Manuscript:
Transcription:
[Bottom Right]
WHEN AUTUMN BEGAN
To the Editor of The Republican:--
I am interested, if a little jealous, that
some one in advance of me has had the
instinct to know and grace to praise the re-
cent article in The Republican, by name
"Autumn's Divien Beauty Begins." I
meant to be first in, with recognition of
that Poet, Prophet, Seer,--but appreciation
was forced to wait upon the whims of Sirius.
This autumn augury, worthy the altar,
reminds me of the old days of The Repub-
lican when Dr Holland often wrote a co-
lumn of field flowers and woods, full of
mood and romance, which were eagerly
sought, clipped and passed on. It is of
mellow interest to an old reader of the
paper that all this Nature lore is still as
it were aheritage. Such aromatic flavor
of the passing seasons I only find as ex-
ceptional literature inother daily journals,
and they inevitably hallow and redeem the
necessarily practical columns of any news-
paper.
That the author of this article has made
his place as the high priest of all natural
beauty we have all come to recognize,--but
in all the sensitive improvisations of his
life, and intimacy with natural evolutions,
he has never risen to such a high trans-
cription of the chant divine as in this
sibylline song of autumn. When the fall
fashions are in and the daring reds and
yellows flaunt abroad.--when the gardens
are nipped and man, the half-intelligent
brute, explores the sacred haunts with his
death-dealing shotguns.--the world an-
nounces it is fall, and flatters and patron-
izes it. But they born of the Spirit list
the first magical whisper of the firmament-
al cosmical reversion, knowing that God
is to try us with a new splendor, and the
echoes of beauty and cahnge tremble
through the soul and quickened memory.
As housemates, with finger on lip, as in
the hour of birth, we were just whispering
"it has come, but nobody knows."
But no, our Seer was "earlier up" with
his call to worship, and we devoutly bow
and adore with him, for God is in his world
and he makes us know and feel it. Our
friend calls us to Nature's heart somewhat
with the natural instinct of White's Sel-
borne, never with the details of John Bur-
roughs or the egotism of a Thoreau, or
any kindergarten methods to in-
struct,--rather as if wandering through
pastures, hills and brooksides, we had
strayed into an unlimited cathedral, where
we find the Eternal.
And so we who hear this call with its
divine afflatus,--this threnody, thanatopsis,
halleluia of the changing days, with their
crescendos and diminuendos,
[continued on next manuscript transcription]
