Vanishing Roads and Other Essays | Page 5

not all religions but the theological symbolization of
natural phenomena; and the sacraments, the festivals, and fasts of all
the churches have their counterparts in the mysterious processes and
manifestations of Nature? and is the contemplation of the resurrection
of Adonis or Thammuz more edifying to the soul than to meditate the
strange return of the spring which their legends but ecclesiastically
celebrate? He who has watched and waited at the white grave of winter,
and hears at last the first faint singing among the boughs, or the first
strange "peeping" of frogs in the marshes; or watches the ghost-like
return of insects, stealing, still half asleep, from one knows not
where--the first butterfly suddenly fluttering helplessly on the
window-pane, or the first mud-wasp crawling out into the sun in a
dazed, bewildered way; or comes upon the violet in the woods, shining
at the door of its wintry sepulchre: he who meditates these marvels, and
all the magic processional of the months, as they march with pomp and
pathos along their vanishing roads, will come to the end of the year
with a lofty, illuminated sense of having assisted at a solemn religious
service, and a realization that, in no mere fancy of the poets, but in very
deed, "day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth
knowledge."
Apart from this generally religious influence of Nature, she seems at
times in certain of her aspects and moods specifically to illustrate or

externalize states of the human soul. Sometimes in still, moonlit nights,
standing, as it were, on the brink of the universe, we seem to be like
one standing on the edge of a pool, who, gazing in, sees his own soul
gazing back at him. Tiny creatures though we be, the whole solemn and
majestic spectacle seems to be an extension of our own reverie, and we
to enfold it all in some strange way within our own infinitesimal
consciousness. So a self-conscious dewdrop might feel that it enfolded
the morning sky, and such probably is the meaning of the Buddhist seer
when he declares that "the universe grows I."
Such are some of the more august impressions made upon us by the
pictures in the cosmic picture-book; but there are also times and places
when Nature seems to wear a look less mystic than dramatic in its
suggestiveness, as though she were a stage-setting for some portentous
human happening past or to come--the fall of kings or the tragic clash
of empires. As Whitman says, "Here a great personal deed has room."
Some landscapes seem to prophesy, some to commemorate. In some
places not marked by monuments, or otherwise definitely connected
with history, we have a curious haunted sense of prodigious far-off
events once enacted in this quiet grassy solitude--prehistoric battles or
terrible sacrifices. About others hangs a fateful atmosphere of
impending disaster, as though weighted with a gathering doom.
Sometimes we seem conscious of sinister presences, as though
veritably in the abode of evil spirits. The place seems somehow not
quite friendly to humanity, not quite good to linger in, lest its genius
should cast its perilous shadow over the heart. On the other hand, some
places breathe an ineffable sense of blessedness, of unearthly promise.
We feel as though some hushed and happy secret were about to be
whispered to us out of the air, some wonderful piece of good fortune on
the edge of happening. Some hand seems to beckon us, some voice to
call, to mysterious paradises of inconceivable green freshness and
supernaturally beautiful flowers, fairy fastnesses of fragrance and
hidden castles of the dew. In such hours the Well at the World's End
seems no mere poet's dream. It awaits us yonder in the forest glade,
amid the brooding solitudes of silent fern, and the gate of the Earthly
Paradise is surely there in yonder vale hidden among the violet hills.

Various as are these impressions, it is strange and worth thinking on
that the dominant suggestion of Nature through all her changes,
whether her mood be stormy or sunny, melancholy or jubilant, is one of
presage and promise. She seems to be ever holding out to us an
immortal invitation to follow and endure, to endure and to enjoy. She
seems to say that what she brings us is but an earnest of what she holds
for us out there along the vanishing road. There is nothing, indeed, she
will not promise us, and no promise, we feel, she cannot keep. Even in
her tragic and bodeful seasons, in her elegiac autumns and stern winters,
there is an energy of sorrow and sacrifice that elevates and inspires, and
in the darkest hours hints at immortal mornings. She may terrify, but
she never deadens, the soul. In earthquake and eclipse she seems