selections from thoreau

7/29/2019 Selections From Thoreau

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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME''bF THE SAGE ENDO'^MENTFUND GIVEN IN 1891 BYHENRY WILLIAMS SAGE


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born^i universny LioraryPS 3042.S17Selections from Thoreau /

3 1924 022 198 521


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SELECTIONS FEOM THOKEAU


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SELECTIONS FEOMTHOEEAU

EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION

HENEY S. SALTAUTHOR OF ' THK LIFE OP HENRY DAVID THOBEAU '

HonlionMACMILLAN AISTD CO.1895


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INTEODUCTIONWe are most of us familiar with one or another ofthe many legendary apparitions of the alter ego, orsecond self, a manifestation which must have entailedconsiderable inconvenience on the parties whom itprincipally concerned. It could hardly be agreeableto a person of strong distinctive personality to feelthat his astral counterpart was travelling at largeabout the country, and compromising him by grant-ing unauthorised interviews to all sorts of busy-bodies; still less, perhaps, would he relish such astartling experience as that of the magus Zoroaster,who, if the poet is to be credited, met his ownimage walking in the garden. But it should benoted that the annals of literature present equallyinteresting, and better authenticated examples of asomewhat similar phenomenon. Authors, and especi-ally those of new and unappreciated genius, are notunfrequently subject to the same annoyance asZoroaster ; nay, worse, for whereas the second self inthe legend was at least an exact image of its original,


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VI SELECTIONS FUOM THOEEAUthe literary phantom can seldom boast more than avery superficial resemblance. In a word, there areoften two personalities who stand junder the samename before the eyes of the public^the author him-self, as represented in his actual character and writ-ings, and the current idea of the auihor, as misrepre-sented in the critical analysis and exposition of him.And it often goes hard for a time with the reputationof a writer who is thus dogged and superseded by hisghostly rival, for these spectral illusions, flimsy andhollow though they may be, are by no means easy toexorcise, and many years, or even generations, mustsometimes elapse before they are finally consigned totheir appointed resting-place with the hippogriff, thechimsera, and other kindred superstitions.

If ever there was a man of genius who was fore-ordained by the peculiarity of his doctrines and theeccentricity of his actions to be misjudged by critics,it was Thoreau. It is not in the least surprising that

I his true character should to this day remain unknowni to the majority of readers, while his place is usurpedby a mysterious personage of whose origin I willpresently speak. But first let us turn our attentionto the real Thoreau, and in particular to that much-maligned gospel of naturalness and simplicity whichit is so easy to comprehend if it be studied with sym-pathetic interest, and so easy to distort and miscon-

Istrue if regarded from a hostile standpoint. Having


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INTRODUCTION VUseen how Thoreau himself lived and wrote and acted,we shall be better able to appreciate what his carica-turists have erroneously attributed to him; havingmade ourselves acquainted with the characteristicfeatures of the man, we shall know what to thinkof the more shadowy lineaments of the phantom.

Henry David Thoreau was born at the village ofConcord, Massachusetts, on 12th July 1817, hisfather, John Thoreau, being a pencil -maker, ofFrench extraction, and his mother, whose maidenname was Cynthia Dunbar, the daughter of a NewHampshire minister. His debt to his parents, andespecially to his mother, has perhaps been somewhatunderrated, for it is probable that his sturdy uncom-promising temperament, and shrewd mordant humour,were a direct inheritance. The best parts of Mrs.Thoreau's character, so I learn from one who wasborn and bred in Concord, have not been given.She was a woman of commanding presence, neverto be ignored in any company. She had a keensense of humour, and would give an account of ajourney to Boston in a stage-coach, or even a walkto the post-office, which, although perhaps tinged alittle with romance, would convulse her hearers withlaughter, her manner was so dramatic. Of hergenerosity it was said that no matter how much she Imight complain of poverty, she always had something:of value to give to her poorer neighbours.'' Still


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Vlll SELECTIONS FKOM THOEEAUmore important, in its bearing on Henry Thoreau's.character, was the fact that both his parents were/great lovers of nature, and earnest workers for theabolition of negro slavery. They were twentyyears ahead of their time, is the verdict of one whoknew them.

From 1833 to 1837 Thoreau was a student atHarvard University, but though he became in this

^way a good classical scholar, his intellect, so free and' self-reliant in its scope, was not one which could

greatly profit by an academical education. It was' in the school of wild nature that he was destined tograduate. Though bodily, he wrote, I have beena member of Harvard University, heart and soul Ihave been far away among the scenes of my boyhood.Those hours that should have been devoted to studyhave been spent in scouring the woods and exploringthe lakes and streams of my native village. Im-mured within the dark but classic walls, my spirityearned for the sympathy of my old and almost for-gotten friend. Nature/'

During the last twenty- five years of his life heindulged this instinctive sympathy to the utmost, inhis devoted attachment to the fields and forests ofhis native Concord. After leaving Harvard hebecame a prominent member of that transcendentalistcircle of which Emerson was the chief, and a personalfriend and associate of Bronson Alcott, Ellery Chan-


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INTKODUCTION ixning, Margaret Fuller, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.By Emerson in particular he was powerfully andbeneficially influenced in his youth and early man-hood, when his hitherto unsuspected genius wassomewhat suddenly awakened ; though, in view ofthe originality and greater practicalness of mindwhich in later life carried him apart from andbeyond the Emersonian theories, it is a completemistake to regard him as an imitator of hisfriend. I have been assured on good authority thatEmerson was in his turn considerably influenced byThoreau, in the direction of a simpler and austerermode of thought and living, at a time when theelder man was leaning in a somewhat contrarydirection. An amusing story is told that whenThoreau was a mere youth, and some one remarkedto his mother on the similarity of his thought tothat of the great Concord philosopher, Mrs. Thoreaureplied, Well, you see, Mr. Emerson has been agood deal with David Henry, and may have gotideas from him. What was said as a jest in 1837might have been said in all truth and seriousnesssome ten years later.

Thoreau's personal appearance is thus describedby EUery Channing, the most intimate of his Con-cord friends. His face once seen could not be for-gotten. The features were quite marked ; the noseaquiline or very Roman, like one of the portraits of


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X SELECTIONS FKOM THOREAUCeesar (more like a beak, as was said) ; huge over-hanging brows above the deepest-set blue eyes thatcould be seen, in certain lights, and in others gray-eyes expressive of all shades of feeling, but neverweak or near-sighted; the forehead not unusuallybroad or high, full of concentrated energy or pur-pose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed upwith meaning and thought when silent, and givingout when open a stream of the most varied andunusual and instructive sayings. His whole figure

' had an active earnestness, as if he had no moment towaste.A good idea of Thoreau's wayward independent

mode of living, and of the paradoxical humour whichcovered, and in some cases concealed, his profound

' sincerity of purpose,J may be gathered from thehighly characteristic answer which he returned in1847 to a Harvard University circular, issued inorder to collect statistics concerning the Uves offormer students. This remarkable letter runs asfollows :Am not married. I don't know whether mine is a

profession, or a trade, or what not. It is not yet learned,and in every instance has been practised before beingstudied. The mercantile part of it was begun by myselfalone. It is not one but legion. I will give you someof the monster's heads. I am a schoolmaster, a privatetutor, a surveyor, a gardener, a farmer, a painter (I meana house-painter), a carpenter, a mason, a day-labourer a


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INTRODUCTION xipencil-maker, a glass-paper-maker, a writer, and some-times a poetaster. If you will act the part of lolus, andapply a hot iron to any of these heads, I shall be greatlyobliged to yon. My present employment is to answersuch orders as may be expected from so general anadvertisement as the above. That is, if I see fit, whichis not always the case, for I have found out a way to livewithout what is commonly called employment or industry,attractive or otherwise. Indeed my steadiest employment,if such it can be called, is to keep myself^t^the top of my .condition, and ready for whatever may turn up in heavenor on_earth. The last two or three years I lived inConcord woods alone, something more than a mile fromany neighbour, in a house built entirely by myself.

P.S.I beg that the class will not consider me anobject of charity, and if any of them are in want of anypecuniary assistance, and will make known their case tome,(I will engage to give them some advice of moreworth than money^

The residence in Walden woods, referred to in theabove letter, and narrated in the most popular of hisbooks, was the one episode in Thoreau's career whichattracted popular attention, but it should be re-membered that it was an episode only, occupying buttwo and a half years out of his whole active life. Tolabel him misanthrope or_^ermit on account ofthe Walden experiment is to misunderstand himcompletely. (JHe was a hermit when it suited hispurposes to be onea misanthrope never.j A man

1 From Memorials of the Class of 1837 of Harvard Uni-versity, by Henry Williams, Boston, Mass.


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xii SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU\pf deep spiritual instincts, he needed large j),eiiQds_of

solitude and retirement ; butTEeTdeaT'tliat he had noregard for human interests and human aspirations isthe very reverse of the truth. At that critical andsupreme moment in the abolitionist movement whenJohn Brown was arrested and condemned for theinsurrection at Harper's Ferry the first voice publiclyraised on the convict's behalf was the voice of Thoreau,in the magnificent Plea for Captain John Brown.For my own part, he wrote in a second oration on

the same subject, '{l commonly attend more to naturethan to man, but any affecting human event mayblind our eyes to natural objects.^ This is scarcelythe sentiment of a misanthrope.A great injustice has been done to Thoreau'smemory by the common notion^hat he was devoid ofhuinan sympathies. For this notion the responsibilitymust partly rm~5n Emerson, who, when editing theposthumous volume oi Tetters in 1865, made theunfortunate mistake of omitting the domestic cgr-respondence which showed Thoreau in his most neigh-bourly and affectionate mood, in order to exhibit in themore formal epistles a perfect piece of stoicism. Therecent publication of Thoreau's Familiar Letters hasnow corrected-tliisim.ppess}pn, but it will doubtlessbe many years before it is finally removed. The truthis that Thoreau, despite his sternness of temperamentand bluntness of speech, was at heart a man of


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INTRODUCTION xiiiprofound sensibility and_feeling, as was proved, forexample, in the extreme tenderness of his relations

MiMiiiiiii I III Ill miir'iWiiiwifi' -IIIwith his brother John, the brother who was hiscompanion in the famous Week on the ConcordEiver, and whose early death was a cause of lifelonggrief to the survivor. A discerning reader will notfail to note the true^humanityj)f__Thoreau, althoughthere is, be it admitted, a complete absence of the amiability that needs to be expressed in words.Such are the readers for whom he lived and wrote.('I think of those amongst men, he says, who willknow that I love th^m, though I tell them not.''

It is unnecessary here to relate the details of hislife at Concord, so uneventful in external incidents,so full of spiritual adventure and inner experience.His Walden and JVeek on the Concord cund MerrimackRivers have already been referred to ; the other mostnotable Excursions'' are those described in TheMaine Woods and Cape Cod. With the exception ofsuch brief absences, his years were wholly spent atConcord, where he lived in his father's house, andsupported himself by( land-surveying, pencil-making,or one of the many crafts of which he had made him-self master. He died from consumption on 6th May1862, and the family, which was never a robust stock,is now extinct. It is probable that nothing but simpleliving and open-air habits could have prolonged hislife to the term of forty-five years.


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xiv SELECTIONS FROM THOREAULet us now turn to tlia^philosophy of Thoreau's

writings. It has been recorded that when Dr. SamuelJohnson was invited to take a country walk hereplied, Sir, one green field is like another greenfield; I like to look at men. Thoreau's attitudetowards nature and natural scenery was the exactopposite of this. He found in nature not the dull,uniform, inanimate thing which most town-dwellers,and it is to be feared some country-dwellers, too oftenconceive it to be, but a living entity, possessing itsown distinctive moods and affections, and animated

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with as conscious and active a spirit as himself. ' Herejoiced in the belief that mankind is not the sole'object of concern to the spirit of the universe. LikeSt. Francis, he could never look on the animals asdivided from man by some arbitrary line of demarca-tion, but sympathised with them as his townsmenand fellow-creatures, who, as he said, possessed the character and importance of another order of men.

Accordingly his whole relation to nature andnatural history differed widely from that of thecollector and scientist, whose dominant impulse onseeing a beautiful bird or beast is to kill and stuff itto knock it down first, and then, as the taxider-mists say, to set it up afterwards. Thoreau wasdistinctly not a professor of this anatomical methodof classification. I think, he said, ( the mos_timportant requisite in describing an animal is to be


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INTRODUCTION XVsure that you give its character and spirit, for in thatyou have, without error, the sum and effect of all itsparts, known and unknown. J You must tell what itis to man ; surely the most important part of ananimal is its anima, its vital spirit, on which is basedits character and all the particulars by which it mostconcerns us. Yet most scientific books which treatof animals leave this out altogether, and what theydescribe are, as it were, phenomena of dead matter.

That aspect of natural scenery which especiallyattracted Thoreau's temperament was the wild. Heturned back from the vanities and disappointmentsof social intercourse to draw (renewed Jiealth andvitality from the far recesses of nature) Alike inethics, in science, and in literature, he looked towildness as(supplying the most essentiaLelement ofgenius); a creed which may be summed up in one ofthose incomparably terse and suggestive imageswhich lie scattered through his pages. As the wildduck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so isthe wildthe mallardthought, which 'mid fallingdews, wings it way above the fens.

The simplicity which Thoreau preached and(/practised was intimately connected with this love ofthe wild. An instinctive personal preference affordedthe primary reason for his simplification of lifeitwas as natural to him to be frugal in his habits as toprefer the wildness of the Concord woods to the6


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XVI SELECTIONS FROM THOEEAUacademic coteries of Boston. This should be sufficientanswer to the charge of asceticism which is some-times brought against him by critics who cannotbelieve that an abstinence from their comforts andtheir luxuries can be due to any other cause.) Itwould be difficult, perhaps, to instance a man whowas less of an ascetic than Thoreau -yht knew his ownmind, he determined from the first to live his ownlife, and when he renounced certain things whichcustom proclaims to be necessary, we may be quitesure that he did so from a wish to vivify, not mortify,the keenness of his enjoyment.

And here arises an important objection which hasbeen urged, from time to time, against every apostleof simplicity against Rousseau in France, andThoreau in America, and Edward Carpenter in Eng-land. Does not the return to nature, it is asked,imply a corresponding relapse from civilisation tojsavagery 1 Is it not retrogressive, reactionary, unJscientificin a word, impossible ? To which it may atonce be answered that the naturalness which Thoreauadvocates cannot, if one takes the trouble to note hisown clear definition of it, be mistaken for a stateakin to barbarism or incompatible with the highestand truest culture. He explicitly avows his beliefthat civilisation is a real advance in the conditionofjman, but adds that he wishes to show at what a I

( sacrifice this advantage is at present obtained, and to


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INTRODUCTION xviisuggest that we may possibly so live as to secure allthe advantage without suffering any of the disadvan-tage^ The destructive side of Thoreau's teachingconsists in a prolonged, deliberate, and merciless ex-position of these disadvantages of civilisation, and ofthe numerous sophisms that underlie so large a portionof modern society. But he is no advocate of a merereturn to barbarism, the question proposed by himbeing whether it is possible r to combine the hardi-ness of the savage with the intellectualness of thecivilised man.

I have spoken of the destructive side of Thoreau'steaching, but his teaching was not destructive only. In an age ot^ increasing artificiality and restless self-indulgence he preached a gospel of healthfulness,simplicity, and contentment the gospel of naturalliving, 'of the open air.y(^He taught men to trusttheir real native instincts, and to distrust the in-numerable artificial wants with which custom andtradition have everywhere surrounded us J to distin-guish betweer^^genuine taste and acquired habitj Asthe Greek philosopher exclaimed, How many thingsthere are that I do not desire so Thoreau insistedthat_ iLiaaii-is rich in proportion to the number ofthings which he can afford to let alone. It may besaid that a savage also is content to let alone thosethings ; but it must be remembered that a savagespends the leisure thus obtained in sleeping on a mat,


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xviii SELECTIONS FROM THOREAUwhereas Thoreau had other means for the disposal ofhis spare hours. To what end, he says in hisLetters, do I lead a simple life at all? That I mayteach others to simplify their lives, and so all ourlives be 'simplified' merely, like an algebraic/formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use ofthe ground I have cleared, to live more worthily \and profitably ?

This gospel of naturalness, strange enough initself to the ordinary member of society, was madestill stranger by the manner in which Thoreau intro-duced it. His peculiarities of character and speech,the keen thrifty incisiveness of his paradoxical utter-ancesbarbed like his favourite Indian arrow-headsall militated against the early acceptance of hisnovel principles, and Thoreau was not the man toexplain himself to his puzzled audience. For thetime, therefore, his pointed epigrams had the efiect,and still have the effect, of making society look andfeel like the fretful porcupine in its attitude towardshim. Local prejudice was strong against this pre-sumptuous village moralist, this Yankee Diogenesor Eural Humbug, as contemporary critics styledhim, who dared call in/question the utility of nine-tenths of the most cherished institutions of mankind'and, as it is always cheering to believe that uncom-fortable prophets whose admonitions trouble us arethemselves the victims of depravity or madness, a


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INTRODUCTION XIXphantom Thoreau was soon forthcoming (under theusual working of the law of demand and supply),who was so contrived as to fit in precisely with thepreconceived ideas of the Boston public. Insincerityand self-conceit, cynicism and misanthropy, werethe qualities with which this unhappy lay figure wasmost liberally endowed. If this were Thoreau, wemight well join with Mr. Lowell and the other criticswho have mistaken the phantom for the man in theircontempt for a personality so contemptiblea mix-ture of indolence, misanthropy, and self-conceit. CButfortunately the writings of Thoreau^hemselves pro-vide the most specific refutation of the error.

It is hoped that the following Selections, which,though moderate in compass, are typical of Thoreauin almost all his moods and aspects, and containmuch that is new to English readers, may be instru-mental in quickening a more just and liberal appre-ciation. I have endeavoured so to choose andarrange the passages as to make them representativenot only of their author's strongly-marked opinionson morals, society, politics, literature, and naturalhistory, but also of the various influences andincidents that chiefly aff ected his lifethe sceneryof Concord, his study of Indian lore,(his_sojourn at'sWaldem his daily walks, his longer excursions byriver, forest, or sea-coast, his solitary moods, and hisgenial moods (as in his friendly crack with the


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XX SELECTIONS FIIOM THOKEA.UWellfleet oysterman), his revolt against the State ofMassachusetts for its sanction of slavery, his unhesi-tating championship of John Brown at a momentwhich tried as in a fiery furnace the mettle of humancharacter. As a writer, Thoreau's great qualitiesstand consjiicuous on every page, admitted even bythose critics who, like Mr. Lowell, are least in sym-pathy with his aims. Not less remarkable, thoughas yet but half recognised by the public, are his noblequalities as a man. H. S. Salt.


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CONTENTSPAGE

Introduction . . . . . v

Prom The Week on the Concord and MerrimackRivers

CoNOOED River . . . . 1Sunday Thoushts . .... 13Friendship 29

From Walden, or Life in the WoodsWhere I Lived and what I Lived for . 42Higher Laws . . . .64House Warming . . ... 80

Prom The Maine WoodsPrimeval Nature . . 89The Murder of the Moose . . 103Forest Phenomena . . 118

Prom Gape GodThe Shipwreck . . . 124The Beach .... .136The Wellfleet Oysterman . 151


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xxii SELECTIONS FEOM THOBEAUFrom Excursions page

Natural History of Massachusetts . 168Walking .198

From Anti-Slavery and Reform PapersCivil Disobedience 238A Plea fok Captain John Brown . . 267Life without Principle .... 301

Portrait of Thoreau, from a Daguerreotype made about1857, and photograplied by Mr. A. W. Hosmer of Con-cord, Mass. . . Frontispiece


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coNCOED eivp:eThe Musketaquid, or Grass-ground Eiver, thoughprobably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not beginto have a place in civilised history until the fameof its grassy meadows and its iish attracted settlersout of England in 1635, when it received the otherbut kindred name of Concord from the first planta-tion on its banks, which appears to have beencommenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. Itwill be Grass-ground Eiver as long as grass grows andwater runs here ; it will be Concord Eiver only whilemen lead peaceable lives on its banks. To an extinctrace it was grass-ground, where they hunted andfished, and it is still perennial grass-ground to Con-cord farmers, who own the Great Meadows, and getthe hay from year to year. One branch of it,according to the historian of Concord, for I love toquote so good authority, rises in the south part ofHopkinton, and another from a pond and a largecedar-swamp in Westborough, and flowing betweenHopkinton and Southborough, through Framingham,and between Sudbury and Wayland, where it is

S> B


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2 SELECTIONS FKOM THOEEAUsometimes called Sudbury Eiver, it enters Concordat the south part of the town, and after receiving theNorth or Assabeth Eiver, which has its source a littlefarther to the north and west, goes out at the north-east angle, and flowing between Bedford and Carlisle,and through Billerica, empties into the Merrimack 'at Lowell. In Concord it is, in summer, from fourto fifteen feet deep, and from one hundred to threehundred feet wide, but in the spring freshets, whenit overflows its banks, it is in some places nearlya mile wide. Between Sudbury and Wayland themeadows acquire their greatest breadth, and whencovered with water, they form a handsome chain ofshallow vernal lakes, resorted to by numerous gullsand ducks. Just above Sherman's Bridge, betweenthese towns, is the largest expanse, and when thewind blows freshly in a raw March day, heaving upthe surface into dark and sober billows or regularswells, skirted as it is in the distance with alder-swamps and smoke-like maples, it looks like a smallerLake Huron, and is very pleasant and exciting fora landsman to row or sail over. The farm-housesalong the Sudbury shore, which rises gently to aconsiderable height, command fine water prospects atthis season. The shore is more flat on the Waylandside, and this town is the greatest loser by the flood.Its farmers tell me that thousands of acres are floodednow, since the dams have been erected, where theyremember to have seen the white honeysuckle orclover growing once, and they could go dry withshoes only in summer. Now there is nothing but


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CONCORD EITEE 3blue-joint and sedge and cut-grass there, standing inwater all the year round. For a long time, theymade the most of the driest season to get their hay,working sometimes till nine o'clock at night, sedu-lously paring with their scythes in the twilight roundthe hummocks left by the ice; but now it is notworth the getting when they can come at it, andthey look sadly round to their wood-lots and uplandas a last resource.

It is worth the while to make a voyage up thisstream, if you go no farther than Sudbury, only tosee how much country there is in the rear of us;great hills, and a hundred brooks, and farm-houses,and barns, and haystacks, you never saw before, andmen everywhereSudbury, that is Southhorough men,and Wayland, and Mne-Acre-Corner men, and BoundEock, where four towns bound on a rock in the river,Lincoln, Wayland, Sudbury, Concord. Many wavesare there agitated by the wind, keeping nature fresh,the spray blowing in your face, reeds and rusheswaving ; ducks by the hundred, all uneasy in the surf,in the raw wind, just ready to rise, and now goingoff with a clatter and a whistling like riggers straightfor Labrador, flying against the stiff gale with reefedwings, or else circling round first, with all theirpaddles briskly moving, just over the surf, to recon-noitre you before they leave these parts ; gullswheeling overhead, musk-rats swimming for dear life,wet and cold, vidth no fire to warm them by thatyou know of ; their laboured homes rising here andthere like haystacks ; and countless mice and moles


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4 SELECTIONS FKOM THOEBAUand winged titmice along the sunny windy shore;cranberries tossed on the waves and heaving up onthe beach, their little red skiffs beating about amongthe alders;such healthy natural tumult as provesthe last day is not yet at hand. And there stand allaround the alders, and birches, and oaks, and maplesfull of glee and sap, holding in their buds until thewaters subside. You shall perh'apsTun aground onCranberry Island, only some spires of last year's pipe-grass above water, to show where the danger is, andget as good a freezing there as anywhere on theNorth-west Coast. I never voyaged so far in all mylife. You shall see men you never heard of before,whose names you don't know, going away downthrough the meadows with long ducking-guns, withwater-tight boots wading through the fowl-meadowgrass, on bleak, wintry, distant shores, with guns athalf-cock ; and they shall see teal, blue-winged, green-winged sheldrakes, whistlers, black ducks, ospreys,and many other wild and noble sights, before night,such as they who sit in parlours never dream of.You shall see rude and sturdy, experienced and wisemen, keeping their castles, or teaming up their sum-mer's wood, or chopping alone in the woods,menfuller of talk and rare adventure in the sun and windand rain, than a chestnut is of meat ; who were outnot only in '75 and 1812, but have been out everyday of their lives ; greater men than Homer, orChaucer, or Shakespeare, only they never got time tosay so ; they never took to the way of writing. Lookat their fields, and imagine what they might write, if


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CONCORD EIVBR 5ever they should put pen to paper. Or what havethey not written on the face of the earth already,clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing,and ploughing, and subsoiling, in and in, and outand out, and over and over, again and again, erasingwhat they had already written for want of parchment.

As yesterday and the historical ages are past, asthe work of to-day is present, so some flitting per-spectives and demi-experiences of the life that is innature are in time veritably future, or rather outsideto time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind andrain which never die.

The respectable folks,Where dwell they 1They whisper in the oaks,And they sigh in the hay ;Summer and winter, night and day,Out on the meadow, there dwell they.They never die.Nor snivel, nor cry,Nor ask our pityWith a wet eye.A sound estate they ever mend,To every asker readily lend ;To the ocean wealth,To the meadow health,To Time his length,To the rooks strength,To the stars light.To the weary night.To the busy day,To the idle play ;And so their good cheer never ends,For all are their debtors, and all their friends.^

' It should be stated, with reference to the poems with which


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6 SELECTIONS FKOM THOBBAUConcord Eiver is remarkable for the gentleness of

its current, which is scarcely perceptible, and somehave referred to its influence the proverbial modera-tion of the inhabitants of Concord, as exhibited in theRevolution, and on later occasions. It has been pro-posed that the town should adopt for its coat of armsa field verdant, with the Concord circling nine timesround. I have read that a descent of an eighth of aninch in a mile is suflacient to produce a flow. Ourriver has, probably, very near the smallest allowance.The story is current, at any rate, though I believethat strict history will not bear it out, that the onlybridge ever carried away on the main branch, withinthe limits of the town, was driven up stream by thewind. But wherever it makes a sudden bend it isshallower and swifter, and asserts its title to be calleda river. Compared with the other tributaries of theMerrimack, it appears to have been properly namedMusketaquid, or Meadow River, by the Indians. Forthe most part, it creeps through broad meadows,adorned with scattered oaks, where the cranberryis found in abundance, covering the ground like amoss-bed. A row of sunken dwarf willows bordersthe stream on one or both sides, while at a greaterdistance the meadow is skirted with maples, alders,and other fluviatile trees, overrun with the grape-vine, which bears fruit in its season, purple, red,white, and other grapes. Still farther from thestream, on the edge of the firm land, are seen theThoreau frequently interspersed his essays, that those which aredistinguished by inverted commas are quotations from otherwriters, the rest by Thoreau himself.


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CONCORD EIVER 7gray and white dwellings of the inhabitants. Ac-cording to the valuation of 1831, there were inConcord two thousand one hundred and eleven acres,or about one seventh of the whole territory inmeadow ; this standing next in the list after pastur-age and unimproved lands, and, judging from thereturns of previous years, the meadow is not re-claimed so fast as the woods are cleared.

Let us here read what old Johnson says of thesemeadows in his Wonder-workinfj Providence, whichgives the account of New England from 1628 to 1652,and see how matters looked to him. He says of theTwelfth Church of Christ gathered at Concord : Thistown is seated upon a fair fresh river, whose rivuletsare filled with fresh marsh, and her streams with fish,it being a branch of that large river of Merrimack.Allwifes and shad in their season come up to thistown, but salmon and dace cannot come up, by reasonof the rocky falls, which causeth their meadows tolie much covered with water, the which these people,together with their neighbour town, have severaltimes essayed to cut through but cannot, yet it maybe turned another way with an hundred pound chargeas it appeared.'' As to their farming he says : Hav-ing laid out their estate upon cattle at 5 to 20 pounda cow, when they came to winter them with inlandhay, and feed upon such wild fother as was nevercut before, they could not hold out the winter, but,ordinarily the first or second year after their comingup to a new plantation, many of their cattle died.And this from the same author Of the Planting


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8 SELECTIONS FKOM THOEEADof the I9th Church in the Mattachusets' Government,called Sudbury: This year [does he mean 1654]the town and church of Christ at Sudbury began tohave the first foundation stones laid, taking up herstation in the inland country, as her elder sisterConcord had formerly done, lying further up thesame river, being furnished with great plenty of freshmarsh, but, it lying very low is much indamaged withland floods, insomuch that when the summer proveswet they lose part of their hay ; yet are they so suffi-ciently provided that they take in cattle of othertowns to winter.

The sluggish artery of the Concord meadows stealsthus unobserved through the town, without a murmuror a pulse-beat, its general course from south-west tonorth-east, and its length about fifty miles ; a hugevolume of matter, ceaselessly rolling through theplains and valleys of the substantial earth with themoccasined tread of an Indian warrior, making hastefrom the high places of the earth to its ancientreservoir. The murmurs of many a famous riveron the other side of the globe reach even to us here,as to more distant dwellers on its banks ; many apoet's stream floating the helms and shields of heroeson its bosom. The Xanthus or Scamander is not amere dry channel and bed of a mountain torrent, butfed by the everflowing springs of fame

And thou Simois, that as an arrowe, clereThrough Troy rennest, aie downward to the sea ;

and I trust that I may be allowed to associate our


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CONCOED KIVEE 9muddy but much abused Concord River with themost famous in history.

Sure there are poets which did never dreamUpon Parnassus, nor did taste the streamOf Helicon ; we therefore may supposeThose made not poets, but the poets those.

The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile, thosejourneying atoms from the Rocky Mountains, theHimmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kindof personal importance in the annals of the vrorld.The heavens are not yet drained over their sources,but the Mountains of the Moon still send their annualtribute to the Pasha without fail, as they did to thePharaohs, though he must collect the rest of hisrevenue at the point of the sword. Rivers musthave been the guides which conducted the footstepsof the first travellers. They are the constant lure,when they flow by our doors, to distant enterpriseand adventure, and, by a natural impulse, thedwellers on their banks will at length accompanytheir currents to the lowlands of the globe, or exploreat their invitation the interior of continents. Theyare the natural highways of all nations, not onlylevelling the ground and removing obstacles fromthe path of the traveller, quenching his thirst andbearing him on their bosoms, but conducting himthrough the most interesting scenery, the mostpopulous portions of the globe, and where the animaland vegetable kingdoms attain their greatest per-fection.

I had often stood on the banks of the Concord,


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10 SELECTIONS FROM THOEEAUwatching the lapse of the current, an emblem of allprogress, following the same law with the system,with time, and all that is made; the weeds at thebottom gently bending down the stream, shaken bythe watery wind, still planted where their seeds hadsunk, but ere long to die and go down likewise ; theshining pebbles, not yet anxious to better theircondition, the chips and weeds, and occasional logsand stems of trees that floated past, fulfilling theirfate, were objects of singular interest to me, and atlast I resolved to launch myself on its bosom andfloat whither it would bear me.

At length, on Saturday, the last day of August,1839, we two, brothers, and natives of Concord,weighed anchor in this river port ; for Concord, too,lies under the sun, a port of entry and departure forthe bodies as well as the souls of men ; one shore atleast exempted from all duties but such as an honestman will gladly discharge. A warm drizzling rainhad obscured the morning, and threatened to delayour voyage, but at length the leaves and grass weredried, and it came out a mild afternoon, as sereneand fresh as if Nature were maturing some greaterscheme of her own. After this long dripping andoozing from every pore, she began to respire againmore healthily than ever. So with a vigorous shovewe launched our boat from the bank, while the flagsand bulrushes courtesied a God-speed, and droppedsilently down the stream.

Our boat, which had cost us a week's labour in


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CONCOED EIVEE 11the spring, was in form like a fisherman's dory, fifteenfeet long by three and a half in breadth at the widestpart, painted green below, with a border of blue, withreference to the two elements in which it was tospend its existence. It had been loaded the eveningbefore at our door, half a mile from the ri-ver, withpotatoes and melons from a patch which we hadcultivated, and a few utensils, and was provided withwheels in order to be rolled around falls, as well aswith two sets of oars, and several slender poles forshoving in shallow places, and also two masts, oneof which served for a tent-pole at night; for abufialo-skin was to be our bed, and a tent of cottoncloth our roof. It was strongly built, but heavy,and hardly of better model than usual. If rightlymade, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal,a creature of two elements, related by one half itsstructure to some swift and shapely fish, and by theother to some strong-winged and graceful bird. Thefish shows where there should be the greatest breadthof beam and depth in the hold ; its fins direct whereto set the oars, and the tail gives some hint for theform and position of the rudder. The bird showshow to rig and trim the sails, and what form to giveto the prow that it may balance the boat, and dividethe air and water best. These hints we had butpartially obeyed. But the eyes, though they are nosailors, will never be satisfied with any model, how-ever fashionable, which does not answer all therequisitions of art. However, as art is all of a shipbut the wood, and yet the wood alone will rudely


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12 SELECTIONS FEOM THOEEAUserve the purpose of a ship, so our boat, being ofwood, gladly availed itself of the old law that theheavier shall float the lighter, and though a dullwater-fowl, proved a sufficient buoy for our purpose.

Were it the will of Heaven, an osier boughWere vessel safe enough the seas to plough.

Some village friends stood upon a promontorylower down the stream to wave us a last farewellbut we, having already performed these shore rites,with excusable reserve, as befits those who areembarked on unusual enterprises, who behold butspeak not, silently glided past the firm lands ofConcord, both peopled cape and lonely summermeadow, with steady sweeps. And yet we didunbend so far as to let our guns speak for us,when at length we had swept out of sight, and thusleft the woods to ring again with their echoes ; andit may be many russet-clad children, lurking in thosebroad meadows, with the bittern and the woodcockand the rail, though wholly concealed by brakes andhard-hack and meadow-sweet, heard our salute thatafternoon.


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SUNDAY THOUGHTSAs we passed under the last bridge over the canal,just before reaching the Merrimack, the peoplecoming out of church paused to look at us fromabove, and apparently, so strong is custom, indulgedin some heathenish comparisons ; but we were thetruest observers of this sunny day. According toHesiod,

The seventh is a holy day,For then Latona hrought forth golden-rayed Apollo,

and by our reckoning this was the seventh day of theweek, and not the first. I find among the papers ofan old Justice of the Peace and Deacon of the townof Concord, this singular memorandum, which isworth preserving as a relic of an ancient custom.After reforming the spelling and grammar, it runsas follows : Men that travelled with teams on theSabbath, Dec. 18th, 1803, were Jeremiah Eichardsonand Jonas Parker, both of Shirley. They had teamswith rigging such as is used to carry barrels, andthey were travelling westward. Eichardson wasquestioned by the Hon. Ephraim Wood, Esq., and he


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14 SBLEOTIONS FEOM THOEEAUsaid that Jonas Parker was his fellow-traveller, andhe further said that a Mr. Longley was his employer,who promised to bear him out. We were the menthat were gliding northward, this 1st September 1839,with still team, and rigging not the most convenientto carry barrels, unquestioned by any Squire orChurch Deacon and ready to bear ourselves out ifneed were. In the latter part of the seventeenthcentury, according to the historian of Dunstable,Towns were directed to erect 'a cage' near themeeting-house, and in this all offenders against thesanctity of the Sabbath were confined. Society hasrelaxed a little from its strictness, one would say, butI presume that there is not less religion than formerly.If the ligature is found to be loosened in one part, itis only drawn the tighter in another.

You can hardly convince a man of an error in alifetime, but must content yourself with the reflectionthat the progress of science is slow. If he is notconvinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologiststell us that it took one hundred years to pi'ove thatfossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more,to prove that they are not to be referred to theNoachian deluge. I am not sure but I should betakemyself in extremities to the liberal divinities ofGreece, rather than to my country's God. Jehovah,though with us he has acquired new attributes, ismore absolute and unapproachable, but hardly moredivine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentle-man, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exertso intimate and genial an influence on nature, as


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SUNDAY THOUGHTS 15many a god of the Greeks. I should fear the infinitepower and inflexible justice of the almighty mortalhardly as yet apotheosised, so wholly masculine, withno sister Juno, no Apollo, no Venus, nor Minerva,to intercede for me, dvfim (j)vX,^ovaa re, Kr^Zofiivrjre. The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallengods, with the vices of men, but in many importantrespects essentially of the divine race. In myPantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, withhis ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggybody, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, andhis chosen daughter lambe ; for the great god Panis not dead, as was rumoured. No god ever dies.Perhaps of all the gods of New England and ofancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.

It seems to me that the god that is commonlyworshipped in civilised countries is not at all divine,though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelm-ing authority and respectability of mankind com-bined. Men reverence one another, not yet God.If I thought that I could speak with discriminationand impartiality of the nations of Christendom, Ishould praise them, but it tasks me too much. Theyseem to be the most civil and humane, but I may bemistaken. Every people have gods to suit their cir-cumstances ; the Society Islanders had a god calledToahitu, in shape like a dog ; he saved such aswere in danger of falling from rocks and trees. Ithink that we can do without him, as we have notmuch climbing to do. Among them a man couldmake himself a god out of a piece of wood in a


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16 SELECTIONS FROM THOEEAUfew minutes, whicli would frighten him out of hiswits.

I fancy that some indefatigable spinster of the oldschool, who had the supreme felicity to be bom in days that tried men's souls, hearing this, may saywith Nestor, another of the old school, But youare younger than I. For time was when I conversedwith greater men than you. For not at any timehave I seen such men, nor shall see them, asPerithous, and Dryas, and Troi/Meva Xawv, that isprobably Washington, sole Shepherd of the People.And when Apollo has now six times rolled westward,or seemed to roll, and now for the seventh timeshows his face in the east, eyes well-nigh glazed, longglassed, which have fluctuated only between lamb'swool and worsted, explore ceaselessly some goodsermon book. For six days shalt thou labour anddo all thy knitting, but on the seventh, forsooth, thyreading. Happy we who can bask in this warmSeptember sun, which illumines all creatures, as wellwhen they rest as when they toil, not without afeeling of gratitude ; whose life is as blameless, howblameworthy soever it may be, on the Lord's Mona-day as on his Suna-day.

There are various, nay, incredible faiths; whyshould we be alarmed at any of them ? What manbelieves, G-od believes. Long as I have lived, andmany blasphemers as I have heard and seen, I havenever yet heard or witnessed any direct and consciousblasphemy or irreverence ; but of indirect and habit-ual, enough. Where is the man who is guilty of


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SUNDAY THOUGHTS 17direct and personal insolence to Him that madehim?

One memorable addition to the old mythology isdue to this era,the Christian fable. With whatpains, and tears, and blood these centuries havewoven this and added it to the mythology of man-kind. The new Prometheus. With what miraculousconsent, and patience, and persistency has this mythusbeen stamped on the memory of the race It wouldseem as if it were in the progress of our mythologyto dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead.

If it is not a tragical life we live, then I know notwhat to call it. Such a story as that of Jesus Christ,

the history of Jerusalem, say, being a part of theUniversal History. The naked, the embalmed, un-buried death of Jerusalem amid its desolate hills,^think of it. In Tasso's poem I trust some things aresweetly buried. Consider the snappish tenacity withwhich they preach Christianity still. What are timeand space to Christianity, eighteen hundred years,and a new world ?that the humble life of a Jewishpeasant should have force to make a New York bishopso bigoted. Forty-four lamps, the gift of kings, nowburning in a place called the Holy Sepulchre ;church-bell ringing;some unaffected tears shed bya pilgrim on Mount Calvary within the week.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, when I forget thee, maymy right hand forget her cunning.

By the waters of Babylon there we sat down, andwe wept when we remembered Zion.

I trust that some may be as near and dear to


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18 SELECTIONS FROM THOEEAUBuddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are withoutthe pale of their churches. It is not necessary to beChristian to appreciate the beauty and significance ofthe life of Christ. I know that some will have hardthoughts of me, when they hear their Christ namedbeside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willingthey should love their Christ more than my Buddha,for the love is the main thing, and I like him too.God is the letter Ku, as well as Khu. Why needChristians be still intolerant and superstitious ? Thesimple-minded sailors were unwilling to cast over-board Jonah at his own request.

Where is this love become in later age ?Alas 'tis gone in endless pilgrimageFrom hence, and never to return, I doubt,Till revolution wheel those times about.

One man says, The world's a popular disease, that reignsWithin the froward heart and frantic brainsOf poor distempered mortals.

Another, that all the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.The world is a strange place for a playhouse to standwithin it. Old Drayton thought that a man thatlived here, and would be a poet, for instance, shouldhave in him certain brave, translunary things, anda fine madness should possess his brain. Certainlyit were as well, that he might be up to the occasion.That is a superfluous wonder, which Dr. Johnsonexpresses at the assertion of Sir Thomas Browne thathis life has been a miracle of thirty years, which to


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SUNDAY THOUGHTS 19relate, were not history but a piece of poetry, andwould sound like a fable. The wonder is, rather,that all men do not assert as much. That would bea rare praise, if it were true, which was addressed toFrancis Beaumont,Spectators sate part in yourtragedies.''

Think what a mean and wretched place this worldis ; that half the time we have to light a lamp thatwe may see to live in it. This is half our life. Whowould undertake the enterprise if it were all ? And,pray, what more has day to offer 1 A lamp that burnsmore clear, a purer oil, say winter-strained, that sowe may pursue our idleness with less obstruction.Bribed with a little sunlight and a few prismatic tints,we bless our Maker, and stave off his wrath withhymns.

I make ye an offer,Ye gods, hear the scoffer,The scheme will not hurt you,If ye will find goodness, I will find virtue.Though I am your creature,And child of your nature,I have pride still unbended,And blood undescended.Some free independence,And my own descendants.I cannot toil blindly,Though ye behave kindly.And I swear by the rood,I'll be slave to no God.If ye will deal plainly,I will strive mainly,If ye w.ill discover,Great plans to your lover.And give him a sphere'Somewhat larger than here.


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20 SELECTIONS FEOM THOKBAU Verily, my angels I was abashed on account of

my servant, who had no Providence but me ; there-fore did I pardon him. The Gulistan of Sadi.

Most people with whom I talk, men and womeneven of some originality and genius, have theirscheme of the universe all cut and dried,very dry,I assure you, to hear, dry enough to burn, dry-rottedand powder-post, methinks,which they set up be-tween you and them in the shortest intercourse ; anancient and tottering frame with all its boards blownoff. They do not walk without their bed. Some, tome, seemingly very unimportant and unsubstantialthings and relations, are for them everlastinglysettled,as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and thelike. These are like the everlasting hills to them.But in all my wanderings I never came across theleast vestige of authority for these things. Theyhave not left so distinct a trace as the delicate flowerof a remote geological period on the coal in my grate.The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has noscheme ; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, againstthe heavens. It is clear sky. If I ever see moreclearly at one time than at another, the medimi]through which I see is clearer. To see from earth tcheaven, and see there standing, still a fixture, thatold Jewish scheme What right have you to holdup this obstacle to my understanding you, to youiunderstanding me You did not invent it ; it wasimposed on you. Examine your authority. EverChrist, we fear, had his scheme, his conformity t(


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SUNDAY THOUGHTS 21tradition, which slightly vitiates his teaching. Hehad not swallowed all formulas. He preached somemere doctrines. As for me, Abraham, Isaac, andJacob are now only the subtilest imaginable essences,which would not stain the morning sky. Yourscheme must be the framework of the universe; allother schemes will soon be ruins. The perfect Grodin his revelations of himself has never got to thelength of one such proposition as you, his prophets,state. Have you learned the alphabet of heaven andcan count three 1 Do you know the number of God'sfamily? Can you put mysteries into words? Doyou presume to fable of the ineffable? Pray, whatgeographer are you, that speak of heaven's topo-graphy 1 Whose friend are you that speak of God'spersonality? Do you. Miles Howard, think that hehas made you his confidant ? Tell me of the heightof the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter ofspace, and I may believe you, but of the secret historyof the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.Yet we have a sort of family history of our God,so have the Tahitians of theirs,and some old poet'sgrand imagination is imposed on us as adamantineeverlasting truth, and God's own words. Pythagorassays, truly enough, A true assertion respecting God,is an assertion of God ; but we may well doubt ifthere is any example of this in literature.

The New Testament is an invaluable book, thoughI confess to having been slightly prejudiced against itin my very early days by the church and the Sabbathschool, so that it seemed, before I read it, to be the


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22 SELECTIONS EEOM THOEEAUyellowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early escapedfrom their meshes. It was hard to get the comment-aries out of one's head and taste its true flavour.I think that Pilgrim's Progress is the best sermonwhich has been preached from this text ; almost allother sermons that I have heard, or heard of, havebeen but poor imitations of this.It would be a poorstory to be prejudiced against the Life of Christbecause the book has been edited by Christians. Infact, I love this book rarely, though it is a sort ofcastle in the air to me, which I am permitted todream. Having come to it so recently and freshly,it has the greater charm, so that I cannot find any totalk with about it. I never read a novel, they haveso little real life and thought in them. The readingwhich I love, best is the scriptures of the severalnations, though it happens that I am better ac-quainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese,and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I havecome to last. Give me one of these Bibles and youhave silenced me for a while. When I recover theuse of my tongue, I am wont to worry my neighbourswith the new sentences ; but commonly they cannotsee that there is any wit in them. Such has been myexperience with the New Testament. I have notyet got to the crucifixion, I have read it over so manytimes. I should love dearly to read it aloud to myfriends, some of whom are seriously inclined ; it is sogood, and I am sure that they have never heard it,it fits their case exactly, and we should enjoy it somuch together,but I instinctively despair of getting


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SUNDAY THOUGHTS 23their ears. They soon show, by signs not to be mis-taken, that it is inexpressibly wearisome to them. Ido not mean to imply that I am any better than myneighbours ; for, alas I know that I am only as good,though I love better books than they.

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the univer-sal favour with which the New Testament is out-wardly received, and even the bigotry with which itis defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there isno appreciation of, the order of truth with which itdeals. I know of no book that has so few readers.There is none so truly strange, and heretical, and un-popular. To Christians, no less than Greeks andJews, it is foolishness and a stumbling-block. Thereare, indeed, severe things in it which no man shouldread aloud more than once. Seek first the kingdomof heaven. Lay not up for yourselves treasures onearth. If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell thatthou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt havetreasure in heaven.

For what is a man profited,if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his ownsoul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for hissoul? Think of this, Yankees Verily, I sayunto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed,ye shall say unto this mountain, Eemove hence toyonder place ; and it shall remove ; and nothing shallbe impossible unto you. Think of repeating thesethings to a New England audience thirdly, fourthly,fifteenthly, till there are three barrels of sermons

Who, without cant, can read them aloud? Who,without cant, can hear them, and not go out of the


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24 SELECTIONS FROM THOEEATJmeeting-house? They never were read, they neverwere heard. Let but one of these sentences be rightly -read from any pulpit in the land, and there wouldnot be left one stone of that meeting-house uponanother.

Yet the New Testament treats of man and man'sso-called spiritual affairs too exclusively, and is tooconstantly moral and personal, to alone content me,who am not interested solely in man's religious ormoral nature, or in man even. I have not the mostdefinite designs on the future. Absolutely speaking,Do unto others as you would that they should dounto you, is by no means a golden rule, but the bestof current silver. An honest man would have butlittle occasion for it. It is golden not to have anyrule at all in such a case. The book has never beenwritten which is to be accepted without any allow-ance. Christ was a sublime actor on the stage of theworld. He knew what he was thinking of when hesaid, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but mywords shall not pass away. I draw near to him atsuch a time. Yet he taught mankind but imperfectlyhow to live ; his thoughts were all directed towardanother world. There is another kind of successthan his. Even here we have a sort of living to get,and must buffet it somewhat longer. There arevarious tough problems yet to solve, and we mustmake shift to live, betwixt spirit and matter, such ahuman life as we can.A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the


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SUNDAY THOUGHTS 25woods, will not be a good subject for Christianity.The New Testament may be a choice book to him onsome, but not on all or most of his days. He willrather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles,though they were fishers too, were of the solemn raceof sea-fishers, and never trolled for pickerel on inlandstreams.

Men have a singular desire to be good withoutbeing good for anything, because, perchance, theythink vaguely that so it will be good for them in theend. The sort of morality which the priests inculcateis a very subtle policy, far finer than the politicians,and the world is very successfully ruled by them as thepolicemen. It is not worth the while to let our im-perfections disturb us always. The conscience reallydoes not, and ought not^to monopolise the whole ofour lives, any more than the heart or the head. Itis as liable to disease as any other part. I have seensome whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to formerindulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoiltchildren, and at length gave them no peace. Theydid not know when to swallow their cud, and theirlives of course yielded no milk.

I was once reproved by a minister who was drivinga poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds amongthe hills of New Hampshire, because I was bendingmy steps to a mountain-top on the Sabbath, insteadof a church, when I would have gone farther than heto hear a true word spoken on that or any day. Hedeclared that I was breaking the Lord's fourthcommandment, and proceeded to enumerate, in a


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26 SELECTIONS FROM THOEEAUsepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen himwhenever he had done any ordinary work on theSabbath. He really thought that a god was on thewatch to trip up those men who followed any secularwork on this day, and did not see that it was the evilconscience of the workers that did it. The countryis full of this superstition, so that when one enters avillage, the church, not only really but from associa-tion, is the ugliest looking building in it, because itis the one in which human nature stoops the lowestand is most disgraced. Certainly, such temples asthese shall ere long cease to deform the landscape.There are few things more disheartening and dis-gusting than when you are walking the streets of astrange village on the Sabbath, to hear a preachershouting like a boatswain in a gale of wind, and thusharshly profaning the quiet atmosphere of the day.You fancy him to have taken oflf his coat, as whenmen are about to do hot and dirty work.

If I should ask the minister of Middlesex to letme speak in his pulpit on a Sunday, he would object,because I do not pray as he does, or because I am notordained. What under the sun are these things ?

Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so greatas that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, andrebuilds the churches. The sealer of the SouthPacific preaches a truer doctrine. The church is asort of hospital for men's souls, and as full of quack-ery as the hospital for their bodies. Those who aretaken into it live like pensioners in their Retreat orSailor's Snug Harbour, where you may see a row of


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SUNDAY THOUGHTS 27religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather.Let not the apprehension that he may one day haveto occupy a ward therein, discourage the cheerfullabours of the able-souled man. While he remembersthe sick in their extremities, let him not look thitheras to his goal. One is sick at heart of this pagodaworship. It is like the beating of gongs in a Hindoosubterranean temple. In dark places and dungeonsthe preacher's words might perhaps strike root andgrow, but not in broad daylight in any part of theworld that I know. The sound of the Sabbath bellfar away, now breaking on these shores, does notawaken pleasing associations, but melancholy andsombre ones rather. One involuntarily rests on hisoar, to humour his unusually meditative mood. It isas the sound of many catechisms and religious bookstwanging a canting peal round the earth, seeming toissue from some Egyptian temple and echo along theshore of the Nile, right opposite to Pharaoh's palaceand Moses in the bulrushes, startling a multitude ofstorks and alligators basking in the sun.

Everywhere good men sound a retreat, and theword has gone forth to fall back on innocence. Fallforward rather on to whatever there is there. Chris-tianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on thewillows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land.It has dreamed a sad dream, and does not yetwelcome the morning with joy. The mother tellsher falsehoods to her child, but, thank Heaven, thechild does not grow up in its parent's shadow. Ourmother's faith has not grown with her experience.


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28 SELECTIONS FROM THOKEAUHer experience has been too much for her. Thelesson of life was too hard for her to learn.

It is remarkable that almost all speakers andwriters feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner orlater, to prove or to acknowledge the personality ofGod. Some Earl of Bridgewater, thinking it betterlate than never, has provided for it in his will. It isa sad mistake. In reading a work on agriculture, wehave to skip the author's moral reflections, and thewords Providence and He scattered along thapage, to come at the profitable level of what he hasto say. What he calls his religion is for the mostpart offensive to the nostrils. He should know betterthan expose himself, and keep his foul sores coveredtill they are quite healed. There is more religion inmen's science than there is science in their religion.Let us make haste to the report of the committee onswine.A man's real faith is never contained in his creed,nor is his creed an article of his faith. The last isnever adopted. This it is that permits him to smileever, and to live even as bravely as he does. Andyet he clings anxiously to his creed, as to a straw,thinking that that does him good service because hissheet anchor does not drag.


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PEIENDSHIPNo word is oftener on the lips of men than Friend-ship, and indeed no thought is more famihar to theiraspirations. Ml men are dreaming of it, and itsdrama, which is always a tragedy, is enacted daily.It is the secret of the universe. You may thread thetown, you may wander the country, and none shallever speak of it, yet thought is everywhere busyabout it, and the idea of what is possible in thisrespect affects our behaviour toward all new menand women, and a great many old ones. Neverthe-less, I can remember only two or three essays on thissubject in all literature. No wonder that the Myth-ology, and Arabian Nights, and Shakespeare, andScott's novels, entertain us,we are poets and fablersand dramatists and novelists ourselves. We arecontinually acting a part in a more interesting dramathan any written. We are dreaming that our Friendsare our Friends, and that we are our Friends' Friends.Our actual Friends are but distant relations of thoseto whom we are pledged. We never exchange morethan three words with a Friend in our lives on thatlevel to which our thoughts and feelings almost


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30 SELECTIONS FROM THOKEAUhabitually rise. One goes forth prepared to say,Sweet Friends and the salutation is, Damnyour eyes But never mind ; faint heart never wontrue Friend. my Friend, may it come to passonce, that when you are my Friend I may be yours.

Of what use the friendliest dispositions even, ifthere are no hours given to Friendship, if it is for-ever postponed to unimportant duties and relations 1Friendship is first. Friendship last. But it is equallyimpossible to forget our Friends, and to make themanswer to our ideal. When they say farewell, thenindeed we begin to keep them company. How oftenwe find ourselves turning our backs on our actualFriends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.

What is commonly honoured with the name ofFriendship is no very profound or powerful instinct.Men do not, after all, love their Friends greatly. Ido not often see the farmers made seers and wise tothe verge of insanity by their Friendship for oneanother. They are not often transfigured and trans-lated by love in each other's presence. I do notobserve them purified, refined, and elevated by thelove of a man. If one abates a little the price ofhis wood, or gives a neighbour his vote at town-meeting, or a barrel of apples, or lends him hiswaggon frequently, it is esteemed a rare instance ofFriendship. Nor do the farmers' wives lead livesconsecrated to Friendship. I do not see the pair offarmer Friends of either sex prepared to stand againstthe world. There are only two or three couples in


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FRIENDSHIP 31history. To say that a man is your Friend, means jcommonly no more than this, that he is not your fenemy. Most contemplate only what would be the iaccidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, asthat the Friend can assist in time of need, by hissubstance, or his influence, or his counsel ; but hewho foresees such advantages in this relation proveshimself blind to its real advantage, or indeed whollyinexperienced in the relation itself. Such servicesare particular and menial, compared with the per-petual and all-embracing service which it is. Eventhe utmost good-will and harmony and practicalkindness are not suflBcient for Friendship, for Friendsdo not live in harmony merely, as some say, but inmelody. We do not wish for Friends to feed andclothe our bodies,neighbours are kind enough for

,

that,but to do the like office to our spirits. For 1this few are rich enough, however well disposed theymay be. For the most part we stupidly confoundone man with another. The dull distinguish onlyraces or nations, or at most classes, but the wise man,individuals. To his Friend a man's peculiar characterappears in every feature and in every action, and itis thus drawn out and improved by him.

Think of the importance of Friendship in theeducation of men.

He that hath love and judgment too,Sees more than any other doe.

It will make a man honest; it will make him ahero; it will make him a saint. It is the state ofthe just dealing with the just, the magnanimous


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32 SELECTIONS FKOM THOEEAUwith the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere,man with man.y And it is well said by another poet,

Why love among the virtues is not known,Is that love is them all contract in one.''~\

All the abuses which are the object of reform withthe philanthropist, the statesman, and the house-keeper are unconsciously amended in the intercourseof Friends. A Friend is one who incessantly pays usthe compliment of expecting from us all the virtues,and who can appreciate them in us. It takes two tospeak the truth,one to speak, and another to hear.How can one treat with magnanimity mere wood andstone 1 If we dealt only with the false and dishonest,we should at last forget how to speak truth. Onlylovers know the value and magnanimity of truth,while traders prize a cheap honesty, and neighboursand acquaintance a cheap civility. In our dailyintercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dor-mant and suffered to rust. None will pay us thecompliment to expect nobleness from us. Thoughwe have gold to give, they demand only copper.We ask our neighbour to sufifer himself to be dealtwith truly, sincerely, nobly; but he answers no byhis deafness. He does not even hear this prayer.He says practically, I will be content if you treat meas no better than I should be, as deceitful, mean,dishonest, and selfish. For the most part, we are con-tented so to deal and to be dealt with, and we do notthink that for the mass of men there is any truer andnobler relation possible. A man may have good


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FRIENDSHIP 33neighbours, so called, and acquaintances, and evencompanions, wife, parents, brothers, sisters, children,who meet himself and one another on this groundonly. The State does not demand justice of itsmembers, but thinks that it succeeds very well withthe least degree of it, hardly more than roguespractise ; and so do the neighbourhood and thefamily. What is commonly called Friendship evenis only a little more honour among rogues.

But sometimes we are said to love another, that is,to stand in a true relation to him, so that we give thebest to, and receive the best from, him. Betweenwhom there is hearty truth, there is love; and inproportion to our truthfulness and confidence in oneanother, our lives are divine and miraculous, andanswer to our ideal. There are passages of affectionin our intercourse with mortal men and women, suchas no prophecy had taught us to expect, whichtranscend our earthly life, and anticipate Heaven forus. What is this Love that may come right into themiddle of a prosaic Goffstown day, equal to any ofthe gods ? that discovers a new world, fair and freshand eternal, occupying the place of the old one, whento the common eye a dust has settled on the universe ?which world cannot else be reached, and does notexist. What other words, we may almost ask, arememorable and worthy to be repeated than thosewhich love has inspired ? It is wonderful that theywere ever uttered. They are few and rare, indeed,but, like a strain of music, they are incessantlyrepeated and modulated by the memory. All other

D


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34 SELECTIONS FROM THOBEAUwords crumble off with the stucco which overHes theheart. We should not dare to repeat these nowaloud. We are not competent to hear them at all

^ , tiHies.3'

I The books for young people say a great deal aboutthe selection of Friends ; it is because they really havenothing to say about Friends. They mean associatesand confidants merely. Know that the contrarietyof foe and Friend proceeds from God. Friendshiptakes place between those who have an affinity forone another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitableresult. No professions nor advances will avail. Evenspeech, at first, necessarily has nothing to do with it

;

but it follows after silence, as the buds in the graftdo not put forth into leaves till long after the grafthas taken. It is a drama in which the parties haveno part to act. We are aU Mussulmen and fatalistsin this respect. Impatient and uncertain loversthink that they must say or do something kindwhenever they meet ; they must never be cold. Butthey who are Friends do not do what they think theymust, but what they nvust. Even their Friendship isto some extent but a sublime phenomenon to them.

The true and not despairing Friend will addresshis Friend in some such terms as these.

I never asked thy leave to let me love thee,have a right. I love thee not as something privateand personal, which is your own, but as somethinguniversal and worthy of love, loliich I liave fmird. 0,how I think of you You are purely good,you areinfinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not


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FEIENDSHIP 35think that humanity was so rich. Give me an oppor-tunity to live.

You are the fact in a fiction,you are the truthmore strange and admirable than fiction. Consentonly to be what you are. I alone will never stand- inyour way.

This is what I would like,to be as intimatewith you as our spirits are intimate,respecting youas I respect my ideal. Never to profane one anotherby word or action, even by a thought. Between us,if necessary, let there be no acquaintance.

I have discovered you ; how can you be concealedfrom me ?

The Friend asks no return but that his Friend willreligipusly accept and wear and not disgrace his

'^apoclfeosiis of him. They cherish each other's hopes.They are kind to each other's dreams.

Though the poet says, ' Tis the pre-eminence ofFriendship to impute excellence,'' yet we can neverpraise our Friend, nor esteem him praiseworthy, norlet him think that he can please us by any behamour,or ever treat us well enough. That kindness whichhas so good a reputation elsewhere can least of allconsist with this relation, and no such affront can beoffered to a Friend, as a conscious good-will, a friend-liness which is not a necessity of the Friend's nature.\~The sexes are naturally most strongly attracted to

one another, by constant constitutional diflFerences,and are most commonly and surely the complementsof each other How natural and easy it is for man


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36 SELECTIONS FEOM THOEEAUto secure the attention of woman to what interestshimself. Men and women of equal culture, throwntogether, are sure to be of a certain value to oneanother, more than men to men. There existsalready a natural disinterestedness and liberality insuch society, and I think that any man will moreconfidently carry his favourite books to read to somecircle of intelligent women, than to one of his ownsex. The visit of man to man is wont to be an inter-ruption, but the sexes naturally expect one another.Yet Friendship is no respecter of sex ; and perhaps itis more rare between the sexes than between two ofthe same sex. '^F Friendship Ts, at any rate, a relation of perfectequality. It cannot well spare any outward sign ofequal obligation and advantage. The nobleman cannever have a Friend among his retainers, nor theking among his subjects. Not that the parties to itare in all respects equal, but they are equal in allthat respects or affects their Friendship. The one'slove is exactly balanced and represented by theother's. Persons are only the vessels which containthe nectar, and the hydrostatic paradox is the symbolof love's law. It finds its level and rises to itsfountain-head in all breasts, and its slenderest columnbalances the ocean.

And love as well the shepherd canAs can the mighty nobleman.

The one sex is not, in this respect, more tender thanthe other. A hero's love is as delicate as a maiden's.

J


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FKIENDSHIP 37Confucius said, Never contract Friendship with

a man who is not better than thyself. It is themerit and preservation of Friendship, that it takesplace on a level higher than the actual characters ofthe parties would seem to warrant. The rays oflight come to us in such a curve that every man whomwe meet appears to be taller than he actually is.Such foundation has civility. My Friend is that onewhom I can associate with my choicest thought. P Ialways assign to him a nobler employment in myabsence than I ever find him engaged in; /and Iimagine that the hours which he devotes to me weresnatched from a higher society. The sorest insultwhich I ever received from a Friend was, when hebehaved with the license which only long and cheapacquaintance allows to one's faults, in my presence,without shame, and still addressed me in friendlyaccents. Beware, lest thy Friend learn at last totolerate one frailty of thine, and so an obstacle beraised to the progress of thy love. There are timeswhen we have had enough even of our Friends, whenwe begin inevitably to profane one another, and mustwithdraw religiously into solitude and silence, thebetter to prepare ourselves for a loftier intimacy.Silence is the ambrosial night in the intercourse ofFriends, in which their sincerity is recruited andtakes deeper root.

Friendship is never established as an understoodrelation. Do you demand that I be less your Friendthat you may know it 'i Yet what right have I tothink that another cherishes so rare a sentiment for


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38 SELECTIONS FROM THOEEAUme t It is a miracle which requires constant proofs.It is an exercise of the purest imagination and therarest faith. It says by a silent but eloquentbehaviour,I will be so related to thee as thoucanst imagine ; even so thou mayest believe. I willspend truth,all my wealth on thee, and theFriend responds silently through his nature and life,and treats his Friend with the same divine courtesy.He knows us literally through thick and thin. Henever asks for a sign of love, but can distinguish itby the features which it naturally wears. We neverneed to stand upon ceremony with him with regardto his visits. Wait not till I invite thee, but observethat I am glad to see thee when thou comest. Itwould be paying too dear for thy visit to ask for it.Where my Friend lives there are all riches and everyattraction, and no slight obstacle can keep me fromhim. Let me never have to teU thee what I havenot to teU. Let our intercourse be wholly aboveourselves, and draw us up to it.

The language of Friendship is not words, butmeanings. It is an intelligence above language.One imagines endless conversations with his Friend,in which the tongue shall be loosed, and thoughts bespoken without hesitancy or end ; but the experienceis commonly far otherwise. Acquaintances maycome and go, and have a word ready for everyoccasion ; but what puny word shall he utter whosevery breath is thought and meaning 1 Suppose yougo to bid farewell to your Friend who is setting outon a journey ; what other outward sign do you know


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FRIENDSHIP 39than to shake his hand? Have you any palaverready for him then ? any box of salve to commit tohis pocket 1 any particular message to send by him 1any statement which you had forgotten to make 1as if you could forget anything.No, it is much thatyou take his hand and say Farewell ; that you couldeasily omit ; so far custom has prevailed. It is evenpainful, if he is to go, that he should linger so long.If he must go, let him go quickly. Have you anylast words 1 Alas, it is only the word of words, whichyou have so long sought and found not; you havenot a first word yet. There are few even whom Ishould venture to call earnestly by their most propernames. A name pronounced is the recognition ofthe individual to whom it belongs. He who canpronounce my name aright, he can call me, and isentitled to my love and service. Yet reserve is thefreedom and abandonment of lovers. It is the reserveof what is hostile or indifferent in their natures, togive place to what is kindred and harmonious.

The violence of love is as much to be dreaded asthat of hate. When it is durable it is serene andequable. Even its famous pains begin only with theebb of love, for few are indeed lovers, though allwould fain be. It is one proof of a man's fitness forFriendship that he is able to do without that whichis cheap and passionate. A true Friendship is aswise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitlyto the guidance of their love, and know no other lawnor kindness. It is not extravagant and insane, butwhat it says is something established henceforth, and


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40 SELECTIONS FROM THOEEAUwill bear to be stereotyped. It is a truer truth, it isbetter and fairer news, and no time will ever shameit, or prove it false. This is a plant which thrivesbest in a temperate zone, where summer and winteralternate with one another. The Friend is a neces-sa/riws, and meets his Friend on homely ground ; noton carpets and cushions, but on the ground and onrocks they will sit, obeying the natural and primitivelaws. They will meet without any outcry, and partwithout loud sorrow. Their relation implies suchqualities as the warrior prizes ; for it takes a valourto open the hearts of men as well as the gates ofcastles. It is not an idle sympathy and mutualconsolation merely, but a heroic ' sympathy of aspirartion and endeavour.

As surely as the sunset in my latest Novembershall translate me to the ethereal world, and remindme of the ruddy morning of youth ; as surely as thelast strain of music which falls on my decaying earshall make age to be forgotten, or, in short, the mani-fold influences of nature survive during the term ofour natural life, so surely my Friend shall for ever hemy Friend, and reflect a ray of God to me, and timeshall foster and adorn and consecrate our Friendship,no less than the ruins of temples. As I love nature,as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, andflowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summerand winter, I love thee, my Friend.

But all that can be said of Friendship is like


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FEIENDSHIP 41botany to flowers. How can the understanding takeaccount of its friendliness ?

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as muchas their lives. They will leave consolation to themourners, as the rich leave money to defray theexpenses of their funerals, and their memories will beincrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts,as monuments of other men are overgrown with mossfor our Friends have no place in the graveyard. |

This to our cis-Alpine and cis-Atlantic Friends.


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WHEEE I LIVED AND WHAT ILIVED FOE

At a certain season of our life we are accustomedto consider every spot as the possible site of a house.I have thus surveyed the country on every side withina dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I havebought all the farms in succession, for all were to bebought, and I knew their price. I walked over eachfarmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed onhusbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at anyprice, mortgaging it to him in my mind ; even put ahigher price on it,took everything but a deed ofit,took his word for his deed, for I dearly love totalk,cultivated it, and him too to some extent, Itrust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it longenough, leaving him to carry it on. This experienceentitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estatebroker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there Imight live, and the landscape radiated from meaccordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat ?better if a country-seat. I discovered many a site-for a house not likely to be soon improved, whichsome might have thought too far from the village,


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WHERE I LIVED 43but to my eyes the village was too far from it.Well, there I might live, I said ; and there I did live,for an hour, a summer and a winter life ; saw how Icould let the years run off, buffet the winter through,and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants ofthis region, wherever they may place their houses, maybe sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoonsufficed to lay out the land into orchard, woodlot, andpasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should beleft to stand before the door, and whence each blastedtree could be seen to the best advantage ; and then Ilet it lie, fallow perchance, for a man is rich in pro-portion to the number of things which he can affordto let alone.My imagination carried me so far that I even hadthe refusal of several farms,the refusal was all Iwanted,^but I never got my fingers burned by actualpossession. The nearest that I came to actual posses-sion was when I bought the HoUowell place, and hadbegun to sort my seeds, and collected materials withwhich to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or offwith ; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, hiswifeevery man has such a wifechanged her mindand wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollarsto release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had butten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmeticto tell, if I was that man

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