MERRY’S MUSEUM.
Vol. VIII. NOVEMBER, 1844. No. 5.
The trees to the blast have surrendered their leaves,
The beauties of summer have fled;
The warblers departed for sunnier climes,
The herbage is withered and dead.
The chill wintry blast shall resound through the woods,
The skies with rude storms shall be rife;
But spring will return and again clothe the trees,
The landscape will glow with new life.
According to a French novelist, November is the gloomy month, in which “the people of England hang and drown themselves.” There is something rather sober in the departure of all those interesting charms that have so attached us to summer and the early autumn, yet we can hardly say that there is anything gloomy about it. A pensive, yet pleasing melancholy, is perhaps the predominant feeling in contemplating the changes that take place as the autumn sullenly resigns the year to winter. We have seen the fields stripped of their crops, and the woods of their luxuriant foliage; and now that the great purposes of the season are accomplished, it is not with repining or regret, that we see exhausted nature about to take a short repose.
We have been delighted with the music of the fields and groves, we have admired the springing plants and expanding flowers; now our enjoyments are about to be somewhat of a different kind, though they may still be closely connected with the mysterious operations of slumbering nature; we may still study her work with scarce less interest than when her utmost energies are put forth to the work of spring and summer seasons. Let the Englishman hang or drown, if his fancy inclines that way; for myself, there is much in the gloom of winter which I could yet wish to enjoy for years to come. There are the hard frosts, which show an autumn morning with every twig and every blade of grass, every vegetable fibre, houses, rocks, and fences, coated with a thick covering of alabaster, like ice, converting shrubs and thick-clustering weeds into most gorgeous chandeliers; there are the winter sunshine and storms, and the winter-evening fireside. There is the promise and hope of the future year; and above all, there is the contemplation of the power and goodness of Him who has furnished the earth in all the beauty and riches of the seasons, for the comfort and happiness of his creatures.
The sun, who seems to have the immediate control of these matters, has for a few weeks been getting rapidly to the south, and the summer and autumn follow him. His declination, by the middle of the month, is the same, and the days are as short, as at the latter part of January: but how different the two seasons. Now, we generally have our Indian summer, and then, perhaps, is the coldest part of winter. When the earth has become so thoroughly heated by the longer days and more perpendicular sun of summer, it requires some time, after the sun has attained its greatest southern declination, for it to cool again to the lowest temperature of winter.
We are no great admirers of the mere poetry and sentimentality of life, but, seeing it is November, suppose we indulge a little in the pensive mood. Let us take one of those pure transparent days which are only to be found at this season, and go to the southern declivity of some gentle swell where we may have the woods in our rear. Now look abroad to the south where the retiring summer seems yet to linger, and the autumn lies slumbering over the landscape. Here is no bold and abrupt coloring, no contrast of dark woods with yellow fields; the different features and tints seem blended into one grand mass, forming an extended and unbroken scene of quiet, calm serenity and loveliness. Over head is that deep transparent blue which belongs only to an autumn sky, with here and there a straggling white-edged cloud, which sometimes passing before the sun, we see the shadow as it travels over the plain, darkening successively for a moment the hills and fields until lost in the distance, and giving a transient life and motion to the sleeping scene before us. Now and then a single bird is to be seen, who, as if loth to leave the happy scenes of his summer joys, still lingers behind, long after his companions have departed for southern climes. Occasionally we are startled by the squirrel, who, with a cheek load of hickory nuts, rustles the leaves as he scampers to his hiding place, to finish stocking his cellars with provisions for the winter. For half an hour, not a breath of air is felt, or a sound heard; till presently, the wind, scarcely heard at first, begins to murmur among the trees in the distance; approaching, it increases to a mournful howl, bringing with it a cloud of leaves, which, whirled in eddies across the sky above us, afford us a lecture “more eloquent than words,” on the end there must be to all of the beautiful and fascinating, to which we have set our hearts and engaged our affections here. Now the wind dies away again in moaning sighs, the leaves settle away in the distance, and presently all is again quiet, lonely and silent.
At such times, we feel little inclined to conversation; deeply absorbed in the contemplation of the scene before us, about us, and above us, we find occasion for few words; conscious that each sees and deeply feels the whole, the year going reluctantly on to its grave, we find all comment unnecessary, and words superfluous; we want no communion with anything save our own silent thoughts.
I know not how it is with others, but I have sometimes felt English enough to think, were it proper to choose, that when I am called upon to leave all the beautiful and interesting things that have so long bound me to earth, I could choose this season, and leave them with less regret amid such a scene, when all around is gone to decay, and the earth itself seems to covet the repose of death.
Say well is good, but do well is better.
Experience a Teacher To Birds.—There is much more intellect in birds than people suppose. A curious instance of this once occurred at a slate quarry. A thrush, not aware of the expansive properties of gunpowder, thought proper to build her nest on the ridge of the quarry in the very centre of which they were constantly blasting the rock. At first, she was very much discomposed by the flying of stones in all directions, but still she would not leave her nest. She soon observed that a bell rang whenever a train was about to be fired, and that, at the notice, the workmen retired to safe positions. In a few days, when she heard the bell, she quitted her exposed situation, and flew down to where the workmen sheltered themselves, dropping close to their feet. There she would remain till the explosion had taken place and then return to her nest.
Litigation.—Law is like a country dance; people are led up and down till they are fairly tired out. It is like a book of surgery; there are a great many terrible cases in it. It is like physic too; they that take the least of it are best off. Law is like a new fashion; people are bewitched to get into it; and like bad weather, most people are glad to get out of it.
Scott.—It is related of Sir Walter Scott that when in health he never refused to see any one, however humble, who called upon him; and that he scarcely ever received a letter which he did not answer by his own hand.