Dainty abandon, sometimes as if Nature laughing on a hillside
in the sunshine; serious and firm monotonies, as of winds; a horn
sounding through the tangle of the forest, and the dying echoes;
soothing floating of waves, but presently rising in surges,
angrily lashing, muttering, heavy; piercing peals of laughter, for
interstices; now and then weird, as Nature herself is in certain
moods--but mainly spontaneous, easy, careless--often the sentiment of
the postures of naked children playing or sleeping. It did me good
even to watch the violinists drawing their bows so masterly--every
motion a study. I allow'd myself, as I sometimes do, to wander out of
myself. The conceit came to me of a copious grove of singing birds,
and in their midst a simple harmonic duo, two human souls, steadily
asserting their own pensiveness, joyousness.
A HINT OF WILD NATURE
_Feb. 13_.--As I was crossing the Delaware to-day, saw a large flock
of wild geese, right overhead, not very high up, ranged in V-shape,
in relief against the noon clouds of light smoke-color. Had a capital
though momentary view of them, and then of their course on and on
southeast, till gradually fading--(my eyesight yet first rate for the
open air and its distances, but I use glasses for reading.) Queer
thoughts melted into me the two or three minutes, or less, seeing
these creatures cleaving the sky--the spacious, airy realm--even the
prevailing smoke-gray color everywhere, (no sun shining)--the
waters below--the rapid flight of the birds, appearing just for a
minute--flashing to me such a hint of the whole spread of Nature, with
her eternal unsophisticated freshness, her never-visited recesses of
sea, sky, shore--and then disappearing in the distance.
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