The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

‘ [78] up in the hearts of such, sweeter than the springs of water which flow from the hillsides, where they sojourn; and therein, also, flowers of the summer do blossom all the year long. The brutish man knoweth not this, neither doth the fool comprehend it.’

‘See, now,’ said Polly to me, ‘how hard he is upon us poor unlearned folk.’

‘Nay, to tell the truth,’ said he, turning towards me, ‘your cousin here is to be held not a little accountable for my present inclinations; for she it was who did confirm and strengthen them. While I had been busy over books, she had been questioning the fields and the woods; and, as if the old fables of the poets were indeed true, she did get answers from them, as the priestesses and sibyls did formerly from the rustling of leaves and trees, and the sounds of running waters; so that she could teach me much concerning the uses and virtues of plants and shrubs, and of their time of flowering and decay; of the nature and habitudes of wild animals and birds, the changes of the air, and of the clouds and winds. My science, so called, had given me little more than the names of things which to her were familiar and common. It was in her company that I learned to read nature as a book always open, and full of delectable. teachings, until my poor school-lore did seem undesirable and tedious, and the very chatter of the noisy blackbirds in the spring meadows more profitable and more pleasing than the angry disputes and the cavils and subtleties of schoolmen and divines.’