Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Beyond this, streaming from bank to bank, like the gossamer web,
which a dewy morning of June shows--stretching from grass-tip to
grass-tip--the wire bridge spans the fretted chasm, and shakes, as
summer webs shake, in the growing breath of a summer's day.
Nor is foliage wanting; for firs, green as those of Norway, lie black
against the carpeting snows, and black against the light clouds that
the spray drifts along the wintry sky. And from amid the iciness, and
the clearness, and the silvered woods the roar raises its organ-notes,
pealing through the ice-haunted boughs, and dying upon the stillness of
winter!
But we are forgetting ourselves and our season. The violets are up and
fragrant; the butter-cups are lying golden upon the hills, where we may
not go; and the sweet haze of summer is stretching toward us from the
country its alluring spell. Happy the man who can cast off the city
dust, and loiter by pleasant streams with books of old rhyme, or with
rod and angle! A murrain on those who laugh at such enjoyment as this;
and who cluster their withered comforts, from year's end to year's end,
within the close-pent alleys of our city!
And this mood of speech, into which the soft sun slanting upon our
window has decoyed us easily, tempts us to lift a pleading voice, once
more, for that park and wood, which seems to drift before our scheming
lawgivers like a good thing--never to be caught. If only, when this
Easy-Chair-writing were done, we could wear the hope of a stroll under
trees, where country silence reigned, and where wayside flowers lifted
their mild eyes, to wean us from the perplexities of toil, with what
richer relish would we not pursue our task; and with what heartier
prayer would we not thank God for our daily walk--as for our "daily
bread!"
Look to it, you scheming rulers of our city, that you do not worry
tender-heartedness into city hardness, and cramp, by your misplaced
economy, the better instincts of our nature, into that careless and
wiry spirit, which acts without love, and which works without feeling.
That charity which honors wealth can find no better play than in
spreading before the eyes, and the weakened feet of the poor, those
paths of greenness, which bless with Heaven's own refreshment.
* * * * *
Two arrivals of the spring are in people's mouths--Kossuth and Jenny
Lind Goldschmidt.
KOSSUTH comes pleading with his old eloquence, not a whit diminished
by the labors of his long journeyings, and even sharpened by the
approaching farewell into a more plaintive earnestness. Reformers of
every creed would do well to study, and emulate the sincerity and
fervor with which he presses his claims. The same devotion, and the
same tongue--tuned to such harmony as belongs to this extraordinary
Hungarian, would carry triumphantly to their issues a hundred halting
causes of philanthropy, and of Christian endeavor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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