“Whether soaring, climbing, or creeping, I know not; but this I know, I’m tasting in these wanderings God’s kisses. They are in the flowers; my spirit rests on His as my body on the balm of the fresh breezes. Then, animate nature seems so contented and happy! Why, I’ve been ravished by the songsters; as I’ve said to myself, they echo the angelic anthem of heaven, peace. Had any such doubt as haunts thee, come to me, since passing Jordan, it would have been sung out of countenance by the winged warblers or dragged from my heart captive in floral fetters by Him that hath two staves, beauty and bands.”
“Oh, Ichabod, do not pause. Go on, I pray thee.”
“Then thou art glad to hear that nature is not a beautiful widow mourning her dead bridegroom through the ages?”
“I love to listen to thee.”
“Listen to a wiser. See those stately heliotropes. They stand above all of their kind with shining faces; great in aspiration, great in devotion. All day they turn toward the sun and when their blossoms fade they leave a hardy seed. The winter may bury it, but it springs forth in vernal days, strong in the life it won by loving the summer sun.”
“Ichabod, I’m charmed! Let’s abide here always amid these joys of nature.”
“What, be hermits?”
“Yes; life’s troubles are made by its people; the fewer people the fewer troubles.”
“While sharing their troubles may we not lessen them. No man may live to himself; we’re wedded to each other.”
“Yes, wedded to life. A royal phrase; since I’ve been constantly either hating or loving it; fearing to live and then fearing to die. Wedded! ah, ha, ha; the wedded are those who most madly love and then most bitterly hate.”