Wildness

“ 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. ”

“ The practical developments of his culture are orchards and clover-fields wearing a smiling, benevolent aspect, truly excellent in their way, though a near view discloses something barbarous in them all. Wildness charms not my friend, charm it never so wisely: and whatsoever may be the character of his heaven, his earth seems only a chaos of agricultural possibilities calling for grubbing-hoes and manures. ”

“ But whatever primitive wildness, whatever ancestral nearness we recover in communion with remote Nature, there is no question as to the fascination of beauty exercised by the still waters of which we speak, of their enduring spell. ”

“ We need the tonic of wildness,—to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. ”

“ There is in my nature, methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness. ”

“ Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; ”

“ and all nature’s wildness tells the same story. ”

“ This is Nature’s own reservation, and every lover of wildness will rejoice with me that by kindly frost it is so well defended. ”

“ Only a little had she begun to comprehend the secrets of good and ill in their relation to the laws of nature. Ages before men had lived on the earth there had been the creatures of the wilderness, and the holes of the rocks, and the nests of the trees, and rain, frost, heat, dew, sunlight and night, storm and calm, the honey of the wildflower and the instinct of the bee—all the beautiful and multiple forms of life with their inscrutable design. ”

“ Now all is peace and quiet, the quiet of the wilderness, which save for the rush of the torrential stream, is absolutely noiseless. No song of bird gladdens the darkened forests, and in its gloom the wild animals are seldom or never seen. How strikingly the silence and wonder of the scene proclaim that nature has formed the world for the happiness of man. ”

“ And yet the whole forest was instinct with life. If you set yourself to listen, there came to your ears, all day and night, a great monotone of sound humming through the misty shade, the aggregate voices of millions of insect things that had their being among the foliage or in the daylight that reigned in the outer world above those green clouds which made perpetual twilight for us who were passing underneath. ”

“ A little later, and the purple rays of morning, first lighting up the forest-clad mountain's brow, then sweeping in soft pencils down its side, came full upon us; the sun rose, and a flood of light was poured on all nature, changing the gloomy forest-path and dark haunts of prowling beasts of prey into a scene of life, tranquillity, and beauty. ”

“ It has seemed to us when watching this strange, wild hunter, this keen, untutored scholar of nature, this human creature that sickens beneath our civilization, and dies midst our prosperity—it has seemed to us that he was of a race older and more remote than our own, a stock coeval with a shadowy age—a remnant, perchance, of an earlier creation which has vanished from the earth, preserved here in these wilds—a waif flung by the surge of time to these later ages of our own. ”

“ Even the feathered things about us are in this mood; their family life is over, the companionship of fall travel has not begun, and the woods are full of moulting birds choosing this separateness in preparation for the tension of new flight and its perils. Everything, in short, in wild nature has its corresponding note in our own humanity,—the sweating of the corn, the moulting of the bird, the contraction of the earth by frost, all have a kindred season or experience in the heart. ”

“ An' how the creatures an' things that live in them or on them are good for them, an' neither could live without the other. An' then I'll show you my pets tame an' untamed, an' tell you how it's man that makes any creature wild—how easy they are to tame—an' how they learn to love you. An' there's the life of the forest, the strife of it—how the bear lives, an' the cats, an' the wolves, an' the deer. You'll see how cruel nature is how savage an' wild the wolf or cougar tears down the deer—how a wolf loves fresh, hot blood, an' how a cougar unrolls the skin of a deer back from his neck. ”

“ You may not see them—for they are dressed in invisible green; but they see you, and that unaccountable whispering and buzzing sound one often hears in what we call the wilderness, what is it, or what can it be, but the fairies making merry at your expense, pointing out to each other the extreme silliness of your meditative countenance, and laughing like to split at your fond conceit of being alone among a multitude of creatures far wiser than yourself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No more fear or thought had he of being lost in the wilderness, than the ring-dove that flies from forest to forest in the winter season, and, without the aid even of vision, trusts to the instinctive wafting of her wings through the paths of ether. ”

“ As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild—the mallard—thought, which 'mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. ”

“ I am sometimes asked, “What is the most interesting thing you find in the woods?” the question calling, no doubt, for the name of some bird or beast or animal habit that may challenge our ignorance or stir our wonder. The answer is, that whether you search the wood or the city or the universe, the only interesting thing you will ever find anywhere is the thrill and mystery of awakening life. ”

“ As we sit aloft watching, a gleam of water, where when gorged the beast will drink, is visible, and towards that also, each with infinite precaution, and guided by senses of whose range and delicacy of perception human beings cannot conceive, the thirsty denizens of this wilderness take their way. ”

“ Incalculable successions of vision, visions of sunlit jungle, river wilderness, wild forest, eager desire, beating hearts, soaring wings and creeping terror flamed hotly and then were as though they had never been. Life was an uneasiness across which lights played and vanished. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We cross the trails of lurking animals,—paths that heighten our sense of seclusion from the world. The hammering of the infrequent woodpecker, the call of the lonely bird, the drumming of the solitary partridge,—all these sounds do but emphasize the lonesomeness of nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We shall go down deep into the earth, and we shall float in a balloon, high up into the air. We shall see many beasts of the forest; some that are bloody and cruel, and others that are gentle and wise. We will meet with birds, fishes, grand old buildings, fleas, vast woods, bugs, mummies, snakes, tight-rope dancers, gorillas, will-o'-the-wisps, beautiful [6] blossoms, boomerangs, oceans, birds' nests, and I cannot tell you what all besides. We will also have some adventures, hear some stories, and have a peep at a fairy or two before we are done. ”

“ I am the lion. It is you that should go away, for I have come to drink. This is my wilderness, and I am king. Do you know, weak things, that when I come out from my place and send forth my voice, all the creatures of the wilderness shake like leaves and bow their heads to me? What are you that you should have a place you call your home and tell me that I may or I may not?’
“Then the mosquitoes answered, ‘You are only one. You speak as if you were many. Our people had this old well for a home before your roar was heard in the wilderness. And many generations of us have been born here. ”

“ Nature has, in her eyes, no laws, no uniformity. She can work miracles at her will, and when she calls monsters from the deep they come. She can bid the almond-tree blossom in winter, and send the snow upon the ripe cornfield. ”

“ But in some of nature’s forests the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle. ”

“ The Wild abhorred life, abhorred most of all these atoms of heat and hurry in the midst of her triumphant stillness. The Wild would crush those defiant pigmies that disputed the majesty of her invincible calm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wild with grief, we wandered for days about the forest, insensible to rain or wind, to hunger or thirst, even to the mocking sneers of the birds who hunted us, pecking at us and tearing out our feathers. ”

“ I am persuaded that you love nature—that you admire and study her. Every individual, possessed of a sound heart, listens with delight to the love-notes of the woodland warblers. He never casts a glance upon their lovely forms without proposing to himself questions respecting them; nor does he look on the trees which they frequent, or the flowers over which they glide, without admiring their grandeur, or delighting in their sweet odours or their brilliant tints. ”

“ But through it all, because full fed, the cripple, with all his handicap, and his lady companion lived; lived to see the hard dawn pale tardily; lived to watch the kind gardener—under strict orders assuredly, or he would never have done it—sweep a space clear on the lawn and spread food for the birds; lived to ruffle his feathers and fly down; and lived to see the thaw which came that afternoon, when the warm sou'-wester came romping over the land, and winter's last stand was overcome by the forces of spring, and all the wild breathed a sigh of relief and went abroad gayly to feed. ”

“ They flash joyously upon the mental vision whenever one recalls a cherished spot in the woods, but fade quickly if one attempts to hold or describe them, saying as they vanish that the lure of solitary lakes, the companionship of trees, the fascination of wild creatures that hide and look forth with roundly curious eyes at a stranger’s approach,—these are matters that can never be set down in words: the best always escapes in the telling. ”

“ Our efforts are of no avail when we seek to turn his attention to wild roses, or to the fact that both ocean and sky are already about as rosy as possible--the one with stars, the other with dulse, and foam, and wild light. ”

“ The gentle sigh of the forest, the hum of insects, and the chatter and peal of the birds have gone into harmony with a long, deep, swelling sound, becoming louder and louder, until finally it drowns all else. ”

“ Although he saw little of any wild creatures, he was aware of their presence, though most of them kept well out of sight as they crouched in hiding, or drifted soundlessly as driven smoke along the ancient deer-paths that had been worn by the feet of the wilderness, age after countless age. ”

“ He says, in his book of the forest, 'Do not trust their animal appearance, their hanging tongues, their arched tails, their whole air of being out for their own enjoyment, sniffing the good smell of the earth. ”

“ Lest the migration of creatures should cease to be a thing of wonder to us, Nature organizes once in a way a monster excursion, sometimes of rats, sometimes of deer, but most frequently of birds, to remind man of the marvellous instinct that draws the animal world from place to place or from zone to zone. ”

“ He could tell you, moreover, of creatures of his own kind,—if they deserve the name of man,—who dwell continuously in the flooded forest, making their home on scaffolds among the tree-tops, passing from place to place in floating rafts or canoes, finding their subsistence on fish, on the flesh of the manatee, on birds, beasts, reptiles, and insects, on the stalks of huge water-plants and the fruits of undescribed trees, on monkeys, and sometimes upon man! ”