Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-07-15
The Old Stone Upturned.

| DR. HOLMES, IN his article " The Autocrat oil
the Breakfast Table," in the Atlantic Month.
ly for March, has the the following
Did you never, in walking in the fields, come
across a large fiat stone, which had lain, no
body knows how wlong, Just where you found it
with the grass forming little hedge, es il
were, all iound it, close to its edges-and have
you not, in obedience to kind of feeling thai
told you it had been lying there long enough
insinuated your stick, or your foot, or your
fingers under its edge, and turned it over, as
the housewife turns cake, when she says tC
herself, " It's done brown enough by this time =
What an odd revelation, and what an unfOrse en-
and unpleasant surprise to small community
the very existence of which you had not sus-
pected, until the sudden dsnay and scattering
among its members produced by your turning
the old stone over Blades of grass fattened
down, colorless, matted together, as if they
had been bleached and ironed hideous crawl.
ing creatures, some of them coleopterous or
horny ny-shelled-turtle-bu one wants to call
them; some of them softer, but cunningly
spread out and compressed like Lepine watches
(nature never loses a crack or crevice, min
you, Or joint in tavern bedstead, but she al
ways has one of her hat-pattern live time
keepers to slide into it) black, glossy crckets,
with their long alaments sticking out like the
whips of four-horse stage coaches motionless,
slug-like creatures, larve, perhaps, more hor-
rible in their pulpy stiffness than even in the
hideous wriggle of maturity But no sooner
is the stone turned and the wholesome light Of
day let upon this compressed and blinded COM
munity of creeping things, than all of them
that enjoy the luxury of legs-and some Of
them have good many -7rushing round wildly,
butting each other and everything in their way
and end in general stampede for underground
retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine
Neat year you will find the grass growing tall
and green where the stone lay; the ground
bird builds her nest where the beetle had his
hole; the dandelion and the buttercup are
growing there, and the broad fans of insect
angels open and shut over their golden discs,
as thfl lhythmic waves of bissful CONSEQUENCES
pulsah through their glorifed beingS =
The young fellow whom they called John,
saw fit to say, in his very familiar way-a'
which do not chose to take offence, but which
i sometimes think it necessary to repress-that
l was coming it rather strong on the butter
flies.
No, | replied there is meaning in each OF
these images-the butterfly as we'll as the others.
The stone ir ancient error. The grass is human
nature born down and bleached of all its color
by it. The shapes that are found beneath are
tho crafty beings that thrive in darkness, and
the weaker organisms kept hel pless by it, He
who turns the stone over is whosoever puts
the staff of truth to the old lying incubus, no
matter whether he do it with q serious face or a
laughing one, The next year stands for the
coming time Then shall the nature which
had lain blanched and broken rise in its full
stature and native hues in the sunshine Then
shall Gods minstrels build their nests in the
hearts of newborn humanity. Then shall
beauty-Divinity taking outlines and color
light upon the souls of men as the butterfly
images of the beatifed spirit rising from the
dust, scars from shell that held poor grub
which would never have found wings, had mo-
the stone been lifted.
You never need think you can turn over any
old falschood withouta terrible squirming ant
scattering of the horrid little population tina
dwells under it.