No More Learning

There is not so much sound as in fair weather, but silently and
gradually every slope, and the gray walls and fences, and the polished
ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried before, are concealed,
and the tracks of men and beasts are lost. With so little effort does
nature reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men. Hear how
Homer has described the same: "The snowflakes fall thick and fast on a
winter's day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls incessant,
covering the tops of the mountains, and the hills, and the plains
where the lotus-tree grows, and the cultivated fields, and they are
falling by the inlets and shores of the foaming sea, but are silently
dissolved by the waves. " The snow levels all things, and infolds them
deeper in the bosom of nature, as, in the slow summer, vegetation
creeps up to the entablature of the temple, and the turrets of the
castle, and helps her to prevail over art.

The surly night-wind rustles through the wood, and warns us to retrace
our steps, while the sun goes down behind the thickening storm, and
birds seek their roosts, and cattle their stalls.

"Drooping the lab'rer ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and _now_ demands
The fruit of all his toil. "

Though winter is represented in the almanac as an old man, facing the
wind and sleet, and drawing his cloak about him, we rather think of
him as a merry woodchopper, and warm-blooded youth, as blithe as
summer. The unexplored grandeur of the storm keeps up the spirits of
the traveler. It does not trifle with us, but has a sweet earnestness.
In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery,
like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half
concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The
imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which the house
affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth
and see the sky through the chimney-top, enjoying the quiet and serene
life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney-side, or feeling
our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the
sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a
skillful physician could determine our health by observing how these
simple and natural sounds affected us. We enjoy now, not an Oriental,
but a Boreal leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and watch the
shadow of motes in the sunbeams.
Sometimes our fate grows too homely and familiarly serious ever to be
cruel. Consider how for three months the human destiny is wrapped in
furs. The good Hebrew Revelation takes no cognizance of all this
cheerful snow. Is there no religion for the temperate and frigid
zones? We know of no scripture which records the pure benignity of the
gods on a New England winter night. Their praises have never been
sung, only their wrath deprecated. The best scripture, after all,
records but a meagre faith. Its saints live reserved and austere. Let
a brave, devout man spend the year in the woods of Maine or Labrador,
and see if the Hebrew Scriptures speak adequately to his condition and
experience, from the setting in of winter to the breaking up of the
ice.

Now commences the long winter evening around the farmer's hearth, when
the thoughts of the indwellers travel far abroad, and men are by
nature and necessity charitable and liberal to all creatures. Now is
the happy resistance to cold, when the farmer reaps his reward, and
thinks of his preparedness for winter, and, through the glittering
panes, sees with equanimity "the mansion of the northern bear," for
now the storm is over,--

"The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole. "




THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES[6]


Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a
transcendentalist; and for my part I am more interested in the men
than in the cattle. I wish to see once more those old familiar faces,
whose names I do not know, which for me represent the Middlesex
country, and come as near being indigenous to the soil as a white man
can; the men who are not above their business, whose coats are not too
black, whose shoes do not shine very much, who never wear gloves to
conceal their hands. It is true, there are some queer specimens of
humanity attracted to our festival, but all are welcome. I am pretty
sure to meet once more that weak-minded and whimsical fellow,
generally weak-bodied too, who prefers a crooked stick for a cane;
perfectly useless, you would say, only _bizarre_, fit for a cabinet,
like a petrified snake. A ram's horn would be as convenient, and is
yet more curiously twisted.