ere was thy sting? O Grave, where
was thy victory, then?

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored
forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness--to
wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and
hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only
some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls
with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are
earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things
be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild,
unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have
enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible
vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the
wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud,
and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need
to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely
where we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture
feeding on the carrion which disgusts and disheartens us, and deriving
health and strength from the repast. There was a dead horse in the
hollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go
out of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the
assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of
Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is
so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and
suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so
serenely squashed out of existence like pulp--tadpoles which herons
gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that
sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident,
we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made
on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous
after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable
ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be
stereotyped.

Early in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, just putting
out amidst the pine woods around the pond, imparted a brightness like
sunshine to the landscape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were
breaking through mists and shining faintly on the hillsides here and
there. On the third or fourth