And already I
realize that the experiment cannot cost so much as it is worth. Already
I find in that day's quiet, an antidote and a solace for the feverish,
festering cares of the weeks which environ it. Already, my brook murmurs
a soothing even-song to my burning, throbbing brain; and my trees,
gently stirred by the fresh breezes, whisper to my spirit something of
their own quiet strength and patient trust in God. And thus do I faintly
realize, though but for a brief and flitting day, the serene joy which
shall irradiate the Farmer's vocation, when a fuller and truer education
shall have refined and chastened his animal cravings, and when Science
shall have endowed him with her treasures, redeeming Labor from
drudgery, while quadrupling its efficiency, and crowning with beauty and
plenty our bounteous, beneficent Earth.
* * * * *
=_Theodore Parker_,= about =_1812-1860_=. (Manual, p. 531.)
From "Lessons from the World of Nature," &c.
=_168._= WINTER AND SPRING.
In the hard, cold winter of our northern lands, how do we feel a longing
for the presence of life! Then we love to look on a pine or fir tree,
which seems the only living thing in the woods, surrounded by dead oaks,
birches, maples, looking like the gravestones of buried vegetation:
that seems warm and living then; and at Christmas, men bring it into
meetinghouses and parlors, and set it up, full of life, and laden with
kindly gifts for the little folk.
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