Nature is erect.”—[Emerson.] As I
turned once more to the calm blue sky, the hazy autumnal
hills, and the slumberous water, dream-tinted by the
foliage of its shores, it seemed as if a shadow of
shame and sorrow fell over the pleasant picture; and
even the west wind which stirred the tree-tops above
me had a mournful murmur, as if Nature felt the desecration
of her sanctities and the discord of sin and folly
which marred her sweet harmonies.
God bless the temperance movement! And He will
bless it; for it is His work. It is one of the
great miracles of our times. Not Father Mathew
in Ireland, nor Hawkins and his little band in Baltimore,
but He whose care is over all the works of His hand,
and who in His divine love and compassion “turneth
the hearts of men as the rivers of waters are turned,”
hath done it. To Him be all the glory.
“Up
the airy mountain,
Down
the rushy glen,
We
dare n’t go a-hunting
For
fear of little men.
Wee
folk, good folk,
Trooping
all together;
Green
jacket, red cap,
Gray
cock’s feather.”
Allingham.
It was from a profound knowledge of human nature that
Lord Bacon, in discoursing upon truth, remarked that
a mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. “Doth
any man doubt,” he asks, “that if there
were taken out of men’s minds vain opinions,
flattering hopes, false valuations, and imaginations,
but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor,
shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition,
and unpleasing to themselves?” This admitted
tendency of our nature, this love of the pleasing
intoxication of unveracity, exaggeration, and imagination,
may perhaps account for the high relish which children
and nations yet in the childhood of civilization find
in fabulous legends and tales of wonder. The
Arab at the present day listens with eager interest
to the same tales of genii and afrits, sorcerers and
enchanted princesses, which delighted his ancestors
in the times of Haroun al Raschid. The gentle,
church-going Icelander of our time beguiles the long
night of his winter with the very sagas and runes
which thrilled with not unpleasing horror the hearts
of the old Norse sea-robbers. What child, although
Anglo-Saxon born, escapes a temporary sojourn in fairy-land?
Who of us does not remember the intense satisfaction
of throwing aside primer and spelling-book for stolen
ethnographical studies of dwarfs, and giants?
Even in our own country and time old superstitions
and credulities still cling to life with feline tenacity.
Here and there, oftenest in our fixed, valley-sheltered,
inland villages,—slumberous Rip Van Winkles,
unprogressive and seldom visited,—may be
found the same old beliefs in omens, warnings, witchcraft,
and supernatural charms which our ancestors brought
with them two centuries ago from Europe.
