Charles C. Abbott

“ The dear old song-sparrows were quiet, and I was very glad; but with the first flooding of the sea with sunlight they all sang out, and the Chesapeake was afar off and I in the home meadows on the Delaware. I prefer novelty when away. It is well to utterly forget, at times, that which we most prize. What boots it to stand on the hill-top, if your thoughts are forever in the lowlands? Twice, from the branches of the old oak, I saw a splendid sunset, but nothing equal to the sunrise of to-day. With many a matter of this life the beginning is better than the end. ”

“ The moping herons are no longer stupid; the blinking owls are all activity. Afar off the whip-poor-will calls—who knows why?—and the marsh-owl protests, as well it may, at such unseemly clatter. How quickly into a new world has the familiar meadow grown! Through the half-naked beam and rafters of my leafy tent I watch the night-prowling birds go hurrying by, and follow their shadows as the weird bats flit before me, for the moon has risen, and in its pallid light every familiar tree and shrub and all the night-loving wild-life of the meadows is wrapped in uncanny garbs. ”

“ The stain of winter is washed away by an April shower, and the freshest green of the pasture is ever that which is newest. There is at times a subtle element in the atmosphere that the chemist calls “ozone,” but a better name is “snap.” It dwells in April sunshine and is the inveterate foe of inertia. It moves us, whether we will or not, and we are now in a hurry even when there is no need of haste. The “spring fever” that we hear of as a malady in town never counts as its victim the lover of an April outing. The beauty of novelty is greater than the beauty of abundance. ”

“ The world was askew, and has been since the first frost, for whoever knew the crows to be silent—positively silent, as compared with crows—on a crisp, frosty morning? There were forty, by count, that flew over the maple, and only one gave tongue. Here I may be charged with fancy, but that one crow gave out no ringing caw, that is music to him who loves the country. It was rather a fretful, long-drawn pshaw! and fittingly voiced the surroundings.
A winter in the tropics may be very delightful, but an “open” winter in New Jersey is an utter abomination. ”

“ There is no eye-witness equal to the leaf, and with them lives and dies many a secret that even the most patient ornithologist can never gain. How much they overhear of what the birds are saying! to how much entrancing music they listen that falls not upon men’s ears! What a view of the busy world above us has the fluttering leaf that crowns the tall tree’s topmost twig! Whether in storm or sunshine, veiled in clouds or beneath a starlit sky, whatsoever happens, there is the on-looking leaf, a naturalist worth knowing could we but learn its language. ”

“ Ruin is stamped upon every feature of the landscape here, and it is well that the old oak that witnessed more mirth than sadness should have passed away.
To those who can walk eight furlongs and see only a milestone, winter may be a dreary season: but Nature at rest, for those who love her, is a sleeping beauty. Again, if it so happens death is everywhere about you, it should not prove repulsive. Death is the law of life, and not a flower in June can boast greater beauty than the empty seed-pods of many a decaying plant. ”

“ Too cunning to expose itself by day, it risks its life at night; and how tragic the result when, nearly at the journey’s end, it is seized by a lurking foe; dragged down, it may be, by a snake or a turtle!
The world is just as full of tragedy as ever, and, let us hope, as full of comedy. In a bit of yonder marsh, above which bends the tall wild rice, there is daily enacted scene after scene as full of import as those which caused the very forest to tremble when the wolf and panther quarrelled over the elk or deer that had fallen. ”

“ Whither, then, of a bright June morning, should the rambler stroll? For is it not true that beauty, when in bewildering confusion, ceases to be beautiful? When a thousand birds, as a great cloud, shut out the sun, they are but a cloud; but a single one, perched upon a tree, is a marvel of grace and beauty. So, the sloping hillside and the weedy meadows, brilliant with every shade of freshest green and starred with a hundred tints, roseate, golden, and white, call for an infinite power of contemplation, and leave the wanderer dazed. ”

“ Whether in leaf or bare of foliage, there is a fixedness that palls at last. We are given to looking from the tree to the world beyond; to hurrying from beneath their branches to the open country. To live in a dense forest is akin to living in a great city. There is a sense of confinement against which, sooner or later, we are sure to rebel. We long for change. The man who is perfectly satisfied has no knowledge of what satisfaction really is. ”

“ Why, indeed, should not the tragedy of Tristram and Ysonde have been re-enacted on the Delaware meadows?
But, though despised by man, this vigorous plant has hosts of other friends. The summer long, scores of bugs, butterflies, and beetles crowd about. Whether when in leaf only, or later when in bloom, or in autumn, when laden with its wealth of blue-black berries, it is never quite alone, and many of its attendants are fully as curious as the plant itself. One or more minute beetles prefer it to all other plants, yet not because of the peculiar odor. ”