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Browsing named entities in Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Irene E. Jerome., In a fair country.

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Homer (search for this): chapter 1
know an arbor-vitae from a pine,—he doesn't know anything. When Ben grows up to maturity, bearing such terrible definitions in his unshrinking hands, which of us will be safe? The softer aspects of Nature, especially, require time and culture before man can enjoy them. To rude races her processes bring only terror, which is very slowly outgrown. Humboldt has best exhibited the scantiness of finer natural perceptions in Greek and Roman literature, in spite of the grand oceanic rhythm of Homer, and the delicate water-coloring of the Greek Anthology and of Horace. The Oriental and the Norse sacred books are full of fresh and beautiful allusions; but the Greek saw in Nature only a framework for Art, and the Roman only a camping-ground for men. Even Virgil describes the grotto of Aeneas merely as a black grove with horrid shade,—Horrenti atrum nemus imminet umbra. Wordsworth points out, that, even in English literature, the Windsor Forest of Anne, Countess of Winchelsea, was the fi
Humboldt (search for this): chapter 1
the parlor had been saying that somebody else was an idiot. Don't you know? quoth Ben, in his sweet voice: an idiot is a person who doesn't know an arbor-vitae from a pine,—he doesn't know anything. When Ben grows up to maturity, bearing such terrible definitions in his unshrinking hands, which of us will be safe? The softer aspects of Nature, especially, require time and culture before man can enjoy them. To rude races her processes bring only terror, which is very slowly outgrown. Humboldt has best exhibited the scantiness of finer natural perceptions in Greek and Roman literature, in spite of the grand oceanic rhythm of Homer, and the delicate water-coloring of the Greek Anthology and of Horace. The Oriental and the Norse sacred books are full of fresh and beautiful allusions; but the Greek saw in Nature only a framework for Art, and the Roman only a camping-ground for men. Even Virgil describes the grotto of Aeneas merely as a black grove with horrid shade,—Horrenti atrum
Cooper (search for this): chapter 1
,—Azalea, Diervilla, Lonicera, Aquilegia,—just as every bird which sings loud in deep woods is popularly denominated a thrush. The really rustic names of both plants and animals are very few with us,—the different species are many; and as we come to know them better and love them more, we absolutely require some way to distinguish them from their half-sisters and second-cousins. It is hopeless to try to create new popular epithets, or even to revive those which are thoroughly obsolete. Miss Cooper may strive in vain, with benevolent intent, to christen her favorite spring blossoms May-Wings and Gay-Wings, and Fringe-Cup and Squirrel-Cup, and Cool-Wort and Bead-Ruby; there is no conceivable reason why these should not be the familiar appellations, except the irresistible fact that they are not. It is impossible to create a popular name: one might as well attempt to invent a legend or compose a ballad. Nascitur, non fit. As the spring comes on, and the changing outlines of the e<
Root (search for this): chapter 1
sm for vernacular names is like that for Indian names of localities, one-sided: we enumerate only the graceful ones, and ignore the rest. It would be a pity to Latinize Touch-me-not, or Yarrow, or Gold Thread, or Self-Heal, or Columbine, or Blue-Eyed-Grass,—though, to be sure, this last has an annoying way of shutting up its azure orbs the moment you gather it, and you reach home with a bare, stiff blade, which deserves no better name than Sisyrinchium anceps. But in what respect is Cucumber-Root preferable to Medeola, or Solomon's-Seal to Convallaria, or Rock-Tripe to Umbilicaria, or Lousewort to Pedicularis? In other cases the merit is divided: Anemone may dispute the prize of melody with Windflower, Campanula with Harebell, Neottia with Ladies'-Tresses, Uvularia with Bellwort and Strawbell, Potentilla with Cinquefoil, and Sanguinaria with Bloodroot. Hepatica may be bad, but Liverleaf is worse. The pretty name of May-flower is not so popular, after all, as that of Trailing-Arbutu
Gay (search for this): chapter 1
nominated a thrush. The really rustic names of both plants and animals are very few with us,—the different species are many; and as we come to know them better and love them more, we absolutely require some way to distinguish them from their half-sisters and second-cousins. It is hopeless to try to create new popular epithets, or even to revive those which are thoroughly obsolete. Miss Cooper may strive in vain, with benevolent intent, to christen her favorite spring blossoms May-Wings and Gay-Wings, and Fringe-Cup and Squirrel-Cup, and Cool-Wort and Bead-Ruby; there is no conceivable reason why these should not be the familiar appellations, except the irresistible fact that they are not. It is impossible to create a popular name: one might as well attempt to invent a legend or compose a ballad. Nascitur, non fit. As the spring comes on, and the changing outlines of the elm give daily a new design for a Grecian urn,— its hue first brown with blossoms, then emerald with leaves,
Bigelow (search for this): chapter 1
ldren instinctively recognize this, and are apt to omit them when gathering the more delicate native blossoms of the woods. There is something touching in the gradual retirement before civilization of these fragile aborigines. They do not wait for the actual brute contact of red bricks and curbstones, but they feel the danger miles away. The Indians called the low plantain the white man's footstep; and these shy creatures gradually disappear the moment the red man gets beyond hearing. Bigelow's delightful book Florula Bostoniensis is becoming a series of epitaphs. Too well we know it,—those of us who in happy Cambridge childhood often gathered, almost within a stone's-throw of Professor Agassiz's new museum, the arethusa and the gentian, the cardinal-flower and the gaudy rhexia,—we who remember the last secret hiding-place of the rhodora in West Cambridge, of the yellow violet and the Viola debilis in Watertown, of the Convallaria trifolia near Fresh Pond, of the Hottonia beyon
1672 AD (search for this): chapter 1
ht be tempted to think that we owe this appreciation, like some other good things, to the participation of woman in literature. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the voluminous Duchess of Newcastle, in her Ode on Melancholy, describes among the symbols of hopeless gloom the still moonshine night and a mill where rushing waters run about,—the sweetest natural images. In our own country, the early explorers seemed to find only horror in its woods and waterfalls. Josselyn, in 1672, could only describe the summer splendor of the White Mountain region as dauntingly terrible, being full of rocky hills, as thick as molehills in a meadow, and full of infinite thick woods. Father Hennepin spoke of Niagara, in the narrative still quoted in the guide-books, as a frightful cataract; and honest John Adams could find no better name than horrid chasm for the picturesque gulf at Egg Rock, where he first saw the sea-anemone. But we are lingering too long, perhaps, with this swe
Thales (search for this): chapter 1
ugaring, but with shadding. The pretty Amelanchier Canadensis of Gray—the Aronia of Whittier's song—is called Shad-bush, or Shad-blow, in Essex County, from its connection with this season; and there is a bird known as the Shad-spirit, which I take to be identical with the flicker or golden-winged woodpecker, whose note is still held to indicate the first day when the fish ascend the river. Upon such slender wings flits our New-England romance! In April the creative process described by Thales is repeated, and the world is renewed by water. The submerged creatures first feel the touch of spring, and many an equivocal career, beginning in the ponds and brooks, learns later to ignore this obscure beginning, and hops or flutters in the dusty daylight. Early in March, before the first male cankermoth appears on the elm-tree, the whirlwig beetles have begun to play round the broken edges of the ice, and the caddis-worms to crawl beneath it; and soon come the water-skater (Gerris) and
Josselyn (search for this): chapter 1
ess, we might be tempted to think that we owe this appreciation, like some other good things, to the participation of woman in literature. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the voluminous Duchess of Newcastle, in her Ode on Melancholy, describes among the symbols of hopeless gloom the still moonshine night and a mill where rushing waters run about,—the sweetest natural images. In our own country, the early explorers seemed to find only horror in its woods and waterfalls. Josselyn, in 1672, could only describe the summer splendor of the White Mountain region as dauntingly terrible, being full of rocky hills, as thick as molehills in a meadow, and full of infinite thick woods. Father Hennepin spoke of Niagara, in the narrative still quoted in the guide-books, as a frightful cataract; and honest John Adams could find no better name than horrid chasm for the picturesque gulf at Egg Rock, where he first saw the sea-anemone. But we are lingering too long, perhaps, wi
Agassiz (search for this): chapter 1
f these fragile aborigines. They do not wait for the actual brute contact of red bricks and curbstones, but they feel the danger miles away. The Indians called the low plantain the white man's footstep; and these shy creatures gradually disappear the moment the red man gets beyond hearing. Bigelow's delightful book Florula Bostoniensis is becoming a series of epitaphs. Too well we know it,—those of us who in happy Cambridge childhood often gathered, almost within a stone's-throw of Professor Agassiz's new museum, the arethusa and the gentian, the cardinal-flower and the gaudy rhexia,—we who remember the last secret hiding-place of the rhodora in West Cambridge, of the yellow violet and the Viola debilis in Watertown, of the Convallaria trifolia near Fresh Pond, of the Hottonia beyond Wellington's Hill, of the Cornus florida in West Roxbury, of the Clintonia and the dwarf ginseng in Brookline,—we who have found in its one chosen nook the sacred Andromeda polifolia of Linnaeus. Now<
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