Now, if disinterestedness, faith, patience, piety, have a beauty celestial and divine, then were our fathers worshippers of the beautiful. If high-mindedness and spotless honor are beautiful things, they had those. What work of art can compare with a lofty and heroic life? Is it not better to be a Moses than to be a Michael Angelo making statues of Moses? Is not the life of Paul a sublimer work of art than Raphael’s cartoons? Are not the patience, the faith, the undying love of Mary by the cross, more beautiful than all the Madonna paintings in the world. If, then, we would speak truly of our fathers, we should say that, having their minds fixed on that celestial beauty of which Plato speaks, they held in slight esteem that more common and earthly.
Should we continue the parable in Plato’s manner, we might say that the earthly and visible Venus, the outward grace of art and nature, was ordained of God as a priestess, through whom men were to gain access to the divine, invisible One; but that men, in their blindness, ever worship the priestess instead of the divinity.
Therefore it is that great reformers so often must break the shrines and temples of the physical and earthly beauty, when they seek to draw men upward to that which is high and divine.
Christ says of John the Baptist, “What went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold they which are clothed in soft raiment are in kings’ palaces.” So was it when our fathers came here. There were enough wearing soft raiment and dwelling in kings’ palaces. Life in papal Rome and prelatic England was weighed down with blossoming luxury. There were abundance of people to think of pictures, and statues, and gems, and cameos, vases and marbles, and all manner of deliciousness. The world was all drunk with the enchantments of the lower Venus, and it was needful that these men should come, Baptist-like in the wilderness, in raiment of camel’s hair. We need such men now. Art, they tell us, is waking in America; a love of the beautiful is beginning to unfold its wings; but what kind of art, and what kind of beauty? Are we to fill our houses with pictures and gems, and to see that even our drinking cup and vase is wrought in graceful pattern, and to lose our reverence for self-denial, honor, and faith?
Is our Venus to be the frail, insnaring Aphrodite, or the starry, divine Urania?
OUR WOOD LOT IN WINTER.
Our wood lot! Yes, we have arrived at the dignity of owning a wood lot, and for us simple folk there is something invigorating in the thought. To own even a small spot of our dear old mother earth hath in it a relish of something stimulating to human nature. To own a meadow, with all its thousand-fold fringes of grasses, its broidery of monthly flowers, and its outriders of birds, and bees, and gold-winged insects — this is something that establishes one’s heart. To own a clover patch or a buckwheat field is like possessing a self-moving manufactory for perfumes and sweetness; but a wood lot, rustling with dignified old trees — it makes a man rise in his own esteem; he might take off his hat to himself at the moment of acquisition.
We do not marvel that the land-acquiring passion becomes a mania among our farmers, and particularly we do not wonder at a passion for wood land. That wide, deep chasm of conscious self-poverty and emptiness which lies at the bottom of every human heart, making men crave property as something to add to one’s own bareness, and to ballast one’s own specific levity, is sooner filled by land than any thing else.
Your hoary New England farmer walks over his acres with a grim satisfaction. He sets his foot down with a hard stamp; here is reality. No moonshine bank stock! no swindling railroads! Here is his bank, and there is no defaulter here. All is true, solid, and satisfactory; he seems anchored to this life by it. So Pope, with fine tact, makes the old miser, making his will on his death bed, after parting with every thing, die, clinging to the possession of his land. He disposes with many a groan of this and that house, and this and that stock and security; but at last the manor is proposed to him.
“The manor! hold!” he cried, “Not that; I cannot part with that!” — and died!
In such terms we discoursed yesterday, Herr Professor and myself, while jogging along in an old-fashioned chaise to inspect a few acres of wood lot, the acquisition of which had let us, with great freshness, into these reflections.
Does any fair lady shiver at the idea of a drive to the woods on the first of February? Let me assure her that in the coldest season Nature never wants her ornaments full worth looking at.
See here, for instance — let us stop the old chaise, and get out a minute to look at this brook — one of our last summer’s pets. What is he doing this winter? Let us at least say, “How do you do?” to him. Ah, here he is! and he and Jack Frost together have been turning the little gap in the old stone wall, through which he leaped down to the road, into a little grotto of Antiparos. Some old rough rails and boards that dropped over it are sheathed in plates of transparent silver. The trunks of the black alders are mailed with crystal; and the witch-hazel, and yellow osiers fringing its sedgy borders, are likewise shining through their glossy covering. Around every stem that rises from the water is a glittering ring of ice. The tags of the alder and the red berries of last summer’s wild roses glitter now like a lady’s pendant. As for the brook, he is wide awake and joyful; and where the roof of sheet ice breaks away, you can see his yellow-brown waters rattling and gurgling among the stones as briskly as they did last July. Down he springs! over the glossy-coated stone wall, throwing new sparkles into the fairy grotto around him; and widening daily from melting snows, and such other godsends, he goes chattering off under yonder mossy stone bridge, and we lose sight of him. It might be fancy, but it seemed that our watery friend tipped us a cheery wink as he passed, saying, “Fine weather, sir and madam; nice times these; and in April you’ll find us all right; the flowers are making up their finery for the next season; there’s to be a splendid display in a month or two.”
Then the cloud lights of a wintry sky have a clear purity and brilliancy that no other months can rival. The rose tints, and the shading of rose tint into gold, the flossy, filmy accumulation of illuminated vapor that drifts across the sky in a January afternoon, are beauties far exceeding those of summer.
Neither are trees, as seen in winter, destitute of their own peculiar beauty. If it be a gorgeous study in summer time to watch the play of their abundant leafage, we still may thank winter for laying bare before us the grand and beautiful anatomy of the tree, with all its interlacing network of boughs, knotted on each twig with the buds of next year’s promise. The fleecy and rosy clouds look all the more beautiful through the dark lace veil of yonder magnificent elms; and the down-drooping drapery of yonder willow hath its own grace of outline as it sweeps the bare snows. And these comical old apple trees, why, in summer they look like so many plump, green cushions, one as much like another as possible; but under the revealing light of winter every characteristic twist and jerk stands disclosed.
One might moralize on this — how affliction, which strips us of all ornaments and accessories, and brings us down to the permanent and solid wood of our nature, develops such wide differences in people who before seemed not much distinct.
But here! our pony’s feet are now clinking on the icy path under the shadow of the white pines of “our wood lot.” The path runs in a deep hollow, and on either hand rise slopes dark and sheltered with the fragrant white pine. White pines are favorites with us for many good reasons. We love their balsamic breath, the long, slender needles of their leaves, and, above all, the constant sibylline whisperings that never cease among their branches. In summer the ground beneath them is paved with a soft and cleanly matting of their last year’s leaves; and then their talking seems to be of coolness ever dwelling far up in their fringy, waving hollows. And now, in winter time, we find the same smooth floor; for the heavy curtains above shut out the snow, and the same voices above whisper of shelter and quiet. “You are welcome,” they say; “the north wind is gone to sleep; we are rocking him in our cradles. Sit down and be quiet from the cold.” At the feet of these slumberous old pines we find
many of our last summer’s friends looking as good as new. The small, round-leafed partridgeberry weaves its viny mat, and lays out its scarlet fruit; and here are blackberry vines with leaves still green, though with a bluish tint, not unlike what invades mortal noses in such weather. Here, too, are the bright, varnished leaves of the Indian pine, and the vines of feathery green of which our Christmas garlands are made; and here, undaunted, though frozen to the very heart this cold day, is many another leafy thing which we met last summer rejoicing each in its own peculiar flower. What names they have received from scientific god-fathers at the botanic fount we know not; we have always known them by fairy nicknames of our own — the pet names of endearment which lie between Nature’s children and us in her domestic circle.
There is something peculiarly sweet to us about a certain mystical dreaminess and obscurity in these wild wood tribes, which we never wish to have brought out into the daylight of absolute knowledge. Every one of them was a self-discovered treasure of our childhood, as much our own as if God had made it on purpose and presented it; and it was ever a part of the joy to think we had found something that no one else knew, and so musing on them, we gave them names in our heart.
We search about amid the sere, yellow skeletons of last summer’s ferns, if haply winter have forgotten one green leaf for our home vase — in vain we rake, freezing our fingers through our fur gloves — there is not one. An icicle has pierced every heart; and there are no fern leaves except those miniature ones which each plant is holding in its heart, to be sent up in next summer’s hour of joy. But here are mosses — tufts of all sorts; the white, crisp and crumbling, fair as winter frostwork; and here the feathery green of which French milliners make moss rose buds; and here the cup-moss — these we gather with some care, frozen as they are to the wintry earth.
Now, stumbling up this ridge, we come to a little patch of hemlocks, spreading out their green wings, and making, in the ravine, a deep shelter, where many a fresh springing thing is standing, and where we gain much for our home vases. These pines are motherly creatures. One can think how it must rejoice the heart of a partridge or a rabbit to come from the dry, whistling sweep of a deciduous forest under the home-like shadow of their branches. “As for the stork, the fir trees are her house,” says the Hebrew poet; and our fir trees, this winter, give shelter to much small game. Often, on the light-fallen snow, I meet their little footprints. They have a naive, helpless, innocent appearance, these little tracks, that softens my heart like a child’s footprint. Not one of them is forgotten of our Father; and therefore I remember them kindly.
And now, with cold toes and fingers, and arms full of leafy treasures, we plod our way back to the chaise. A pleasant song is in my ears from this old wood lot — it speaks of green and cheerful patience in life’s hard weather. Not a scowling, sullen endurance, not a despairing, hand-dropping resignation, but a heart cheerfulness that holds on to every leaf, and twig, and flower, and bravely smiles and keeps green when frozen to the very heart, knowing that the winter is but for a season, and that the sunshine and bird singings shall return, and the last year’s dry flower stalk give place to the risen, glorified flower.
POEMS.
THE CHARMER.
“Socrates.—’However, you and Simmias appear to me as if you
wished to sift this subject more thoroughly, and to be afraid, like
children, lest, on the soul’s departure from the body, winds should
blow it away.’
* * * * *
“Upon this Cebes said, ‘Endeavor to teach us better, Socrates. * *
* Perhaps there is a childish spirit in our breast, that has such a
dread. Let us endeavor to persuade him not to be afraid of death,
as of hobgoblins.’
“‘But you must charm him every day,’ said Socrates, ‘until you
have quieted his fears.’
“‘But whence, O Socrates,’ he said, ‘can we procure a skilful
charmer for such a case, now you are about to leave us.’
“‘Greece is wide, Cebes,’ he replied: ‘and in it surely there are
skilful men, and there are also many barbarous nations, all of
which you should search, seeking such a charmer, sparing neither
money nor toil, as there is nothing on which you can more
reasonably spend your money.’” — (Last conversation of Socrates
with his disciples, as narrated by Plato in the Phædo.)
* * * * *
“We need that Charmer, for our hearts are sore
With longings for the things that may not be;
Faint for the friends that shall return no more;
Dark with distrust, or wrung with agony.
“What is this life? and what to us is death?
Whence came we? whither go? and where are those
Who, in a moment stricken from our side,
Passed to that land of shadow and repose?
“And are they all dust? and dust must we become?
Or are they living in some unknown clime?
Shall we regain them in that far-off home,
And live anew beyond the waves of time?
“O man divine! on thee our souls have hung;
Thou wert our teacher in these questions high;
But, ah, this day divides thee from our side,
And veils in dust thy kindly-guiding eye.
“Where is that Charmer whom thou bidst us seek?
On what far shores may his sweet voice be heard?
When shall these questions of our yearning souls
Be answered by the bright Eternal Word?”
So spake the youth of Athens, weeping round,
When Socrates lay calmly down to die;
So spake the sage, prophetic of the hour
When earth’s fair morning star should rise on high.
They found Him not, those youths of soul divine,
Long seeking, wandering, watching on life’s shore —
Reasoning, aspiring, yearning for the light,
Death came and found them — doubting as before.
But years passed on; and lo! the Charmer came —
Pure, simple, sweet, as comes the silver dew;
And the world knew him not — he walked alone,
Encircled only by his trusting few.
Like the Athenian sage rejected, scorned,
Betrayed, condemned, his day of doom drew nigh;
He drew his faithful few more closely round,
And told them that his hour was come to die.
“Let not your heart be troubled,” then he said;
“My Father’s house hath mansions large and fair;
I go before you to prepare your place;
I will return to take you with me there.”
And since that hour the awful foe is charmed,
And life and death are glorified and fair.
Whither he went we know — the way we know —
And with firm step press on to meet him there.
PILGRIM’S SONG IN THE DESERT.
’Tis morning now — upon the eastern hills
Once more the sun lights up this cheerless scene;
But O, no morning in my Father’s house
Is dawning now, for there no night hath been.
Ten thousand thousand now, on Zion’s hills,
All robed in white, with palmy crowns, do stray,
While I, an exile, far from fatherland,
Still wandering, faint along the desert way.
O home! dear home! my own, my native home!
O Father, friends, when shall I look on you?
When shall these weary wanderings be o’er,
And I be gathered back to stray no more?
O thou, the brightness of whose gracious face
These weary, longing eyes have never seen, —
By whose dear thought, for whose beloved sake,
My course, through toil and
tears, I daily take, —
I think of thee when the myrrh-dropping morn
Steps forth upon the purple eastern steep;
I think of thee in the fair eventide,
When the bright-sandalled stars their watches keep.
And trembling hope, and fainting, sorrowing love,
On thy dear word for comfort doth rely;
And clear-eyed Faith, with strong forereaching gaze,
Beholds thee here, unseen, but ever nigh.
Walking in white with thee, she dimly sees,
All beautiful, these lovely ones withdrawn,
With whom my heart went upward, as they rose,
Like morning stars, to light a coming dawn.
All sinless now, and crowned, and glorified,
Where’er thou movest move they still with thee,
As erst, in sweet communion by thy side,
Walked John and Mary in old Galilee.
But hush, my heart! ’Tis but a day or two
Divides thee from that bright, immortal shore.
Rise up! rise up! and gird thee for the race!
Fast fly the hours, and all will soon be o’er.
Thou hast the new name written in thy soul;
Thou hast the mystic stone he gives his own.
Thy soul, made one with him, shall feel no more
That she is walking on her path alone.
MARY AT THE CROSS.
“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother.”
O wondrous mother! Since the dawn of time
Was ever joy, was ever grief like thine?
O, highly favored in thy joy’s deep flow,
And favored e’en in this, thy bitterest woe!
Poor was that home in simple Nazareth,
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 508
