The Contributors' Club

LAST autumn I made the discovery that, in addition to the Indian summer, we were favored with a gossamer summer. During this season, which includes all October and the pleasant early days of November, miles on miles of this hazy filament (if it could be measured linearly) are floating about in the soft, indolent air. Especially, late in the afternoon, with a level and glowing sun, do these mysterious threads flash out along the ground, horizontally between shrubs, slantwise from grass to tree, or else cut adrift, and sailing as the wind wills. Numberless fancies, as subtile and airy - light, are suggested. What now ? As the sunbeam plays along this shining length of web, and the gentle breeze gives it motion, but does not break it, might it not be taken for a sudden shaft from the golden bow of the far darter himself; or for a string of the golden lyre, just now touched into toneless melody ; a fairy telegraph line, flashing with its electric message ; a zigzag of harmless heat lightning ? Here a glistening clew has been dipped in the color fount of Iris, — may even be a stray raveling from the fringes of some castaway rainbow. It shows the same prismatic changes that are seen in the wing tissue of the locust or the dragonfly. Now the lazy wind wafts this way the tangled cordage and tackle of an airship, whose sails, deck, and hull are invisible, — said to be a pleasure yacht carrying a company of sylphs and sylphids, the beau monde of the air.

It takes nothing from the poetry that lies in the weft of the gossamer when it is known to be the work of an unconsidered spider, and that it serves some practical purpose (not yet satisfactorily explained) of the producer. By some it is claimed that this floating web is not spread with predacious intent, but rather as a means of aerial navigation ; indeed, these vague and indeterminate threads would hardly disturb a gnats’ cotillon, if blown in their path. Hitherto we may have regarded the spider as a humble, plodding creature of the earth, an unaspiring, stay-at-home citizen, but this new aeronautic hypothesis hints that the poor insect is a very transcendentalist, an ideal voyager. Its journey may not be as sublime as the flight of the skylark, but it is not a whit less witching and elusive. It seems scarcely credible that this sailing spider should be able, as some have supposed, to direct the course of its filmy parachute, having neither rudder, ballast, nor canvas. Doubtless, the wind often carries up both web and weaver, the latter in the predicament of a balloonist clinging to the ropes of his runaway car. Some naturalists assert that the gossamer spider instinctively takes advantage of the levity of the atmosphere, thrusting out its threads until they reach a current of warmer and rarer air, which draws them upward, the spider going along with the uncompleted web. Whether it is capable of cutting short its journey and casting anchor at pleasure is indeed questionable.

However, it would seem that there are acrobatic or leaping spiders, that use their webs as buoys in traversing short distances by air; else, how come those fine gluey flosses morning and evening, stretched straight as a surveyor’s line between neighboring trees? It is not likely that the spider, after fastening its clew in one tree, descended and reached the other terminus by a tedious detour along the ground. It must have bridged the intervening space by some rapid and dexterous method, to which the exploits of a Sam Patch or a Blondin were absolutely tame and ventureless. If it could be proven that this sagacious insect is really possessed of navigating instinct and habits, why not suppose it extends its journeys, traveling from one latitude to another? Those phantom navies of the gossamer summer sky were perhaps going the same way as the autumn birds of passage. Are Spiders Migratory in their Habits ? may, at some future time, be the subject of serious inquiry and discussion. I was never in luck to find the gossamer weaver at home from its voyages, but more than once have “ spoken” its craft on the high sea, and received serviceable weather hints. Even in midwinter I have seen occasional shimmering filaments among the dry twigs and grasses, but could never decide whether they were the fresh work of some enterprising spider, tempted out by a brief “ spell o’ sunshine,” or merely the remnants of last autumn’s spinning, unaccountably spared by the besom of the wind.

It has been suggested that the thick webs which are spread over the fields on a summer morning are there produced for the purpose of collecting the moisture that falls during the night. This theory is sustained by the known fact that the spider is an extremely thirsty creature. Is the spider, then, a disciple of hydropathy as well as an experimenter in aeronautics ?

The poets have not, usually, condescended to take much notice of the spider, though mythology (which is a kind of anonymous poetry received from the ancients) relates how a young lady of Lydia impiously invited Pallas to try a spinning race with her; and how, on being vanquished by the immortal spinster of Olympus, the poor foolish girl was about to hang herself in a rope of her own twisting, when lo! she was changed into a spider, in which humble and despised shape she remains to this day. Gavin Douglas, the “ Scottish Chaucer,” in his description of a May morning, does not forget to mention that —

The poetic and nimble-tongued Mercutio tells us that the wagon-spokes of fairy Mab’s chariot are

Nor must we forget the obliging Cavalero Cobweb, one of the elfin gentlemen whom Titania posted to wait on the wants of her long-eared lover: “ Monsieur Cobweb, good Monsieur Cobweb, get your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good Monsieur Cobweb, bring me the honey bag.”

— Every great reform is the result of organized effort, but in general it is preceded by spasmodic individual attempts. In fact, it is often possible to find the precursors of a reform a century before the reform was finally accomplished. It is only in this century that societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals have been generally organized, yet over two hundred years ago a Frenchman found his heart moved with compassion for the brute, and adopted an ingenious means of protecting it, or at least of punishing its maltreater. Tallemant des Réaux was in the habit of taking notes, and he left sketches of all the chief people of the time, besides a mass of anecdotes about less wellknown persons. Some of these were grouped together under general heads. In the ninth volume of his Historiettes, as edited by Monmerqué, is a bundle of anecdotes about people whom Tallemant classes together as “ extravagants, visionnaires, fantasques, bizarres,” etc. And one of these visionary persons was worthy to be a member of the S. P. C. A. His name was M. de Montsire, and “ he had such a liking for horses and such an aversion for lackeys that nearly every day he went towards some wateringtrough or other; and when he saw a lackey galloping a horse he pretended to know the man’s master, and gave him a note for him, in which there was written, ‘ Sir, I have seen your lackey galloping your horse ; discharge him,’etc. He always had these notes ready in his pocket.”

— How differently nature affects different people, according to temperament and taste!

said Coleridge, and it is true in more senses than the one he intended. There are people who are concerned with nature merely as she ministers to their comfort or discomfort; who find a certain animal satisfaction in sunshine and fresh air; who think trees were made to give shade, streams to turn mill-wheels, and rivers to carry steamboats and freight barges. These undeveloped souls are even more to be pitied than the undeveloped minds to which books are a sealed treasure. It is said that the love of nature is a characteristic of the modern world, and that the ancients were wholly indifferent to her except as serving material uses. It certainly is otherwise nowadays with the majority of civilized and educated persons: they realize the truth that the earth was made for man’s delight as much as for his needs, and have eyes to see at least its outward beauty. Even so much is gain, although their initiation goes no further than this first step. Many persons take a genuine pleasure in the sight of a lovely flower or a gorgeous sunset, though they feel no special sentiment in connection with either. There are others with whom the love of nature is a passion, and companionship with her the compensation for a hundred deprivations. Nature satisfies the imagination in a way the highest art can never do. In the most glorious cathedral, the loveliest picture or poem, there is a sense of completeness which is at the same time a sense of limitation ; and minds to which the idea of the infinite appeals peculiarly must therefore always find in nature a delight transcending any that art can give. It is for the same reason that the love of nature is so strong in minds where religion, in the broadest and deepest meaning of the word, has taken hold.

I think we receive from nature what we give to her in another and slightly different sense from that of Coleridge’s lines, where he is noting simply how our view of her is colored by our own moods. Not only the character of our moods, but the quality of our whole moral and intellectual being, affects our contemplation of her, and influences us in our enjoyment of one aspect or variety of landscape above another. The kind and the amount of a man’s special culture, moreover, have something to do with his habitual preferences in the matter. In reading some sketches of travel, the other day, by a very delightful writer, I was amused to see how difficult it was for him to speak in praise of Swiss scenery, because it was not Italian. Apparently, the spell of Italy was so strong upon him that he was blinded to all beauty unlike hers. No, not blinded, for he could note with a cold appreciation the characteristic beauties of a Swiss landscape ; but they had no power to move him, and make his pages glow with spontaneous eloquence of descriptive phrase. I will quote a few lines of his, which are probably expressive of the sentiments of other tourists besides himself : “ I fancy that it is a more equal intercourse between man and man than between man and mountain. I have found myself grumbling at moments because the large-hewn snowpeaks of the Oberlaud are not the marble pinnacles of a cathedral, and the liquid sapphire and emerald of Leman and Lucerne are not firm palace floors of lapis and verd-antique. . . . There is a limit to the satisfaction with which you can sit staring at a mountain, even the most beautiful, which you have not ascended nor are likely to ascend.” And further on he complains of the “ inhuman want of condescension ” of the Wetterhorn or the Eiger. It is precisely the want of condescension of these majestic presences which to some persons makes their society so attractive, and to sit staring at them for an indefinite length of hours or days seems to such, on the whole, the most precious privilege of a European tourist. It all depends upon the point of view, and whether one’s imagination and moral sensibility are of the kind that is most impressed by images suggestive of one class of ideas or of another. For my own part, I find it hard to understand why one should disparage Switzerland because one prefers England or Italy. The preference may be natural enough, but it seems to betoken something of over-civilization, and of a culture that has added to its refinement a touch of artificial fastidiousness, when a writer finds nature guilty, even for a moment, of theatric effect, and objects on that ground, be it ever so mildly, to the view of the mountains about Lucerne. It is not the fault of nature if she seems vulgarized to us by the presence of the vulgar, although we may be allowed to wish that by some sudden charm the crowd of restless tourists on the Lucerne streets could be hushed into that silence which is the outer manifestation of moods of true and deep enjoyment. To the lover of Alpine scenery there is an almost sacred mystery of beauty about the great mountain-peaks, which makes the presence of indifferent spectators a vexation of spirit. I remember how plagued I was with the talk of fellow lodgers at the Riffelberg inn, above Zermatt. It is a headquarters of the Alpine Club men, aud others who would fain emulate their exploits, and of course much of the conversation was interesting ; it was even a pleasant excitement to the unadventurous tourist to sit and listen to the tale of some bold climber returned from an attack upon the Breithorn, and to hear of the exact number of steps which he and his guide had been able to cut for themselves in the ice before their numbed fingers refused further work, and the attempt was given over till a fresh start could be made. If only, with all this, there could have been a season of quiet, in which one had been allowed to think of Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn, the Dent Blanche and the Weisshorn, and all the others of that kingly company, as something more than so many insensate masses of ice and snow, created for the sole purpose of being conquered by these hardy climbers! It is possible they were not so insensible as they seemed; nevertheless, their presence there was for the most part a pure annoyance, and the ceaseless chatter one could not escape from an impertinent intrusion upon the silence of that strange upper sphere.

— A handful of paraphrases of Anacreon for the Club.

SPRING. ODE XXXVII.

TO A SWALLOW. ODE XXXIII.

ON HIS LYRE. ODE I.