Sauvage

“ Ten thousand moons ago, when naught but gloomy forests covered this land of the sleeping sun, and long before the pale men, with thunder and fire at their command, rushed on the wings of the wind to ruin this garden of nature, when naught but the untamed wanderers of the woods, and men as unrestrained as they, were lords of the soil, a race of animals existed, huge as the frowning precipice, cruel as the bloody panther, swift as the descending eagle, and terrible as the angel of night. ”

“ Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him,—all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. ”

“ Springtime lay over the vast region of lake and forest. Along the shores of the little rivers the new grass was springing, and in nook and sheltered corner of rock and depression shy white flowers lifted their pretty heads to the coaxing sun. Deep in the budding woods birds in flocks and bevies called across the wilderness of tender green, while at the post the youths sang snatches of wild French songs and all the world felt the thirst of the new life. ”

“ The wild, dense forest, the gigantic mountains, the untrodden wilderness, sweeping beneath the sky with its varying swell, the unbroken waste and desert with the savage dwellers in it, whose crimson hands were against all civilization and gory with the uncounted murders of the white man, were now to furnish me with all the delight my nature could crave from a life of constant excitement. ”

“ But in the very heart of this thorny wilderness, down in the dells, you may find gardens filled with the fairest flowers, that any child would love, and unapproachable linns lined with lilies and ferns, where the ousel builds its mossy hut and sings in chorus with the white falling water. Bears, also, and panthers, wolves, wildcats; wood rats, squirrels, foxes, snakes, and innumerable birds, all find grateful homes here, adding wildness to wildness in glorious profusion and variety. ”

“ I like the wilderness, the great blue sky, the sun and the stars at night, the trees and the river, and the birds and the deer and the beautiful wild geese, as they sail in great flocks. If I was shut up in a cell I should beat my head against the stones until it was a jelly, and then I should be dead. ”

“ Some of them are equal, if not superior, in the clearness and purity of their waters, in the distinctness of the reflections cast upon their limpid surface by surrounding hill or forest, and in the wild, weird beauty of their environments, to any of the world’s old favourite ones that have been long praised in song and story. ”

“ The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. ”

“ Penetrating everywhere and saturating the atmosphere with its sweetness, may be heard the music of some rippling stream winding its happy way down the mountain side and playing, as it were, an accompaniment to the duets of soul mated song birds unable to restrain their songs of joy. If this is a wilderness then a wilderness is a paradise on earth. ”

“ There, where nature is so infinitely rich and grand, I heard, from the lofty, thick, primeval forests on the banks of the rivers, the varied voices of the parrots, the macaws, and many other birds, as well as of the monkeys, and other creatures; while here, the silence of the bare, dead, lonely wilderness is but seldom interrupted by the howling of the wolves, the bellowing of the buffaloes, or the screaming of the crows. The vast prairie scarcely offers a living creature, except now and then, herds of buffaloes and antelopes, or a few deer and wolves. ”

“ I watch the vulture sailing as he circles in the sky,
The ostrich stalking o’er the wilds—the springbok bounding by.
The wilderness! The wilderness! ’Tis where the lion roars;
And whence the wasting locust-flood its living torrent pours:
With rushing ruin on their wings, its myriad myriads sweep,
Like waters from the mountains, or the surges of the deep.
The wilderness! The wilderness! The desert blast is there;
And the sun sends down his fiery rays with fierce and blinding glare.{78}
’Tis there the infant whirlwinds their new-born vigour try ”

“ Few are the years that have sufficed to change
This whole broad land by transformation strange;
Once, far and wide, the unbroken forests spread
Their lonely wastes, mysterious and dread—
Forests, whose echoes never had been stirred
By the sweet music of an English word,—
Where only rang the red-browed hunter's yell,
And the wolfs howl thro' the dark, sunless dell.
Now, fruitful fields and waving orchard-trees
Spread their rich treasures to the summer breeze. ”

“ To pierce the forest's twilight maze,
Or from the Alpine summit gaze;
For Nature there all joyous reigns,
And fills with life her wild domains:
A bird's light wing may break the air,
A fairy stream may murmur there ”

“ Then, as dusk crept closer, and the great plain, along which the tired horses plodded, became one illimitable shadow out of which rose strange sounds of beasts and eerie night cries of birds, the spell of the wilderness renewed itself and she felt herself enveloped in world-old mystery. ”

“ The man who can look back over thirty years of rural life, of life spent among woods and meadows, has doubtless learnt something at least of the ways of the wild creatures of his district, of its beasts and birds, of its reptiles, and fish, and insects, even of forms of life still lower in the scale. In the works of Nature, her lovers find a never-failing charm. There is no book like hers, as we read it in green field and country lane, in copse, and stream, and hedge-row. ”

“ What you are waiting for are the wild beasts of the forest,—you are listening for their distant and subdued tones, their bounding spring, their near approach, their bodies as a mark for your rifle, their yells, and cries, and death agony for your triumph. ”

“ The wilderness is near, as well as dear, to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of, men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox burrows, have sprung up in their midst. ”

“ The immensity of the wilderness reaches gave field for unlimited display. Flooded with resplendent light, the primal wastes of snow reflected every colored bar, every glorious cloud, every celestial flash. ”

“ Here, amidst bordering forests and far-reaching plains, they passed their savage life as Nature formed them, chanting amid circling bays and quiet dells their plaintive love-songs, or listening to the requiem of the rustling leaves and murmuring waters when death at last confronted them. ”

“ I know nothing more interesting than the acquaintance with all the wild denizens of mountain and plain, lake and river. There is always something fresh to learn, something new to admire, in the boundless works of creation. There is a charm in every sound in Nature where the voice of man is seldom heard to disturb her works. Every note gladdens the ear in the stillness of solitude, when night has overshadowed the earth, and all sleep but the wild animals of the forest. ”

“ Once, and heaven alone knows when, save that it was in the long ago when man was young, we lived beside great swamps, where the hills drew down close to the wide, sluggish river, and where our women gathered berries and roots, and there were herds of deer, of wild horses, of antelope, and of elk, that we men slew with arrows or trapped in pits or hill pockets. ”

“ Water and sky, mountain and forest, clad in sunshine and clouds, are composed in landscapes sublime in magnitude, yet exquisitely fine and fresh, and full of glad, rejoicing life. The shining waters stretch away into the leafy wilderness, now like the reaches of some majestic river and again expanding into broad roomy spaces like mountain lakes, their farther edges fading gradually and blending with the pale blue of the sky. The wooded shores with an outer fringe of flowering bushes sweep onward in beautiful curves around bays, and capes, and jutting promontories innumerable ”

“ Did ever you contemplate anything more wild and yet more full of life? See what vigor in this free and vagabond vegetation; what movement in those woods which the wind bows and sways, in those great flocks of eagles hovering incessantly around the misty summits and passing in moving circles like great black rings over the sheet, white and watery, of the glacier. Do you hear the noise that rises and falls on every side? ”

“ Here we have the wilderness, its primeval forests, its sea-like lakes, its threading rivers, shrunken or swollen, its cataracts and its confluent streams, its marshy expanses, bluffs, and plains, and its resources, abundant or scant, for sustaining life of beasts or men, all touched in feature or full portrayal by the charming skill of those to whom the sight was novel and bewildering. ”

“ Then we crawl forth to rub our faces with snow, a tribute to civilization which has the effect of shocking sleep out of us, and take a look at the woods, the sky, the lake all white and still under its soft mantle.
Oh, but it is good to be alive in such an hour; good to be awakened by birds that brave the northern winter cheerfully; good to breathe deep of this keen air that blows over miles of spruce and balsam, uncontaminated by any smell of man, sniffed only by the wild things! So our day begins naturally with joy, as a day should begin which promises good hunting. ”

“ Mountain and valley, hill and plain, with boundless forest, stretch beneath his feet, far as his sight can gaze, and the scene, so solemnly beautiful, gradually wakens to his senses; the birds begin to chirp; the dew-drops fall heavily from the trees, as the light breeze stirs from an apparent sleep; a golden tint spreads over the sea of mist below ”

“ The water is as pure and cold as when it slaked the thirst of the red hunter, and flowed beneath the aged bough, though now this gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls, but from the brick buildings. ”

“ The wilderness doth blossom like the rose, And change into a garden of the Lord! How silent everywhere! Alone and lost Here in the forest, there comes over me An inward awfulness. I recall the words Of the Apostle Paul: "In journeyings often, Often in perils in the wilderness, In weariness, in painfulness, in watchings, In hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness;" And I forget my weariness and pain, My watchings, and my hunger and my thirst. The Lord hath said that He will seek his flock In cloudy and dark days, and they shall dwell Securely in the wilderness, and sleep Safe in the woods! ”

“ Or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling place .. He scorneth the tumult of the city, Neither heareth he the shoutings of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, And he searcheth after every green thing. Will the wild-ox be content to serve thee? Or will he abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the wild-ox with his band in the furrow? Or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? Or wilt thou leave to him thy labour? ”

“ Sometimes wandering in a primeval forest, in all the witchery of the woods, besought by the kindliest solicitations of nature, wild flowers in the trail, the call of the squirrel, the flutter of birds, the great world-music of the wind in the pine-tops, the flecks of sunlight on the brown carpet and on the rough bark of immemorial trees, I find myself unconsciously postponing my enjoyment until I shall reach a hoped-for open place of full sun and boundless prospect. ”

“ The green and bowery glades of the old forest, their pleasant places of sport and exercise, the haunts of the wild deer, the wolf, and the boar, the fairy-like dingles and dells, the woodcraft that they witnessed, the sciences, and the characters that were peculiar to themselves, have now, alas! passed away from most of the countries of Europe, and have left scarcely a glen where the wild stag can find shelter, or where the contemplative man can pause under the shade of old primeval trees, to reflect upon the past or speculate upon the future. ”

“ Every man or boy who has ever heard the ‘red gods’ of the wilderness calling will revel in these graphic pages, in which the wild odor of the pines, the roar of rapids, the thrill of the chase and of thickening dangers come vividly to the senses. ”

“ All around stood the great forest-covered hills, haunted by wolves, bears, deer and wild-cats, which occasionally crept down even to the settlements carrying terror to the hearts of the women and children. Wherever the slopes were cleared, the farm lands had taken possession, the forest often creeping up close to the little homes. ”

“ Many hours have we been in the wilderness, and our heart yearns again for the cheerful dwellings of men. Sweet infant streamlet, that flows by our feet without a murmur, so shallow are yet thy waters—wilt thou—short as hitherto has been thy journeying—wilt thou be our guide out into the green valleys and the blue heaven, and the sight once more of the bright sunshine and the fair fleecy clouds? ”

“ A fourth peculiarity about the wilderness is that it exhibits a dynamic beauty. A Beethoven symphony or a Shakespearean drama, a landscape by Corot or a Gothic cathedral, once they are finished become virtually static. But the wilderness is in constant flux. A seed germinates, and a stunted seedling battles for decades against the dense shade of the virgin forest. ”