We returned the next day to our camping ground. On the "Lower Chain of Ponds," we found our pioneer and his goods all safe, no visitors having passed that way in our absence. Smith knocked over a deer on our passage down. I have said that just above our camp was a dam. It was made in this wise: first, great logs were laid up, across the stream, in the same fashion as the side of a log house, to the height of about twelve feet, properly secured, and upon these, other and smaller logs were laid, side by side, transversely, and sloping up the stream at an angle of forty-five degrees, like one side of the roof of a house. These long, slender logs, reached out over and beyond those that were laid up across the stream, the lower part covered with brush, and then with earth, so as to make a tight dam, the upper ends, even when the dam was full, extending several feet above the top water line. These logs, or perhaps they had better be called large and long poles, for, when compared with the foundation timbers, they were nothing more, have, of course, above where they are covered with brush and earth, interstices, or crevices1, between them.
On our return, and as we came in sight of the dam, I, being in the forward boat, saw a small deer, laying stretched out upon these poles, dead, hanging, as it were, by one foot. My impression was, that it had been shot, and dragged up there, and left by our pioneer for the present. We found, however, upon examination, that the deer had walked up on the dam, probably to take a look at what was below, and on the other side, when his foot slipped down between the poles, and he was caught as in a trap. His leg was badly broken, and nearly severed2 by his efforts to get loose, and the bark of the poles was worn away within reach of his struggles. He had died where he thus got hung; and there he was, stone dead, but not yet cold, when we found him. He was a fine, fat, young deer, and died by one of the thousand accidents to which the wild animals of the forest, as well as man, are exposed.
Upon relating this incident to an old hunter, I was told by him that he once, while out in the woods, came upon the skeletons of two large bucks3, that, in fighting, had got their horns so interlocked and wedged together, that they could not separate them, and thus, locked in the death grapple, they had starved and died. There lay their bones, the flesh eaten from them by the beasts and carrion4 birds, and, bleached5 by the sun and the storms, the two skulls6 with the horns still interlocked; and the narrator told me he had them yet at home, fast together, as he found them, as one of the curiosities to be met with in the Rackett woods.
"I've been thinking," said Spalding, in his quiet way, as we sat towards evening, looking out over the pleasant little lake, watching the shadow chasing the retiring sunlight up the sides of the opposite hills, "I've been thinking how differently we act, and feel, and talk—aye, and think, too—out here in these old woods, from what we do when at home and surrounded by civilization. However we four may deny being old, we cannot certainly claim to be young. We have all reached the meridian7 of life, and though feeling few, if any, of the infirmities of age, still, our next move will be in the downhill direction. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we talk and act, and think, and feel, too, like boys. I do not speak this reproachfully, but as a fact which develops a curious attribute of the human mind."
"Well," replied the Doctor, "while it may be curious, it is exceedingly natural. We have thrown off the restraints which society imposes upon us; we have thrown off the cares which the business of life heaps upon us. We have gone back for a season to the freedom, the sports, the sights, the exercises which delighted our boyhood. And can it be called strange that the feelings, the thoughts, and emotions of our youth should come welling up from the long past, or that with the return of boyish emotions, the language and actions of boyhood should be indulged in again?"
"You will find," said Smith, "your old feelings of sobriety, of thoughtfulness, your cautiousness, coming back just in proportion as you tire of this wilderness9 life, and that by the time you are ready to return to civilization, you will have become as staid, sober, and reflective men of the world, as when you started, with as strict a guard upon your expression of sentiment, or opinion, as ever."
"It is that 'guard' of which you speak," remarked Spalding, "over the emotions, the sentiments of the heart, stifling10 their expression, and chaining down under a placid11 exterior12 their manifestations13, that constitutes one of the broad distinctions between youth and manhood. It is when that guard is set, that the process of fossilization, so to speak, begins; and if no relaxing agency intervenes, the heart becomes cold and hard, even before white hairs gather upon the head. I often imagine that if men who really think, who have the power of analyzation, of weighing causes and measuring results, would dismiss that rigid14 espionage15 over themselves, would stand in less awe16 of the world, in less dread17 of its accusation18 of change, and with the fearless frankness of youth, declare the truth, and stand boldly up for the right as they, at the time, understand it to be, without reference to consistency19 of present views and opinions with those of the past, the world would be much better off; progress would have vastly fewer obstacles to contend against. But it is not every man, even of those who think, who in politics, in religion, in science, in anything involving a possible charge of inconsistency, of the desertion of a party, a sect20, or a principle, dare avow21 a change of conviction or opinion, however such change may exist. This should not be so. It belittles22 manhood, and makes slaves and cowards of men. It is a proud prerogative23, this ability and power of thinking. It is a priceless privilege, this freedom of thought and opinion, and he is a craven who moves on with the heedless and thoughtless crowd, conscious of error, himself a hypocrite and a living lie, through fear of the charge of 'inconsistency,' the accusation of change. 'Speak your opinions of to-day,' says Carlyle, 'in words hard as rocks, and your opinions of to-morrow in words just as hard, even though your opinions of to-morrow may contradict your opinions of to-day.' There is a fund of true wisdom in this beautiful maxim24, if men would appreciate it. It would correct a vast deal of error in politics, in religion, in philosophy, in the social relations of life. Times change, and struggle against it as they may, men's convictions will change with the times. The man who says that his opinions never alter, is to me either a knave25 or a fool. For a thinking man to remain stationary26, when everything else is on the move, is a simple impossibility. Time was when the stage coach was the model method of travelling. It carried us six, sometimes eight miles the hour, in comfort and safety. But who thinks of the lumbering27 stage coach now, with its snail's pace of eight miles the hour, when the locomotive with its long train of cars, lighted up like the street of a city in motion, rushes over the smooth rails literally28 with the speed of the wind. The scream of the steam-whistle has succeeded the old stage-horn, and the iron horse taken the place of those of flesh and blood. Change is written in great glowing letters upon everything. It stands out in blazing capitals everywhere. All things are on the move! Forward! and forward! is the word. And who would, who CAN, stand still amidst the universal rush? Only a century ago, from the valley through which the majestic29 Hudson rolls its everlasting30 flood, westward31 to the mighty32 Mississippi, westward still to the Rocky Mountains, and yet westward to the Pacific, was one vast wilderness; interminable forests, standing8 in all their primeval grandeur33 and gloom; boundless34 prairies, covered with profitless verdure, over which the silence of the everlasting past brooded; and above all these, mountain peaks, covered with perpetual snows, upon which the eye of a white man had never looked, stood piercing the sky. From the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi, that old forest has been swept away. The broad prairies have been, or are being, subjected to the culture of human industry; even the Rocky Mountains have been overleaped, and beyond them is a great State already admitted into the family of the union, and a territory teeming35 with an adventurous36 and hardy37 population, knocking at its door for admission. The march of civilization has crossed a continent of more than three thousand miles, sweeping38 away forests, spreading out green fields, planting cities and towns, making the old wilderness to blossom as the rose, scattering39 life, activity, progress, all along the road it has travelled. The great rivers that rolled in silence through unbroken forests, have become the highways of trade, upon whose bosoms40 the white sails of commerce are spread, and through whose waters countless41 steamboats plough their way. These stupendous changes are the results of human energy, and they reach, in their moral prestige, their progressive influence, through every vein42 and artery43 of governmental and social compacts, affecting political institutions, shaping national policy, and forcing, by their resistless demonstrations44, change and mutations of opinions upon all men.
"As it has been in the past century, so it is now, and so it will be through all the long future. Forward, and forward, is the word, and forward will be the word for centuries to come. And why? Because all men here, in this free Republic, are free to think, free to speak, free to will, free to act. No traditions of the past bind45 them; no hereditary46 policy controls their action; no customs, covered with the dust of ages, fetter47 them; no physical or intellectual gyves, corroded48 by the rust49 of centuries, are eating into their flesh. Because thinking American men everywhere live in the present, ignoring and defying the dead past, and building up the mighty future. Because they 'speak their opinions of TO-DAY in words hard as rocks, and their opinions of TO-MORROW in words just as hard, although their opinions of to-morrow may contradict their opinions of to-day.' They are fearless of personal consequences. As free men, they will think, as free men they will speak, and as such they will act, regardless of the jibe50 and sneer51 of those who accuse them of change, of inconsistency, of being mutable and unstable52 of purpose. The point to the march of improvement, the advance in the actualities of life, and ask, 'When every thing else is on the move, shall we stand still? Shall the opinions of a quarter of a century, a decade, a year, a month ago, remain unchanged, immutable53, fixed54 as a star always, amidst the new demonstrations looming55 up like mountains everywhere around us?'
"Man's life is short at best; a little point of time, scarcely discernible on the map of ages; his aspirations56, his hopes, his ambition, more transient than the lightning's flash; but his opinions may tell for good upon that little point occupied by his generation, and he should 'speak them in words hard as rocks.' They may aid in illuminating57 the darkness of the present, and he should therefore 'speak them in words hard as rocks.' They may have some influence in building up and ennobling human destiny in the future, and he should therefore 'speak them in words hard as rocks,' regardless of the contumely heaped upon him by little minds for having thus spoken them. What if the ridicule58, the denunciations of the unthinking, the sensual, the profligate59, the unreflecting fools of the world be poured upon him? What of that? To-day, may be one of darkness and storm. The cloud and the storm will pass away, and the brightness and glory of the sunlight will be all over the earth to-morrow. Let him 'speak his opinions then of to-day in words hard as rocks, and his opinions of to-morrow in words just as hard.' Let him speak his opinions thus on all subjects within the range of human investigation60, upon science, philosophy, politics, religion, morals; and leave to little minds to settle the question of consistency or change. Let his be the eagle's flight towards the sun, and theirs to skim in darkness along the ground, like the course of the mousing owl61."
After it became dark, Smith and Martin went out around the lake night hunting, and the rest retired62 to our tents. We heard the report of Smith's rifle from time to time, and concluded that we should have to court-martial him for a wanton destruction of deer, contrary to the law we had established for our government on that subject. But on his return, we ascertained63 that, though having had several shots, he had succeeded in killing64 or, according to Martin's account, even wounding but one, and that a yearling, and the poorest and leanest we had seen since we entered the woods. Though it was thus diminutive65 in size, Smith declared that he had seen, and shot at, some of the largest deer that ever roamed the forest. He insisted that he had seen some, by the side of which the largest we had looked upon by daylight, were mere66 fawns67, and thereupon he undertook to establish a theory that the large deer fed by night and the smaller ones by day. This would have been all well enough, were it not for the fact, understood by every experienced night-hunter, that by the spectral68 and uncertain light of the lamp, or torch, a deer, when seen standing in the water, or on the reedy banks, is in appearance magnified to twice its actual dimensions. To this Smith at last assented69, since to deny the proposition, involved the conclusion that he had killed the wrong deer; for the one he shot at, as it stood in the edge of the water, though much smaller than some he had seen, appeared greatly larger than the one he killed.
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1
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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2
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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3
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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carrion
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| n.腐肉 | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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meridian
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| adj.子午线的；全盛期的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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9
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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espionage
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| n.间谍行为，谍报活动 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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18
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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19
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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belittles
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| 使显得微小，轻视，贬低( belittle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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prerogative
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| n.特权 | |
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maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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30
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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36
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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39
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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40
bosoms
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| 胸部( bosom的名词复数 )； 胸怀； 女衣胸部（或胸襟）； 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
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41
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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42
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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43
artery
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| n.干线，要道；动脉 | |
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44
demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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45
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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46
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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47
fetter
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| n./vt.脚镣，束缚 | |
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48
corroded
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| 已被腐蚀的 | |
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49
rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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50
jibe
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| v.嘲笑，与...一致，使转向；n.嘲笑，嘲弄 | |
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51
sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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52
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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53
immutable
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| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
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54
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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55
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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56
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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57
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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58
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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59
profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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60
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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61
owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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62
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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63
ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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65
diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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66
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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67
fawns
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| n.（未满一岁的）幼鹿( fawn的名词复数 )；浅黄褐色；乞怜者；奉承者v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的第三人称单数 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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68
spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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69
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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