A Word about Knowledge
Half a loaf may be better than no bread, but such a rule will not apply to all matters. Half a fact is not better than ignorance.
Recently, not very far from New York, the Boston idea of naming the trees in the public grounds – painting upon narrow boards both the botanical and common names – was adopted by the city authorities.
Acer rubrum, | Quercus alba,
Red maple, | White oak,
and so on, were nailed to the various trees, and each, as is not always the case, in its proper place. While the work was in progress the following conversation took place: “What a deal of money is spent in advertising patent medicines and such stuff nowadays!” remarked Blank to his friend. “See there!” and he pointed to a maple properly labeled, adding, “That’s some new bitters or a salve for corns, I suppose.” “No, it isn’t,” replied Double Blank, with an air of infinite wisdom; “these boards are the names of the different kinds of trees, nailed up for the benefit of the ignorant in such matters. Here’s another one, and, don’t you see, it gives the scientific and common names both? Quercus, white; alba, an oak. I remember that much Latin, anyhow.” Is it true that life is too short to acquire decent knowledge of natural history, along with arithmetic and geography? And what profiteth it to study Latin if such a display of ignorance as the above is the ultimate outcome? Botany and zoölogy are in the curriculum of many lesser institutions than colleges; but, from the manner in which these subjects are taught in some places, they would better be omitted. These two worthy citizens whose conversation was overheard – and the report thereof is not “doctored” – had both been through a course of botany, and one of them had struggled through a Latin reader. There is undoubtedly still a considerable amount of prejudice against science, or “organized common sense,” as Kingdon Clifford has happily called it, though why I do not pretend to know. If it is a fact that birds fly and fishes swim, can any harm come of knowing it, and of how and why they fly and swim? And, a step further, if some birds swim instead of fly, and certain fishes climb trees, as is true, is knowledge of the fact likely to prove dangerous? Yet again, if ten thousand facts have been discovered, as they have, which upset the ideas of our grandfathers, need we tremble? I trow not. And this leads me to a word also about “newspaper science,” of which more anon. What wonderful statements creep into the local papers! Impossible snakes, no less impossible birds, and creatures too strange for even the nightmare of a zoölogist, figure now and then as captured in the neighborhood of an inland town, yet no one contradicts the reporter or sees the absurdity of it all. The mythical hoop-snake bespatters the “patent outsides” of many a village weekly. Better, by far, absolute ignorance than half the truth. Quercus, white; alba, an oak, indeed!
While the aforesaid intellectual status causes us to pity our fellows and at times to laugh at their expense, brazen assumption of knowledge, which is far more common, is often positively exasperating.
What a sad spectacle, yet very common one, to find, even in our larger towns, thousands led blindly by a half-dozen who, by reason of brazen assumption, have stepped forth as leaders, and been meekly accepted as such! The intellectual status of many a village is sometimes ludicrous. In Smalltown there live a lawyer, a doctor, and a clergyman, who are great cronies, past sixty, and puffed up with pride. As a matter of course, they rule the little community with a rod of iron. Not a great question of the day but is referred to some one of the three or to all, and nothing concerning the past comes up but their opinion is sought and relied upon. No one ever reaches an independent conclusion, nor thinks for a moment that error may have crept in when the past is discussed. The noble three were never known to admit their ignorance; and never, during their joint reign, have their decisions been disputed. Of course, the inhabitants of Smalltown see as through a glass, darkly; for who such disseminators of untruth as those who lay claim to universal knowledge? May a recent ray of light that recently penetrated their darkness tend toward their awakening! It happened not long since that the blacksmith fell ill, and a stranger took his place at the forge. This newcomer had been taught his trade, and rightfully prided himself that he thoroughly understood it. Such independence nettled the village clergyman, and, when that worthy came to have his horse shod, there was not a paring of the hoof, driving of a nail, or stroke of the hammer, but under his explicit direction. The smith was patient, silent, and obedient, but all the while there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes. The horse went lame directly, and “That fellow is an ignorant bungler,” was the minister’s outspoken decision.
That was Monday, and Smalltown moved with the monotony of the old hall clock’s pendulum until Sunday morning. Then the quiet blacksmith took his seat in church near the door and sat through the service. In due course the sermon of the past half-century, with variations, was preached, and ended with the usual peroration, “Brethren, is this not true?” With the asking of that question Smalltown was shaken to its foundations, for the blacksmith quickly shouted, “No!” and straightway retired. That minister had no faith in the skill of the blacksmith; the latter placed no confidence in the preacher’s logic. I do not defend the blacksmith, but, somehow, when I heard the story, I was otherwise than shocked. There is a bit of harshness in it, perhaps, but the remark must needs be made: Pin not too much faith upon defective memory; and it may be rightfully added, there is nothing but reasonableness in the suggestion that he who presumes to know all things is no safe authority upon any.
The Night-Side of Nature
Not long since I checked the flow of a diminutive brook that barely trickled over a most tortuous course, and during midsummer was often a thing forgotten. By building a dam I raised a shallow pond about two hundred feet square, and nowhere more than eighteen inches deep, save at its outlet. Here are now growing beautiful water-lilies – pink, yellow, blue, and white – the stately lotus, and many a pretty aquatic plant from foreign lands. Of these I have nothing now to say, except incidentally, but a good deal concerning the remarkable zoölogical features of this artificial pond in the corner of an exposed upland field.
I am quite sure that the most skillful hunter would have found no game had he scoured this and the adjoining fields, even with trained dogs; no trapper would have deigned to set a snare anywhere about the place, and the naturalist would have considered the outlook most unpromising. As in every farming district, here were acres of corn-fields, wheat-fields, truck-patch, and pasture, and nothing but grass or growing crops to relieve the monotony of the landscape. Every vestige of wildness has long since been improved off the face of this region, and grasshoppers, mice, and field-sparrows constitute the fauna. That is, apparently so; and how readily we underrate the merits of the so-called commonplace in nature! The truth is, every inch of these unsuggestive fields has ever been and is familiar ground to hosts of cunning creatures, or how else could the pond that was formed in a few days have become tenanted as it now is? The remarkable promptness with which every nook and corner was occupied by some water-loving animal almost the very day the pond was formed shows how much is overlooked if we familiarize ourselves only with the events of the day, and ignore, as young naturalists are all too apt to do, the night-side of nature.
If the reader were to stand on the bank of the little pond early in the morning, his attention would doubtless be drawn exclusively to the lilies, and the skimming barn-swallows or fiery dragon-flies that outspeed them would not be seen. Here and there the waters would be rippled, but only the broad leaves of the lotus trembling in the breeze would catch his eye, yet that ripple marks the progress of a monstrous water-snake. Charmed by the beauty of a trailing vine that rests like an emerald serpent on the pond’s placid surface, the deep tones of enormous frogs will be unheard, yet here are giants of their race that quickly found the spot, many of them larger and more musical than their brethren in the meadows. By the side of a miniature lily from Siberia, scarcely an inch in width, may pop up the rugged head of the ferocious snapping-turtle, but the onlooker will see only a bit of wood floating in the water, so absorbed is he in the wonderful display of aquatic bloom.
Now, this is not an imaginary case, but the record of more than one actual occurrence, and I lay stress upon the particulars because it shows how readily we overlook so much that is well worth seeing. These few square rods of shallow water go not so much to make a lily-pond, although this was my sole intention, as to form a zoölogical garden on a quite extensive scale.
Let us consider now some of these unbidden and unwelcome occupants of the pond. Of the mammalian life, first in bulk as well as destructiveness is the musk-rat. It is not so much of a wonder that these animals so soon appeared. They are given to nocturnal wanderings. This is the night-side of their nature that we must keep in mind. In this case they had but to follow the windings of the brook for a thousand yards from a creek, where they have always been, to reach the pond. The curious feature of their coming was, that in so short a time they had securely established themselves. They seem to have said to themselves, “This is to our liking,” and without delay dug their underground retreats. They considered the pond their own, and in one night the smooth and sodded bank was marred by a line of treacherous hills and hollows. Then broad leaves and thick stems of lilies began to float about, cleanly cut from the parent plant. The culprits were well known, yet days and weeks passed without one being seen. But a single moonlit night sufficed to tell me what I had guessed: their hours of activity are when men are supposed to be asleep.
The wary mink, too, came nightly to the pond, and, if it fished in the waters, it was for the many frogs that abounded, but I found no mangled remains of the old fellows that out-croaked the myriads in the meadows.
Then rabbits, mice, and squirrels came trooping to the water’s edge, stood there, and wondered at the novelty of a bit of the meadows being brought from the lowlands to this dry and dusty field; and when a prowling dog came by, how with one wild shriek they vanished, and left the pond to the bewildered dog and myself, and then to myself only, for the dog soon turned to follow the trail of the fleeing rabbits; and here I tarried long, gazing in rapture upon the lotus by moonlight.
It is Gordon Cumming who has described with wonderful vividness how herds of antelopes and elephants, and even many lions, came to drink at night from pools near which he lay concealed. What a boon to a naturalist to see these mighty beasts under such circumstances!
It may seem very absurd to think of one when speaking of the other, and ludicrous to compare them; but when I sat concealed by the little lily-pond and saw these little animals, musk-rats, rabbits, and even smaller fry, come to the water’s edge, I did think of the great lion-hunter of South Africa, and honestly believe I could realize, even more vividly than when I read his thrilling pages, what he had seen.
Probably no feature of wild life is so characteristic of water-scenes as the tall wading birds, herons, snipe, and sand-pipers. I did not anticipate the coming of any of these, unless it might be the little teetering sand-piper that is practically a land bird; but it has kept aloof, so far as I know, while stately herons have come and trod the grassy shores and fished in the shallow depths. These birds are not a feature of the day, however, and unless you are abroad after sunset you would not suspect their presence. And then do not expect too much. Probably some of the wonderful stories concerning herons, bitterns, cranes, and storks, have come to your notice, but it is quite certain that our North American species are very prosy, and set off by their size the waterscape far more than they embellish it by wonderful habits. It is true they are expert in catching frogs, cray-fish, and even mice; but, however bright the moonlight, you can see next to nothing of all this. The facts have been reached from dissection more than observation. And what of the “powder-down patches” upon a heron’s breast? The fable that these emit light and illuminate the water sufficiently to enable the bird to see a fish in the water is still repeated, and a greater error never found utterance. It is a pretty fancy, so the more dangerous, as it crops out every now and then, to the deceiving of the unsuspecting reader.
I have spoken of a monstrous water-snake. This serpent has long been a feature of the pond, and, when in the upland fields laying its eggs it probably smelled the water, and so turned northward toward the lilies, instead of returning southward to the splatter-docks in the meadows. I have cornered the creature several times, and always found it exceedingly surly. To be held in the hand it considers an insult, and bites with a rapidity of motion of the head that is marvelous. Its teeth are pretty sharp, too, and bring blood when the hand or bare arm is struck; but then its violent efforts are so amusing that one forgets all about the pain. The snake loves a moonlit night, and at such times occasionally floats upon the surface of the pond without making the slightest motion, and a stranger would suppose it to be a small limb of a tree. This apparent rest, however, has a purpose behind, and is, I think, connected with the capture of food; or so it has appeared to me on several occasions.
That the several turtles of our meadow tracts should find their way to the pond was not surprising, for even those most strictly aquatic take long overland journeys in spring and early summer; but I did not look for fish, as none could come down the brook, and I as little supposed that any could climb fifty feet above the river and reach it; and then they would have, besides, to jump over the dam or waddle around it. And I saw no fish until weeks after the pond was completed. I stocked it with carp, and then, lo! there were mud-minnows in these shut-off waters. Of course, they were there before the dam was built, and now they are too well established to be exterminated. I can only hope they will not find the carps’ eggs, or feed exclusively on the young fish.
What, then, have I accomplished by damming a little brook? I have changed to a watery wilderness the corner of a one-time dusty field. I have brought representatives of many forms of animal life, hitherto unknown to the spot, to a prosy nook, and so changed the whole face of Nature. The very weeds are even now different from those of former years, and hosts of insects that had not been here before now fill the air and make it to tremble with their tireless wings. And to the rambler, after long tramping in dusty fields or along the no less cheerless highway, here is a pleasant spot indeed, one that epitomizes half the country round, and offers, too, many a suggestive novelty. So much by day; but let him tarry until the gloaming, and when the lilies have folded he will catch, what is even better, glimpses of the night-side of Nature.
The Herbs of the Field
Wandering recently in and out the woods and fields, tramping aimlessly whithersoever fancy led me, I crushed with my feet, at last, a stem of pennyroyal. Catching the warm fragrance of its pungent oil, straightway the little-loved present vanished. How true it is that many an odor, however faint, opens the closed doors of the past! Prosy and commonplace it may seem, but full many a time a whiff from the kitchen of some old farm-house, where I have stopped for a drink of water, recalls another farm-kitchen, redolent of marvelous gingerbread and pies, such as I have failed to find in recent years, and with their tempting spiciness went that subtle odor, from which indeed the whole house was never free, that of sweet-smelling herbs. I am daily thankful that the herbs at least have not changed, as the years roll by. It is the same pennyroyal that my grandmother gathered; and think to what strange use she put it! Made pennyroyal puddings! Let them go down to posterity by name only.
The herbs of the field and garden were gathered, each in its proper season, by the folks at home, and in great bunches were suspended from the exposed beams of the old kitchen. In early autumn they made quite a display, but, as the winter wore away, became rather sorry-looking reminders of the past summer. To a limited extent their bulk decreased and their odor became less pronounced; but how seldom were they ever disturbed! I have dared to think that herb-gathering was a survival from prehistoric times, but I never dared to hint this to my grandmother. The nearest to doing this was to coax a braver boy to ask if the old bunches were burned at midnight with secret ceremonies, for they gave place to the new crop each year, yet were not seen lying about the yard. Neither the braver boy nor I could get any satisfaction, but a forcible reprimand instead, for hinting at paganism. I hold, nevertheless, that a trace of it did exist then, and does. Was it not something akin to this that more than one medicinal herb had to be gathered at midnight? This, it is true, was not openly admitted, but unquestionably faith in its virtue as a remedy was diminished if the plant was not gathered as the superstition dictated. Try as we may, the crude faiths of our prehistoric ancestry we can not snap asunder. As elastic bands, they may grow finer and finer with the tension of the centuries, but still, perhaps as but invisible threads, they hold.
However steadily herb-using may have been going out of date in my early boyhood, herb-gathering was not, and I may be mistaken when I say that, except the pennyroyal in puddings, sage in sausage, and a bit of thyme and parsley in soup, the dozen others hung in old kitchens were unused except as fly-roosts – a fact that scarcely added to their virtues.
When I last lounged on the old settle and counted the several kinds of herbs hanging overhead, an aged negress assured me that every “yarb” kept some disease at bay, and predicted disaster as the new kitchens with their plastered ceilings and modern stoves gave way to more primitive architecture and methods. And I am half inclined to believe that she was right. The old folks had their aches and pains, but not so much of that depressing languor that we call malaria. Might not the ever-present odors of sweet-smelling herbs have kept this at bay? I fancied I felt the better for the whiff of pennyroyal, and, gathering a handful of its leaves, breathed the spiciness until my lungs were filled. It is something to have an herb at hand that revives the past, and more perhaps to have many that add a charm to the present, for the pastures in August would be somewhat dreary, I think, were there not in almost every passing breeze the odor of sweet-smelling herbs.
But if pennyroyal, sweet cicely, and the spicy “mocker”-nut carry me back some twoscore years, what shall be said of a faint odor that can yet be distilled from plants that flourished in the same pastures or where these pastures now are, perhaps a million years ago? One is not given to thinking of anthracite as at one time wood, but it is different in this instance, for the blackened, fern-like plants in the underlying clays are still wood and not petrified; so that they burn with a feeble flame when dry, and burning throw off a rich fragrance akin to frankincense. I have often placed a splinter of these ancient trees in the flame of a candle, and, sniffing the odor that arises, travel in fancy to New Jersey’s upland and meadows before they were trodden by palæolithic man; before even the mastodon and gigantic beaver had appeared; when enormous lizards and a few strange birds ruled the wide wastes. But the world here was not wholly strange, even then, for many a familiar tree was growing in this old river valley, as the delicate impressions of their leaves in the clay so clearly demonstrate.
If, then, one would indulge in retrospection – and therein lies one of life’s most solid comforts – it will be found that suggestive objects are ever about us, and the herbs of the field, in August, would scarcely be missed, if unhappily they ceased to grow. But why, it may be asked, are these same herbs so suggestive of the past, so certain to give rise to retrospective thought? It is not a personal matter, for I have questioned many people, and in this they all agree. One reply is a fair representative of all. Offering a little bunch of garden herbs to an old man no longer able to wander out of doors, he immediately buried his nose in it, drew a long breath, and remarked, “How that carries me back to the old homestead!”
As by the touch of a magician’s wand, in my walk to-day, the present vanished when I crushed the pennyroyal, and the ringing songs of the still tuneful summer birds were not exultant strains glorifying the present, but echoes of a dim past over which, perhaps, I am too prone to brood.
It is absurdly contradictory, of course, to say that I love retrospection, and that in August one is more prone to think of the past than the present, and yet not to love that month, but such is the case. In other words, I am vacillating and contradictory, and fail to command the words that might set me right before the world; but it is August now, and, summer’s activity ended, why should I labor to think? Why not build air-castles as I smell the herbs of the field; build and unbuild them until the day closes, and later, lulled by the monotones of cricket and katydid, hum those ever-melancholy lines —
“Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight;
Make me a child again, just for to-night.”