The theory that Adam lived out in the woods for some time before he
was put into the garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" has an
air of probability. How else shall we account for the arboreal
instincts that cling to his posterity?
There is a wilding strain in our blood that all the civilization in
the world will not eradicate. I never knew a real boy--or, for that
matter, a girl worth knowing--who would not rather climb a tree, any
day, than walk up a golden stairway.
It is a touch of this instinct, I suppose, that makes it more
delightful to fish in the most insignificant of free streams than in
a carefully stocked and preserved pond, where the fish are brought
up by hand and fed on minced liver. Such elaborate precautions to
ensure good luck extract all the spice from the sport of angling.
Casting the fly in such a pond, if you hooked a fish, you might
expect to hear the keeper say, "Ah, that is Charles, we will play
him and put him back, if you please, sir; for the master is very
fond of him,"--or, "Now you have got hold of Edward; let us land him
and keep him; he is three years old this month, and just ready to be
eaten." It would seem like taking trout out of cold storage.
Who could find any pleasure in angling for the tame carp in the
fish-pool of Fontainebleau? They gather at the marble steps, those
venerable, courtly fish, to receive their rations; and there are
veterans among them, in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss
on their shoulders, who could tell you pretty tales of being fed by
the white hands of maids of honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs
of bread from the jewelled fingers of a princess.
There is no sport in bringing pets to the table. It may be
necessary sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to
leave the unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he
goes out into the wild country to capture his game by his own
skill,--if he has good luck. I would rather run some risk in this
enterprise (even as the young Tobias did, when the voracious pike
sprang at him from the waters of the Tigris, and would have devoured
him but for the friendly instruction of the piscatory Angel, who
taught Tobias how to land the monster),--I would far rather take any
number of chances in my sport than have it domesticated to the point
of dulness.
The trim plantations of trees which are called "forests" in certain
parts of Europe--scientifically pruned and tended, counted every
year by uniformed foresters, and defended against all possible
depredations--are admirable and useful in their way; but they lack
the mystic enchantment of the fragments of native woodland which
linger among the Adirondacks and the White Mountains, or the vast,
shaggy, sylvan wildernesses which hide the lakes and rivers of
Canada. These Laurentian Hills lie in No Man's Land. Here you do
not need to keep to the path, for there is none. You may make your
own trail, whithersoever fancy leads you; and at night you may pitch
your tent under any tree that looks friendly and firm.
Here, if anywhere, you shall find Dryads, and Naiads, and Oreads.
And if you chance to see one, by moonlight, combing her long hair
beside the glimmering waterfall, or slipping silently, with gleaming
shoulders, through the grove of silver birches, you may call her by
the name that pleases you best. She is all your own discovery.
There is no social directory in the wilderness.
One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its satisfaction in the
regular, the proper, the conventional. But there is another side of
our nature, underneath, that takes delight in the strange, the free,
the spontaneous. We like to discover what we call a law of Nature,
and make our calculations about it, and harness the force which lies
behind it for our own purposes. But we taste a different kind of
joy when an event occurs which nobody has foreseen or counted upon.
It seems like an evidence that there is something in the world which
is alive and mysterious and untrammelled.
The weather-prophet tells us of an approaching storm. It comes
according to the programme. We admire the accuracy of the
prediction, and congratulate ourselves that we have such a good
meteorological service. But when, perchance, a bright, crystalline
piece of weather arrives instead of the foretold tempest, do we not
feel a secret sense of pleasure which goes beyond our mere comfort
in the sunshine? The whole affair is not as easy as a sum in simple
addition, after all,--at least not with our present knowledge. It
is a good joke on the Weather Bureau. "Aha, Old Probabilities!" we
say, "you don't know it all yet; there are still some chances to be
taken!"
Some day, I suppose, all things in the heavens above, and in the
earth beneath, and in the hearts of the men and women who dwell
between, will be investigated and explained. We shall live a
perfectly ordered life, with no accidents, happy or unhappy.
Everybody will act according to rule, and there will be no dotted
lines on the map of human existence, no regions marked "unexplored."
Perhaps that golden age of the machine will come, but you and I will
hardly live to see it. And if that seems to you a matter for tears,
you must do your own weeping, for I cannot find it in my heart to
add a single drop of regret.
The results of education and social discipline in humanity are fine.
It is a good thing that we can count upon them. But at the same
time let us rejoice in the play of native traits and individual
vagaries. Cultivated manners are admirable, yet there is a sudden
touch of inborn grace and courtesy that goes beyond them all. No
array of accomplishments can rival the charm of an unsuspected gift
of nature, brought suddenly to light. I once heard a peasant girl
singing down the Traunthal, and the echo of her song outlives, in
the hearing of my heart, all memories of the grand opera.
The harvest of the gardens and the orchards, the result of prudent
planting and patient cultivation, is full of satisfaction. We
anticipate it in due season, and when it comes we fill our mouths
and are grateful. But pray, kind Providence, let me slip over the
fence out of the garden now and then, to shake a nut-tree that grows
untended in the wood. Give me liberty to put off my black coat for
a day, and go a-fishing on a free stream, and find by chance a wild
strawberry.
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