Slumber

“ I slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me could avail to break. ”

“ She goes to bed, but, for the first few hours, she is too much excited to sleep, towards morning, when the air is pure and invigorating, and, when to breathe it, would be to inhale health and life, she falls into a feverish slumber, and wakes not until noon-day. ”

“ I was dying for sleep, and my wife tumbled me into bed and pulled the sheet over me, and that same instant I fell into a heavy slumber, but the moment my wife released her grasp on me I began arising to my feet, irresistibly drawn to the perpendicular by the action of the gyro-hat. I continued to arise until I was standing upright. I can only liken the manner in which I arose to the way a man might raise a stiff arm slowly until it pointed straight upward. ”

“ What use is it to slumber here,
Though the heart be sad and weary?
What use is it to slumber here,
Though the day rise dark and dreary? ”

“ In a word, mid-day slumbers are golden; they make the body fat, the skin fair, the flesh plump, delicate and tender; they set a russet colour on the cheeks of young women, and make lusty courage to rise up in men ”

“ Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow,
Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the faded ground,
With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow
The gentian nods, in dewy slumbers bound. ”

“ I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from hummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river valley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as some suppose. ”

“ He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it! How, as a free-flowing channel, [Pg 246] dug and torn by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows;—draining-off the sour festering water, gradually from the root of the remotest grass-blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its value be great or small! ”

“ Here and there on little mounds, left bare during the long summer drought by the receding waters, sprout strange and gorgeous flowers, such perhaps as the earth has not brought forth since the Flood overwhelmed her. In this slimy soil every blade of grass shoots up like gigantic broom ”

“ An ample stream once held its winding course among them, but becoming choked at the further end with weeds and fallen leaves, and branches broken by the wind, it spread into a marsh, tenanted alike by the slow, creeping blind-worm, and water-newt, the black slug, and frogs of portentous size. ”

“ Vast wastes of mountain ground, covered here and there with dull grey grass, or moss, but breaking continually into black banks of shattered slate, all glistening and sodden with slow tricklings of clogged, incapable streams; the snow water oozing through them in a cold sweat, and spreading itself in creeping stains among their dust ”

“ Days and days passed with hardly a house to be seen, or a tree or a blade of grass. I might even add, or a mountain or a river, for the one was too often a heap of agglomerated sand and clay cut into unsightly chasms by the rain, and the other generally degenerated into a mere stagnant swamp, its shallowness and dryness increasing regularly with its length. ”

“ Many a time I have traced streams of grass to their fresh fountains, where jets of tender foliage and bubbles of tinted flowers welled up from dark, rich earth, and flowed away, with a velvet rustle and a ripple like blown floss, to break and recoil and eddy against the dark shadows of a distant grove. ”

“ Ugly gravel heaps, staring mounds of 'pipe-clay,' deposits of sludge, a surface filled with holes, broken windlasses, the wrecks of whims, all combine to make a hideous picture as they stand revealed in the pitiless sunshine. ”

“ With a murmur, so soft it was almost imperceptible, glided the stream, blue as the heaven it mirrored, between banks now green and gently shelving away, crowned with a growth of oak, hickory, pine, hemlock and savin, now rising into irregular masses of grey rocks, overgrown with moss, with here and there a stunted bush struggling out of a fissure, and seeming to derive a starved existence from the rock itself ”

“ They have a saying out here that soil is as rich as it is sticky. If this is true Dinky-Dunk has a second Garden of Eden. This mud sticks to everything, to feet, to clothes, to wagon-wheels. But there's getting to be real warmth in the sun that shines through my window. ”

“ Farmers and gardeners throughout the spring, summer and autumn, are busy ploughing or digging, hoeing or in other ways cultivating the soil. Unless all this is well done the soil fails to produce much; the sluggard's garden has always been a by-word and a reproach. In trying to understand why they do it we must remember that plant roots need water, warmth and air; if the soil is too compact or if there is too much water the plant suffers, as we have seen.
Fig. ”

“ If the earth's surface were, like iron, impervious to water, the rain-water would come in torrents down the hill-sides, and along the gentle declivities, into the streams, creating freshets and inundations in a few hours. But instead of that, the soft showers fall, often on the open, thirsty soil, and so are gradually absorbed. ”

“ Now I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders' webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh-mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village—a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there—was invisible to me until I was quite close under it. ”

“ When the heavy rains of spring and fall occur, the effluent water from those slopes is dilute sewage, dilute human excrement, and, especially if the land has been recently ploughed, a large quantity of the surface-soil, and with it the freshly-applied human excreta, and the remaining noxious parts of the previously-applied batch of filth still present in the soil, must necessarily be, and is, washed down-hill and into the water-supply of the town. ”

“ Hence every considerable shower lays bare its roods of rock, and the torrents sent down by the thaws of spring, and by occasional heavy discharges of the summer and autumnal rains, are seas of mud and rolling stones that sometimes lay waste and bury beneath them acres, and even miles, of pasture and field and vineyard. ”

“ Ground sluices are natural gullies, answering the purpose of wooden sluices in localities where water is abundant for short periods only, and the construction of permanent sluices would not be judicious. In river mining, the current of a stream is turned aside, and sluices are erected in its bed for washing the dirt there accumulated. ”

“ The few streams which creep in winter over this miserable waste shrink away and disappear before the scorching rays of the summer sun, which penetrate the soil to a great depth, and pump up every particle of moisture as far as they reach. ”

“ Extensive and dingy pools—if moderately upland, so much the better—which lie in the hollows, catching, like so many traps, the lighter and more fertile mould which the rains wash and the winds blow from the naked heights around, and converting it into harsh and dingy vegetation, and the pasture of those loathsome things which wriggle in the ooze, or crawl and swim in the putrid and mantling waters, are the habitation of the bittern. ”

“ But during the winter, when the stream-banks are embossed in snow, and the streams themselves are chilled nearly to the freezing-point, so that the snow falling into them in stormy weather is not wholly dissolved, but forms a thin, blue sludge, thus rendering the current opaque—then he seeks the deeper portions of the main rivers, where he may dive to clear water beneath the sludge. Or he repairs to some open lake or mill-pond, at the bottom of which he feeds in safety. ”

“ Instead of the funereal gloom, the slime, the rank growth, and crowding horrors of the great swamp, here was a cleared space, acres in extent, bathed in sunlight, and alive with cheerful human activity. ”

“ Let us consider for a moment the differences which obtain between the conditions of life in water or in soft mud at the bottom of pool or river, and those which are undergone by a dweller in stiff soil or vegetable débris. In the first case the medium is fluid or at most very soft, while the soil is at least stiffer and harder to traverse. ”

“ In the rainy season these arid-looking wastes are covered with tall-plumed, reed-like, waving grass, varying from two to ten feet in height, stretching in an unbroken sweep as far as the eye can reach, except where an abrupt line shews that the swift river has its treacherous course. ”

“ Shame to the turbid, murky swamp, which never receives and never reflects this image! Millions of plants drink from the four elements of nature; a magazine of supplies is open for all: but they mix their sap in a thousand different ways, and return it in a thousand new forms. ”

“ The vegetable roots now no longer reaching to the bottom where solidity is found, the tender soil below is easily washed away by the continued efforts of the stream; and the unsupported meadow, with the impregnable texture of its leaves, its roots, and its fibres, falls ruinously into the river, and is born away in triumph by the flood. ”

“ A part of the rain-water is there held, until it returns by evaporation, to the clouds, while a part slowly percolates downward, finding its way into swamps and springy plains, and finally, after days or weeks of wandering, slowly, but surely, finds its outlet in the stream or pond. ”

“ You all know from whence the soil comes which has filled up, in the course of ages, the great æstuaries below London, Stirling, Chester, or Cambridge.
It is river mud and sand. The river, helped by tributary brooks right and left, has brought down from the inland that enormous mass. You know that. You know that every flood and freshet brings a fresh load, either of fine mud or of fine sand, or possibly some of it peaty matter out of distant hills. Here is one indisputable fact from which to start. Let us look for another. ”

“ This is so true, that those accidents of soil which permit the air a more active circulation in certain spots, such as the bed of a torrent or a gorge between two eminences, the entrance of which is open to the prevailing wind, favour the development of a more luxuriant vegetation than in flat places. ”

“ The bed of the little stream was entirely free from moss or weeds; and after proceeding a short distance it dwindled and disappeared, either sucked up in vapor by the torrid air, or absorbed into the dusty soil. ”

“ Our marshy soil is now like the potful of earth with a hole at the bottom, the bit of broken tile, and layer of little pebbles: the air has free access and brings fertility with it. This operation of ours is called drainage, a word formed from ‘drain,’ which is both a verb and a noun. ”

“ That change, in their rounds, from the bright to the drear;
And, though we deplore their cold dullness and darkness,
We can’t hope for springtime all thro’ the year.
These dull, dreary days, these clouds, gray and heavy,
That hang, like a pall, over Nature’s fair face,
But serve to enhance each gleam of gold sunshine,
When new-waking Nature its beauties retrace.
[89]
THE SONG OF THE SLUSH.
The slush, the slush, the terrible slush,
That streams from each pore of the earth with a gush;
Impeding the travel, making walking a woe ”

“ When the wind blows, which it is apt to do, dust fills the air. Much of the soil seems to be as fine as flour and very light when it is very dry. We rode for hours without seeing a drop of water, in creek or lake. ”

“ Here, among the rocks and stones, the feeds of plants, left by the water or blown by the wind, spring up and grow; and, in little floods, some sand and mud is left among those plants; this encourages the growth of other plants, which more and more retain the fertile spoils of the river in its floods. ”

“ The water in the soil, brought thither as snow or rain, or by stream and possibly by irrigating ditch, is vastly more necessary than the water in the pipe. The soil water, added to by rain and stream, conserved by cloud and fog, is still further preserved, for the plants which receive it into their roots, by the invisible moisture in the air. ”

“ Again, most people are familiar with the fact, that during periods of long continued rain, when the rivers are flooded and overflow their banks, they not unfrequently bear with them loads of sand and gravel, which they carry far and wide, and strew at intervals over the surface soil. ”

“ The deeper it descends, the ranker and denser grows the vegetation, which, sprouting from the crannies and fissures of the rocks, spreads a green veil over the roaring or murmuring stream in the tremendous chasm below. ”

“ The water, of which there is great plenty, instead of being collected in large pieces, or conveyed in little rivulets and streams to refresh the thirsty soil, or managed so as to form agreeable cascades, is squirted from fountains in different parts of the garden, through tubes little bigger than common glyster-pipes. ”

“ The position and soil it most seems to enjoy may be readily afforded in any garden, as we shall shortly see; but, so far as my experience goes, the slugs are its most persistent enemies. Especially when in flower do they make long journeys to reach it; they go over sand and ashes with impunity, and often the beautiful tufts of bloom are all grazed off in one night. ”

“ Where the salt water ends, the aspect of the country changes, not gradually, but suddenly; on the one hand absolute barrenness, on the other exuberant vegetation; and wherever irrigation brings a drop of water, plants spring up, and the sterile dust becomes fertile soil. ”

“ Where there is no forest the snow melts much more quickly, the water rushes down the hills in streams, carrying with it the top soil, which is of so much value to the farmer, cutting the hillsides into gullies, causing floods in the valleys, and filling up the rivers with silt or mud. ”

“ I notice that here and there, where the pipes that lead to them have leaked a little, the dark brown soil below has burst into great masses of fresh green grass, while all around is parched and lifeless. ”