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430 or, if you will, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of Dante, of Shakspere, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought. Still more striking is the expression 435 of this fact in the proverbs of all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like the sacred books of 440 each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say 445 in proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws, which the pulpit, the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets and workshops by flights of proverbs, 450 whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of birds and flies.

All things are double, one against another. Tit for tat; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood

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for blood; measure for measure; love 455
for love. Give, and it shall be
given you.
He that watereth shall
be watered himself. What will
you have? quoth God; pay for it
and take it. Nothing venture, 460
nothing have. — Thou shalt be paid
exactly for what thou hast done, no
more, no less.
Who doth not
work shall not eat. Harm watch,
harm catch. Curses always recoil 485
on the head of him who imprecates
them. If
you put a chain around
the neck of a slave, the other end
fastens itself around your own.
Bad counsel confounds the adviser. 470
The Devil is an ass.

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It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is overmastered and characterised above our will by the law of nature. We aim 475 at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of the world.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817

1862) was the son of a pencil-maker of French extraction, and was born at the village of Concord, near Boston, Mass. The great passion of his life being communication with Nature, he could not settle down to any regular profession for a long time, but earned the means for his few and simple wants by alternately teaching school, assisting in his father's business, acting as a land surveyor, or by giving an occasional lecture and writing for the magazines. He early formed an intimate friendship with Emerson, in whose household he lived for several years (1841-43 and 1847-49), and consequently became deeply influenced by the Transcendental Movement of New England. In order to be in close contact with nature and as an experiment in plain living, he retired for over two years (1845-47) to a solitary hut on the woodland banks of Walden Pond, near Concord. He died, of consumption, at Concord, where, except for his college years at Harvard and excursions to Cape

Cod (1849), the Maine Woods (1846, 1853, & 1857), and Canada (1850), he had spent almost the whole of his life.

From his twentieth year Thoreau had kept a diary, in which he regularly noted down his impressions and meditations during his daily walks and excursions. These notes formed the basis for his two volumes of essays, which he published under the titles of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854). Eight more volumes of extracts from his diaries or of essays collected from the magazines appeared after his death, such as Excursions (1863), The Maine Woods (1864), Cape Cod (1865), A Yankee in Canada (1866), Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881), and others. His essays consist mainly of picturesque descriptions of natural scenery, interspersed with moral reflexions, and all advocate the gospel of individualism and a frugal simplicity of life, both of which he himself practised with a rare consistency.

A BATTLE OF ANTS.
[From Walden: Brute Neighbours (1854)]

I was witness to events of a less |
peaceful character. One day when
I went out to my wood-pile, or rather
my pile of stumps, I observed two
6 large ants, the one red, the other
much larger, nearly half-an-inch long,
and black, fiercely contending with
one another. Having once got hold
they never let go, but struggled and
10 wrestled and rolled on the chips in-
cessantly. Looking farther, I was
surprised to find that the chips were
covered with such combatants, that
it was not a duellum, but a bellum,
15 a war between two races of ants,
the red always pitted against the
black, and frequently two red ones
to one black. The legions of these
Myrmidons covered all the hills and
20 vales in my wood-yard, and the ground
was already strewn with the dead
and dying, both red and black. It
was the only battle which I have
ever witnessed, the only battle-field
25 I ever trod while the battle was
raging; internecine war; the red re-
publicans on the one hand, and the
black imperialists on the other. On
every side they were engaged in
30 deadly combat, yet without any noise
that I could hear, and human soldiers
never fought so resolutely. I watched
a couple that were fast locked in each
other's embraces in a little sunny
35 valley amid the chips, now at noon-
day prepared to fight till the sun
went down, or life went out. The
smaller red champion had fastened
himself like a vice to his adversary's
40 front, and through all the tumblings
on that field never for an instant
ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers
near the root, having already caused
the other to go by the board; while
45 the stronger black one dashed him
from side to side, and, as I saw on

looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested the 50 least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In the meanwhile

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there came along a single red ant
on the hill-side of this valley, evidently 55
full of excitement, who either had
despatched his foe, or had not yet
taken part in the battle; probably
the latter, for he had lost none of
his limbs; whose mother had charged 60
him to return with his shield or upon
it. Or perchance he was some Achilles,
who had nourished his wrath apart,
and had now come to avenge or
rescue his Patroclus. He saw this 65
unequal combat from afar - for the
blacks were nearly twice the size of
the red he drew near with rapid
pace till he stood on his guard within
half-an-inch of the combatants; then, 70
watching his opportunity, he sprang
upon the black warrior, and com-
menced his operations near the root
of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe
to select among his own members; 76
and so there were three united for
life, as if a new kind of attraction
had been invented which put all other
locks and cements to shame. I should
not have wondered by this time to 80
find that they had their respective
musical bands stationed on some
eminent chip, and playing their na-
tional airs the while, to excite the
slow and cheer the dying combatants. 85
I was myself excited somewhat even
as if they had been men. The more
you think of it, the less the difference.
And certainly there is not the fight
recorded in Concord history, at least, 90
if in the history of America, that
will bear a moment's comparison

with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism 95 and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why Why 100 here every ant was a Buttrick, 'Fire! for God's sake, fire!' - and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one

hireling there. I have no doubt 105 that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a threepenny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and me110 morable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described 115 were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw 120 that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there 125 to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity, such as 130 war only could excite. They strugThey struggled half-an-hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, 135 and the still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble 140 struggles, being without feelers and

with only the remnant of a leg,

and I know not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at length, after half-an-hour more, he accomplished. I raised the 145 glass, and he went off over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hôtel des Invalides, 150 I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the 155 rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door.

160

Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been celebrated and the date of them recorded. though they say that Huber is the only modern author who appears to 166 have witnessed them. Eneas Sylvius,' say they, 'after giving a very circumstantial account of one contested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk of a 170 pear tree,' adds that, ""This action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole history 17% of the battle with the greatest fidelity." A similar engagement between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are said to 180 have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies a prey to the birds. This event happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the 185 Second from Sweden. The battle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five years before the passage of Webster's FugitiveSlave Bill.

190

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

JAMI
AMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-
1891) was born in Cambridge, Mass.,
as the son of a Unitarian minister. He
studied law at Harvard, and was called
to the bar, but soon abandoned law for
literature, and began to write for the
magazines. His great critical powers, first
publicly displayed in his lectures on the
English Poets (1855), procured him the
professorship of Modern Languages at
Harvard University, which he held for
21 years (1856-77). Having been from
the first keenly interested in politics, he
entered upon a diplomatic career in 1877,
and for many years was U.S. Ambassador
in Madrid (1877-80) and afterwards in
London (1880-85). He died, seventy-two
years old, in his ancestral home at Cam-
bridge, where he had spent the last years
of his life in happy retirement.

Lowell holds a high place in American literature both as a poet and an essayist. His verse includes epic poems like A

Legend of Brittany (1844) or Rhacus (1844), lyrics like the fine nature poems An Indian-Summer Reverie (1848) and Under the Willows (1869), or the powerful Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865), literary satire like A Fable for Critics (1848), and didactic blank verse like The Cathedral (1869). His essays, notably the volumes entitled Among My Books (1870-76) and My Study Windows (1871), show him a brilliant and subtle critic both of English and foreign literatures. The best-known and most original of his works is probably The Biglow Papers (1848-67), which contain serio-comic comments on American politics during the Mexican and the Civil Wars, and are written in a racy Yankee dialect. Of his famous addresses on political topics, those entitled Democracy (1880) and Independent in Politics (1888) prove him a fervent American patriot, but one who is aware of the defects of American practice.

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JUNE.

[From Under the Willows, II. 1-20 (1869)]

Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood,
Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading tree,
June is the pearl of our New England year.
Still a surprisal, though expected long,

5 Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait,
Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back,
Then, from some southern ambush in the sky,
With one great gush of blossom storms the world.
A week ago the sparrow was divine;

10 The bluebird, shifting his light load of song
From post to post along the cheerless fence,
Was as a rhymer ere the poet come;

But now, O rapture! sunshine winged and voiced,

Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the West

15 Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud,

Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one,

The bobolink has come, and, like the soul
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what

20 Save June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June!

CHAUCER.

[From My Study Windows (1871)]

Will it do to say anything more about Chaucer? Can anyone hope to say anything, not new, but even fresh, on a topic so well worn? It 5 may well be doubted; and yet one is always the better for a walk in the morning air a medicine which may be taken over and over again without any sense of same10 ness, or any failure of its invigorating quality. There is a pervading wholesomeness in the writings of this man

a vernal property that soothes and refreshes in a way of 15 which no other has ever found the secret. I repeat to myself a thousand

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