And when the wind blows and scatters about all the blossoms
from your fruit trees, and you are a ponderin' over the mischief, a
gall comes along-side of you with a book of poetry in her hand and
sais:
"'Hark! do you hear the voice of natur amid the trees? Isn't it
sweet?'
"Well, it's so absurd you can't help laughin' and saying, 'No;' but
then I hear the voice of natur closer still, and it says, 'Ain't she a
sweet critter?'
"Well, a cultivated field, which is a work of art, dressed with
artificial manures, and tilled with artificial tools, perhaps by
steam, is called the smiling face of nature. Here nature is strong and
there exhausted, now animated and then asleep. At the poles, the
features of nature are all frozen, and as stiff as a poker, and in the
West Indies burnt up to a cinder. What a pack of stuff it is! It is
just a pretty word like pharmacopia and Pierian spring, and so forth.
I hate poets, stock, lock, and barrel; the whole seed, breed, and
generation of them. If you see a she one, look at her stockings; they
are all wrinkled about her ancles, and her shoes are down to heel, and
her hair is as tangled as the mane of a two-year old colt. And if you
see a he one, you see a mooney sort of man, either very sad, or so
wild-looking you think he is half-mad; he eats and sleeps on earth,
and that's all. The rest of the time he is sky-high, trying to find
inspiration and sublimity, like Byron, in gin and water.
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