Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/135

Rh on the wing, that I was for a moment uncertain whether it belonged to the class of birds or of butterflies till I came near, and saw the four legs. I cannot learn its name. Some maintain that it is called “Lady's-bird.”

In a general way, gentlemen and ladies in this country know but very little about natural objects, except simply as regards use and pleasure. This ignorance, especially in the South, and in the midst of this affluent animal and vegetable world, seems to me really lamentable. Human beings ought, indeed, to enjoy Nature in another way than oxen and butterflies; they should, as the lords of creation, reverence themselves and their Creator, by contemplating His works with intelligent minds, learning their meaning, and, as priests and priestesses of Nature, explaining her wisdom and interpreting her song of praise. It would be a worthy occupation for people of “high life;” and “high life” in the New World becomes an empty idea, if it does not teach itself to sing a new “high song,” higher than Solomon's, higher than Odin's and Wala's, but in the same spirit.

I went from Philadelphia with Professor Hart and his wife, on a beautiful July day, to Cape May; and beautiful was our journey upon the mirror-like Delaware, with its green, idyllian, beautiful shores. During the day I read Mr. Clay's “Annals” of the Swedish Colony upon these shores, and experienced heartfelt delight in glancing from the historical idyll to those scenes, where it had existed in peace and in piety. The temerity and the war-like dispositions of two of the leaders, Printz and Rising, were the cause of disturbances which ultimately led to the overthrow of the colony; but the people themselves were peaceful and contented. The names which they gave to different places. New Götheborg, Elfsborg, &c., prove the affection which they bore to the mother country. And how enchanted they were with the New World, is shown by the name of Paradise Point, which they bestowed upon a