We Had Come Away Up Here Among
The Hills To Learn The Impartial And Unbribable Beneficence Of
Nature.
Strawberries and melons grow as well in one man's garden
as another's, and the sun lodges as kindly under his
hillside, - when we had imagined that she inclined rather to some
few earnest and faithful souls whom we know.
We found a convenient harbor for our boat on the opposite or east
shore, still in Hooksett, at the mouth of a small brook which
emptied into the Merrimack, where it would be out of the way of
any passing boat in the night, - for they commonly hug the shore
if bound up stream, either to avoid the current, or touch the
bottom with their poles, - and where it would be accessible
without stepping on the clayey shore. We set one of our largest
melons to cool in the still water among the alders at the mouth
of this creek, but when our tent was pitched and ready, and we
went to get it, it had floated out into the stream, and was
nowhere to be seen. So taking the boat in the twilight, we went
in pursuit of this property, and at length, after long straining
of the eyes, its green disk was discovered far down the river,
gently floating seaward with many twigs and leaves from the
mountains that evening, and so perfectly balanced that it had not
keeled at all, and no water had run in at the tap which had been
taken out to hasten its cooling.
As we sat on the bank eating our supper, the clear light of the
western sky fell on the eastern trees, and was reflected in the
water, and we enjoyed so serene an evening as left nothing to
describe. For the most part we think that there are few degrees
of sublimity, and that the highest is but little higher than that
which we now behold; but we are always deceived. Sublimer
visions appear, and the former pale and fade away. We are
grateful when we are reminded by interior evidence of the
permanence of universal laws; for our faith is but faintly
remembered, indeed, is not a remembered assurance, but a use and
enjoyment of knowledge. It is when we do not have to believe,
but come into actual contact with Truth, and are related to her
in the most direct and intimate way. Waves of serener life pass
over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the
fields in cloudy weather. In some happier moment, when more sap
flows in the withered stalk of our life, Syria and India stretch
away from our present as they do in history. All the events
which make the annals of the nations are but the shadows of our
private experiences. Suddenly and silently the eras which we
call history awake and glimmer in us, and _there_ is room for
Alexander and Hannibal to march and conquer. In short, the
history which we read is only a fainter memory of events which
have happened in our own experience. Tradition is a more
interrupted and feebler memory.
This world is but canvas to our imaginations. I see men with
infinite pains endeavoring to realize to their bodies, what I,
with at least equal pains, would realize to my imagination, - its
capacities; for certainly there is a life of the mind above the
wants of the body, and independent of it. Often the body is
warmed, but the imagination is torpid; the body is fat, but the
imagination is lean and shrunk. But what avails all other wealth
if this is wanting? "Imagination is the air of mind," in which
it lives and breathes. All things are as I am. Where is the
House of Change? The past is only so heroic as we see it.
It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted, and
so, in one sense, the dim prospectus of our future field. Our
circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our
natures. I have noticed that if a man thinks that he needs a
thousand dollars, and cannot be convinced that he does not, he
will commonly be found to have them; if he lives and thinks a
thousand dollars will be forthcoming, though it be to buy
shoe-strings with. A thousand mills will be just as slow to
come to one who finds it equally hard to convince himself that
he needs _them_.
Men are by birth equal in this, that given Themselves and
their condition, they are even.
I am astonished at the singular pertinacity and endurance of our
lives. The miracle is, that what is _is_, when it is so
difficult, if not impossible, for anything else to be; that we
walk on in our particular paths so far, before we fall on death
and fate, merely because we must walk in some path; that every
man can get a living, and so few can do anything more. So much
only can I accomplish ere health and strength are gone, and yet
this suffices. The bird now sits just out of gunshot. I am
never rich in money, and I am never meanly poor. If debts are
incurred, why, debts are in the course of events cancelled, as it
were by the same law by which they were incurred. I heard that
an engagement was entered into between a certain youth and a
maiden, and then I heard that it was broken off, but I did not
know the reason in either case. We are hedged about, we think,
by accident and circumstance, now we creep as in a dream, and now
again we run, as if there were a fate in it, and all things
thwarted or assisted. I cannot change my clothes but when I do,
and yet I do change them, and soil the new ones. It is wonderful
that this gets done, when some admirable deeds which I could
mention do not get done.
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