No More Learning

We might climb a tree, at least. I found my
account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top
of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for
I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen
before,--so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have
walked about the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and
yet I certainly should never have seen them. But, above all, I
discovered around me,--it was near the end of June,--on the ends of
the topmost branches only, a few minute and delicate red cone-like
blossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. I
carried straightway to the village the topmost spire, and showed it to
stranger jurymen who walked the streets,--for it was court week,--and
to farmers and lumber-dealers and woodchoppers and hunters, and not
one had ever seen the like before, but they wondered as at a star
dropped down. Tell of ancient architects finishing their works on the
tops of columns as perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts!
Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest
only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved by them. We
see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows. The pines
have developed their delicate blossoms on the highest twigs of the
wood every summer for ages, as well over the heads of Nature's red
children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or hunter in the
land has ever seen them.

* * * * *

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed
over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in
remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in
every barn-yard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly
reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments
and habits of thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time
than ours.
There is something suggested by it that is a newer
testament,--the gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen
astern; he has got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is
is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression
of the health and soundness of Nature, a brag for all the
world,--healthiness as of a spring burst forth, a new fountain of the
Muses, to celebrate this last instant of time. Where he lives no
fugitive slave laws are passed. Who has not betrayed his master many
times since last he heard that note?

The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all
plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter,
but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in
doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on
a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a
cockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, "There is one of us
well, at any rate,"--and with a sudden gush return to my senses.

* * * * *

We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a
meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before
setting, after a cold, gray day, reached a clear stratum in the
horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry
grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the
leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched
long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its
beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment
before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was
wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this
was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it
would happen forever and ever, an infinite number of evenings, and
cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more
glorious still.

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with
all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance
as it has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh hawk
to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his
cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the
marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying
stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered
grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never
bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The
west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of
Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman
driving us home at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine
more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our
minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening
light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.