XVII.CORN.September 19th.Wehave artists who give themselves to specialties. One delights to know fruits. Another loves architecture, or landscape, or figures, or animals, or grasses and flowers. Now it has always seemed strange that the noblest of all grasses, maize, or Indian corn, has never found an enthusiastic lover. It has been painted often, but never yet interpreted. No one has done by it what has been done by the lily, the rose, the convolvulus.And yet, where shall we find any union of strength and grace more perfect among herbaceous plants? The jointed stem, robust and stiff, gives off at each articulation the most gracefully curved sword-leaves, which diminish in length as the plant goes up to its fimbriated top, forming a symmetrical whole not to be equalled among field plants.If one will wander along the edges of a cornfield, he will often see an exquisite picture, such as Nature loves to make. The wild convolvulus, which often fills the fence corners, has crept out of the grass into the furrow and twined around the corn, climbing to its very top, and, having power yet to grow, returns upon itself and fashions festoons of exquisite leaves and white blossoms, which hang down in every negligent form of beauty. Other vines too, besides the convolvulus, try their arts, and none fail; but none succeed so charmingly as this queen of twining vines.A specialist might devote himself to corn without fear of exhausting the subject. Of all the grains it is the true type of republicanism. It knows how to live in the community without losing its individuality. The smaller grains—wheat, barley, and such like—produce their effects only inmasses. Individual stalks are quite insignificant. It is the community, and not the individual, that is beautiful. But a field of corn does not swallow up in itself the stems which form its mass. Every plant yet retains it nobility. If corn is sown so thickly that it cannot find room for development, the whole degenerates into mere grass, and loses its proper force and beauty. But the husbandman has found out what rulers yet but slowly learn, and reluctantly,—that the force and beauty of the whole is to be sought in the development and strength of each single plant. Individuality and community are not only compatible, but each is the indispensable factor of the other.Or, turn the subject in another light. Each stalk of corn is a father and mother. It does not live for itself. When it hastens on in the hot days of July, it is not its own beauty that it seeks. It takes that on the way to a higher end. In the cool juices of that polished stem glows the sacred fire of parentage. The arched and rustling leaves borrow of the sun and air food for the coming brood. No sooner does the tassel break forth at the top, than out peer the infant ears nestling at the side of the noble stem. Nor does the parent blossom into its final beauty until the exquisite silk hangs from the nascent ears of corn to feed upon the parent’s life, and in that find its own.No sooner do the new-born kernels swell, than the parent bequeaths itself and all its inward stores to its offspring. The long leaves swing idly in the air, as things that have nothing more to do. Every day the winds evoke a shriller sound from their motions. When the cob has covered itself with golden kernels, rich and ripe, the parent dies,—dies mourning sadly, shall we think? What though it shall live a hundred-fold in its children? All memory or consciousness will be gone. It has spent its life and beauty for others. But how strong, how fresh, how full, how beautiful its life, while doing its appointed work! How little does it really care to live when the end of living is accomplished!It did the work at hand, and drew all its beauty from that doing, then took its place in the great economy of nature, falling back to nothing.With such thoughts men looked upon the fields thousands of years ago, and sighed, “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”It was thousands of years afterward that one said, “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly…. Death is swallowed up in victory.”The grass of the field may image forth the secular side of human life, but it can go no further than the grave. Beyond that it cannot point. Only one garden ever was that set forth the sure hope of immortality. “In the place where He was crucified, there was a garden…. There laid they Jesus.”
September 19th.
Wehave artists who give themselves to specialties. One delights to know fruits. Another loves architecture, or landscape, or figures, or animals, or grasses and flowers. Now it has always seemed strange that the noblest of all grasses, maize, or Indian corn, has never found an enthusiastic lover. It has been painted often, but never yet interpreted. No one has done by it what has been done by the lily, the rose, the convolvulus.
And yet, where shall we find any union of strength and grace more perfect among herbaceous plants? The jointed stem, robust and stiff, gives off at each articulation the most gracefully curved sword-leaves, which diminish in length as the plant goes up to its fimbriated top, forming a symmetrical whole not to be equalled among field plants.
If one will wander along the edges of a cornfield, he will often see an exquisite picture, such as Nature loves to make. The wild convolvulus, which often fills the fence corners, has crept out of the grass into the furrow and twined around the corn, climbing to its very top, and, having power yet to grow, returns upon itself and fashions festoons of exquisite leaves and white blossoms, which hang down in every negligent form of beauty. Other vines too, besides the convolvulus, try their arts, and none fail; but none succeed so charmingly as this queen of twining vines.
A specialist might devote himself to corn without fear of exhausting the subject. Of all the grains it is the true type of republicanism. It knows how to live in the community without losing its individuality. The smaller grains—wheat, barley, and such like—produce their effects only inmasses. Individual stalks are quite insignificant. It is the community, and not the individual, that is beautiful. But a field of corn does not swallow up in itself the stems which form its mass. Every plant yet retains it nobility. If corn is sown so thickly that it cannot find room for development, the whole degenerates into mere grass, and loses its proper force and beauty. But the husbandman has found out what rulers yet but slowly learn, and reluctantly,—that the force and beauty of the whole is to be sought in the development and strength of each single plant. Individuality and community are not only compatible, but each is the indispensable factor of the other.
Or, turn the subject in another light. Each stalk of corn is a father and mother. It does not live for itself. When it hastens on in the hot days of July, it is not its own beauty that it seeks. It takes that on the way to a higher end. In the cool juices of that polished stem glows the sacred fire of parentage. The arched and rustling leaves borrow of the sun and air food for the coming brood. No sooner does the tassel break forth at the top, than out peer the infant ears nestling at the side of the noble stem. Nor does the parent blossom into its final beauty until the exquisite silk hangs from the nascent ears of corn to feed upon the parent’s life, and in that find its own.
No sooner do the new-born kernels swell, than the parent bequeaths itself and all its inward stores to its offspring. The long leaves swing idly in the air, as things that have nothing more to do. Every day the winds evoke a shriller sound from their motions. When the cob has covered itself with golden kernels, rich and ripe, the parent dies,—dies mourning sadly, shall we think? What though it shall live a hundred-fold in its children? All memory or consciousness will be gone. It has spent its life and beauty for others. But how strong, how fresh, how full, how beautiful its life, while doing its appointed work! How little does it really care to live when the end of living is accomplished!It did the work at hand, and drew all its beauty from that doing, then took its place in the great economy of nature, falling back to nothing.
With such thoughts men looked upon the fields thousands of years ago, and sighed, “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”
It was thousands of years afterward that one said, “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly…. Death is swallowed up in victory.”
The grass of the field may image forth the secular side of human life, but it can go no further than the grave. Beyond that it cannot point. Only one garden ever was that set forth the sure hope of immortality. “In the place where He was crucified, there was a garden…. There laid they Jesus.”