frightful, but sublime. Then, when the woeful surges rush through the 

 trees, as I have seen ocean surges rush at high tides, with stormwinds 

 behind them over snags of teeth of ocean rocks, where bravest ships 

 of knit steel would have been laughingstocks to those furious waters 

 when such winds blow their tiger lungs 1 cease dreaming and leap 

 to battle. I come to be imperious, as if I were Napoleon. My 

 courage defies impossibility. I could climb Alps or break pyramids 

 down, or leap from sea cliffs down into the boiling ocean in sheer 

 luxury. Nothing daunts me. My spirit clamors with the storm. The 

 giant branches twist and combat, like a cyclops caught in battle in 

 the clammy arms of an octopus, and the wind blows battle charges, 

 and all the storm drives like cavalrymen going into the fight. Then 

 the music is something to be remembered for a century. Give me 

 not always calm, with its hushed quiet, but the clamor of the riotous 

 winds, when nature is fighting nature in frightful combat, and when 

 neither combatant will yield. 



Friend, most things are on this farm. To own a winter tempest 

 in the treetops and its tremendous music, what think you of that? I 

 call that riches. I own acres of soil and sunshine, and winter and 

 spring and October, but besides I own acres of angry wind, and furious 

 onset, and a Niagara of organ music. How rich I am owning this farm! 



A wild crab stands on the hill where years ago they . quarried stanes 

 for a college hard by. The quarry is now overgrown, a reminiscence. I 

 am glad it is so, for I like its dishevelment, feeling its way back to 

 nature. A huge thorn-tree stands on the quarry's edge, and in the 

 quarry are thickets of roses where birds nest in the sweet summer; and 

 leaves in autumn gather in the disused quarry as in a pool where waters 

 had drifted them, and in the quarry stands the wild crab. There it 

 stands quite alone, but never lonely. In winter, its brawn of brazen 

 muscle sneers at the tempests and looks rigid as death. No hint at 

 smiling. I would as lief think a brazen pillar would bloom as to think 

 this wild crab would flash into flower. Howbeit, when spring is come 

 and sets up housekeeping, this crab lights a lamp like the pleasant 

 flame of an evening sky, not crimson, but a gentle flame a man might 

 warm him by, but would never burn his hands. This is a spring fire this 

 crab in bloom. How I love its tender twilight of crimson! I warm my 

 eyes here and my heart; for hearts need warming as hands do on a 

 chilly morning. And then, saturating the air like the perfume of a fair 

 woman's garments as she comes to meet her lover, is a whiff of this 



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