Forgotten Treasures #5: A LAZY, IDLE BROOK--PART 2

A LAZY, IDLE BROOK

Part 2. A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE

On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment, and into
a wiser frame of mind.



It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our wilderness was
so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car on the edge of
Paradise. But why not turn the surprise around, and make it pleasant
instead of disagreeable? Why not look at the contrast from the side that we
liked best?



It was not necessary that everybody should take the same view of life that
pleased us. The world would not get on very well without people who
preferred parlour-cars to canoes, and patent-leather shoes to India-rubber
boots, and ten-course dinners to picnics in the woods. These good people
were unconsciously toiling at the hard and necessary work of life in order
that we, of the chosen and fortunate few, should be at liberty to enjoy the
best things in the world.



Why should we neglect our opportunities, which were also our real duties?
The nervous disease of civilization might prevail all around us, but that
ought not to destroy our grateful enjoyment of the lucid intervals that were
granted to us by a merciful Providence.



Why should we not take this little untamed brook, running its humble course
through the borders of civilized life and midway between two flourishing
summer resorts,--a brook without a single house or a cultivated field on its
banks, as free and beautiful and secluded as if it flowed through miles of
trackless forest,--why not take this brook as a sign that the ordering of
the universe had a "good intention" even for inveterate idlers, and that the
great Arranger of the world felt some kindness for such gipsy-hearts as
ours? What law, human or divine, was there to prevent us from making this
stream our symbol of deliverance from the conventional and commonplace, our
guide to liberty and a quiet mind?



So reasoned Graygown with her



"most silver flow

Of subtle-paced counsel in distress."



And, according to her word, so did we. That lazy, idle brook became to us
one of the best of friends; the pathfinder of happiness on many a bright
summer day; and, through long vacations, the faithful encourager of
indolence.



Indolence in the proper sense of the word, you understand. The meaning
which is commonly given to it, as Archbishop Trench pointed out in his
suggestive book about WORDS AND THEIR USES, is altogether false. To speak
of indolence as if it were a vice is just a great big verbal slander.



Indolence is a virtue. It comes from two Latin words, which mean freedom
from anxiety or grief. And that is a wholesome state of mind. There are
times and seasons when it is even a pious and blessed state of mind. Not to
be in a hurry; not to be ambitious or jealous or resentful; not to feel
envious of anybody; not to fret about to-day nor worry about
to-morrow,--that is the way we ought all to feel at some time in our lives;
and that is the kind of indolence in which our brook faithfully encouraged
us.



'T is an age in which such encouragement is greatly needed. We have fallen
so much into the habit of being always busy that we know not how nor when to
break it off with firmness. Our business tags after us into the midst of
our pleasures, and we are ill at ease beyond reach of the telegraph and the
daily newspaper. We agitate ourselves amazingly about a multitude of
affairs,--the politics of Europe, the state of the weather all around the
globe, the marriages and festivities of very rich people, and the latest
novelties in crime, none of which are of vital interest to us. The more
earnest souls among us are cultivating a vicious tendency to Summer Schools,
and Seaside Institutes of Philosophy, and Mountaintop Seminaries of Modern
Languages.



We toil assiduously to cram something more into those scrap-bags of
knowledge which we fondly call our minds. Seldom do we rest tranquil long
enough to find out whether there is anything in them already that is of real
value,--any native feeling, any original thought, which would like to come
out and sun itself for a while in quiet.



For my part, I am sure that I stand more in need of a deeper sense of
contentment with life than of a knowledge of the Bulgarian tongue, and that
all the paradoxes of Hegel would not do me so much good as one hour of vital
sympathy with the careless play of children. The Marquis du Paty de
l'Huitre may espouse the daughter and heiress of the Honourable James Bulger
with all imaginable pomp, if he will. CA NE M'INTRIGUE POINT DU TOUT. I
would rather stretch myself out on the grass and watch yonder pair of
kingbirds carrying luscious flies to their young ones in the nest, or
chasing away the marauding crow with shrill cries of anger.



What a pretty battle it is, and in a good cause, too! Waste no pity on that
big black ruffian. He is a villain and a thief, an egg-stealer, an ogre, a
devourer of unfledged innocents. The kingbirds are not afraid of him,
knowing that he is a coward at heart. They fly upon him, now from below,
now from above. They buffet him from one side and from the other. They
circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated
man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into his
neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his lumbering
flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little defenders fly
back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for a moment, then
dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect. The war is over.
Courage has had its turn. Now tenderness comes into play. The young birds,
all ignorant of the passing danger, but always conscious of an insatiable
hunger, are uttering loud remonstrances and plaintive demands for food.
Domestic life begins again, and they that sow not, neither gather into
barns, are fed.



Do you suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all the
myriad actors on it taught to play their parts, without a spectator in view?
Do you think that there is anything better for you and me to do, now and
then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few scenes in
the drama? Has it not something to say to us, and do we not understand it
best when we have a peaceful heart and free from dolor? That is what
IN-DOLENCE means, and there are no better teachers of it then the
light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers, commended by the wisest of all
masters to our consideration; nor can we find a more pleasant pedagogue to
lead us to their school than a small, merry brook.



And this was what our chosen stream did for us. It was always luring us
away from an artificial life into restful companionship with nature.



Suppose, for example, we found ourselves growing a bit dissatisfied with the
domestic arrangements of our little cottage, and coveting the splendours of
a grander establishment. An afternoon on the brook was a good cure for that
folly. Or suppose a day came when there was an imminent prospect of many
formal calls. We had an important engagement up the brook; and while we
kept it we could think with satisfaction of the joy of our callers when they
discovered that they could discharge their whole duty with a piece of
pasteboard. This was an altruistic pleasure. Or suppose that a few friends
were coming to supper, and there were no flowers for the supper-table. We
could easily have bought them in the village. But it was far more to our
liking to take the children up the brook, and come back with great bunches
of wild white honeysuckle and blue flag, or posies of arrowheads and
cardinal-flowers. Or suppose that I was very unwisely and reluctantly
labouring at some serious piece of literary work, promised for the next
number of THE SCRIBBLER'S REVIEW; and suppose that in the midst of this
labour the sad news came to me that the fisherman had forgotten to leave any
fish at our cottage that morning. Should my innocent babes and my devoted
wife be left to perish of starvation while I continued my poetical
comparison of the two Williams, Shakspeare and Watson? Inhuman selfishness!
Of course it was my plain duty to sacrifice my inclinations, and get my
fly-rod, and row away across the bay, with a deceptive appearance of
cheerfulness, to catch a basket of trout in--
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End, Part 2.