Complete Prose Works Part 13

No one ever gets tired of the moon. G.o.ddess that she is by dower of her eternal beauty, she is a true woman by her tact--knows the charm of being seldom seen, of coming by surprise and staying but a little while; never wears the same dress two nights running, nor all night the same way; commends herself to the matter-of-fact people by her usefulness, and makes her uselessness adored by poets, artists, and all lovers in all lands; lends herself to every symbolism and to every emblem; is Diana's bow and Venus's mirror and Mary's throne; is a sickle, a scarf, an eyebrow, his face or her face, and look'd at by her or by him; is the madman's h.e.l.l, the poet's heaven, the baby's toy, the philosopher's study; and while her admirers follow her footsteps, and hang on her lovely looks, she knows how to keep her woman's secret--her other side--unguess'd and unguessable.

_Furthermore. February 19, 1880_.--Just before 10 P.M. cold and entirely clear again, the show overhead, bearing southwest, of wonderful and crowded magnificence. The moon in her third quarter--the cl.u.s.ters of the Hyades and Pleiades, with the planet Mars between--in full crossing sprawl in the sky the great Egyptian X, (Sirius, Procyon, and the main stars in the constellations of the Ship, the Dove, and of Orion;) just north of east Bootes, and in his knee Arcturus, an hour high, mounting the heaven, ambitiously large and sparkling, as if he meant to challenge with Sirius the stellar supremacy.

With the sentiment of the stars and moon such nights I get all the free margins and indefiniteness of music or poetry, fused in geometry's utmost exactness.

STRAW-COLOR'D AND OTHER PSYCHES

_Aug. 4_.--A pretty sight! Where I sit in the shade--a warm day, the sun shining from cloudless skies, the forenoon well advanc'd--I look over a ten-acre field of luxuriant clover-hay, (the second crop)--the livid-ripe red blossoms and dabs of August brown thickly spotting the prevailing dark-green. Over all flutter myriads of light-yellow b.u.t.terflies, mostly skimming along the surface, dipping and oscillating, giving a curious animation to the scene. The beautiful, spiritual insects! straw-color'd Psyches! Occasionally one of them leaves his mates, and mounts, perhaps spirally, perhaps in a straight line in the air, fluttering up, up, till literally out of sight. In the lane as I came along just now I noticed one spot, ten feet square or so, where more than a hundred had collected, holding a revel, a gyration-dance, or b.u.t.terfly good-time, winding and circling, down and across, but always keeping within the limits. The little creatures have come out all of a sudden the last few days, and are now very plentiful. As I sit outdoors, or walk, I hardly look around without somewhere seeing two (always two) fluttering through the air in amorous dalliance. Then their inimitable color, their fragility, peculiar motion--and that strange, frequent way of one leaving the crowd and mounting up, up in the free ether, and apparently never returning. As I look over the field, these yellow-wings everywhere mildly sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the wild carrot gracefully bending on their tall and taper stems--while for sounds, the distant guttural screech of a flock of guinea-hens comes shrilly yet somehow musically to my ears. And now a faint growl of heat-thunder in the north--and ever the low rising and falling wind-purr from the tops of the maples and willows.

_Aug. 20_.--b.u.t.terflies and b.u.t.terflies, (taking the place of the b.u.mble-bees of three months since, who have quite disappear'd,) continue to flit to and fro, all sorts, white, yellow, brown, purple--now and then some gorgeous fellow flashing lazily by on wings like artists'

palettes dabb'd with every color. Over the breast of the pond I notice many white ones, crossing, pursuing their idle capricious flight. Near where I sit grows a tall-stemm'd weed topt with a profusion of rich scarlet blossoms, on which the snowy insects alight and dally, sometimes four or five of them at a time. By-and-by a humming-bird visits the same, and I watch him coming and going, daintily balancing and shimmering about. These white b.u.t.terflies give new beautiful contrasts to the pure greens of the August foliage, (we have had some copious rains lately,) and over the glistening bronze of the pond-surface. You can tame even such insects; I have one big and handsome moth down here, knows and comes to me, likes me to hold him up on my extended hand.

_Another Day, later_.--A grand twelve-acre field of ripe cabbages with their prevailing hue of malachite green, and floating-flying over and among them in all directions myriads of these same white b.u.t.terflies. As I came up the lane to-day I saw a living globe of the same, two or three feet in diameter, many scores cl.u.s.ter'd together and rolling along in the air, adhering to their ball-shape, six or eight feet above the ground.

A NIGHT REMEMBRANCE

_Aug. 23, 9-10 A.M._--I sit by the pond, everything quiet, the broad polish'd surface spread before me--the blue of the heavens and the white clouds reflected from it--and flitting across, now and then, the reflection of some flying bird. Last night I was down here with a friend till after midnight; everything a miracle of splendor--the glory of the stars, and the completely rounded moon--the pa.s.sing clouds, silver and luminous-tawny--now and then ma.s.ses of vapory illuminated scud--and silently by my side my dear friend. The shades of the trees, and patches of moonlight on the gra.s.s--the softly blowing breeze, and just-palpable odor of the neighboring ripening corn--the indolent and spiritual night, inexpressibly rich, tender, suggestive--something altogether to filter through one's soul, and nourish and feed and soothe the memory long afterwards.

WILD FLOWERS

This has been and is yet a great season for wild flowers; oceans of them line the roads through the woods, border the edges of the water-runlets, grow all along the old fences, and are scatter'd in profusion over the fields. An eight-petal'd blossom of gold-yellow, clear and bright, with a brown tuft in the middle, nearly as large as a silver half-dollar, is very common; yesterday on a long drive I noticed it thickly lining the borders of the brooks everywhere. Then there is a beautiful weed cover'd with blue flowers, (the blue of the old Chinese teacups treasur'd by our grand-aunts,) I am continually stopping to admire--a little larger than a dime, and very plentiful. White, however, is the prevailing color. The wild carrot I have spoken of; also the fragrant life-everlasting. But there are all hues and beauties, especially on the frequent tracts of half-opened scrub-oak and dwarf cedar hereabout--wild asters of all colors. Notwithstanding the frost-touch the hardy little chaps maintain themselves in all their bloom. The tree-leaves, too, some of them are beginning to turn yellow or drab or dull green. The deep wine-color of the sumachs and gum-treesis already visible, and the straw-color of the dog-wood and beech. Let me give the names of some of these perennial blossoms and friendly weeds I have made acquaintance with hereabout one season or another in my walks:

Wild azalea, dandelions wild honeysuckle, yarrow, wild roses, coreopsis, golden rod, wild pea, larkspur, woodbine, early crocus, elderberry, sweet flag, (great patches of it,) poke-weed, creeper, trumpet-flower, sun-flower, scented marjoram, chamomile, snakeroot, violets, Solomon's seal, clematis, sweet balm, bloodroot mint, (great plenty,) swamp magnolia, wild geranium, milk-weed, wild heliotrope, wild daisy, (plenty,) burdock, wild chrysanthemum.

A CIVILITY TOO LONG NEGLECTED

The foregoing reminds me of something.

As the individualities I would mainly portray have certainly been slighted by folks who make pictures, volumes, poems, out of them--as a faint testimonial of my own grat.i.tude for many hours of peace and comfort in half-sickness, (and not by any means sure but they will somehow get wind of the compliment,) I hereby dedicate the last half of these Specimen Days to the

bees, glow-worms, (swarming millions black-birds, of them indescribably dragon-flies, strange and beautiful at night pond-turtles, over the pond and creek,) mulleins, tansy, peppermint, water-snakes, moths, (great and little, some crows, splendid fellows,) millers, mosquitoes, cedars, b.u.t.terflies, tulip-trees, (and all other trees,) wasps and hornets, and to the spots and memories cat-birds, (and all other birds,) of those days, and the creek.

DELAWARE RIVER--DAYS AND NIGHTS

_April 5, 1879_.-With the return of spring to the skies, airs, waters of the Delaware, return the sea-gulls. I never tire of watching their broad and easy flight, in spirals, or as they oscillate with slow unflapping wings, or look down with curved beak, or dipping to the water after food. The crows, plenty enough all through the winter, have vanish'd with the ice. Not one of them now to be seen. The steamboats have again come forth--bustling up, handsome, freshly painted, for summer work--the Columbia, the Edwin Forrest, (the Republic not yet out,) the Reybold, Nelly White, the Twilight, the Ariel, the Warner, the Perry, the Taggart, the Jersey Blue--even the hulky old Trenton--not forgetting those saucy little bull-pups of the current, the steamtugs.

But let me bunch and catalogue the affair--the river itself, all the way from the sea--Cape island on one side and Henlopen light on the other--up the broad bay north, and so to Philadelphia, and on further to Trenton;--the sights I am most familiar with, (as I live a good part of the time in Camden, I view matters from that outlook)--the great arrogant, black, full-freighted ocean steamers, inward or outward bound--the ample width here between the two cities, intersected by Windmill island--an occasional man-of-war, sometimes a foreigner, at anchor, with her guns and port-holes, and the boats, and the brown-faced sailors, and the regular oar-strokes, and the gay crowds of "visiting day"--the frequent large and handsome three-masted schooners, (a favorite style of marine build, hereabout of late years,) some of them new and very jaunty, with their white-gray sails and yellow pine spars--the sloops dashing along in a fair wind--(I see one now, coming up, under broad canvas, her gaff-topsail shining in the sun, high and picturesque--what a thing of beauty amid the sky and waters!)--the crowded wharf-slips along the city--the flags of different nationalities, the st.u.r.dy English cross on its ground of blood, the French tricolor, the banner of the great North German empire, and the Italian and the Spanish colors--sometimes, of an afternoon, the whole scene enliven'd by a fleet of yachts, in a half calm, lazily returning from a race down at Gloucester;--the neat, rakish, revenue steamer "Hamilton" in mid-stream, with her perpendicular stripes flaunting aft--and, turning the eyes north, the long ribands of fleecy-white steam, or dingy-black smoke, stretching far, fan-shaped, slanting diagonally across from the Kensington or Richmond sh.o.r.es, in the west-by-south-west wind.

SCENES ON FERRY AND RIVER--LAST WINTER'S NIGHTS

Then the Camden ferry. What exhilaration, change, people, business, by day. What soothing, silent, wondrous hours, at night, crossing on the boat, most all to myself--pacing the deck, alone, forward or aft. What communion with the waters, the air, the exquisite _chiaroscuro_--the sky and stars, that speak no word, nothing to the intellect, yet so eloquent, so communicative to the soul. And the ferry men--little they know how much they have been to me, day and night--how many spells of listlessness, ennui, debility, they and their hardy ways have dispell'd.

And the pilots--captains Hand, Walton, and Giberson by day, and captain Olive at night; Eugene Crosby, with his strong young arm so often supporting, circling, convoying me over the gaps of the bridge, through impediments, safely aboard. Indeed all my ferry friends--captain Frazee the superintendent, Lindell, Hiskey, Fred Rauch, Price, Watson, and a dozen more. And the ferry itself, with its queer scenes--sometimes children suddenly born in the waiting-houses (an actual fact--and more than once)--sometimes a masquerade party, going over at night, with a band of music, dancing and whirling like mad on the broad deck, in their fantastic dresses; sometimes the astronomer, Mr. Whitall, (who posts me up in points about the stars by a living lesson there and then, and answering every question)--sometimes a prolific family group, eight, nine, ten, even twelve! (Yesterday, as I cross'd, a mother, father, and eight children, waiting in the ferry-house, bound westward somewhere.)

I have mention'd the crows. I always watch them from the boats. They play quite a part in the winter scenes on the river, by day. Their black splatches are seen in relief against the snow and ice everywhere at that season--sometimes flying and flapping--sometimes on little or larger cakes, sailing up or down the stream. One day the river was mostly clear--only a single long ridge of broken ice making a narrow stripe by itself, running along down the current for over a mile, quite rapidly.

On this white stripe the crows were congregated, hundreds of them--a funny procession--("half mourning" was the comment of some one.)

Then the reception room, for pa.s.sengers waiting--life ill.u.s.trated thoroughly. Take a March picture I jotted there two or three weeks since. Afternoon, about 3-1/2 o'clock, it begins to snow. There has been a matinee performance at the theater--from 4-1/2 to 5 comes a stream of homeward bound ladies. I never knew the s.p.a.cious room to present a gayer, more lively scene--handsome, well-drest Jersey women and girls, scores of them, streaming in for nearly an hour--the bright eyes and glowing faces, coming in from the air--a sprinkling of snow on bonnets or dresses as they enter--the five or ten minutes' waiting--the chatting and laughing--(women can have capital times among themselves, with plenty of wit, lunches, jovial abandon)--Lizzie, the pleasant-manner'd waiting-room woman--for sound, the bell-taps and steam-signals of the departing boats with their rhythmic break and undertone--the domestic pictures, mothers with bevies of daughters, (a charming sight)--children, countrymen--the railroad men in their blue clothes and caps--all the various characters of city and country represented or suggested. Then outside some belated pa.s.senger frantically running, jumping after the boat. Towards six o' clock the human stream gradually thickening--now a pressure of vehicles, drays, piled railroad crates--now a drove of cattle, making quite an excitement, the drovers with heavy sticks, belaboring the steaming sides of the frighten'd brutes. Inside the reception room, business bargains, flirting, love-making, _eclairciss.e.m.e.nts_, proposals--pleasant, sober-faced Phil coming in with his burden of afternoon papers--or Jo, or Charley (who jump'd in the dock last week, and saved a stout lady from drowning,) to replenish the stove, and clearing it with long crow-bar poker.

Besides all this "comedy human," the river affords nutriment of a higher order. Here are some of my memoranda of the past winter, just as pencill'd down on the spot.

_A January Night_.--Fine trips across the wide Delaware to-night. Tide pretty high, and a strong ebb. River, a little after 8, full of ice, mostly broken, but some large cakes making our strong-timber'd steamboat hum and quiver as she strikes them. In the clear moonlight they spread, strange, unearthly, silvery, faintly glistening, as far as I can see.

b.u.mping, trembling, sometimes hissing like a thousand snakes, the tide-procession, as we wend with or through it, affording a grand undertone, in keeping with the scene. Overhead, the splendor indescribable; yet something haughty, almost supercilious, in the night.

Never did I realize more latent sentiment, almost _pa.s.sion_, in those silent interminable stars up there. One can understand, such a night, why, from the days of the Pharaohs or Job, the dome of heaven, sprinkled with planets, has supplied the subtlest, deepest criticism on human pride, glory, ambition.

_Another Winter Night_.--I don't know anything more _filling_ than to be on the wide firm deck of a powerful boat, a clear, cool, extra-moonlight night, crushing proudly and resistlessly through this thick, marbly, glistening ice. The whole river is now spread with it--some immense cakes. There is such weirdness about the scene--partly the quality of the light, with its tinge of blue, the lunar twilight--only the large stars holding their own in the radiance of the moon. Temperature sharp, comfortable for motion, dry, full of oxygen. But the sense of power--the steady, scornful, imperious urge of our strong new engine, as she ploughs her way through the big and little cakes.

_Another_.--For two hours I cross'd and recross'd, merely for pleasure--for a still excitement. Both sky and river went through several changes. The first for awhile held two vast fan-shaped echelons of light clouds, through which the moon waded, now radiating, carrying with her an aureole of tawny transparent brown, and now flooding the whole vast with clear vapory light-green, through which, as through an illuminated veil, she moved with measur'd womanly motion. Then, another trip, the heavens would be absolutely clear, and Luna in all her effulgence. The big Dipper in the north, with the double star in the handle much plainer than common. Then the sheeny track of light in the water, dancing and rippling. Such transformations; such pictures and poems, inimitable.

_Another_.--I am studying the stars, under advantages, as I cross tonight. (It is late in February, and again extra clear.) High toward the west, the Pleiades, tremulous with delicate sparkle, in the soft heavens,--Aldebaran, leading the V-shaped Hyades--and overhead Capella and her kids. Most majestic of all, in full display in the high south, Orion, vast-spread, roomy, chief historian of the stage, with his shiny yellow rosette on his shoulder, and his three kings--and a little to the east, Sirius, calmly arrogant, most wondrous single star. Going late ash.o.r.e, (I couldn't give up the beauty, and soothingness of the night,) as I staid around, or slowly wander'd I heard the echoing calls of the railroad men in the West Jersey depot yard, shifting and switching trains, engines, etc.; amid the general silence otherways, and something in the acoustic quality of the air, musical, emotional effects, never thought of before. I linger'd long and long, listening to them.

_Night of March 18, '79_.--One of the calm, pleasantly cool, exquisitely clear and cloudless, early spring nights--the atmosphere again that rare vitreous blue-black, welcom'd by astronomers. Just at 8, evening, the scene overhead of certainly solemnest beauty, never surpa.s.s'd. Venus nearly down in the west, of a size and l.u.s.tre as if trying to outshow herself, before departing. Teeming, maternal orb--I take you again to myself. I am reminded of that spring preceding Abraham Lincoln's murder, when I, restlessly haunting the Potomac banks, around Washington city, watch'd you, off there, aloof, moody as myself:

As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so mystic, As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night, As you droop from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the other stars all look'd on,) As we wander'd together the solemn night.

With departing Venus, large to the last, and shining even to the edge of the horizon, the vast dome presents at this moment, such a spectacle!

Mercury was visible just after sunset--a rare sight. Arcturus is now risen, just north of east. In calm glory all the stars of Orion hold the place of honor, in meridian, to the south,--with the Dog-star a little to the left. And now, just rising, Spica, late, low, and slightly veil'd. Castor, Regulus and the rest, all shining unusually clear, (no Mars or Jupiter or moon till morning.) On the edge of the river, many lamps twinkling--with two or three huge chimneys, a couple of miles up, belching forth molten, steady flames, volcano-like, illuminating all around--and sometimes an electric or calcium, its Dante-Inferno gleams, in far shafts, terrible, ghastly-powerful. Of later May nights, crossing, I like to watch the fishermen's little buoy-lights--so pretty, so dreamy--like corpse candles--undulating delicate and lonesome on the surface of the shadowy waters, floating with the current.

THE FIRST SPRING DAY ON CHESTNUT STREET

Winter relaxing its hold, has already allow'd us a foretaste of spring.

As I write, yesterday afternoon's softness and brightness, (after the morning fog, which gave it a better setting, by contrast,) show'd Chestnut street--say between Broad and Fourth--to more advantage in its various asides, and all its stores, and gay-dress'd crowds generally, than for three months past. I took a walk there between one and two.

Doubtless, there were plenty of hard-up folks along the pavements, but nine-tenths of the myriad-moving human panorama to all appearance seem'd flush, well-fed, and fully-provided. At all events it was good to be on Chestnut street yesterday. The peddlers on the sidewalk--("sleeve-b.u.t.tons, three for five cents")--the handsome little fellow with canary-bird whistles--the cane men, toy men, toothpick men--the old woman squatted in a heap on the cold stone flags, with her basket of matches, pins and tape--the young negro mother, sitting, begging, with her two little coffee-color'd twins on her lap--the beauty of the cramm'd conservatory of rare flowers, flaunting reds, yellows, snowy lilies, incredible orchids, at the Baldwin mansion near Twelfth street--the show of fine poultry, beef, fish, at the restaurants--the china stores, with gla.s.s and statuettes--the luscious tropical fruits--the street cars plodding along, with their tintinnabulating bells--the fat, cab-looking, rapidly driven one-horse vehicles of the post-office, squeez'd full of coming or going letter-carriers, so healthy and handsome and manly-looking, in their gray uniforms--the costly books, pictures, curiosities, in the windows--the gigantic policemen at most of the corners will all be readily remember'd and recognized as features of this princ.i.p.al avenue of Philadelphia.

Chestnut street, I have discover'd, is not without individuality, and its own points, even when compared with the great promenade-streets of other cities. I have never been in Europe, but acquired years' familiar experience with New York's, (perhaps the world's) great thoroughfare, Broadway, and possess to some extent a personal and saunterer's knowledge of St. Charles street in New Orleans, Tremont street in Boston, and the broad trottoirs of Pennsylvania avenue in Washington. Of course it is a pity that Chestnut were not two or three times wider; but the street, any fine day, shows vividness, motion, variety, not easily to be surpa.s.s'd. (Sparkling eyes, human faces, magnetism, well-dress'd women, ambulating to and fro--with lots o fine things in the windows--are they not about the same, the civilized world over?)

How fast the flitting figures come!

The mild, the fierce, the stony face; Some bright with thoughtless smiles--and some Where secret tears have left their trace.

A few days ago one of the six-story clothing stores along here had the s.p.a.ce inside its plate-gla.s.s show-window part.i.tion'd into a little corral, and litter'd deeply with rich clover and hay, (I could smell the odor outside,) on which reposed two magnificent fat sheep, full-sized but young--the handsomest creatures of the kind I ever saw. I stop's long and long, with the crowd, to view them--one lying down chewing the cud, and one standing up, looking out, with dense-fringed patient eyes. Their wool, of a clear tawny color, with streaks of glistening black--altogether a queer sight amidst that crowded promenade of dandies, dollars and dry-goods.

UP THE HUDSON TO ULSTER COUNTY

_April 23._--Off to New York on a little tour and visit. Leaving the hospitable, home-like quarters of my valued friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. H.

Johnston--took the 4 P. M. boat, bound up the Hudson, 100 miles or so.

Sunset and evening fine. Especially enjoy'd the hour after we pa.s.sed Cozzens's landing--the night lit by the crescent moon and Venus, now swimming in tender glory, and now hid by the high rocks and hills of the western sh.o.r.e, which we hugg'd close. (Where I spend the next ten days is in Ulster county and its neighborhood, with frequent morning and evening drives, observations of the river, and short rambles.)

_April 24--Noon._--A little more and the sun would be oppressive. The bees are out gathering their bread from willows and other trees. I watch them returning, darting through the air or lighting on the hives, their thighs covered with the yellow forage. A solitary robin sings near. I sit in my shirt sleeves and gaze from an open bay-window on the indolent scene--the thin haze, the Fishkill hills in the distance--off on the river, a sloop with slanting mainsail, and two or three little shad-boats. Over on the railroad opposite, long freight trains, sometimes weighted by cylinder-tanks of petroleum, thirty, forty, fifty cars in a string, panting and rumbling along in full view, but the sound soften'd by distance.

DAYS AT J. B.'S TURF-FIRES--SPRING SONGS

_April 26_.--At sunrise, the pure clear sound of the meadow lark. An hour later, some notes, few and simple, yet delicious and perfect, from the bush-sparrow-towards noon the reedy trill of the robin. To-day is the fairest, sweetest yet--penetrating warmth--a lovely veil in the air, partly heat-vapor and partly from the turf-fires everywhere in patches on the farms. A group of soft maples near by silently bursts out in crimson tips, buzzing all day with busy bees. The white sails of sloops and schooners glide up and down the river; and long trains of cars, with ponderous roll, or faint bell notes, almost constantly on the opposite sh.o.r.e. The earliest wild flowers in the woods and fields, spicy arbutus, blue liverwort, frail anemone, and the pretty white blossoms of the bloodroot. I launch out in slow rambles, discovering them. As I go along the roads I like to see the farmers' fires in patches, burning the dry brush, turf, debris. How the smoke crawls along, flat to the ground, slanting, slowly rising, reaching away, and at last dissipating. I like its acrid smell--whiffs just reaching me--welcomer than French perfume.