Grounds

“ What is the odd power that earth holds over men? When one walks through the quietude of country roads, of forest and stream, of field and meadow-land, one is stirred by strange emotions. The trivialities of life seem of slight importance. ”

“ As I look out upon the landscape that lies before my window, and see the men and women working in the fields, and the fields smiling to man’s husbandry, when I see no marks of the spoiler, and recognize that each one is safe in his person and secure in his possessions, then it is I see peace, and think of my poor country with a sigh, and, oh, with what reflections. ”

“ Outward nature, inner life and passion, town and country, all the features of human nature, as exhibited in every grade of life—from the cottage to the throne—are in him expressed with a truth and a natural strength, that awake in us precisely the same sensations as nature itself. ”

“ Perhaps you may know that I dabble a little in geology—only dabble—but every tyro must have noticed how the features of a landscape depend on its geological formation, and not only the look of the landscape, but the occupations of the people. ”

“ Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a tender thought, and every forest a fairy-land. In the country you preserve your identity—your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation. ”

“ Nature calls for room and for freedom—room for her ocean and freedom for its waves; room for her rivers and freedom for their flowing; room for her forests and freedom for every tree to respond to the influences of earth and sky according to its law. ”

“ Like a spring issuing from an elevated spot and diffusing its waters, according to the height, from ledge to ledge, until it finally reaches the low ground, so does the tendency of mind or of soul in a people, due to race, epoch, or environment, diffuse itself in different proportions, and by regular descent, over the different series of facts which compose its civilization. ”

“ On one side, elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and, on the other part, thought, the spirit which composes and decomposes nature,—here they are, side by side, god and devil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm, riding peacefully together in the eye and brain of every man. ”

“ While you watch them, the clouds change in the sky, the sunset wanes, and the forest covers the bared hills. Nature, fickle mistress of our destinies, spreads a never-ending panorama before our eyes that we may recognize the one great law of her being,—the law of progression. ”

“ Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. ”

“ He delighted to roam in those far-off regions beyond the skies, whose spheres are ruled and whose realms are governed by those mysterious laws which have their fountain source in God, and whose operations are controlled by the exercise of His infinite power and love. ”

“ Taking these principles for a land-mark, which are founded on our nature, which must appear incontestible to every reasonable being, with experience for a beacon, let us coolly examine the effects which these notions have produced on the earth. ”

“ The field is the world; the world of mankind, a large field, capable of bringing forth good fruit; the more is it to be lamented that it brings forth so much bad fruit: the world here is the visible church, scattered all the world over, not confined to one nation. ”

“ And yet, in the blunting of daily use, the limitations of dull observation, the unquestioning acceptance of the accustomed routine of nature, there might seem naught before the eye which was not plainly manifest,—mountain, rock, forest,—the mere furniture of existence. ”

“ But from a height of a thousand feet, or so, one gets a comprehensive view of the world; one can distinguish the habitations of men; their farms and fields are marked off with fences; the rivers and brooks are not voiceless. ”

“ Or, it may be, a picture; to these men,
The landscape is an armory of powers,
Which, one by one, they know to draw and use.
They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work;
They prove the virtues of each bed of rock,
And, like the chemist 'mid his loaded jars,
Draw from each stratum its adapted use
To drug their crops or weapon their arts withal. ”

“ Here, then, is the function of mountains in relation to human life. To every one there is opened (if he knows it) his own doorway for stepping out into space—for detaching himself for a time from the heavy environment of customary thought. ”

“ The hills which he has to climb, the ravines he has to avoid, look very much the same; there is the same infinite space above, and the same abyss of the unknown below; the means of travelling are the same, and the goal is the same. ”

“ And this is so, whether we are moving in the region of nature, which is the region of God's wonders, or in the region of art, which is the region of man's wonders; and nowhere truer than in this sphere and region of language, which is about to claim us now. Oftentimes here we walk up and down in the midst of intellectual and moral marvels with a vacant eye and a careless mind ”

“ We are here in these valleys of the mountains organised as a people; and we know how we came to be here; and we know the designs of God, and the designs of our enemies concerning us; we know the distinction which is drawn between this people and the world ”

“ The whole length of this land in sight was the very symbol of distortion. Pendent from an even line that stretches along the heavens was a ridge of mountains. 'Life hangs upon a little thread,' but what think you of mountains hanging upon a thread? ”

“ I would say to him, “build not on old ground, profaned, polluted, trod into slough by filthy animals; but break new ground—virgin ground—ground that thought has never imagined or eye seen, and dig into our hearts a foundation, deep and broad as our humanity. ”

“ A land teeming with beings abject and low; a land where Paradise might have been nestling amongst the giant hills of the North, now laid waste and desolated of its ancient splendors—a land of dreams, but a land of unfulfilled desires. ”

“ If this earth moves, the chimneys would be falling, tumbling in upon the roofs of the houses, the mountains and hills would be changing and levelling down, the rivers would be emptying out. You and I would be standing on our heads. ”

“ Child, shall I tell thee where nature [Pg 360] is most blest and fair? It is where those we love abide. Though that space be small, ample is it above kingdoms; though it be a desert, through it runs the river of paradise, and there are the enchanted bowers. ”

“ In the earlier stages of society, the isolated rock—the mountain, cloud-encircled—the river, rolling to its ocean-home—the very stars themselves—were endued with sympathies, and constituted the first, as they will be the last, witnesses and records of our human destinies and feelings. ”

“ Whereupon, lifting your eyes from the river, you would have seen the answer to your question—masses of men mounted and unmounted, who moved, or halted, or stood like an animal with a thousand legs controlled by one mind. ”

“ To us the Common or forest looks indeed crowded with people, but to them the feeling is one of sufficient space, free air, green grass, and colour, with a life without which they might think the place dull. ”

“ Things have their shapes and their forms, even as our very lives consist of ups and downs, varied with occasional runs along the level. The country has its outlines, its hills that rise and climb, its valleys that fall and fade. ”

“ From the multitude of objects which crowd upon us, we can examine only a few of the most interesting minutely; at others we can merely give a cursory glance; while many we must pass by altogether,—our object being to obtain a general and retainable knowledge of the physical features of the Earth, the vegetation which clothes its surface, the races of men who inhabit it, and the tribes of the brute creation found in its forests and waters, on its plains and mountains. ”

“ The sudden change from the soft, low, and comparatively tame, to the bold, stern, and high, serves admirably to show how much the character of a landscape may depend on the formation which composes it. ”

“ My takings of nature increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around about—and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. ”

“ Whether the soul stands on some high peak of earth and surveys the billowing world that stretches far and wide with its beetling cliffs and rocky headlands, its forests and fields, its meadows and orchards, filled with the overwhelming mystery of life and force obeying implicitly the laws formulated 78 only in inherent nature ”

“ And for those who would see signs of the tale there stand the three great rocks on the highlands, each so heavy that two hundred men could not lift them, and wise men wonder much what manner of men put them there. But only those who are not wise and learned know the truth of the matter, as you may test for yourself by asking any very wise men who come to visit you. ”

“ Thousands look up with envy from "the low-lying fields of the beautiful land" immediately without the line that goes wavingly asweep round the base of the holy mountain, separating it from the common earth. ”

“ Perhaps, if the ground given us to stand upon were rightly tilled, it would yield a richer harvest than any we shall ever find, though we roam the world over; and it may be, that the narrow path to heaven lies just across our own fields. ”

“ We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours. ”

“ You inhabit here a goodly land. A land full of promise, where your children have room enough to increase and to multiply, and to become, with God's blessing, greater and more prosperous than yourselves. ”

“ Thus, under the various streams, now cold, now warm, the surface of society melts and forms that smooth icy rind of form over which the light-foot glides carelessly, unconscious that beneath the thin surface are hidden depths in which the philosopher and psychologist find material enough for the study of a whole life. ”

“ Here, if only we do not go to work fancifully, but take the ground really as it is, then we shall have the decisive arena which moulded more or less the greatest of events. Accordingly I have hitherto actively employed my geological and agricultural eye to the suppressing of fancy and sensibility, in order to gain for myself an unbiassed and distinct notion of the locality. ”

“ Natural features of sea or forest or mountain or desert have something to do with the character and ideas of a people; so, also, the material wealth in lands and buildings. But to understand the great movements of history, we must look at the great psychical factors. ”

“ At those dim barriers all real advance is inexorably stayed; into the recesses beyond them no secular lantern has ever peered; while even our most authoritative, our most convinced guides, can at best assure us as to its geography with hesitating, and often curiously conflicting voices. ”

“ Along these, huddled in the corners of the hills and the sea line, lie the cities and the larger towns. A great majority of mankind, swarming in these little spots, or scuttling to and fro along the valleys on those slender lines, fondly dream they are acquainted with the land in which they live. ”

“ Not insulation of place, but independence of spirit is essential, and it is only as the garden, the cottage, the forest, and the rock, are a sort of mechanical aids to this, that they are of value. Think alone, and all places are friendly and sacred. ”

“ There's a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There's a land — oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back — and I will. ”

“ In addition to its vast importance in regard to social life, and the art of government, Geography unfolds to us the celestial phenomena, acquaints us [Pg 2] with the occupants of the land and ocean, and the vegetation, fruits, and peculiarities of the various quarters of the earth, a knowledge of which marks him who cultivates it as a man earnest in the great problem of life and happiness. ”

“ One treads here the upper zones, where the air is rare and every draught an inspiration; where the Laws are seen majestically sweeping every force into the measured movement which is making all things work together for good to them that love God. ”