Bird watching; Birds; Natural history -- Outdoor books; New England
But this may not be. At best, words can only hint at sensations; and the
hint can be taken only by as many as are predestined to hear it. As I
have said, the doctrine is esoteric. How are those who have never felt
the like to understand the satisfaction with which I recall a certain
five or ten minutes of a cool morning in May, a year or more ago? I was
drawing towards home, after a jaunt of an hour or two, when I came
suddenly into a sheltered and sunny nook, where a bed of the early
saxifrage was already in full bloom, while a most exquisite little
bee-fly of a beautiful shade of warm brown was hovering over it,
draining the tiny, gold-lined chalices, one by one, with its long
proboscis, which looked precisely like the bill of a humming-bird. An
ordinary picture enough, as far as words go,--only a little sunshine, a
patch of inconspicuous and common flowers, and a small Bombylian without
even the distinction of bright colors. True; but my spirit drank a
nectar sweeter than any the insect was sipping. And though, as a rule,
an experience of this sort were perhaps better left unspoken,--
"A thought of private recollection, sweet and still,"
yet the mention of it can do no harm, while it illustrates what I take
to be one of the principal advantages of the saunterer's condition. His
treasures are never far to seek. His delight is in Nature herself,
rather than in any of her more unusual manifestations. He is not of that
large and increasingly fashionable class who fancy themselves lovers of
Nature, while in fact they are merely admirers, more or less sincere, of
fine scenery. Not that anything is too beautiful for our rambler's
appreciation: he has an eye for the best that earth and heaven can
offer; he knows the exhilaration of far-reaching prospects; but he is
not dependent upon such extraordinary favors of Providence. He has no
occasion to run hither and thither in search of new and strange sights.
The old familiar pastures; the bushy lane, in which his feet have
loitered year after year, ever since they began to go alone; an
unfrequented road; a wooded slope, or a mossy glen; the brook of his
boyish memories; if need be, nothing but a clump of trees or a grassy
meadow,--these are enough for his pleasure. Fortunate man! Who should be
happy, if not he? Out of his own doorway he steps at will into the
Elysian fields.
BUTTERFLY PSYCHOLOGY.
Gay creatures of the element,
That in the colors of the rainbow live.--MILTON.
Speak to me as to thy thinkings.--SHAKESPEARE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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