University of Virginia Library

BEAR.

The moon uprising from the distant east, as yet not full disclosed,
nor clothed with clouds, kindles with silver fire, a wild
wide wood-lake. Trees stand around in rude rough majesty
—stern witnesses of her glory. They own their faded beauty,
they mourn their lost leaves frozen, they feel that Winter's
come, and that's “verbum” to their “sap.” The stars still shine.
But such shining! They shine just as office holders, who
know that in a very little time they are to be extinguished by
a dispensation from a greater light. The clouds in the distance
look as though they had some lightning in them;—
solemn—phalanxial. The old trees have had rough times.
Those near by are all troubled with the rheumatism, or have
been cut down by convulsions. Some stumps, to be sure,
show that the barbarous pioneer had never heard that exquisite
ballad of “Woodman spare that tree.” But nearly
all blighted—blasted. Only the pyramid pine, and fragrant
fir,—Heavenly ever-greens,—Christ-mass greens for
us poor sinners,—flutter, and bend to the tempest, and bear
upon their boughs the cherishing comfort of snow. At the
south-east corner of the lake, is built, with the artifice
which nature sometimes indulges in, a hiding place, or
“stand,” arranged out of old logs and fallen trees, within
the which you see two hunters—hunters!—Heaven help
them! who lie ensconced to shoot some timid, thirsty, doe, who

may come down in the peace of night to take a drink out of
the spring at the edge of the lake, which cold cannot freeze;
—or at the crumbling ice which her hoof may break in.

But who is he that cometh from the barren forest, with
slow and solemn tramp, bending the crackling ice, with his
majestic feet? Hath Sir Bruin made an appointment with
the cold Diana, to meet him at this secluded trysting spot?
If he have, he is a true and trusted lover, for she casts the
first beam of her eye upon the lake just as her bear-knight
emerges from the swamp to drink the new silver light of her
eye that glitters upon the treeshade-sprinkled ice. But no.
That cannot be; the ardor of a lover is not in his eye;—his
pace is thoughtful and philosophical;—he is, rather, thinking
of his hungry cubs, left sulky and hopeful at home in their
rock-cave in the hill side, and is contemplating the flesh
of calves and lambs. Now, he is astronomical, and pious,
and casteth his eyes toward Heaven, and marvelleth at the
purity of his noble ancestors sitting clothed with brilliant garments
in the constellations of Ursa Major, and Minor. He
almost repents some unnecessary abstractions of the neighboring
farmers' little children. Is that a tear in his eye? Happy
engraver? if thou hast clearly globuled that chrystal evidence
of sorrow for guilt? Now, his head falls beneath his breast;
you would think it was in submission to some decree of suffering
depression, and that he feels he is unforgiven. Doomed
wretch! Never to be exalted to a place among the bears in
the stars! But look at his eye. It is dry, keen, fierce, savage,
voracious. He sees beneath him a salmon trout half benumbed,
and he raises his “huge paw” to pound the ice to
accomplish the water tenant's stunnation, when he will break
a hole through the “thick-ribbed” frost, and fish him out.
A good piscator, and a hearty feeder is that same bear, he

suddenly starts, and his eye shoots fire toward the south-east.
What is that scent which, borne on a new change of the
wind, strikes his far-judging nose? Is that a fawn at the
boiling spring? or a small girl that has lost her way? Snuff,
snuff. No; the smell is too strong. That is the odor of full
grown hunters—two legged members of his own profession,
but bitter enemies to his particular guild. See him stand
still, now, and muse, and survey. How would a piece of
man-flesh taste?—Good. How would a leaden bullet feel
in the bowels? Rather indigestible fodder. He reasons;
he deliberates. He remembers his Kamtskadale cousins, and
waits to see if the hunters will approach “to conciliate his
friendship.”[1] But is it a man? It might be an unmanageable
colt, that has tumbled his master, and ran away, with the
sweat from his rider's corduroys reeking upon his unsaddled
back—or a stray porker acorn-ing. He is in doubt. He
looks around and reconnoitres. He discovers, up the lake,
at the north, a truant boy, who has seen him, skating away
homeward, fast as his iron volitaters will glide leeward. It
was not his trail that he nosed, for that juvenal is with the
wind. Does Sir Bruin detect those lurkers at the stand with
guns? Will he make a demonstration against them? Will
they bring their artillery to bear upon him? How many
balls will he take patiently? Will he hug either one of
those gentlemen, with the ardor of a bridegroom? What
will he weigh when dressed? What frolicsome country
maiden will be first wrapped in his skin, upon a sleigh-ride?
Who will be invited to dine upon his smoking haunch?

Reader, these are all questions which the publishers insist
upon my submitting to thee; wherefore to answer them I for
Bear.

Let no bandbox Adonis turn up his self-sufficient nose at
the foregoing ursine limnings. His father may have taught
him the unjust expression “rough as a bear,” when he swore
at his landlord for calling for his rent before a month after
quarter-day. The bear and his biography would be a splendid
subject for the illustration of devoted family virtues, and
of brave, bold, dashing chivalry, against enemies. His family
is ancient and respectable. His blood has been kept pure
and true. He is but a little lower than man, while he can
write or make his mark, better than any Congo-ese, or Bogtrotter.
As to reading, he is accomplished. He can find
“sermons in stones, and books in every thing.” The book
of nature is his summer food. He roams, and plucks the
autumnal fruits of knowledge. When winter's snows shut up

the volume, he retires to his private study, in some huge hollow
oak, and there reflects and moralizes. The Indians of
our western prairies know him better than any of the professional
naturalists, and, I think, I have heard that they invite
them to their talks. Certain it is, the Blackfeet are reported
by travellers, to treat the Grizzly bear with profound respect,
and have often offered their most beautiful maidens for marriage
to them, with a view to improve the blood of the tribe
by a cross; but this story is not well authenticated. The
Grizzly bear, besides, is almost too violent in his affection.
His kisses munch. His pressure would take the breath out of
the body of every woman but one, whom I wot of. Although
he may be called, by curtesy, a gentleman, yet is he a
tyrant.

Ursus Maritimus, or the white bear, Arctician, is a specimen
of majesty. He rules the poles, and builds his castles
upon icebergs. His fields are snow-drifts, and his crops are
seals and sea-horses. The wind-lashed sea breeds for his
cubs their codfish, and throws upon his glacier furrows his
welcome crop of wounded whales. Hardy, fearless, enterprising,
he is monarch of the storm, king of the unknown
Symnsonia—president of Ultima Thule.

Our own black bear has no pretensions to nobility. He is
a republican, but a clever fellow. He is strong both in life
and death. He can strike, scratch, and hug, equally well with
his distant relatives; and when his guardian angel resigns
him to fate, Adonis makes his hair shine with his grease;
Podagrosus and Rheumaticus rub their feet with his fat flanks;
Epicurus deliciates in his tender loin; Amator wraps his mistress
in his skin, and envelopes her hands in a muff cut from
his hairy cold-defier; while, as with his own comforter,
gloves, and cap, he manages the breath-icicled steeds over

the nivoseous and gelid road, she thinks and feels him bear all
over.

Bear is a very “interesting individual.” Great things
might be said of him. The publishers are not to blame for
putting in that picture. I think it speaks for itself, and needs
no illustration.