DISSOLVING VIEWS. 85 



lation of the eye : it is no talker ; you must give, it an 

 understanding, but no tongue :' full as Nature is of 

 ornament at every stage, she disdains to make an 

 exhibition of her intrinsic progress at any. The 

 railroad workman leaves a pyramid to mark the 

 ancient outline of the surface ; and it is wise in 

 him, for he has a motive in the retrospective 

 measurement. But with nature it is not so : 

 ONWARD is the eternal word ; and the memory how 

 this meadow looked when it was that morass, or 

 this fair field when it was that jungle of high 

 hedges, stunted ash-trees, tangled bushes, with 

 docks and thistles to correspond, to say nothing 

 of heaved-up ridges and crooked furrows, all is 

 past ; and he who looks on it as it is, might as well 

 ask leafy Summer to show him how Winter looks on 

 the same spot, as expect the improved field to show 

 him the history of its improvement. l Oh ! Sir, if 

 you had but seen this field as I remember itf has 

 been the half-mortified exclamation or remonstrance 

 of many a worthy toiler upon earth's surface, whose 

 handywork has left no landmarks except upon his 

 own brow. * If you had but seen it as it was ;' 

 and there the interjectional sentence ends unfinished. 

 Would it be far from the truth a truth that will 



