Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

SLOW AND SURE.

[blocks in formation]

SLOW AND SURE.

I HAVE been touched afresh through my summer leisure by the way in which Nature takes her time, and uses it so that not a moment seems to be lost, or to tread on the heels of the next. The bird sat on her nest in the door-yard in Keene, as if she was aware that the whole universe was circling about her small cup of sticks and straws, and was bound to keep faith with her in return for her fidelity, and bring out the brood; and up in Wisconsin the wild things in the woods and lanes turned to the sun, and took their time to ripen, as if they knew that all they had to do was just to hold on, to lose no instant and hasten none, and then, when their day came to fall or be gathered, all the beauty and worth of which they were capable would come to perfection, and the last day with them would justify all the rest.

I found that the wise old farmers also, who were

living near to Nature, and watching her ways, had caught this truth, and went about their business with some such trust in the leisurely result as the wild things of the earth and air. So they had no complaint to make in this rare year, especially of a frustrated purpose, and not much of any year. "Take things by and large," they said; "put the best there is in you into what you have to do; take care not to fuss and fume; and in the long run, if you are cut out for a farmer, you will have no cause to complain. But then you must be on hand, and keep abreast of the occasion: the last place in the world to make up for lost time is on a farm, or to get much ahead of time, or to win by a spasm what can only be won by all the leisure your things demand." Their thought was that Nature is no gambler to give you your winnings on a turn of the cards, but a steady sequence of seasons opening into duties as the plants in the floral clock of Linnæus opened to the sun. And as under the equator the rains pour down in cataracts to fill the Nile at length, and duly water each man's patch thousands of miles away, so the winds and waters and fires, whose springs are in the heart of a mystery no man can fathom, circle about the lands, and serve each man well who can fall into their harmony, and render service for service.

And so it was natural that one should think of some such quiet certainty within our life, wonder

« AnteriorContinuar »