11/5/2023 0 Comments Nostalgia quotes goodreadsI live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.Ī tree says: My strength is trust. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.Ī tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. ![]() And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. I would not have it changed.“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. The pattern of the door-mat, the pictures on the old music-box, the sound of the rocking-horse as it swung, the engravings on the stair, the smell of the Indian corn, and the feeling of plunging one's hands into the bin, the hooting of the turkeys and the quick flutter of the fantail's wings. It is six or seven years since I have been there, but I remember it like yesterday. The rooms will look cold and empty, the passage I used to patter along so kindly on the way to bed will no longer seem dark and mysterious, and, above all, the kind voice which cheered the house is silent forever. I have now seen longer passages and higher halls. I have a very pleasant recollection of it, which I fear may be changed. Not that I look forward to that as an unmixed pleasure. I am afraid grandmamma Potter will be disappointed, and I very much wished to go, but it is the last chance of seeing the old house. A bee settled into a flower, humming and humming.” Tridden's voice rose and fell, and a darning needle sewed along the air, stitching, restitching designs both holden and invisible. It was a drifting, easy day, nobody rushing, and the forest all about, the sun held in one position, as Mr. Tridden looking wonderfully young, his eyes lighted like small bulbs, blue and electric. The lake was silent and blue and serene, and fish peacefully threaded the bright reeds, and the motorman murmured on and on, and the children felt it was some other year, with Mr. There was the walk now, all softened into a fiber mush by the years. ![]() Tridden told them how it had been twenty years ago, the band playing on that ornate stand at night, the men pumping air into their brass horns, the plump conductor flinging perspiration from his baton, the children and fireflies running in the deep grass, the ladies with long dresses and high pompadours treading the wooden xylophone walks with men in choking collars.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |