Some Men Have Their Eyes Naturally Intended
To The One And Some To The Other Object.
"A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And the heavens espy."
Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts, floating buoyantly
amid the reflections of the trees, like a feather in mid-air, or
a leaf which is wafted gently from its twig to the water without
turning over, seemed still in their element, and to have very
delicately availed themselves of the natural laws. Their floating
there was a beautiful and successful experiment in natural
philosophy, and it served to ennoble in our eyes the art of
navigation; for as birds fly and fishes swim, so these men
sailed. It reminded us how much fairer and nobler all the actions
of man might be, and that our life in its whole economy might be
as beautiful as the fairest works of art or nature.
The sun lodged on the old gray cliffs, and glanced from every
pad; the bulrushes and flags seemed to rejoice in the delicious
light and air; the meadows were a-drinking at their leisure; the
frogs sat meditating, all sabbath thoughts, summing up their
week, with one eye out on the golden sun, and one toe upon a
reed, eying the wondrous universe in which they act their part;
the fishes swam more staid and soberly, as maidens go to church;
shoals of golden and silver minnows rose to the surface to behold
the heavens, and then sheered off into more sombre aisles; they
swept by as if moved by one mind, continually gliding past each
other, and yet preserving the form of their battalion unchanged,
as if they were still embraced by the transparent membrane which
held the spawn; a young band of brethren and sisters trying their
new fins; now they wheeled, now shot ahead, and when we drove
them to the shore and cut them off, they dexterously tacked and
passed underneath the boat.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 46 of 422
Words from 12556 to 12896
of 116321
