A writer who every day witnesses the glory of the New England countryside would naturally be especially aware of the varied wonders of Nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a native New Englander, was aware , and these excerpts from his American Notebooks reflect his deep reverence for Nature's beauty:
I left my Sophia at five o'clock this morning, to catch some fish for dinner. On my way through the orchard, I shook our summer apple-tree, and ate the golden apple which fell from it. Methinks these early apples, which come as a golden promise before the treasures of autumnal fruit, are almost more delicious than anything that comes afterwards. We have but one of such tree in our orchard; but it supplies us with a daily abundance, and promises to do so for at least a week to come. Meantime, other trees begin to cast their ripening windfalls upon the grass; and when I taste them, and perceive their mellowed flavor and blackening seeds, I feel somewhat overwhelmed with the impending bounties of Providence. I suppose Adam, in Paradise, did not like to see his fruits decaying on the ground, after he had watched them through the sunny days of the world's first summer.
Brooks and pools of water seem to me to have a peculiar aspect, at this season.You know that the water must be cold, and you shiver a little at the sight of it; and yet the grass about the pool is of deepest verdure, and the sun may be shining into it. The withered leaves, which over-hanging trees shed into the water, contribute much to the effect of it.
Insects have almost vanished in the fields and woods. I hear locusts yet singing in the sunny hours; and crickets have not quite finished their song. Once in a while, I see a caterpillar--this afternoon, for instance, a red hairy one, with black hair at the head and tail. They do not appear to be active; and it makes one rather melancholy to look at them.
No language can give an idea of the beauty and glory of the trees, just as this time. It would be easy, by a process of word-daubing, to set down a confused idea of gorgeous colors, like a bunch of tangled skeins of bright silk; but there's nothing, in the reality, of the glare which would thus be conveyed. And yet the splendor both of individual trees and of whole scenes, is unsurpassable.
The trees reflected in the river--they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near to them. So are we.
Yesterday afternoon I talk a solitary walk to Walden Pond. It was a cool, north-west windy day, with heavy clouds rolling and tumbling about the sky, but still a prevalence of genial autumn sunshine. The fields are still green , and the green masses of the woods have not yet assumed their many-colored garments; but here and there, are solitary oaks of a deep, substantial red, or maples of a more brilliant hue, or chestnuts [sic], either yellow or of a tenderer green than in summer. Some trees seem to return to their hue of May or early June, before they put on the brighter autumnal tints. In some places, along the borders of low and moist land, a whole range of trees where clothed in the perfect gorgeousness of autumn, of all shades brilliant color, looking like the palette on which Nature was arranging the tints wherewith to paint a picture.
The clouds of any one day, are material enough, alone, for the observation either of an idle man or a philosopher.
The cave makes a fresh impression on me every time I visit it--so deep, so irregular, so gloomy, so stern--parts of its walls the pure white of the marble--others cover with a grey decomposition, and with spots of moss, and with brake growing where there is a handful of earth. Then to stand and look into its depths, at various points, under the arch or elsewhere, and to hear the roar of the stream re-echoing up. It is like a heart that has been rent asunder by a torrent of passion, which has raged and roared, and left its ineffaceable traces; though now there is but a little rill of feeling at the bottom.
A north-west windy day, cool, with a general prevalence of dull grey clouds over the sky, but with brief, quick glimpses of sunshine. The foliage having its autumn hues, Monument Mountain looks like a headless sphinx, wrapt in a rich Persian shawl. Yesterday, through a prevalent mist, with the sun shining on it, it had the aspect of burnished copper. The sun-gleams on the hills are peculiarly magnificent, just in these days.
I visited my grape vine, this afternoon, and ate the last of its clusters. This vine climbs around a young maple tree, which has now assumed the yellow leaf. The vine leaves are more decayed than those of the maple. Thence to Cow Island, a solemn and thoughtful walk. Returned from the island by another path, of the width of a pair of wagon wheels, passing through a grove of hard-wood trees, the lightsome hues of which make the walk more cheerful than among the pines. The roots of oak trees emerged from the soil, and contorted themselves across the path. The sunshine also, broke across in spots, and in other spots the shadow was deep; but still there was intermingling enough of sunshine and bright hues to keep off the gloom from the whole path.
. . .
From "Great Writings" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
L. James Morgan Jr (Compiler)
The World Around Us
Published 1971 by Hallmark Editions
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