Sometimes I had a panion in my fishing, who came through the
village to my house from the other side of the town, and the
catg of the dinner was as much a social exercise as the eating
of it.
Hermit. I wonder what the world is doing now. I have not heard
so much as a locust over the sweet-ferhree hours. The
pigeons are all asleep upon their roosts -- no flutter from them.
Was that a farmers noon horn which sounded from beyond the woods
just now? The hands are ing in to boiled salt beef and cider and
Indian bread. Why will men worry themselves so? He that does not
eat need not work. I wonder how much they have reaped. Who would
live there where a body ever think for the barking of Bose?
And oh, the housekeeping! to keep bright the devils door-knobs, and
scour his tubs this bright day! Better not keep a house. Say, some
hollow tree; and then for m calls and dinner-parties! Only a
woodpecker tapping. Oh, they swarm; the sun is too warm there; they
are born too far into life for me. I have water from the spring,
and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf. -- Hark! I hear a rustling
of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound yielding to the
instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is said to be in these
woods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It es on apace; my
sumachs and sweetbriers tremble. -- Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do
you like the world to-day?
Poet. See those clouds; how they hang! Thats the greatest
thing I have seen to-day. Theres nothing like it in old paintings,
nothing like it in fn lands -- unless when we were off the
coast of Spain. Thats a true Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I
have my living to get, and have en to-day, that I might go
a-fishing. Thats the true industry for poets. It is the only
trade I have learned. e, lets along.
Hermit. I ot resist. My brown bread will soon be gone. I
will go with you gladly soon, but I am just cluding a serious
meditation. I think that I am he end of it. Leave me alone,
then, for a while. But that we may not be delayed, you shall be
digging the bait meanwhile. Angleworms are rarely to be met with in
these parts, where the soil was never fattened with mahe race
is nearly extinct. The sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to
that of catg the fish, when ones appetite is not too keen; and
this you may have all to yourself today. I would advise you to set
in the spade down yonder among the ground-nuts, where you see the
johnswort waving. I think that I may warrant you one worm to every
three sods you turn up, if you look well in among the roots of the
grass, as if you were weeding. Or, if you choose to go farther, it
will not be unwise, for I have found the increase of fair bait to be
very nearly as the squares of the distances.
Hermit alone. Let me see; where was I? Methinks I was nearly
in this frame of mind; the world lay about at this angle. Shall I
go to heaven or a-fishing? If I should so this meditation
to an end, would another so sweet occasion be likely to offer? I
was as near being resolved into the essence of things as ever I was
in my life. I fear my thoughts will not e bae. If it
would do any good, I would whistle for t