We look at it solemnly, from the
time it consists of two leaves peeping above the ground and a soft white
root, till we have to raise our faces to look at it; but we find no reason
for that upward starting.
We look into dead ducks and lambs. In the evening we carry them home,
spread newspapers on the floor, and lie working with them till midnight.
With a started feeling near akin to ecstasy we open the lump of flesh
called a heart, and find little doors and strings inside. We feel them,
and put the heart away; but every now and then return to look, and to feel
them again. Why we like them so we can hardly tell.
A gander drowns itself in our dam. We take it out, and open it on the
bank, and kneel looking at it. Above are the organs divided by delicate
tissues; below are the intestines artistically curved in a spiral form, and
each tier covered by a delicate network of blood-vessels standing out red
against the faint blue background. Each branch of the blood-vessels is
comprised of a trunk, bifurcating and rebifurcating into the most delicate,
hair-like threads, symmetrically arranged. We are struck with its singular
beauty. And, moreover--and here we drop from our kneeling into a sitting
posture--this also we remark: of that same exact shape and outline is our
thorn-tree seen against the sky in mid-winter: of that shape also is
delicate metallic tracery between our rocks; in that exact path does our
water flow when without a furrow we lead it from the dam; so shaped are the
antlers of the horned beetle.
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