FROM A NEW ENGLAND I. I HAVE not spent October in the country for nearly forty years: As one who long in populous city pent, Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, I roam among these hills and look out over the valleys with quite indescribable emotions. Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair How fortunate it is that some have been gifted with the power of expression, “that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed." My friend objects to Sir John Lubbock's "Pleasures of Life" for the same reason, though not from the same cause, that the old lady objected to Shakespeare - that it is made up of quotations. Now I wholly disagree with him. This is a work-a-day world, and blessed be the man with the time and happy taste to gather and put before us the choice bits which reveal us to ourselves. The late rains of summer after a long drought made the fields and woods so green that the autumn glory has been long in coming, but is now spreading abroad so rapidly that one can scarcely keep pace with it. The fields are still full of flowers. On Sunday afternoon I noticed the following in one old pasture: Golden-rods and asters of various species, blind gentian, grass of Parnassus, thistles, spearmint, a lobelia, yarrow, wild carrot, brunella, fragrant ladies'-tresses (which White of Selborne calls ladies'-traces), life everlasting, purple polygala, thoroughwort, turtle-head, two kinds of knot-weed, wild strawberry, and a yellow flower which I ought to know but do not. On my way over that morning, I found a spot glorious with the fringed gentians, and during to-day's stroll I found them by the hundreds - yes, I think, thousands. I will not tell you where, for I want to keep that spot to myself. I have also found the yellow oxalis, butter-and-eggs, dandelions, oxeyed daisies, cardinal flowers, water-cresses, looking for all the world like sweet alyssum, evening primroses, and others, and yesterday I was surprised to find the witch hazel in full bloom, the yellow leaves still mostly clinging to the stems, and last year's seed-vessels only turning brown. This is one of our most plentiful shrubs, and I am fond of its quaint irregularity. The hop hornbeam is another of our favourites among the shrubs or small trees, and these are found in company. A less satisfactory neighbour is the venomous swamp sumach, lovely but treacherous. Like the fringed gentians, and fishing, - it is not to be found just here, but is all around us, and those who, like myself, are susceptible to its malignant power, must exercise caution in their interviews with it. The golden-rods are past their prime, but this cannot be said of the asters, unless their mellow autumn is richer than their summer. The roadsides in some places are purple and in others white with them. The chicken grapes hanging upon hedges recall the spring fragrance of the blossoming vines, which vie with the ground-nut (Apios) of later summer in making scented aisles of our pathways. The berries of the bitter-sweet hang in golden clusters, but have not yet opened their hearts to the breeze, and the red hips of the wild roses promise to be with us all winter. Under the trees the berries of the mitchella are scattered thickly on the carpet formed by the round green leaves on the vines. Our sounds are the sounds of the late harvest, and this is nearly over. The ripe corn is stacked in the fields, revealing golden pumpkins galore, with certainty of unending pies, while here and there a blossom shows that the vigour has not yet all gone out of the vines. The birds are mostly quiet, a catbird, with its noisy note, doing most to attract my attention during my morning walk. We shall see and hear more of the birds, but the cheery songs will only come to us again with the opening spring. From my window I can hear the katydid's iteration all day long, - that terrible insistence, with the counter denial, which make you feel so sure that, whatever it was that was done or was not done in the long, long past, we never shall know the truth of the story while the world endures. The morning was bright and sunny, and the hills and fields were all aglow. The humming wires along my way sent my memory back over more than forty years to the time when the telegraph, then a comparatively new contrivance, was built along the high road through my father's little farm in Pennsylvania. We youngsters listened to the messages going through, as we thought, and wondered that the birds could rest upon the wires with impunity. Perhaps this morning the wires were bringing to this peaceful spot some message of the desolation which has just been wrought in the distant South. But it is not always so peaceful even here. A month ago a great gale passed through and shattered some of our noble trees, and to-day the barometer has been falling, the afternoon has been overcast, and we expect to take our share in the common lot. |