The Springfield herald., 1909-06-18
we're nn~d all arounI US on worlds

were lift<d all arounl us on worlds
unrealized.
One hot day we lay fiat on our stom.
achs under the shade of beech,
among the June grass and the daisies.
peering down into magical spec
tacle, and yet it was the planets his
tory In petto. The great loom of the
universe was working there with mini.
ature continents. 1t was paleonto
logical glimpse OF the pre-world as if
nature kept ceaseless memoranda in
shorthand of all her monstrous cycles
of change. There were the equatorial
forests and the prehistoric monsters
All one had to do was to get the In
verse scale adapted, and the gigantic
fronds waved their plumes, and
strange forms of life wandered
through. Green leviathans Crouched
in corners; scurrying termites ran
hither and thiSer. A slow-moving an
gleworm drew his ophidian length
along the ancient geologic reaches,
and an armored pterodactyl, in the
shape of a dragon fly. came in flaming
gorgeousness like Apollyon, and picked
up an inhabitant or two. Here was the
oldest Nibelungen Lied going on still,
with real dragons amid the real ele-
ments in this demiurgic workshop.
Somehow / fancy that Wagner, when
he heard the eternal melodies, must
have been lying on his stomach and
looking at the eternal animate forces.
But what is the use of trying TO get
these child-like experiences over into
literature? One must be Thoreau to
do it. When l interrogated the mys-
teries like Hamlet. there was Charlie
with his round, implicit face. and he
seemed to say to me: You want to
know the secret of nature; we'll, you
will have to become an obedient part
of it, then you will know, but you will
lose the power and the desire to tell
It,"
That boy never makes any demon
stration over sunrise, and he looks
at me wonderingly when ] begin to
cavort and effuse He seems to be
more familiar with the processes than
| am. They are spectacles and cpl
sodes to me. Heavens, it is always
sunrise with him; why make such
fuss over 1t? And that is the way with
souls that live close to nature-they
take it as a matter of course because
they are part of it. and that is where
Cooper made such a mistake with his
Natty Bumppo, who was always going
about attitudinizing and philosophizing
about that which such a man would
unconsciously appropriate. Even Poe,
with all his genius, failed to lie on his
stomach and look into the grasses Of
the field. His Raven" and his Anna
bel Lee" are not arrayed like one Of
these Fancy him writing the Flow
er de Luce" of Longfellow. or the
"Chambered Nautilus" of Holmes or
the Water Fowl" of Bryant If he had
been guided by the implicit faith of
the boy. he would have taken the ad-
vice of the guide in Dantes Inferno
when he came to some of the horrors,
Look, and pass on
think we grew quite like Brahmins
under our mango trees. The entire
population of the woods, having come
to the conclusion that we We're either
too effeminate or too orthodox to kill
! anything, took advantage of our help
| lessness. The squirrels came in at
the window in the morning. The wood
chucks sat on their launches on our
wire grass. The rabbits made bur-
| rows under our hearthstone. We could
| hear them scolding their broods at
night and humping their heads against
the flooring. The wood-turtles crawled
in over our sill, and the young ones
dropped out of Charles pockets at
| night when he hung his trousers over
a chair. AS for the birds, they re-
minded me of the gamins in Frank
fort street. They gathered in front of
our door in the morning and waited to
be fed, and there was never a night
worm himself into our confidence
when we were trying to sleep. 1t was
very amusing to see the complacent
contempt with which Lilah, the yel-
low dog. and Gabe Hotchkiss regarded
this extraordinary tolerance But |
think there was quiet understanding
growing up between these two and
Charlie that it was high time the kill
ing began. One morning / surprised
the infant in the woodshed watching
Gabe at work on hickory limb. l was
informed that the preparation was for
"bosen-narrers." My lamb had passed
the stone age. what on earth do you
want with bow and arrow?" asked.
Want to kill birds" he said tri-
umphsntly
And there was the old Adam begin.
ming to peep out in my Arcadia.