Bradford Torrey

“ The same man is always at the window. No wonder they are restless and famished. For my own part, though I should delight to see new lands and new people, new birds and new plants, I am nevertheless pretty well contented where I am. If I take the same walks, I do not see the same things. The botanist spells the dreamer; and now and then the lover of beauty keeps the ornithologist in the background till he is thankful to come once more to the window, though it be only to look at a bluebird or a song sparrow. ”

“ But this tiny insect-like creature spent last winter in Central America, or it may be in Cuba, and now here he sat, perfectly at home again in this Green Mountain nook; and next autumn he will be off again betimes, as the merest matter of course, for another thousand-mile flight. Verily, a marvelous spirit and energy may be contained within a few ounces of flesh! But if Trochilus be indeed Prospero's servant in disguise, as one of our poets makes out, why, then, to be sure, his flittings back and forth are little to wonder at. How slow, overgrown, and clumsy human beings must look in his eyes! ”

“ When they wanted something to look at, they had but to go to the window and gaze upon the upper slopes of Mount Lafayette and Mount Cannon, rising in beauty beyond the intervening forest. But every New England woman must have a bit of flower garden, no matter what her surroundings; and even here I was glad to notice, just in front of the door, a clump of cinnamon rose-bushes, all uncared for, of course, but flourishing as in a kind of immortal youth (this old-fashioned rose must be one of Time's favorites) , and just now bright with blossoms. ”

“ And after supper, while walking back and forth upon the piazza, in all the luxury of slippers and a winter overcoat, I turned more than once from the glories of the sunset to gaze upon the black slope of Lafayette, thinking within myself how much less comfortable I should be up yonder in the depths of the forest, so dark and wet, without company, without fire, without overcoat, and without supper. After all, mere animal comfort is not to be despised. ”

“ A phœbe sat quietly on the ridge-pole, and a chipper was singing from the orchard. What knew they of time, or of time's mutations? The house might grow old,—the house and the trees; but if the same misfortune ever befalls phœbes and sparrows, we are, fortunately, none the wiser. To human eyes they are always young and fresh, like the buttercups that bespangled the grass before me, or like the sun that shone brightly upon the tranquil scene. ”

“ When a thrasher had the impertinence to alight in her oak she ordered him off in high dudgeon, dashing back and forth above him, and snapping spitefully as she passed. She knew her rights, and, knowing, dared maintain. When a bird builds her nest in any part of a tree she claims every twig of it as her own. I have even seen the gentle-hearted chickadee resent the intrusion of a chipping sparrow, though it appeared impossible that the latter could be suspected of any predatory or sinister design. ”

“ With such pampering, it is no wonder they grow rank and coarse. They would be more than human, I was going to say, if they did not. It is left for stern winter's progeny, the blossoms of early spring-time, who struggle upward through the snow and are blown upon by chilly winds,—it is left for these gentle creatures, at once so hardy and so frail, to illustrate the sweet uses of adversity. ”

“ Everything else may succumb, but it—it and the gray birch—will make shift to live. Like the resin that exudes from it, having once taken hold, it has no thought of letting go. It is never "planted by the rivers of water," but all the same its leaf does not wither. No summer so hot and dry, no winter so cold and wet, but it keeps its perennial green. What cannot be done in one year may, perchance, be accomplished in three or four. It spends several seasons in ripening its fruit. Think of an apple-tree thus patient! ”

“ It would be a breach of good manners, an inexcusable ingratitude, to write never so briefly of the New England winter without noting this, the most engaging and characteristic enlivener of our winter woods; who revels in snow and ice, and is never lacking in abundant measures of faith and cheerfulness, enough not only for himself, but for any chance wayfarer of our own kind. He is every whit as independent as the shrike, but in how opposite a manner!—with a self-reliance that is never self-sufficiency, and bravery that offers no suspicion of bravado. ”

“ A mild day in March is like a foretaste of heaven; the first robin seems an angel; while saxifrage, anemones, and dandelions win kindly notice from many a matter-of-fact countryman who lets all the June roses go by him unregarded. It is pleasures of this kind, natural, wholesome, and universal, that largely make up the total of human happiness. Our instinct for them only strengthens with age. ”

“ Let it be said at the outset that the seeker after bird's-nests is never without plenty of company, of one sort and another. For instance, I was out early one cloudy morning last spring, when I caught sight of a handsome black and white animal nosing his way through the bushes on one side of the path. He had come forth on the same errand as myself; and I thought at once of the veery's nest, for which I had been looking in vain, but which could not be far from the very spot where my black and white rival was just at this moment standing. ”

“ They are not without charm, not even the black spruce, while the Weymouth pine and the hemlock are often of surpassing magnificence and beauty; but a punctilious adherence to rule must of necessity be attended with a corresponding absence of freedom and variety. The pitch-pine, on the other hand, if it works upon any set scheme, as no doubt it does, has the grace to keep it out of sight. Its gift is genius rather than talent. It has an air, as genius always has, of achieving its results without effort or premeditation. ”

“ The male tanager, with his glory of jet black and flaming scarlet, is in curious contrast with his mate, with whose personal appearance, nevertheless, he seems to be abundantly satisfied. Possibly he looks upon a dirty greenish-yellow as the loveliest of tints, and regards his own dress as nothing better than commonplace, in comparison. Like the rose-breasted grosbeak and the wood thrush, however, he is brought up with the notion that it belongs to the female to be the carpenter of the family; a belief in which, happily for his domestic peace, the female herself fully concurs. ”

“ At the back of my father's house were woods, to my childish imagination a boundless wilderness. Little by little I ventured into them, and among my earliest recollections of their sombre and lonesome depths was a long, thunderous, far-away drumming noise, beginning slowly and increasing in speed till the blows became almost continuous. This, somebody told me, was the drumming of the partridge. Now and then, in open spaces in the path, I came upon shallow circular depressions where the bird had been dusting, an operation in which I had often seen our barnyard fowls complacently engaged. ”

“ Whatever its cause, their singular behavior does much to beautify the landscape; particularly in such a district as mine, where the rocky hills are, so many of them, covered with young oak forests, which, especially for the first half of November, before the foliage is altogether faded, are dressed in subdued shades of maroon, beautiful at all hours, but touched into positive glory by the level rays of the afternoon sun. ”

“ The wisest of us are more or less foolish, by nature and of necessity; but it seems a gratuitous superfluity of folly to ignore our own ignorance. For one, then, I am in no mood to propose, much less to undertake, any grand revolution in the order of natural events. Indeed, as far as I am personally concerned, I fear it would be found but a dubious improvement if the wildness were quite taken out of the world,—if its wilderness, according to the word of the prophet, were to become all like Eden. Tameness is not the only good quality, whether of land or of human nature. ”

“ It has only to stand in its place and grow; happy in spring-time, with its buds and leaves; happy in autumn, with its fruit; happy, too, in winter,—repining not when forced to wait through months of bareness and dearth for the touch of returning warmth. ”

“ In those days, if we essayed to be uncommonly adventurous, we waded through this low and somewhat dark passage; a gruesome proceeding, as we were compelled to stoop a little, short as we were, to save our heads, while the road, to our imagination, seemed in momentary danger of caving in upon us. Courage, like all other human virtues, is but a relative attribute. Possibly the heroic deeds upon which in our grown-up estate we plume ourselves are not greatly more meritorious or wonderful than were some of the childish ventures at the recollection of which we now condescend to feel amused. ”

“ We may not often witness the catastrophe itself; but as we go our daily rounds, now peeping under the bank or into the bush, and now climbing the tree, to see how some timid friend of ours is faring, we are only too certain to come upon first one home and then another which has been rifled and deserted since our last visit; till we begin to wonder why the defenseless and persecuted creatures do not turn pessimists outright, and relinquish forever their attempt to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." ”

“ One may become so zealous a botanist as almost to cease to be a man. The shifting panorama of the heavens and the earth no longer appeals to him. He is now a specialist, and go where he will, he sees nothing but specimens. Or he may give himself up to ornithology, till eye and ear grow so abnormally sensitive that not a bird can move or twitter but he is instantly aware of it. ”

“ Thus it is with me as a lover of out-door life, and especially as a field student of ornithology. At no time of the year does the fellowship of the birds afford me keener enjoyment than in the dead of winter. In June one may see them everywhere, and hear them at all hours; a few more or a [156] few less are nothing to make account of; but in January the sight of a single brown creeper is sufficient to brighten the day, and the twittering of half a dozen goldfinches is like the music of angels. ”

“ It is not the botanist's turn, perhaps; but he takes his seat at the window, notwithstanding, and the ornithologist and the dreamer must be content to peep at the landscape over his shoulders.
On such occasions, it may as well be confessed, I make but a feeble remonstrance; and for the sufficient reason that I feel small confidence in my own wisdom. If the flower-lover or the poet must have the hour, then in all likelihood he ought to have it. So much I concede to the nature of things. A strong tendency is a strong argument, and of itself goes far to justify itself. ”

“ Dullness to set off brightness, night to give relief to the day, such is the wise order of nature; and I do not account it altogether a token [144] of depravity that honest people, who love a paradox without knowing it, find perfection, of no matter how innocent a sort, just a little wearisome. Therefore, I say, let me have a year made up of well-defined contrasts; in short, a New England year, of four clearly marked seasons.
It is often alleged, I know, that we really have only three seasons; that winter leaps into the lap of summer, and spring is nothing but a myth of the almanac makers. ”

“ Happy in himself, he is at the same time of a most companionable spirit. Perfect little philosopher! What a paradise New England would be if all her inhabitants were like him!
In such a winter climate as ours it is emphatically true that we "know not what shall be on the morrow." The season is not straitened in its resources, and caters [161] to all tastes in a way which some may look upon as fickleness, but which I prefer to regard as catholicity. Its days are of many types, and it spreads them out before us like a patient shopkeeper,—as if it recognized in the Yankee a customer hard to suit. ”

“ The lazy motion is of itself a kind of spiritual sedative. As we proceed, gazing idly at the sky, or with our attention caught by some wayside flower or passing bird, the mind grows placid, and, like smooth water, receives into itself the image of heaven. ”

“ It lags under the vine-covered alders, hastens through the bridge, then slips carelessly down a little descent, where it breaks into singing, then into a mill-pond and out again, and so on and on, through one experience after another; and all the time it is not dead water, but a river, a thing of life and motion. ”

“ Happily, the ground was carpeted with pine needles, and comparatively free from brush and dead twigs, those snapping nuisances that so often bring all our patience and ingenuity to nought. A section of the wall came into sight, but I got no glimpse of the bird. Presently I went down upon all fours; then lower yet, crawling instead of creeping, till I could look over the brow of the hill. Here I waited, and had begun to fear that I was once more to have my labor for my pains, when all at once I saw the grouse step from one stone to another. "Now for it!" I said to myself. ”

“ What a humdrum round life would be if nothing ever happened but the expected! I wonder if there are beings anywhere who have forgotten how it feels to be surprised. The children of this world, at all events, were not intended for any such condition of fixity. When there is no longer anything new under the sun, it will be time to get above it. ”

“ All the more grateful am I, therefore, to those familiar winter birds, some of whom are sure to bid me good morning out of the hedges and shade-trees as I go past. Not unlikely a shrike sits motionless and dumb upon a telegraph wire, or in contrary mood whistles and chirrups industriously from some tree-top. He is no angel, that is plain enough; but none the less I am glad to meet him. If he fails of being lovable, he is at least a study. It is wonderful how [157] abruptly his whim changes; how disconnected his behavior seems ”

“ A butterfly was fluttering over the lawn, and noticing what it took for a dandelion, it was just settling down upon it, when lo, the dandelion moved, and proved to be a goldfinch!" Evidently the insect had an eye for color, and was altogether like one of us in its capacity for being deceived.
To butterflies, as to angels, all things are pure. They extract honey from the vilest of materials. But their tastes and propensities are in some respects the very opposite of angelic; being, in fact, thoroughly human. All observers must have been struck with their quite Hibernian fondness for a shindy. ”

“ I like the buffeting of the north wind, and am not indisposed once in a while to wrestle with the frost for the possession of my own ears. Well as I love to loiter, I rejoice also in weather which makes loitering impossible; which puts new springs into a man's legs, and sets him spinning over the course whether he will or no. It will be otherwise with me by and by, I suppose, seeing how my venerable fellow-citizens are affected, but for the present nothing renews my physical youth more surely than a low temperature ”

“ Why, if not for sheer oddity's sake, should any bush in this latitude hold back its blossoms till near the edge of winter? As I looked at the half-grown buds, clustered in the axils of the yellow leaves, they appeared to be waiting for the latter to fall, that they might have the sunlight all to themselves. They will need it, one would say, in our bleak November weather.
Overfull of life as my wild garden patch was, it would not have kept its (human) possessor very long from starvation. One or two barberry bushes made a brave show of fruitfulness ”