human
Do you see that tree? indicating a maple almost denuded of leaves, which lay like a yellow garment cast at its feet.
gpt
I've been watching that tree all the morning. There hain't been a breath of wind: but for hours the leaves have been falling, falling, just as you see them now; and at last it's pretty much bare. And after a pause, pensively:
human
Waal, I suppose its hour had come.
gpt
Now I want you to go with me and see my golden city I've talked so much about. He led the way to a hill-outlook, when suddenly, emerging from the forest, the spectators saw revealed the winding valley and its stream. He said quietly,
human
There is my golden city. Far below, at their feet, they saw that vast assemblage of birches and
gpt
yellow as gold in the brooding noonday, and slender spires rising out of the glowing mass. Without another word, Phelps sat a long time in silent content: it was to him, as Bunyan says,
human
Yes, but not about money. To have had hours such as I have had in these mountains, and with such men as Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Shaw and Mr. Twichell, and others I could name, is worth all the money the world could give. He read character very well, and took in accurately the boy nature.
gpt
Tom (an irrepressible, rather overdone specimen),--
human
--
gpt
Boys! he once said:
human
still speaking of scenery,
gpt
It filled my cup about as full as I callerlate to have it: there was a good deal of truth in it, and some poetry; waal, and a little spice, too. We've got to have the spice, you know. He admired, for different reasons, a lecture by Greeley that he once heard, into which so much knowledge of various kinds was crowded that he said he
human
He was not without discrimination, which he exercised upon the local preaching when nothing better offered. Of one sermon he said,
gpt
The man began way back at the creation, and just preached right along down; and he didn't say nothing, after all. It just seemed to me as if he was tryin' to git up a kind of a fix-up.
human
Speckerlation and
gpt
and
human
are specimens of words that were prolific in expression. An unusual expression, or an unusual article, would be charactcrized as a
gpt
What is the program for tomorrow? I once asked him.
human
Waal, I callerlate, if they rig up the callerlation they callerlate on, we'll go to the Boreas. Starting out for a day's tramp in the woods, he would ask whether we wanted to take a
gpt
--the latter being a plunge into the pathless forest. When he was on such an expedition, and became entangled in dense brush, and maybe a network of
human
and swamp, he was like an old wizard, as he looked here and there, seeking a way, peering into the tangle, or withdrawing from a thicket, and muttering to himself,
gpt
There ain't no speckerlation there. And when the way became altogether inscrutable,--
human
Waal, this is a reg'lar random scoot of a rigmarole. As some one remarked,
gpt
The dictionary in his hands is like clay in the hands of the potter.
human
A petrifaction was a kind of a hard-wood chemical git-up.
gpt
Justly regarding most of the Adirondack literature as a
human
he has himself projected a work, and written much on the natural history of his region. Long ago he made a large map of the mountain country; and, until recent surveys, it was the only one that could lay any claim to accuracy. His history is no doubt original in form, and unconventional in expression. Like most of the writers of the seventeenth century, and the court ladies and gentlemen of the eighteenth century, he is an independent speller. Writing of his work on the Adirondacks, he says,
gpt
If I should ever live to get this wonderful thing written, I expect it will show one thing, if no more; and that is, that every thing has an opposite. I expect to show in this that literature has an opposite, if I do not show any thing els. We could not enjoy the blessings and happiness of riteousness if we did not know innicuty was in the world: in fact, there would be no riteousness without innicuty. Writing also of his great enjoyment of being in the woods, especially since he has had the society there of some people he names, he adds,
human
And since I have Literature, Siance, and Art all spread about on the green moss of the mountain woods or the gravell banks of a cristle stream, it seems like finding roses, honeysuckels, and violets on a crisp brown cliff in December. You know I don't believe much in the religion of seramony; but any riteous thing that has life and spirit in it is food for me. I must not neglect to mention an essay, continued in several numbers of his local paper, on
gpt
The Growth of the Tree, in which he demolishes the theory of Mr. Greeley, whom he calls
human
about
gpt
He treats of the office of sap:
human
All trees have some kind of sap and some kind of operation of sap flowing in their season, the dissemination of seeds, the processes of growth, the power of healing wounds, the proportion of roots to branches, &c. Speaking of the latter, he says,
gpt
I have thought it would be one of the greatest curiosities on earth to see a thrifty growing maple or elm, that had grown on a deep soil interval to be two feet in diameter, to be raised clear into the air with every root and fibre down to the minutest thread, all entirely cleared of soil, so that every particle could be seen in its natural position. I think it would astonish even the wise ones. From his instinctive sympathy with nature, he often credits vegetable organism with
human
gpt
Observation teaches us that a tree is given powerful instincts, which would almost appear to amount to judgment in some cases, to provide for its own wants and necessities.