Lingua-EN-Ngram

 view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

etc/rivers.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

Francis Beaumont,--"Spectators sate part in your tragedies."

Think what a mean and wretched place this world is; that half the
time we have to light a lamp that we may see to live in it.  This
is half our life.  Who would undertake the enterprise if it were
all?  And, pray, what more has day to offer?  A lamp that burns
more clear, a purer oil, say winter-strained, that so we may
pursue our idleness with less obstruction.  Bribed with a little
sunlight and a few prismatic tints, we bless our Maker, and stave
off his wrath with hymns.

   I make ye an offer,
   Ye gods, hear the scoffer,
   The scheme will not hurt you,
   If ye will find goodness, I will find virtue.
   Though I am your creature,
   And child of your nature,
   I have pride still unbended,
   And blood undescended,
   Some free independence,
   And my own descendants.
   I cannot toil blindly,
   Though ye behave kindly,
   And I swear by the rood,
   I'll be slave to no God.
   If ye will deal plainly,
   I will strive mainly,
   If ye will discover,
   Great plans to your lover,
   And give him a sphere
   Somewhat larger than here.

"Verily, my angels! I was abashed on account of my servant, who
had no Providence but me; therefore did I pardon him."--_The
Gulistan of Sadi._


Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some
originality and genius, have their scheme of the universe all cut
and dried,--very _dry_, I assure you, to hear, dry enough to
burn, dry-rotted and powder-post, methinks,--which they set up
between you and them in the shortest intercourse; an ancient and
tottering frame with all its boards blown off.  They do not walk
without their bed.  Some, to me, seemingly very unimportant and
unsubstantial things and relations, are for them everlastingly
settled,--as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the like.  These
are like the everlasting hills to them.  But in all my wanderings
I never came across the least vestige of authority for these
things.  They have not left so distinct a trace as the delicate
flower of a remote geological period on the coal in my grate.
The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees
no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens.  It is clear
sky.  If I ever see more clearly at one time than at another, the
medium through which I see is clearer.  To see from earth to
heaven, and see there standing, still a fixture, that old Jewish
scheme!  What right have you to hold up this obstacle to my
understanding you, to your understanding me!  You did not invent
it; it was imposed on you.  Examine your authority.  Even Christ,
we fear, had his scheme, his conformity to tradition, which
slightly vitiates his teaching.  He had not swallowed all
formulas.  He preached some mere doctrines.  As for me, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtilest imaginable essences,
which would not stain the morning sky.  Your scheme must be the
framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins.
The perfect God in his revelations of himself has never got to
the length of one such proposition as you, his prophets, state.
Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count three?  Do
you know the number of God's family?  Can you put mysteries into
words?  Do you presume to fable of the ineffable?  Pray, what
geographer are you, that speak of heaven's topography?  Whose
friend are you that speak of God's personality?  Do you, Miles
Howard, think that he has made you his confidant?  Tell me of the
height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space,
and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty,
and I shall pronounce thee mad.  Yet we have a sort of family
history of our God,--so have the Tahitians of theirs,--and some
old poet's grand imagination is imposed on us as adamantine
everlasting truth, and God's own word!  Pythagoras says, truly
enough, "A true assertion respecting God, is an assertion of
God"; but we may well doubt if there is any example of this in
literature.

The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to
having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days
by the church and the Sabbath school, so that it seemed, before I
read it, to be the yellowest book in the catalogue.  Yet I early
escaped from their meshes.  It was hard to get the commentaries
out of one's head and taste its true flavor.--I think that
Pilgrim's Progress is the best sermon which has been preached
from this text; almost all other sermons that I have heard, or
heard of, have been but poor imitations of this.--It would be a
poor story to be prejudiced against the Life of Christ because
the book has been edited by Christians.  In fact, I love this
book rarely, though it is a sort of castle in the air to me,
which I am permitted to dream.  Having come to it so recently and
freshly, it has the greater charm, so that I cannot find any to
talk with about it.  I never read a novel, they have so little
real life and thought in them.  The reading which I love best is
the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I
am better acquainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese, and
the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last.
Give me one of these Bibles and you have silenced me for a while.
When I recover the use of my tongue, I am wont to worry my
neighbors with the new sentences; but commonly they cannot see
that there is any wit in them.  Such has been my experience with
the New Testament.  I have not yet got to the crucifixion, I have
read it over so many times.  I should love dearly to read it
aloud to my friends, some of whom are seriously inclined; it is
so good, and I am sure that they have never heard it, it fits
their case exactly, and we should enjoy it so much together,--but
I instinctively despair of getting their ears.  They soon show,
by signs not to be mistaken, that it is inexpressibly wearisome
to them.  I do not mean to imply that I am any better than my
neighbors; for, alas!  I know that I am only as good, though I
love better books than they.

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with
which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the
bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown
to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it
deals.  I know of no book that has so few readers.  There is none

etc/rivers.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

mankind, I have no doubt, only he had no artificial covering to
his ill-humors.  He was earthy enough, but yet there was good
soil in him, and even a long-suffering Saxon probity at bottom.
If you could represent the case to him, he would not let the race
die out in him, like a red Indian.

At length I told him that he was a fortunate man, and I trusted
that he was grateful for so much light; and, rising, said I would
take a lamp, and that I would pay him then for my lodging, for I
expected to recommence my journey even as early as the sun rose
in his country; but he answered in haste, and this time civilly,
that I should not fail to find some of his household stirring,
however early, for they were no sluggards, and I could take my
breakfast with them before I started, if I chose; and as he
lighted the lamp I detected a gleam of true hospitality and
ancient civility, a beam of pure and even gentle humanity, from
his bleared and moist eyes.  It was a look more intimate with me,
and more explanatory, than any words of his could have been if he
had tried to his dying day.  It was more significant than any
Rice of those parts could even comprehend, and long anticipated
this man's culture,--a glance of his pure genius, which did not
much enlighten him, but did impress and rule him for the moment,
and faintly constrain his voice and manner.  He cheerfully led
the way to my apartment, stepping over the limbs of his men, who
were asleep on the floor in an intervening chamber, and showed me
a clean and comfortable bed.  For many pleasant hours after the
household was asleep I sat at the open window, for it was a
sultry night, and heard the little river

   "Amongst the pumy stones, which seemed to plain,
     With gentle murmur, that his course they did restrain."

But I arose as usual by starlight the next morning, before my
host, or his men, or even his dogs, were awake; and, having left
a ninepence on the counter, was already half-way over the
mountain with the sun before they had broken their fast.

Before I had left the country of my host, while the first rays of
the sun slanted over the mountains, as I stopped by the wayside
to gather some raspberries, a very old man, not far from a
hundred, came along with a milking-pail in his hand, and turning
aside began to pluck the berries near me:--

          "His reverend locks
     In comelye curles did wave;
     And on his aged temples grew
        The blossoms of the grave."

But when I inquired the way, he answered in a low, rough voice,
without looking up or seeming to regard my presence, which I
imputed to his years; and presently, muttering to himself, he
proceeded to collect his cows in a neighboring pasture; and when
he had again returned near to the wayside, he suddenly stopped,
while his cows went on before, and, uncovering his head, prayed
aloud in the cool morning air, as if he had forgotten this
exercise before, for his daily bread, and also that He who
letteth his rain fall on the just and on the unjust, and without
whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground, would not neglect the
stranger (meaning me), and with even more direct and personal
applications, though mainly according to the long-established
formula common to lowlanders and the inhabitants of mountains.
When he had done praying, I made bold to ask him if he had any
cheese in his hut which he would sell me, but he answered without
looking up, and in the same low and repulsive voice as before,
that they did not make any, and went to milking.  It is written,
"The stranger who turneth away from a house with disappointed
hopes, leaveth there his own offences, and departeth, taking with
him all the good actions of the owner."


Being now fairly in the stream of this week's commerce, we began
to meet with boats more frequently, and hailed them from time to
time with the freedom of sailors.  The boatmen appeared to lead
an easy and contented life, and we thought that we should prefer
their employment ourselves to many professions which are much
more sought after.  They suggested how few circumstances are
necessary to the well-being and serenity of man, how indifferent
all employments are, and that any may seem noble and poetic to
the eyes of men, if pursued with sufficient buoyancy and freedom.
With liberty and pleasant weather, the simplest occupation, any
unquestioned country mode of life which detains us in the open
air, is alluring.  The man who picks peas steadily for a living
is more than respectable, he is even envied by his shop-worn
neighbors.  We are as happy as the birds when our Good Genius
permits us to pursue any out-door work, without a sense of
dissipation.  Our penknife glitters in the sun; our voice is
echoed by yonder wood; if an oar drops, we are fain to let it
drop again.

The canal-boat is of very simple construction, requiring but
little ship-timber, and, as we were told, costs about two hundred
dollars.  They are managed by two men.  In ascending the stream
they use poles fourteen or fifteen feet long, pointed with iron,
walking about one third the length of the boat from the forward
end.  Going down, they commonly keep in the middle of the stream,
using an oar at each end; or if the wind is favorable they raise
their broad sail, and have only to steer.  They commonly carry
down wood or bricks,--fifteen or sixteen cords of wood, and as
many thousand bricks, at a time,--and bring back stores for the
country, consuming two or three days each way between Concord and
Charlestown.  They sometimes pile the wood so as to leave a
shelter in one part where they may retire from the rain.  One can
hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable
to contemplation and the observation of nature.  Unlike the
mariner, they have the constantly varying panorama of the shore
to relieve the monotony of their labor, and it seemed to us that
as they thus glided noiselessly from town to town, with all their
furniture about them, for their very homestead is a movable, they
could comment on the character of the inhabitants with greater
advantage and security to themselves than the traveller in a
coach, who would be unable to indulge in such broadsides of wit
and humor in so small a vessel for fear of the recoil.  They are
not subject to great exposure, like the lumberers of Maine, in
any weather, but inhale the healthfullest breezes, being slightly
encumbered with clothing, frequently with the head and feet bare.
When we met them at noon as they were leisurely descending the
stream, their busy commerce did not look like toil, but rather
like some ancient Oriental game still played on a large scale, as
the game of chess, for instance, handed down to this generation.
From morning till night, unless the wind is so fair that his
single sail will suffice without other labor than steering, the

etc/rivers.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

in the horizon rolled like a flood over valley and plain, and
every tree bent to the blast, and the mountains like school-boys
turned their cheeks to it.  They were great and current motions,
the flowing sail, the running stream, the waving tree, the roving
wind.  The north-wind stepped readily into the harness which we
had provided, and pulled us along with good will.  Sometimes we
sailed as gently and steadily as the clouds overhead, watching
the receding shores and the motions of our sail; the play of its
pulse so like our own lives, so thin and yet so full of life, so
noiseless when it labored hardest, so noisy and impatient when
least effective; now bending to some generous impulse of the
breeze, and then fluttering and flapping with a kind of human
suspense.  It was the scale on which the varying temperature of
distant atmospheres was graduated, and it was some attraction for
us that the breeze it played with had been out of doors so long.
Thus we sailed, not being able to fly, but as next best, making a
long furrow in the fields of the Merrimack toward our home, with
our wings spread, but never lifting our heel from the watery
trench; gracefully ploughing homeward with our brisk and willing
team, wind and stream, pulling together, the former yet a wild
steer, yoked to his more sedate fellow.  It was very near flying,
as when the duck rushes through the water with an impulse of her
wings, throwing the spray about her, before she can rise.  How we
had stuck fast if drawn up but a few feet on the shore!

When we reached the great bend just above Middlesex, where the
river runs east thirty-five miles to the sea, we at length lost
the aid of this propitious wind, though we contrived to make one
long and judicious tack carry us nearly to the locks of the
canal.  We were here locked through at noon by our old friend,
the lover of the higher mathematics, who seemed glad to see us
safe back again through so many locks; but we did not stop to
consider any of his problems, though we could cheerfully have
spent a whole autumn in this way another time, and never have
asked what his religion was.  It is so rare to meet with a man
out-doors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, which is
independent of the labor of his hands.  Behind every man's
busy-ness there should be a level of undisturbed serenity and
industry, as within the reef encircling a coral isle there is
always an expanse of still water, where the depositions are going
on which will finally raise it above the surface.


The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a
scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by
a moral one.  Few detect the morality in the former, or the
science in the latter.  Aristotle defined art to be <Lo'gos tou~
e'rgou a'neu hy'l_es>, _The principle of the work without the
wood_; but most men prefer to have some of the wood along with
the principle; they demand that the truth be clothed in flesh and
blood and the warm colors of life.  They prefer the partial
statement because it fits and measures them and their commodities
best.  But science still exists everywhere as the sealer of
weights and measures at least.

We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very
little of it has yet been sung.  The ancients had a juster notion
of their poetic value than we.  The most distinct and beautiful
statement of any truth must take at last the mathematical form.
We might so simplify the rules of moral philosophy, as well as of
arithmetic, that one formula would express them both.  All the
moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for
often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of the words
by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal
instead of their metaphorical sense.  They are already
_supernatural_ philosophy.  The whole body of what is now called
moral or ethical truth existed in the golden age as abstract
science.  Or, if we prefer, we may say that the laws of Nature
are the purest morality.  The Tree of Knowledge is a Tree of
Knowledge of good and evil.  He is not a true man of science who
does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn
something by behavior as well as by application.  It is childish
to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and
extraneous laws.  The study of geometry is a petty and idle
exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than
the starry one.  Mathematics should be mixed not only with
physics but with ethics, _that_ is _mixed_ mathematics.  The fact
which interests us most is the life of the naturalist.  The
purest science is still biographical.  Nothing will dignify and
elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from the moral
life of its devotee, and he professes another religion than it
teaches, and worships at a foreign shrine.  Anciently the faith
of a philosopher was identical with his system, or, in other
words, his view of the universe.

My friends mistake when they communicate facts to me with so much
pains.  Their presence, even their exaggerations and loose
statements, are equally good facts for me.  I have no respect for
facts even except when I would use them, and for the most part I
am independent of those which I hear, and can afford to be
inaccurate, or, in other words, to substitute more present and
pressing facts in their place.

The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and
generalizes their widest deductions.

The process of discovery is very simple.  An unwearied and
systematic application of known laws to nature, causes the
unknown to reveal themselves.  Almost any _mode_ of observation
will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method.
Only let something be determined and fixed around which
observation may rally.  How many new relations a foot-rule alone
will reveal, and to how many things still this has not been
applied!  What wonderful discoveries have been, and may still be,
made, with a plumb-line, a level, a surveyor's compass, a
thermometer, or a barometer!  Where there is an observatory and a
telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.
I should say that the most prominent scientific men of our
country, and perhaps of this age, are either serving the arts and
not pure science, or are performing faithful but quite
subordinate labors in particular departments.  They make no
steady and systematic approaches to the central fact.  A
discovery is made, and at once the attention of all observers is
distracted to that, and it draws many analogous discoveries in
its train; as if their work were not already laid out for them,
but they had been lying on their oars.  There is wanting constant
and accurate observation with enough of theory to direct and
discipline it.

But, above all, there is wanting genius.  Our books of science,
as they improve in accuracy, are in danger of losing the freshness