Under the Trees and Elsewhere | Page 5

long
past which unites him with the earliest generations and the most remote
ages.
Passing out from this brief worship under the arches of the most
venerable roof in Christendom, the road takes on a frolic mood and
courts the open meadows and the flooding sunshine; green, sweet, and
strewn with wild flowers, the open fields call one from either side, and
arrest one's feet at every turn with solicitations to freedom and
joyousness. The white clouds in the blue sky and the long sweep of
these radiant meadows conspire together to persuade one that time has
strayed back to its happy childhood again, and that nothing remains of
the old activities but play in these immortal fields. Here the carpet is
spread over which one runs with childish heedlessness, courting the
disaster which brings him back to the breast of the old mother, and
makes him feel once more the warmth and sweetness out of which all
strength and beauty spring. A little brook crosses the road under a
rattling bridge, and wanders on across the fields, limpid and rippling,
running its little strain of music through the silence of the meadows. Its

voice is the only sound which breaks the stillness, and that itself seems
part of the solitude. By day the clouds marshal their shadows on it, and
when night comes the heavens sow it with stars, until it flows like a
dissolving belt of sky through the fragrant darkness. Sometimes, as I
have come this way after nightfall, I have heard its call across the
invisible fields, and in the sound I have heard I know not what of deep
and joyous mystery; the long-past and the far-off future whispering
together, under cover of the night, of those things which the stars
remember from their youth, and to which they look forward in some
remote cycle of their Shining.
Past old and well-worked farms, into which the toil and thrift of
generations have gone, the old road leads me, and brings my thoughts
back from elemental forces and primeval ages to these later centuries in
which human life has overlaid these hills and vales with rich memories.
Wherever man goes Nature makes room for him, as if prepared for his
coming, and ready to put her mighty shoulder to the wheel of his
prosperity. The old fences, often decayed and fallen, are not spurned;
the movement of universal life does not flow past them and leave them
to rot in their ugliness; year by year time stains them into harmony with
the rocks, and every summer a wave out of the great sea of life flings
itself over them, and leaves behind some slight and seemly garniture of
moss and vine. The old farm-houses have grown into the landscape,
and the hurrying road widens its course, and sometimes makes a long
detour, that it may unite these outlying folk with the great world. There
stands the old school-house, sacred to every traveller who has learned
that childhood is both a memory and a prophecy of heaven. One pauses
here, and hears, in the unbroken stillness, the rush of feet that have
never grown weary with travel, and the clamour of voices through
which immortal youth still shouts to the kindred hills and skies. Into
those windows Nature throws all manner of invitations, and through
them she gets only glances of recognition and longing. There are the
fields, the woods, and the hills in one perpetual rivalry of charm; the
bird sings in the bough over the window, and on still afternoons the
brook calls and calls again. Here one feels anew the eternal friendship
between childhood and Nature, and remembers that they only can abide
in that fellowship who carry into riper years the self-forgetfulness, the

sweet unconsciousness, the open mind and heart of a child.
Chapter IV
Along the Road
II
I have found that walking stimulates observation and opens one's eyes
to movements and appearances in earth and sky, which ordinarily
escape attention. The constant change of landscape which attends even
the slow progress of a loitering gait puts one on the alert for discoveries
of all kinds, and prompts one to suspect every leafy covert and to peer
into every wooded recess with the expectation of surprising Nature as
Actaeon surprised Diana--in the moment of uncovered loveliness. On
the other hand, when one lounges by the hour in the depths of the forest,
or sits, book in hand, under the knotted and familiar apple tree, on a
summer afternoon, the faculty of observation is lulled into a dreamless
sleep; one ceases to be far enough away from Nature to observe her;
one becomes part of the great, silent movements in the midst of which
he sits, mute and motionless, while the hours slip by with