No More Learning

Standing quite alone, far in
the forest, while the wind is shaking down snow from the trees, and
leaving the only human tracks behind us, we find our reflections of a
richer variety than the life of cities. The chickadee and nuthatch are
more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall
return to these last as to more vulgar companions. In this lonely
glen, with its brook draining the slopes, its creased ice and crystals
of all hues, where the spruces and hemlocks stand up on either side,
and the rush and sere wild oats in the rivulet itself, our lives are
more serene and worthy to contemplate.

As the day advances, the heat of the sun is reflected by the
hillsides, and we hear a faint but sweet music, where flows the rill
released from its fetters, and the icicles are melting on the trees;
and the nuthatch and partridge are heard and seen. The south wind
melts the snow at noon, and the bare ground appears with its withered
grass and leaves, and we are invigorated by the perfume which exhales
from it, as by the scent of strong meats.

Let us go into this deserted woodman's hut, and see how he has passed
the long winter nights and the short and stormy days. For here man has
lived under this south hillside, and it seems a civilized and public
spot. We have such associations as when the traveler stands by the
ruins of Palmyra or Hecatompolis. Singing birds and flowers perchance
have begun to appear here, for flowers as well as weeds follow in the
footsteps of man. These hemlocks whispered over his head, these
hickory logs were his fuel, and these pitch pine roots kindled his
fire; yonder fuming rill in the hollow, whose thin and airy vapor
still ascends as busily as ever, though he is far off now, was his
well. These hemlock boughs, and the straw upon this raised platform,
were his bed, and this broken dish held his drink. But he has not been
here this season, for the phoebes built their nest upon this shelf
last summer. I find some embers left as if he had but just gone out,
where he baked his pot of beans; and while at evening he smoked his
pipe, whose stemless bowl lies in the ashes, chatted with his only
companion, if perchance he had any, about the depth of the snow on the
morrow, already falling fast and thick without, or disputed whether
the last sound was the screech of an owl, or the creak of a bough, or
imagination only; and through his broad chimney-throat, in the late
winter evening, ere he stretched himself upon the straw, he looked up
to learn the progress of the storm, and, seeing the bright stars of
Cassiopeia's Chair shining brightly down upon him, fell contentedly
asleep.

See how many traces from which we may learn the chopper's history!
From this stump we may guess the sharpness of his axe, and from the
slope of the stroke, on which side he stood, and whether he cut down
the tree without going round it or changing hands; and, from the
flexure of the splinters, we may know which way it fell.
This one chip
contains inscribed on it the whole history of the woodchopper and of
the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt,
perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the
forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those
larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and
Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple
roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine and the genial warmth of
the sun around the door is somewhat kind and human.

After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not deform the scene.
Already the birds resort to it, to build their nests, and you may
track to its door the feet of many quadrupeds. Thus, for a long time,
nature overlooks the encroachment and profanity of man. The wood still
cheerfully and unsuspiciously echoes the strokes of the axe that fells
it, and while they are few and seldom, they enhance its wildness, and
all the elements strive to naturalize the sound.

Now our path begins to ascend gradually to the top of this high hill,
from whose precipitous south side we can look over the broad country
of forest and field and river, to the distant snowy mountains. See
yonder thin column of smoke curling up through the woods from some
invisible farmhouse, the standard raised over some rural homestead.
There must be a warmer and more genial spot there below, as where we
detect the vapor from a spring forming a cloud above the trees. What
fine relations are established between the traveler who discovers this
airy column from some eminence in the forest and him who sits below!
Up goes the smoke as silently and naturally as the vapor exhales from
the leaves, and as busy disposing itself in wreaths as the housewife
on the hearth below. It is a hieroglyphic of man's life, and suggests
more intimate and important things than the boiling of a pot. Where
its fine column rises above the forest, like an ensign, some human
life has planted itself,--and such is the beginning of Rome, the
establishment of the arts, and the foundation of empires, whether on
the prairies of America or the steppes of Asia.

And now we descend again, to the brink of this woodland lake, which
lies in a hollow of the hills, as if it were their expressed juice,
and that of the leaves which are annually steeped in it. Without
outlet or inlet to the eye, it has still its history, in the lapse of
its waves, in the rounded pebbles on its shore, and in the pines which
grow down to its brink.