The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
_Concord, July 27, 1844._--To sit down in a solitary place or a busy and
bustling one, if you please, and await such little events as may happen,
or observe such noticeable points as the eyes fall upon around you. For
instance, I sat down to-day, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, in
Sleepy Hollow, a shallow space scooped out among the woods, which
surround it on all sides, it being pretty nearly circular or oval, and
perhaps four or five hundred yards in diameter. At the present season, a
thriving field of Indian corn, now in its most perfect growth and
tasselled out, occupies nearly half of the hollow; and it is like the
lap of bounteous Nature, filled with breadstuff. On one verge of this
hollow, skirting it, is a terraced pathway, broad enough for a
wheel-track, overshadowed with oaks, stretching their long, knotted,
rude, rough arms between earth and sky; the gray skeletons, as you look
upward, are strikingly prominent amid the green foliage. Likewise, there
are chestnuts, growing up in a more regular and pyramidal shape; white
pines, also; and a shrubbery composed of the shoots of all these trees,
overspreading and softening the bank on which the parent stems are
growing, these latter being intermingled with coarse grass. Observe the
pathway; it is strewn over with little bits of dry twigs and decayed
branches, and the sear and brown oak-leaves of last year, that have been
moistened by snow and rain, and whirled about by harsh and gentle winds,
since their verdure has departed. The needle-like leaves of the pine
that are never noticed in falling--that fall, yet never leave the tree
bare--are likewise on the path; and with these are pebbles, the remains
of what was once a gravelled surface, but which the soil accumulating
from the decay of leaves, and washing down from the bank, has now almost
covered. The sunshine comes down on the pathway, with the bright glow of
noon, at certain points; in other places, there is a shadow as deep as
the glow; but along the greater portion sunshine glimmers through
shadow, and shadow effaces sunshine, imaging that pleasant mood of mind
when gayety and pensiveness intermingle. A bird is chirping overhead
among the branches, but exactly whereabout you seek in vain to
determine; indeed, you hear the rustle of the leaves, as he continually
changes his position. A little sparrow, however, hops into view,
alighting on the slenderest twigs, and seemingly delighting in the
swinging and heaving motion which his slight substance communicates to
them; but he is not the loquacious bird, whose voice still comes, eager
and busy, from his hidden whereabout. Insects are fluttering around.
The cheerful, sunny hum of the flies is altogether summer-like, and so
gladsome that you pardon them their intrusiveness and impertinence,
which continually impel them to fly against your face, to alight upon
your hands, and to buzz in your very ear, as if they wished to get into
your head, among your most secret thoughts.
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