degrees, and seek the blade of corn in furrows,
And strike out hidden fire from the veins of the flint. "

The old world stands serenely behind the new, as one mountain yonder
towers behind another, more dim and distant. Rome imposes her story
still upon this late generation. The very children in the school we
had that morning passed had gone through her wars, and recited her
alarms, ere they had heard of the wars of neighboring Lancaster. The
roving eye still rests inevitably on her hills, and she still holds up
the skirts of the sky on that side, and makes the past remote.

The lay of the land hereabouts is well worthy the attention of the
traveler. The hill on which we were resting made part of an extensive
range, running from southwest to northeast, across the country, and
separating the waters of the Nashua from those of the Concord, whose
banks we had left in the morning, and by bearing in mind this fact, we
could easily determine whither each brook was bound that crossed our
path. Parallel to this, and fifteen miles further west, beyond the
deep and broad valley in which lie Groton, Shirley, Lancaster, and
Boylston, runs the Wachusett range, in the same general direction. The
descent into the valley on the Nashua side is by far the most sudden;
and a couple of miles brought us to the southern branch of the Nashua,
a shallow but rapid stream, flowing between high and gravelly banks.
But we soon learned that these were no _gelidae valles_ into which we
had descended, and, missing the coolness of the morning air, feared it
had become the sun's turn to try his power upon us.

"The sultry sun had gained the middle sky,
And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh,"

and with melancholy pleasure we echoed the melodious plaint of our
fellow-traveler, Hassan, in the desert,--

"Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way. "

The air lay lifeless between the hills, as in a seething caldron, with
no leaf stirring, and instead of the fresh odor of grass and clover,
with which we had before been regaled, the dry scent of every herb
seemed merely medicinal. Yielding, therefore, to the heat, we strolled
into the woods, and along the course of a rivulet, on whose banks we
loitered, observing at our leisure the products of these new fields.
He who traverses the woodland paths, at this season, will have
occasion to remember the small, drooping, bell-like flowers and
slender red stem of the dogsbane, and the coarser stem and berry of
the poke, which are both common in remoter and wilder scenes; and if
"the sun casts such a reflecting heat from the sweet-fern" as makes
him faint, when he is climbing the bare hills, as they complained who
first penetrated into these parts, the cool fragrance of the
swamp-pink restores him again, when traversing the valleys between.

As we went on our way late in the afternoon, we refreshed ourselves by
bathing our feet in every rill that crossed the road, and anon, as we
were able to walk in the shadows of the hills, recovered our morning
elasticity. Passing through Sterling, we reached the banks of the
Stillwater, in the western part of the town, at evening, where is a
small village collected. We fancied that there was already a certain
western look about this place, a smell of pines and roar of water,
recently confined by dams, belying its name, which were exceedingly
grateful. When the first inroad has been made, a few acres leveled,
and a few houses erected, the forest looks wilder than ever. Left to
herself, nature is always more or less civilized, and delights in a
certain refinement; but where the axe has encroached upon the edge of
the forest, the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which she had
concealed with green banks of verdure, are exposed to sight. This
village had, as yet, no post-office, nor any settled name. In the
small villages which we entered, the villagers gazed after us, with a
complacent, almost compassionate look, as if we were just making our
_debut_ in the world at a late hour. "Nevertheless," did they seem to
say, "come and study us, and learn men and manners. " So is each one's
world but a clearing in the forest, so much open and inclosed ground.
The landlord had not yet returned from the field with his men, and the
cows had yet to be milked. But we remembered the inscription on the
wall of the Swedish inn, "You will find at Trolhate excellent bread,
meat, and wine, provided you bring them with you," and were contented.
But I must confess it did somewhat disturb our pleasure, in this
withdrawn spot, to have our own village newspaper handed us by our
host, as if the greatest charm the country offered to the traveler was
the facility of communication with the town. Let it recline on its own
everlasting hills, and not be looking out from their summits for some
petty Boston or New York in the horizon.

At intervals we heard the murmuring of water, and the slumberous
breathing of crickets, throughout the night; and left the inn the next
morning in the gray twilight, after it had been hallowed by the night
air, and when only the innocent cows were stirring, with a kind of
regret. It was only four miles to the base of the mountain, and the
scenery was already more picturesque.