Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! | Page 9

sad a tree? Let me tell
you her story. No; she will sing it herself, if you will listen to the
nocturn: "Long, long ago I had my home on an island of the ocean, and
my branches swayed and sang to the waves that kissed my feet with the
fondness of a betrothed lover. The winds were envious of our sweet
union, and blew away from me the germs of life. My seeds sprang up
again, but on foreign soil; and the new trees, my offspring, are the same
in form and color, but their souls are all sad from my recounted
memories of departed joy." When the slightest breeze comes near, and
ventures to softly touch the branches, a sound like sobbing follows; but
when, with rougher grasp, the east wind approaches, a wailing like the
utterances of a storm-tossed sea is heard. Listen! do you not hear it now?
It is the imprisoned spirit of the pine, longing for the waves, moaning
out a vain desire for the embrace of the sea.
How am I sure the tree is alive and friendly? Doesn't it bow to you
when you pass, and curve and sweep before you? Doesn't it offer you
rest and refreshment in its shade? Doesn't it entertain you by showing
you beautiful pictures and forms, and doesn't it furnish you with music?
See what an instructor it is! Away up there among the branches are
lessons involving the very first principles of architecture, sculpture, and
painting,--signs that show the laws of harmony and hint at morality
itself. Its trunk and limbs look honest and courageous, firm and trusty,
while all its lofty, tapering height points Godward.
It is your confidant; and the more you tell it, the more you will find to
say. While it is very modest and retiring, requiring time to get
acquainted with you, still, the more it talks to you, the more you will
want to hear. The pine is your school-master, and you are the royal
pupil,--Roger Ascham and Queen Elizabeth. It is no longer an ordinary
tree, but something born with a spirit in it; and it has birthdays.
Thoreau, the man who loved Nature so much that the birds and the
fishes took care of him and were never afraid of their master, used to
visit certain trees on certain days in the year. The pine has a birthday
worth celebrating in December, the maple in October, and the birch in

May. You think this is all fancy, and believe persons must be very
imaginative to find such friends in Nature? Oh, no; along with fancy
Nature tucks very real things into our thoughts about her. You only
need an introduction to her, and you will see for yourselves. The most
practical among you will find that even fancy is a most useful quality,
because it leads men to think out great truths.
Some of the most remarkable ideas in literature, philosophy, science,
and, religion have come from just this snug little acquaintance with
Nature. Probably the most original poet in the last hundred years was
Wordsworth. However much he lacked in some respects, he has done
most towards shaping the minds of other poets, and towards advancing
new and beautiful theories. His honest ideas, his simple truths, were
told him by the field-flowers--the celandine and daisy and daffodil--as
well as by the common trees and the common sky. I suppose most of
the principles of natural philosophy, and of many of the sciences, must
have been derived from an acquaintance with Nature in her ordinary
aspects. Oh, do not think it necessary to behold Nature in her great
stretches of sublimity in order to appreciate her. You will come to
know her far more easily, and much more helpfully, in a little woodside
walk, or right here underneath these branches, than you will in Niagara
Falls, or in looking at her in the great ocean. She comes down more to
the level of your understanding here in this meadow. Comes down to
your comprehension? Yes; I mean that, and yet I would not for a
moment imply that in her most commonplace guise you can exhaust
her beauty. Do you know what Mr. Ruskin says about such an
apparently insignificant thing as a blade of grass? "Gather a single
blade of grass, and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow,
sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing it seems there, of notable
goodness or beauty. A very little strength and a very little tallness, and
a few delicate long lines meeting in a point.... And yet, think of it well,
and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air,
and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes and good for
food,--stately palm