The Ripples Curled Away In Our Wake, Like Ringlets From
The Head Of A Child, While We Steadily Held On Our Course, And
Under The Bows We Watched
"The swaying soft,
Made by the delicate wave parted in front,
As through the gentle element we move
Like shadows gliding through untroubled dreams."
The forms of beauty fall naturally around the path of him who is
in the performance of his proper work; as the curled shavings
drop from the plane, and borings cluster round the auger.
Undulation is the gentlest and most ideal of motions, produced by
one fluid falling on another. Rippling is a more graceful
flight. From a hill-top you may detect in it the wings of birds
endlessly repeated. The two _waving_ lines which represent the
flight of birds appear to have been copied from the ripple.
The trees made an admirable fence to the landscape, skirting the
horizon on every side. The single trees and the groves left
standing on the interval appeared naturally disposed, though the
farmer had consulted only his convenience, for he too falls into
the scheme of Nature. Art can never match the luxury and
superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen; it cannot
afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison; but
Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us
still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots. In
swamps, where there is only here and there an ever-green tree
amid the quaking moss and cranberry beds, the bareness does not
suggest poverty.
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