Year: 1860

/


The Professors Story" now in conrse
OF publication in the Atlantic Monthly oc.
casionally contains a tit-bit worth picking
out--as, for example


'"The woods are all alive to one who
walks through them with his mind in an
excited state, and his eyes and ears wide
open. The trees are always talking. not
merely whispering with their leaves, Ifor
every tree talks to itself in that way, even
when it stands alone in the middle of
pasiure,) but grating their boughs against
each other, as old hOrn.handed farmers press
their dry, rustling palms together, drop
ping nut or leaf or twig, clicking to
the tap Of woodpecket, or rnstling as a
squirrel flashes alunga branch. 1t was now
the season of singing birds, and the woods
were haunted with mysterious, tender music.
The voices of the birds which love the deep.
er shades of the forest are sadder than those
of the open fields these are the nuns that
have taken the veil, the htrmits that have
hidden themselves away from the world
and tell their grefs TO the infinite listening
Silences of the wilderness, for the one
deep inner silence that Nature breaks with
her ftful superficial sounds becomes multi
Piled as the image of a star in rufiled wa
ters. Strange The woods at FIRST convey
the impression Of profound repose, and yet.
il you watch their ways with open car, YOU
find the life which is in them is restless and
Hervous os that Of a woman the little twigs
are crossing and twning and separating
like slender fingers that cannot be still; the
stray leaf is to be fiattened into its place
like truant curl; the limbs sway and twist
impatient of their constrained attitude: and
the rounded masses Of foliage swell upward
and subside from time to time with long
soft signs, aud, it may be, the falling of a
few raindrops which had lain hidden among
the deeper shadows. l pray you, notice,
in tue sweet summer days which will soon
see you among the mountains, this inward
tranquility that belongs to the heart of the
WOODLAND, with this nervousness, for do
not know what else to call it, of outer
movement. One would say, that Nature,
like unframed persons, could not sit still
without nesting about or doing something
with her limbs or featnres, and that high
breeding was only to be looked for in trim
| gardens, where the soul Of the trees is i'll
at ease perhaps, but their manners are un.
exceptionable, aud rustling branch or leaf
falling out of season is an indecorum. The
real forest is hardly still except in the In
dian summer; then there is death in the
house, and they are waiting for the sharp
shrunken months to come with white raj
ment for the summers burial.


There were many hemocks in this neigh.
borhood, the graudeSt and most solemn OF
all the forest.trees in the mountain region.
Up TO certain period of growth they ore
emnently beautiful, their boughs disposed
10 the most graceful pagoda-like series of
close terraces, thick and dark with green
crystalline leaflets. In spring the tender
shoots come out of Il paler green, finger
like, as if they were pointing to the violets
at their feet. But when the trees have
grown old, aud their rough boles measure
yard through their diameter, they are
no longer beautiful, but they have a sad
| solemnity all their own, too full of mean
ing to require the hearts comment to be
framed in words. Below, all their earth
ward-looking branches are sapless and shat
tered, splintered by the weight of many
winters SHOWS above, they are still green
and full of life, but their SUBMITS oyertop
all the decdnous trees around them, and 10
their companionship with heaven they are
alone. On these the lightning loves to fall.
One such Mr.. Bernard SAVIOR rather,
what had been one such for the bolt had
torn the tree Ike sn explosion from within,
and the ground was strewed all around the
broken stumpS with fakes of rough bark
and strips and chips OF shivered wood, into
which the old tree had been rent by the
bursting rocket from the thuuder.cloud.