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Selections from Thoreau /
The
original of
tinis
bool<
is in
restrictions in
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022198521
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SELECTIONS FEOM
THOEEAU
EDITED,
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
HENEY
AUTHOR OF
'
S.
SALT
'
Honlion
MACMILLAN
1895
AISTD
CO.
INTEODUCTION
We
the
are
most
many
or
second
self,
whom
it
be agreeable
sorts
of
busy-
bodies;
still
less,
magus
Zoroaster,
his
who,
if
the poet
is
to be credited,
"met
it
own
But
should be
of a
somewhat
similar
ally those of
new and
subject
unfrequently
Zoroaster
;
the
same
annoyance
as
VI
the literary
who
name
self,
and
writ-
ings,
sented in the
critical analysis
and exposition
of him.
And
it
of a writer
who
is
ghostly
rival, for
may
be, are
by no means easy
to
chimsera,
If
man
who was
fore-
misjudged by
critics,
was Thoreau.
It is
I
i
usurped
I will
by a mysterious personage
presently speak.
of
whose origin
But
first let
so easy to
comprehend
if it
pathetic interest,
I
and so easy to
and miscon-
strue
if
Having
INTRODUCTION
seen
VU
how Thoreau
we
shall
turists
made
we
shall
know what
of the
to think
phantom.
at the village of
Massachusetts,
on
being
12th
a
John
Thoreau,
his mother,
whose maiden
the daughter of a
New
been somewhat
underrated, for
it is
"
The
I learn
of
commanding
presence, never
any company.
sense of
laughter,
Of
her
I
generosity
was
said that
might complain
of poverty, she
of value to give to
'
Vlll
more important,
.character,
on Henry Thoreau's
were
was the
/great lovers of
abolition
of
negro slavery.
is
"
who
knew them.
From 1833
to
became
in
this
^way
'
!
self-reliant
greatly profit
by an academical education.
was
'
he was destined to
graduate.
a
"
of
Though
have been
I
member
my boyhood.
streams of
my
native village.
Imspirit
for-
classic walls,
my
my
old
and almost
During the
last
life
he
fields
and
forests of
Concord.
After
leaving
Harvard
he
of that transcendentalist
chief,
and a personal
INTKODUCTION
ning,
ix
By Emerson
hood,
particular he
when
his
hitherto
unsuspected
;
though, in view of
of
mind
which in
carried
theories, it
a complete
of
him
as
an
"imitator"
his
Emerson was
by
and austerer
mode
elder
of
thought and
living,
at a time
when
that
the
man was
leaning
in
somewhat contrary
is
direction.
An
amusing
story
told
when
to
of his thought
"Well, you
see,
from him."
What was
all
thus described
of his
Con-
The
marked
the nose
aquiline or very
Roman,
like
X
SELECTIONS FKOM THOREAU
was
said)
huge
over-
gray-
eyes expressive of
all
weak
or near-sighted;
full of
broad or high,
pose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and thought when silent, and giving
out
of
unusual and
'
instructive sayings.
as
if
His whole
figure
to
he had no moment
A
mode
and
of the paradoxical
humour which
covered,
'
and in some
of
sincerity
purpose,J
may be
circular,
issued in
of
former students.
follows
:
This remarkable
runs as
"Am
not married.
I don't
is
profession, or a trade, or
what
not.
and in every instance has been practised before being studied. The mercantile part of it was begun by myself alone. It is not one but legion. I will give you some
of the monster's heads.
I
am
a schoolmaster, a private
mean
INTRODUCTION
pencil-maker, a
times a poetaster.
xi
some-
you
and
be greatly
to
My
may
present
employment
from
is, if
answer
such
orders
as
be expected
so
general
fit,
an
That
I see
which
to live
case, for I
without what
commonly
called
employment or industry,
employment,
of
attractive or otherwise.
if
Indeed
is to
my steadiest
such
it
can be called,
my
condition,
and ready
for
last
whatever
may turn up
I
in heaven
lived in
or on_earth.
The
class will
not consider
me an
object of charity,
and
if
The
above
residence in
Walden woods,
referred to in the
of his
letter,
it
,
should be
re-
membered
two and a
To
the
Walden experiment
is
to
misunderstand him
when
it
suited his
purposes to be one
1
misanthrope never.j
of
man
versity,"
From " Memorials of the Class of 1837 by Henry Williams, Boston, Mass.
Harvard Uni-
xii
regard for
human
interests
is
At
supreme moment
in the abolitionist
movement when
for the
on the
convict's behalf
of Thoreau,
my own
part,"
'{l
nature
human
This
event may
is
scarcely
memory by the common notion^hat h e was devoid of huin an symp athies. For this notion the responsibility
must partly
rm~5n
posthumous volume
Tetters in
1865,
made
the
respondence which showed Thoreau in his most neighbourly and affectionate mood, in order to exhibit in the
more formal
The
Familiar
Letters has
now corrected- tliisim.ppess}pn, but it will doubtless be many years before it is finally removed. The truth
is
and bluntness
speech,
was
at
heart a
man
of
INTRODUCTION
xiii
III!
Ill
miir'iWiiiwifi'
-III
who was
his
"Week
on the Concord
of lifelong
there"
be
it
t he
"
amiability
" that
whom
"wh o
not.''
will
know
them
It is
life
the
notable
of
many
crafts of
master.
He
May
now
extinct.
It is
living
life to
xiv
Let us
writings.
now
turn to
tlia^philosophy
of
Thoreau's
It has
like
another green
I like to
look at men."
Thoreau's attitude
He
dull,
and
it is
to be feared
it
conceive
to be,
own
distinctive
moods and
and animated
j '
spirit as himself.
is
He
sole'
mankind
not the
Like
as
on the animals
divided from
tion,
man by some
he
relation
to
nature
and
differed
and
scientist,
to kill
and
stuff it
to
of
knock
it
down
it
first,
and then,
as the taxider-
up
" afterwards.
Thoreau was
method
mos_t
"I think," he
said, ("the
is
to be
INTRODUCTION
sure that
XV
you give
its
error, the
sum and
to
known and unknown. J You must tell what it man surely the most important part of an
;
animal
its
is its
anima,
on which
is it
based
character and
all
the particulars
scientific
by which
most
concerns us.
of
Yet most
describe are, as
were,
phenomena
of
dead matter."
That aspect
of natural scenery
which especially
wild.
attracted Thoreau's
He
and
intercourse to
draw (renewed
Jiealth
of nature)
Alike in
and in
literature,
he looked to
which
may
be
summed up
"
in one of
those
incomparably terse
lie
and
suggestive
images
which
As the wild
so is
duck
is
more
the wild
the
it
mallard
thought, which
the fens."
'mid falling
dews, wings
way above
The
the wild.
simplicity
which
Thoreau
preached
and
afforded
life
it
XVI
some-
him by
critics
who cannot
cause.)
It
would be
perhaps, to instance a
was
less of
an ascetic than
to live his
own
may
be quite
And
of
every apostle
France,
in
against
Rousseau
in
and
Eng-
to nature," it is asked,
civilisation
toj
unJ
at
in a word, impossible
To which
it
may
own
clear definition of
and truest
culture.
is
He
explicitly
avows
his belief
that civilisation
sacrifice this
advantage
is
at present obtained,
and
to
INTRODUCTION
suggest that
xvii
we may
all
tage^
The
modern
society.
But he
is
no advocate
of
a mere
him
being whether
it is
possible
r to
man."
of the destructive side of Thoreau's!
have spoken
only.
In an age
restless self-
and contentment
the
gospel of natural
men
to trust
in-
numerable
tradition
artificial
As
How many
Thoreau
things
so
insisted
of
number
It
may be
things
but
it
"
xviii
"
To what
"do
be
I lead
a simple
life
That
may
our
all
'simplified'
merely,
like
an
algebraic/
formula?
Or
may make
use of
more worthily \
and profitably
This gospel
itself
still
of
naturalness,
strange enough in
to the ordinary
member
in
of society,
was made
intro-
stranger
it.
by the manner
which Thoreau
duced
ances
barbed
Indian arrow-heads
all
man
to
For the
efiect,
had the
and
still
have the
effect, of
making
its
porcupine in
attitude towards
him.
sumptuous
or " Eural
"Yankee Diogenes"
critics styled
Humbug,"
as
contemporary
him,
who dared
fortable prophets
INTRODUCTION
XIX
demand and
supply),
who was
and
so contrived as to
fit
Insincerity
unhappy lay
this
figure
was
most
liberally
endowed.
If
were Thoreau, we
critics
man
in their
a mixCBut
and
self-conceit.
Selections, which,
moods and
aspects,
and contain
be instru-
much
that
is
new
to English readers,
may
to
mental
ciation.
in quickening a
I
more
just
and
so
liberal appre-
have endeavoured
choose and
make them
representative
on morals, society,
history, but
politics,
literature,
and natural
and
also
of
the various
influences
life
the
scenery
his
longer excursions by
genial
moods
XX
Massachusetts for
its
tating championship of
John Brown
at a
moment
human
which tried
character.
as in
As
Not
less
remarkable, though
his noble
man.
Salt.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction
Prom
The
Week on
the
Rivers
CoNOOED River
. . .
Sunday Thoushts
Friendship
....
.
13
29
From Walden,
or Life in the
Woods
I
Where
Lived for
.
42
Higher Laws
House Warming
...
. .
.
.64
80
89
103
.
118
The Shipwreck
The Beach
....
.
124
.136
.
151
xxii
From
page
168
Walking
.198
From
238
. .
Civil Disobedience
....
267
301
by Mr. A. W. Hosmer
.
of ConFrontispiece
coNCOED
The Musketaquid,
to
eivp:e
have a place in
fame
meadows and its iish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of Concord from the first plantaof its grassy
tion
on
its
banks,
in a
commenced
will
spirit
it
will
men
race
banks.
To an
extinct
fished,
and
it is
still
cord farmers,
who own
to
One branch
of it,"
according to the historian of Concord, for I love to quote so good authority, " rises in the south part of
cedar-swamp in Westborough," and flowing between Hopkinton and Southborough, through Framingham, and between Sudbury and Wayland, where
S>
it
is
sometimes called Sudbury Eiver, it enters Concord at the south part of the town, and after receiving the
North or Assabeth Eiver, which has its source a little farther to the north and west, goes out at the northeast angle, and flowing between Bedford and Carlisle,
'
and through
at Lowell. to fifteen feet
Billerica,
In Concord
in
hundred
it
feet wide,
its
overflows
banks,
is
in
a mile wide.
Between Sudbury and Wayland the meadows acquire their greatest breadth, and when covered with water, they form a handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to by numerous gulls
and ducks.
these towns,
when
the
wind
blows freshly in a
raw March
day, heaving up
is
swamps and smoke-like maples, it looks like a smaller Lake Huron, and is very pleasant and exciting for a landsman to row or sail over. The farm-houses along the Sudbury shore, which rises gently to a
considerable height,
this season.
side,
command
fine
water prospects
at
The shore is more flat on the Wayland and this town is the greatest loser by the flood.
tell
Its
farmers
me that thousands
remember
clover
to have seen the white honeysuckle or growing once, and they could go dry with shoes only in summer. Now there is nothing but
CONCORD EITEE
blue-joint
3
there, standing in
water
all
For a long
time, they
working sometimes
the
round
by the ice; but now it is not worth the getting when they can come at it, and they look sadly round to their wood-lots and upland
left
hummocks
as a last resource.
It is
stream,
see
if
worth the while to make a voyage up this you go no farther than Sudbury, only to
country there
is
how much
hills,
in the rear of
us;
and a hundred brooks, and farm-houses, and barns, and haystacks, you never saw before, and men everywhere Sudbury, that is Southhorough men,
great
and Wayland, and Mne-Acre-Corner men, and Bound Eock, where four towns bound on a rock in the river,
Many waves by the wind, keeping nature fresh, the spray blowing in your face, reeds and rushes waving ducks by the hundred, all uneasy in the surf, in the raw wind, just ready to rise, and now going off with a clatter and a whistling like riggers straight
Lincoln, Wayland, Sudbury, Concord.
are there agitated
;
first,
with
all
their
parts
gulls
life,
wet and
no
fire
to
warm them by
that
you know
of
their laboured
;
and winged titmice along the sunny windy shore; cranberries tossed on the waves and heaving up on
the beach, their
little
red
skiffs
the alders;
is
And
and
there stand
all
and maples around full of glee and sap, holding in their buds until the You shall perh'apsTun aground on waters subside.
the alders,
and
birches,
oaks,
show where the danger is, and get as good a freezing there as anywhere on the North-west Coast. I never voyaged so far in all my life. You shall see men you never heard of before, whose names you don't know, going away down through the meadows with long ducking-guns, with water-tight boots wading through the fowl-meadow
grass,
at
half-cock
and they
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
or teaming
up
their sum-
men
out
and
rain,
than a chestnut
of
meat
who were
not only in '75 and 1812, but have been out every
day
of
their
lives
greater
or
Look
if
at their fields,
write,
CONCORD EIVBR
ever they should put pen to paper.
Or what have
subsoiling, in and in, and out and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already written for want of parchment. As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as
the
work
of to-day is present, so
some
flitting per-
spectives
and demi-experiences
wind and
rain
which never
die.
The respectable folks, Where dwell they 1 They whisper in the oaks,
And they sigh in the hay Summer and winter, night and
;
day,
they.
Nor snivel, nor cry, Nor ask our pity With a wet eye.
A sound
To To To To To To To To To
the
mend,
;
meadow
health,
Time
his length,
the rooks strength, the stars light. the weary night. the busy day, the idle play
so their
all
;
And
For
'
good cheer never ends, are their debtors, and all their
friends.^
It
Concord Eiver
its
is is
current,
which
its
and some
have referred to
It has
its
been pro-
coat of arms
inch in a mile
suflacient to
produce a flow.
Our
The
story
is
current, at
any
rate,
though I believe
that the only
it out,
up stream by the But wherever it makes a sudden bend it is shallower and swifter, and asserts its title to be called a river. Compared with the other tributaries of the Merrimack, it appears to have been properly named
the limits of the town, was driven
wind.
Musketaquid, or
the most part,
For
like a
moss-bed.
row
of
meadow
is
and other
vine,
fluviatile
trees,
which bears
fruit in
season,
purple, red,
and other grapes. Still farther from the stream, on the edge of the firm land, are seen the
white,
Thoreau frequently interspersed his essays, that those which are distinguished by inverted commas are quotations from other writers, the rest by Thoreau himself.
CONCORD EIVER
gray and white dwellings of the inhabitants.
cording to the valuation
of
Ac-
1831,
there
were in
acres,
seventh of
the whole
territory
in
meadow
meadow
is
not
re-
of these
meadows
and
see
in
his
Wonder-workinfj Providence,
which
New England
how
He
says of the
:
" This
town
it
is
seated
upon a
whose
rivulets
fish,
Allwifes
and shad
falls,
in their season
this
rocky
which causeth
meadows
to
much
together with
may
Hav-
be turned another
as it appeared.''
way As to
"
upon
cattle at 5 to
20 pound
to winter
cut before, they could not hold out the winter, but,
ordinarily the first or second year after their coming
up to a new plantation, many of their And this from the same author Of
cattle died."
the
Planting
8
of the
called
Sudbury:
have the
first
foundation stones
taking up her
sister
as
her elder
Concord had formerly done, lying further up the same river, being furnished with great plenty of fresh
marsh, but,
it
wet they
towns to winter."
The
and
its
length about
fifty
a huge
volume
plains
of
matter, ceaselessly
rolling
through the
and valleys
of
the earth to
of
its
ancient
river
The murmurs
many a famous
on
its
even to us here,
more
distant dwellers
banks
many
on its bosom. The Xanthus or Scamander is not a mere dry channel and bed of a mountain torrent, but fed by the everflowing springs of fame
"
And
Through Troy
downward
and
I trust that I
may
"
CONCOED KIVEE
the
The
and the
Nile, those
of the
The heavens
Moon
still
Pasha without
fail,
Rivers must
when they
and
They are the constant lure, by our doors, to distant enterprise adventure, and, by a natural impulse, the
flow
They
bearing
him on
the
him
through
most
interesting
scenery,
the most
of the Concord,
10
watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system,
with time, and all that is made; the weeds at the bottom gently bending down the stream, shaken by the watery wind, still planted where their seeds had
sunk, but ere long to die and go
down
to
likewise
better
the
shining pebbles,
not
yet anxious
their
logs
and stems
fate,
were objects
whither
me, and
at
last I resolved to
float
it
launch myself on
its
bosom and
At
1839,
we two,
brothers,
and natives
;
of
Concord,
weighed anchor in
lies
of entry
and departure
;
for
men
one shore at
exempted from
all
an honest
to delay
man
warm
drizzling rain
and
it
as serene
and fresh as
scheme
of her
ever.
down
boat,
the stream.
Our
in
CONCOED EIVEE
11
by three and a
part, painted
reference to
was to
with
spend
its
existence.
we had
and a few
utensils,
as well as
oars,
for
which served
for
night;
for
bufialo-skin
was to be our bed, and a tent of cotton cloth our roof. It was strongly built, but heavy, and hardly of better model than usual. If rightly
made, a boat would be a sort
a creature of
of
amphibious animal,
two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the The other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.
shows where there should be the greatest breadth of beam and depth in the hold ; its fins direct where
fish
and the
tail
gives
some hint
for the
form and
how
to rig
sails,
to the
prow that
may
But the
never be
satisfied
ever fashionable,
requisitions of art.
of a ship
but the wood, and yet the wood alone will rudely
"
12
itself of
buoy
Were
vessel safe
lower
Some village friends stood upon a promontory down the stream to wave us a last farewell
rites,
as
befits
those
who
are
embarked on unusual
Concord,
enterprises,
who behold
lonely
but
both
peopled
cape and
meadow, with
steady sweeps.
as
And
yet
summer we did
us,
unbend
so
far
to let
when
left
it
at length
and thus
;
and
may be many
rail,
and the
"
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
As we
just
before reaching
of church
Merrimack, the
people
coming out
in
custom, indulged
truest
According to
Hesiod,
"The seventh is a holy day, For then Latona hrought forth golden-rayed Apollo,
and by our reckoning this was the seventh day of the week, and not the first. I find among the papers of an old Justice of the Peace and Deacon of the town
of
Concord,
this
singular
memorandum, which
it
is
worth preserving
as follows
"
as a relic of
an ancient custom.
runs
Men
of Shirley.
is
they were
travelling
westward.
Wood,
and he
14
said that Jonas Parker was his fellow-traveller, and he further said that a Mr. Longley was his employer, who promised to bear him out." We were the men
with
to
still
carry barrels,
Dunstable,
"Towns were
against the
Society has
say, but
relaxed a
I
little
from
its strictness,
is
one would
not less
religion
than formerly.
part,
it
If the ligature is
is
You
lifetime,
man
is
of
an error
If
in a
reflection
he
is
not
may be.
The
geologists
us that
it
fossils
Noachian deluge.
am
my
country's God.
Jehovah,
is
attributes,
He
is
not so
much
of a gentle-
catholic,
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
15
many
power and
no
sister
almighty mortal
The Grecian
are youthful
fallen
many important
In
of
the
my
Pantheon, Pan
his
ruddy
face,
and
his
shaggy
nymph
Echo, and
god Pan
Perhaps of
the gods of
ancient Greece, I
It
seems to
worshipped in
civilised countries is
all divine,
the overwhelm-
com-
Men
and impartiality
tasks
me
too much.
They
seem to be the most civil and humane, but I may be Every people have gods to suit their cirmistaken. cumstances the Society Islanders had a god called
;
he saved such as
trees."
were in danger of
think that
falling
we have not much climbing to do. Among them a man could make himself a god out of a piece of wood in a
we
16
school,
"
who had
bom
may
in
say
conversed
with greater
men than
have
seen such
men, nor
see
them, as
is
Perithous,
Troi/Meva
Xawv," that
And when
or
now
seemed to
shows
glassed,
sermon book. do
all
For
reading.
warm
well
all creatures, as
toil,
when they
when they
whose
it
not without a
feeling of gratitude
life is
as blameless,
how
blameworthy soever
may
be,
There are various, nay, incredible faiths; why we be alarmed at any of them ? What man
G-od believes.
believes,
Long
as I
have
lived,
and
many blasphemers
as I have heard
and
seen, I have
blasphemy or irreverence
ual,
enough.
Where
is
the
man who
is
guilty of
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
direct
17
to
Him
that
made
is
him?
One memorable
due to this
pains,
era,
the
With what
of
and
this
tears,
woven
kind.
and added
to the
mythology
this
!
man-
consent,
seem as
if it
to dethrone Jehovah,
If it is
not a tragical
it.
we
live,
then I
know
not
what to
call
of Jesus Christ,
the history
think of
it.
a part of the
Universal History.
The naked,
desolate hills,^
In Tasso's
poem
I trust
sweetly buried.
What
are time
and space to Christianity, eighteen hundred years, and a new world ? that the humble life of a Jewish
make
by
some unaffected
tears shed
a pilgrim on
the week.
forget thee,
may
my
" By
sat
down, and
to
18
"
not necessary to be
the
life of Christ.
thoughts of me,
beside
I know that some will have hard when they hear their Christ named
my
Buddha, yet I
am
sure that I
am
willing
my
Buddha,
him
too.
"God
is
Why
need
Christians be
intolerant
and superstitious ?
The
own
request.
?
" Where is this love become in later age Alas 'tis gone in endless pilgrimage
!
From
Till revolution
One man
says,
" The world's a popular disease, that reigns Within the froward heart and frantic brains
Another, that
"
all
And
all
the
The world
within
it.
is
lived here,
have in
and would be a poet, for instance, should him certain " brave, translunary things," and
Certainly
were as
is
That
"his
Thomas Browne
that
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
relate,
19
would sound
that all
a rare praise,
a fable."
The wonder
is,
rather,
men do
That would be
if it
were
Francis Beaumont,
tragedies.''
"Spectators
we have
it.
true,
this
world
to light a
is
lamp that
life.
we may
pray,
This
half our
Who
And,
if it
1
were
all
offer
more
a purer
oil,
off
his
wrath with
hymns.
make ye an offer, Ye gods, hear the scoffer,
I
The scheme
If
will not hurt you, ye will find goodness, I will find virtue. Though I am your creature,
And child
I
of your nature,
still
have pride
free
unbended,
And
blood undescended.
Some
I
independence,
descendants.
kindly.
And my own
cannot
I
toil blindly,
Though ye behave
And
I'll
If ye w.ill discover,
And
20
" Verily,
my
angels
of
my
servant,
there-
Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some originality and genius, have their scheme of the universe all cut and dried, very dry,
and powder-post, methinks, which they set up between you and them in the shortest intercourse ; an
ancient and tottering frame with
off.
all its
boards blown
their bed.
Some,
to
are
for
them
everlastingly
the
as Father, Son,
These are
in all
But
least
my
vestige
They
have not
of a
left so distinct
my grate.
The
man
scheme
he sees no
the heavens.
clearly at
It is clear sky.
clearer.
To
see
from earth
tc
still
fixture, that
What
right have
you
it
to hold
up
this obstacle to
my
understanding
me
You
it
was
imposed on you.
Christ,
Examine your
had
authority.
Ever
t(
we
fear,
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
tradition,
21
teaching.
which
He
formulas.
for
He
preached some
mere
doctrines.
As
Jacob are
now
which would not stain the morning sky. Your scheme must be the framework of the universe; all
other schemes will soon be ruins.
in
his revelations of
The
perfect Grod
God's
into words?
Do
you presume to
graphy
has
Pray, what
Whose
friend are
of God's
personality?
Do
made you
and
I
his confidant
me
of the height
of the
space,
of the diameter of
may believe
and
of the Almighty,
I shall
Yet we have a
so
poet's
grand imagination
everlasting truth,
says, truly
is
imposed on us as adamantine
Pythagoras
well doubt true assertion respecting God,
;
enough,
of
"A
an assertion
is
God "
but we
may
if
there
this in literature.
is
I confess to
in
my
to be the
22
Yet
I early escaped
It
was hard
to get the
comment-
head and
which has been preached from this text ; almost all other sermons that I have heard, or heard of, have
been but poor imitations of
story to be prejudiced
this.
It
would be a poor
Life
against the
of Christ In
it
is
a sort of
castle in the
me, which I
it
am
permitted to
dream.
it
Having come to
I
so recently
and
freshly,
The reading
which
nations,
though
it
am
better ac-
Hebrews, which
have
come to
use of
last.
Give
me
have silenced
me
for a while.
When
to worry
I recover the
my
tongue, I
am wont
;
my
neighbours
with the
new
sentences
is
any wit
New
Testament.
it it
have not
over so
many
aloud to
;
my
so
it,
some of whom are seriously inclined it is good, and I am sure that they have never heard
it fits
it so
much
together,
but
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
their ears.
23
taken, that
for, alas
though
It is
sal
I love better
New
Testament
is
outit
is it
defended, there
is
no hospitality shown
to,
there
no appreciation
deals.
of,
I
is
know
To
of
There
Jews,
and un-
popular.
it is
no
less
foolishness
earth."
"If
" Seek
first
the
kingdom
that
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven."
if
"For what
a
is
man
profited,
soul
or
what
if
shall
man
soul?"
Think
;
of
this,
Yankees!
"Verily,
say
unto you,
ye have
faith as a grain of
mustard
seed,
yonder place
things to a
fifteenthly,
ye shall say unto this mountain, Eemove hence to and it shall remove and nothing shall
;
Think
of repeating these
!
thirdly, fourthly,
Who, without
Who,
24
meeting-house?
were heard.
They never
of these sentences
be rightly
read from any pulpit in the land, and there would not be left one stone of that meeting-house upon
another.
Yet the
New
and
is
too
who am not
moral nature, or in
definite designs
man
even.
on the
future.
Absolutely speaking,
Do
unto you,
by no means a golden
rule,
of current silver.
little
An
it.
honest
It is
occasion for
written which
ance.
is
to be accepted without
world.
said,
He knew what he was thinking of when he "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." I draw near to him at such a time. Yet he taught mankind but imperfectly
to live
;
how
than
his thoughts
were
all
directed toward
another world.
his.
There
is
There are
we
can.
camp
in the
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
25
The
New
Testament
all
may
He
will
The
Apostles,
fishers too,
were
of the
solemn race
and never
on inland
streams.
Men
being good for anything, because, perchance, they think vaguely that so
end.
is
it will
The
sort of morality
which the
It is
our im-
The
conscience really
any more than the heart or the head. It any other part. I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt They children, and at length gave them no peace. did not know when to swallow their cud, and their
our
lives,
is
as liable to disease as
no milk.
was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending
I
my
of
steps to a mountain-top
a church,
to
when I would have gone farther than he He hear a true word spoken on that or any day.
"breaking the Lord's fourth
to
enumerate, in a
26
whenever he had done any ordinary work on the He really thought that a god was on the Sabbath. watch to trip up those men who followed any secular
work on
is full
this day,
see that
it.
it
was the
evil
The country
enters a
when one
it,
tion, is
is
because
it
human
and
most disgraced.
dis-
when you
You men
oflf
his coat, as
when
let
If I
me
am
not
What under
is
Really, there
as
no
nowadays, so great
the
that which
prays,
rebuilds the
churches.
The
sealer
of
South
is
The church
Those who
see a
and
as full of quackare
taken into
Sailor's
it
Retreat or
row
of
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
religious
27
sunny weather.
may
One
is
worship.
subterranean temple.
The sound
of the
Sabbath
bell
away,
now
awaken pleasing
oar, to
One
humour
mood.
It is
as the
religious
books
Everywhere "good men" sound a retreat, and the word has gone forth to fall back on innocence. Fall
forward rather on to whatever there
tianity
is
there.
Chris-
only hopes.
It has
hung
its
harp on the
willows,
It
in a strange land.
grow up
Our
28
much
all
for her.
The
life
speakers and
or
of
writers feel
later, to
God.
late
Some Earl
in his will.
It
is
a sad mistake.
and
the
"He"
come
what he
has
What
he
most
He
should
know better
religion in
There
is
more
his creed
an
never adopted.
ever,
This
that permits
and to
live
even as bravely as
PEIENDSHIP
No word
ship,
is
men than
it,
Friendtheir
its
more famihar to
is
aspirations.
Ml men
is
are dreaming of
and
drama, which
town, you
always a tragedy,
enacted daily.
the
may wander
it,
ever speak of
yet thought
of
everywhere busy
is
about
it,
what
possible in this
all
respect affects
new men
Neverthe-
ones.
subject in
ology,
fablers
We
are
We
are
Our
to
whom we
to
We
feelings
almost
30
habitually
One goes forth prepared to say, rise. "Sweet Friends!" and the salutation is, "Damn your eyes " But never mind faint heart never won my Friend, may it come to pass true Friend.
!
once, that
when you
are
my
Friend I
may
if
be yours.
if
for-
Friendship
is first.
Friendship
last.
But
it is
equally
make them
answer to our
indeed
ideal.
When
we begin
to keep
them company.
How
often
we
I
find
Friends, that
were worthy to be any man's Friend. commonly honoured with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct.
would that
What
is
Men
do not,
of
after
all,
love their
Friends greatly.
to
insanity
by
They
and
trans-
by love in each other's presence. I do observe them purified, refined, and elevated by
If
not
the
of
love of a man.
his
one abates a
little
the price
meeting,
waggon
it is
Friendship.
Nor do the
consecrated to Friendship.
of
in
"
FRIENDSHIP
history.
31
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as
that the Friend can assist in time of need,
substance, or his influence, or his counsel
;
"f
i
by
his
but he
who
himself blind to
Such
services per-
particular
Even
the
do not
live in
harmony merely,
as
some
say,
but in
melody.
We
to feed
and
for
,
but to do the
be.
For
this
may
one
man with
To
The
races or nations, or at
individuals.
his
most
classes,
Think
of
the importance
of
Friendship in the
education of men.
"He
It will
hero;
it
will
it
will
make him
It is
the state of
the just
magnanimous
32
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 with the philanthropist, the statesman,
A Friend is
us.
two
to
hear.
How
stone
If we dealt only with the false and dishonest, 1 we should at last forget how to speak truth. Only lovers know the value and magnanimity of truth,
civility.
In
our daily
mant and
suffered to rust.
None
will
pay us the
us.
Though
copper.
we have gold
to give, they
demand only
We
his
sufifer
himself to be dealt
He
He
as
you
treat
me
"no
dishonest,
and
selfish.
part,
men
there
is
A man may
FRIENDSHIP
neighbours, so
called,
33
children,
who meet himself and one another on this ground only. The State does not demand justice of its
members, but thinks that
the least
practise
;
it
degree of
it,
hardly
and
so
family.
is
What
little
only a
love
another, that
is,
we
give the
Between
whom
there
is
love; and in
are
divine and
miraculous, and
of affection
answer to our
such
What
?
middle of
the gods
life, and anticipate Heaven for Love that may come right into the a prosaic Goffstown day, equal to any of that discovers a new world, fair and fresh
is
this
and
eternal,
to the
on the universe
What
other words,
we may almost
It is
ask, are
They
of
like
a strain
music,
by the memory. D
I ;
34
words crumble
heart.
aloud.
We We
them
at
all
^
'
tiHies.3 The books for young people say a great deal about I
the
selection of
Friends
it is
They mean
associates
"
Know
and Friend proceeds from God." Friendship who have an affinity for
is
No
Even
it
speech, at
first,
do with
but
it
graft
drama
in
which the
parties have
fatalists
no part to
in
this
We are
aU Mussulmen and
respect.
Impatient
and uncertain
lovers
whenever they meet ; they must never be cold. But they who are Friends do not do what they think they must, but what they nvust. Even their Friendship is
to
some extent but a sublime phenomenon to them. The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in some such terms as these.
" I never asked thy leave to let
me
love thee,
have a
right.
I love
of love, loliich
I liave fmird.
0,
are
how
think of you
You
you
infinitely good.
I can trust
you forever.
I did not
"
FEIENDSHIP
think that humanity was so rich.
tunity to live."
"
35
Give
me an
oppor-
You
you
fiction.
Consent
I alone will
never stand- in
your way."
"This
is
what
would
like,
to
be as intimate
respecting you
Between
us,
my
ideal.
Never
by word or
if
action,
even by a thought.
no acquaintance."
;
you
concealed
from
me ?
The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will 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 of Friendship to impute excellence,'' yet we can never praise our Friend, nor esteem him praiseworthy, nor let him think that he can please us by any behamour,
religipusly
and no such
affront can be
which
is
and are most commonly and surely the complements of each other How natural and easy it is for man
36
woman
to
what
interests
together, are
There exists more than men to men. already a natural disinterestedness and liberality in such society, and I think that any man will more
another,
women, than
to
to one of his
own
sex.
The
visit of
man
man
is
wont
to be an inter-
Yet Friendship
Not
it
all
other's.
the symbol
rises to
its
law.
It
finds
its
level
its
and
fountain-head in
all breasts,
and
slenderest column
"And
A hero's love is
as delicate as a maiden's.
FKIENDSHIP
Confucius
a
said,
is
37
"Never
man who
takes
of of
The rays
come to us in such a curve that every man whom we meet appears to be taller than he actually is.
Such foundation has
civility.
My Friend
my
is
that one
whom
choicest thought. P I
my
in; /and I
me were
sorest insult
which
I ever received
still
addressed
my presence, me in friendly
last to
Beware,
lest
and so an obstacle be
There are times
when we have had enough even of our Friends, when we begin inevitably to profane one another, and must
withdraw
better to
Silence
is
religiously into
solitude
and
silence,
the
prepare
recruited
and
Friendship
relation.
is
Do you demand
it
'i
that
I to
38
me
It is a miracle
It is
an exercise
faith.
of
rarest
behaviour,
"I
;
It
says
by a
silent
but eloquent
will
canst imagine
spend truth,
my
wealth
on thee,"
and
the
Friend responds silently through his nature and life, and treats his Friend with the same divine courtesy.
He knows
by the
He
it
which
it
naturally wears.
We
never
Wait not
till
I invite thee,
but observe
comest.
It
it.
that I
am
when thou
Where my Friend
attraction,
and every
and no
keep
me
I
from
have
him.
Let
me
not to teU.
ourselves,
is
meanings.
One imagines
in
commonly far otherwise. Acquaintances may come and go, and have a word ready for every occasion but what puny word shall he utter whose
;
is thought and meaning 1 Suppose you go to bid farewell to your Friend who is setting out on a journey what other outward sign do you know
very breath
FRIENDSHIP
than to shake his hand?
39
of salve to commit to any particular message to send by him 1 any statement which you had forgotten to make 1
?
any box
as
if
No,
;
it is
much
It is
that
you take
easily
that
you could
even
omit
if
painful,
If
he
he must go,
him go
it is
quickly.
last
words
Alas,
you have
not a
first
so long sought
word
yet.
call
whom
should venture to
by
is
their
most proper
names.
name pronounced
the recognition of
the individual to
whom
it
belongs.
He who
call
is
can
is
pronounce
entitled to
can
me, and
Yet reserve
the
of lovers.
It is the reserve
what
is
give place to
what
is
The
violence of love
as
much
to be dreaded as
it is
that of hate.
equable.
When
its
it is
durable
serene and
Even
be.
would fain
It is
is
fitness for
Friendship that he
is
true Friendship
it
is
as
wise as
to the
tender.
The
parties to
yield implicitly
know no
other law
nor kindness.
what
it
says
is
40
will bear to
better
it,
and
fairer
will ever
shame
or prove
it false.
best in a temperate zone, where summer and winter The Friend is a necesalternate with one another.
sa/riws,
and meets his Friend on homely ground ; not on carpets and cushions, but on the ground and on rocks they will sit, obeying the natural and primitive
laws.
They
will
part
men
It
is
sympathy
of aspirar
and endeavour.
surely as the sunset in
As
my
;
latest
November
shall translate
me
and remind
me
of the
ruddy morning
music which
youth on
or,
as surely as the
last strain of
falls
my
decaying ear
shall
make age
to be forgotten,
of
our natural
life,
so surely
my
my
no
God
to me,
and time
shall foster
less
As
I love nature,
flowing rivers,
and gleaming stubble, and and morning and evening, and summer
and winter,
I love thee,
my
Friend.
But
all
is
like
FEIENDSHIP
botany to flowers.
account of
its
41
How
friendliness
Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much They will leave consolation to the as their lives. mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the
expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be
incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts,
as
monuments
of other
men
are
for
WHEEE
WHAT
At
I
life
we
are accustomed
In imagination I have
all
bought
all
were to be
bought, and I
knew
their price.
his
farm at
mortgaging
it
to
him
in
my mind
even put a
of
higher price on
it,
it,
talk,
took
it,
extent, I
it
trust,
long
This experience
me
broker by
might
friends. Wherever I sat, there I and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat ?
live,
my
better
if
a country-seat.
I discovered
many
site-
from the
village,
WHERE
but to
LIVED
far
43
my
from
it.
and there
life
;
I did live,
saw how
in.
The future
inhabitants of
may
An afternoon
pasture,
left to
and then
man
is
rich in proafford
portion to the
to let alone.
number
of things
which he can
My
wanted,
imagination carried
me
had
the
was
all I
^but I
never got
my fingers
burned by actual
possession.
sion
The nearest that I came to actual posseswas when I bought the HoUowell place, and had
sort
begun to
my
seeds,
which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with ; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his
wife
and he
and
it
offered
me
ten dollars
Now,
had but
surpassed
my arithmetic
cents, or
who
However,
too, for I
had carried
I sold
far
enough
or rather, to be generous,
for just
what
gave for
it,
and,
"
44
as he
was not a rich man, made him a present of ten and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and I found thus that materials for a wheelbarrow left.
dollars,
poverty.
had been a rich man without any damage to my But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a
I
wheelbarrow.
"
I
With
respect to landscapes,
of all I survey,
am monarch
My right there is
I
none to dispute.
many
years
Why, the owner does not know it for when a poet has put his farm in rhyme,
it,
impounded
milk.
milked
it,
skimmed
it,
and got
all
skimmed
The
were
from the
bour,
mile from the nearest neighand separated from the highway by a broad its bounding on the river, which the owner field said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray colour
and ruinous
dilapidated
which
the
last
put
an
the
interval
between
me and
occupant;
hollow
rabbits,
trees,
gnawed by
I
neighbours
should
have;
WHEKE
but above
earliest
all,
LIVED
it
45
from
my
voyages up the
when
concealed
behind
dense
grove
of
red
maples,
I
was
buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture or, in short, had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy
these advantages I was ready to carry
Atlas, to take the
it
on; like
world on
my
shoulders,
never
and
the
do
all
and be un-
molested in
while that
of the
my
it
possession of
it
for I
knew
all
kind I wanted
alone.
But
it
on a large
that
scale (I
my
seeds ready.
I
Many
think
with age.
have no doubt
shall
bad;
and when at
once for
last
shall
plant,
I
be
to
less likely to
be disappointed.
all,
But
would say
my
free
fellows,
As long
as possible live
and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county
jail.
tor," says,
Old Cato, whose De Be Busticd is my "Cultivaand the only translation I have seen makes
46
When you
think of
it
and do
oftener
if
not think
enough to go round
it
it
once.
The
it is
think
I
it
shall
as long as I live,
and be buried
last.
that
it
may
please
me
the more at
my next
one.
As
if
only to wake
my
When
that
is,
first
took up
began to spend
there, which,
by
accident,
or the fourth of
July 1845,
my
which made it cool at night. The upright hewn studs and freshly-planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were
chinks,
white
saturated
with
dew,
so
that
fancied
that
by
them.
To
my
imagination
more or
reminding
me
WHEEE
of a certain
LIVED
I
47
had
visited
and where a
goddess might
passed over
her garments.
my dwelling were
The mornit.
ing
wind
poem
of creation is un-
interrupted;
Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere. The only house I had been the owner of before, if
I except a boat,
was a
in
tent,
which
used occasionally
is
when making
still
rolled
up
my
garret
hand to hand, has gone down the With this more substantial shelter about me, I had made some progress toward settling This frame, so slightly clad, was a in the world. sort of crystallisation around me, and reacted on the It was suggestive somewhat as a picture in builder.
passing from
stream of time.
outlines.
air,
I did
freshness.
its
as
The Earivansa
like
says,
"An
abode without
Such was
not
my
to the birds;
commonly frequent
48
more
which never, or
the
rarely,
serenade a villager,
the
scarlet
the
the
wood-thrush, the
field-sparrow,
veery,
tanager,
whip-poor-will, and
I
many
others.
of a small pond,
about
somewhat higher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two
miles south of that our only field
known
to fame,
like
my
most distant
high up on
For the
it
first
on the pond
impressed
me
its
like a tarn
bottom
far
above the
saw
it
throwing
off its
and
there,
by
reflecting surface
mists, like
ghosts,
into
the
nocturnal
up of some The very dew seemed to later into the day than usual,
the breaking
on the
sides of mountains.
in
This small lake was of most value as a neighbour the intervals of a gentle rainstorm in August,
air
when, both
still,
but
is
and the
clear
WHEEE
portion
of
LIVED
it
49
shallow and
of light
the
air
above
being
full
water,
and
itself so
much
there
the
more important.
vista
From
hill
-top
near by,
off,
was a pleasing
which form
that
direction
That way
hills to
looked between
by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the north-west, those
true-blue coins from heaven's
own
some portion of the village. But even from this point, I could not the woods which surrounded me.
to
in other directions,
see over or
beyond
have
the
see
as I
It is well to
some and
buoyancy
the
is,
earth.
smallest well
that
that earth
is
This
is
important as that
keeps butter
When
looked across the pond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood I distinguished elevated perhaps
by a mirage
in
their
beyond the pond appeared like a thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of intervening E
50
reminded that
land.
this
on which
my
door was
still
more
my imagination.
The low shrub-oak plateau to which the opposite shore arose, stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the steppes of Tartary, afibrding ample room for all the roving families of men. "There are none happy in the world but
beings
who enjoy
freely
vast
horizon,"
said
Damodara, when
pastures.
new and
and
I
larger
/Both
dwelt
Where
and
was
as far off as
many a
wont
by astronomers.
corner of the
We
are
delectable places in
celestial
constellation of
discovered that
my
site in
new and
unprofaned,
was
life
really
which
had
left
fine a
ray to
my
where
had squatted
WHAT
And
LIVED FOR
live,
51
held his thoughts as high As were the mounts whereon his flocks
What
flocks
should
we think
thoughts 1
my
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence,
herself.
I
with Nature
got up
and bathed
in the
pond
exercise,
and one
that
which
I did.
They say
"
characters
Renew
day
do
it
again,
and again, and forever again.'' I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was
by the faint hum of a mosquito and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, There was singing its own wrath and wanderings.
as
much
affected
making
its invisible
it;
a standing advertise-
is
the
awakening
;
Then
there
least,
is least
somnolence in us
of
and
for
an hour, at
some part
us awakes which
52
slumbers
all
Little
is
it
awakened by oui' own newly -acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells,
and
a fragrance
fell
filling
;
the air
we
asleep from
and prove
itself
and thus the darkness bear its fruit, to be good, no less than the Hght.
That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour
than he has yet profaned, has despaired of
is
Ufe,
and
After
the soul of
man, or
its
and
in
his
Genius
life
it
can
make.
morning time and in a morning atmosphere. say, " All intelligences awake with the morning." Poetry and art, and the fairest and
The Vedas
most memorable
such an hour.
of the actions
of
Memnon,
and emit their music at To him whose elastic and vigorous thought
is
a perpetual
and labours
and there
is
men.
Morning
in me.
is
when
am awake
is
dawn
Moral reform
is it
if
Why
that
men
they have
WHAT
not been slumbering
calculators.
If
^
LIVED FOE
53
not such
Tbey
are
poor
The
millions are
awake enough
is
effective
millions
to be
to a poetic or divine
alive.
quite
him in the face ? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite
awake.
expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us
in
How
our soundest
sleep.
know
of
no more encouraging
fact
man
to elevate
his life
by a
conscious' endeavour.
It is
something to
and so to make a few objects beautiful but more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look,
;
far
do.
To
the highest of
his
life,
Every man
worthy
is
tasked to
make
even in
its details,
of
we
information as
we
this
would
distinctly
inform us
/
how
might be done.
to live delife,
and
see
if
when
came
to die,
what
living
is
so
\
54
dear
;
wanted to
life,
live
the
marrow
to live so sturdily
all
life,
and shave
it
close, to
life
into
if
it
proved to be mean,
genuine meanness of
the world
perience,
;
why then
it,
and
ex-
and publish
meanness to
it
or
if it
by
my
the
and be able to give a true account of it in next excursion. For most men, it appears to me,
it,
whether
it is of
or
of
God, and
have
somewhat
hastily
concluded that
"glorify
Still
it is
man
here to
God and enjoy him forever." we live meanly, like ants though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men like pygmies we fight with cranes it is error upon
; ;
error,
for its
ness.
and our best virtue has occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedOur life is frittered away by detail. An honest
clout,
man
fingers, or in
extreme cases he
rest.
may add
your
half a dozen,
nail.
life,
In the midst of this chopping sea of civilised such are the clouds and storms and quicksands
and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to
WHAT
the bottom
LIVED FOR
his port at
all,
55
by dead
who
of a
succeeds.
Simplify, simplify.
Instead of thrde
;
meals a day,
if it
instead
hundred
dishes, five
proportion.
Our
life is like
German Confederacy,
boundary
for ever
tell
made up
fluctuating, so that
you
how
with
it is
bounded
at
any moment.
external
The nation
itself,
and
superficial, is just
an unwieldy and
overgrown
establishment,
and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million
cluttered with furniture
for it as
them
is
Spartan simplicity of
It lives too fast.
and elevation
it is
Men
think that
essential that
ice,
and talk
but whether
is
we should
uncertain.
rails,
live like
baboons or
like
men,
little
If we do not and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will
and forge
build railroads
And
if
how
But if we stay at shall want railroads 1 will our business, who home and mind railroad it rides upon us. the We do not ride on
sleepers
are
that
56
Each one
is
a man, an Irish-
The
rails
and they are covered with sand, and the cars run They are sound sleepers, I
And
over
rail,
new
lot is laid
so that,
if
on a
ridden upon.
is
And when
sleep, a
man
that
in
walking in his
supernumerary sleeper
as
the
wrong
position,
make
if
were an exception.
am
glad to
know
that
it
men for every five miles to keep the down and level in their beds as it is, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up again. Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life t We are determined to be starved before we are
takes a gang of
sleepers
hungry.
Men
As
for work,
we
We have
If I
should only
fire,
bell,
there
of
is
hardly a
man
Concord, notwith-
many
woman,
say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, I
might almost
much more
burn
it
WHAT
be
it
LIVED FOR
on
fire,
57
it
set it
or to see
is
put
out,
it, if
that
done as handitself.
somely
even
if it
after dinner,
Some
they
give directions to be
and
what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as " Pray tell me anything new that has the breakfast. happened to a man anywhere on this globe," and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito
it,
pay for
tell
River
dark unfathomed
mammoth
For
office.
my
To speak critically,
more than one or two letters in my life that were worth I wrote this some years ago the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely
offered in jest.
And
am
we read
of
one
man
killed, or
one
lot
58
we
If
One
is
enough.
instances
news, as
with the principle, what do you care for a myriad To a philosopher all and applications?
it is
called, is gossip,
read
it
are old
women
day at one
by the
you know how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta, and Don Pedro and
Seville
proportions,
little
and Granada, from time to time in the right they may have changed the names a
since I
and
serve
up a
bull-
fight
when
other entertainments
fail, it
will
be true
this
news from that quarter was the revolution of and if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need attend to
1649
;
If
one
not excepted.
WHAT
What news
what that
is
!
"'
LIVED FOK
to
59
know
to
"
Kieou-he-yu
Khoung-tseu to know
Khoung-tseu caused
your master doing ?
:
him
in these terms
'
What
is
The messenger answered with respect My master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of them.' The messenger
'
being gone,
'
:
What
'
!
worthy messenger
What
a worthy messenger
The
week,
for
Sunday
is
the
fit
conclusion of an
ill-
new
!
one,
with
!
this
" Pause
Avast
Why
so
seeming
fast,
but deadly
slow?"
/..hams and delusions are esteemed for soundest
truths,
while reality
is
fabulous.
If
men would
be deluded,
life,
to
things as
we know, would be
is
and
we
respected
only what
inevitable
to be, music
streets.
When
and wise we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and that petty fears and petty absolute existence,
we
are unhurried
shadow
60
is
sublimej By closing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their
and
daily hfe of routine and habit everywhere, which
still is
built
Children,
relations
who
more
that
play
discern
its
true
fail
law and
to live
it
clearly than
men, who
worthily,
by
failure^
state,
One
and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul," continues the Hindoo philosopher, "from the circumstances in which
it
is
revealed to
itself
it
own by some
live
it
knows
to be Brahme."
we
inhabitants of
New
England
mean
life
that
we do
We
which appears
to be.
If a
man
this
town and
"
would the
an account
Mill-dam
go to 1
If
he should give us
of the realities
Look
at
or a shop,
really
"WHAT
is
LIVED FOE
all
61
go to pieces
in
your account
before
of
them.
/Men
after
Adam and
is
In
eternity there
But
and
all
now
here.
God
moment, and
at all
will never
And we
what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds The universe constantly and obediently answers us.
to our conceptions
;
whether we travel
fast or slow,
lives in
the track
is
conceiving then.
The poet
had so
fair
as Nature,
the track
by every
nutshell
and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation let company come and let company
;
go,
let
the
bells
ring
and
the
it.
children cry,
Why
should
we
knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and
whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian
shallows.
Weather
this
safe,
way
down
hill.
relaxed nerves,
62
If the
hoarse
1
why
should
we run
what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and
will consider
We
New York
and
religion, tiU
and
Boston and
Concord,
through
church
state,
we
and
come
can
to a hard
place,
which we
;
call reality,
and
say. This
is,
and no mistake
and
fire,
not
ages
Nilometer, but a
Realometer,
that
of
to
to a fact,
you stand right fronting and face to face you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are
really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats
feel cold in the extremities
;
and
if
we
Time
at it
;
is
in.
I drink
detect
how
it
is.
Its
I
current
slides
WHAT
fish in
LIVED FOR
is
63
stars.
pebbly with
the
know not
I
first letter of
the alphabet.
was not
is
as wise as the
;
day
was born.
rifts its
a cleaver
it
discerns
I
and
secret of things.
with
my
feet.
hands than
I feel all
necessary.
My head is hands
head
is
and
it.
my
My
instinct tells
me
I
that
my
an organ
for burrowing, as
their snout
and
fore-paws,
and with
these
my
way through
vein
is
hills.
somewhere hereabouts
by the divining
;
and here
I will
HIGHEE LAWS
As
I
my
string
of fish, trailing
my
pole, it
being
now
quite dark, I
my
and
felt
was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness Once or twice, however, which he represented.
while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging
the woods, like
-a
The
wildest scenes
I
had become
or,
unaccountably familiar.
still
find,
named,
spiritual
as do
love
still
day more as the animals do. to this employment and to hunting, when quite
HIGHER LAWS
young,
65
my
closest acquaintance
with Nature.
They
little
early introduce us to
and detain us
hunters,
lives in
in scenery with
Fishermen,
woodchoppers,
the fields and
.
and
'^
or poets even,
expectationTD
She
is
The
traveller
on the
on the
of St.
Mary
a fisherman.
He who
is
poor authority.
reports
We
are most
already
alone
is
or instinctively, for
true
humanity,
or
account
human
experience.
amusements, because he
has not so
many
so
public
many
more
i/
games
and the
as they
Almost every
temporaries
New
my
con-
shouldered
between
and
his
hunting and
No
wonder, then,
66
is
is
the greatest
the
friend
not
excepting
Humane
to
add
fish to
my
I have actually
first
fished
fishers
Whatever humanity
was
all factitious,
I might conjure
up
against
and concerned my
I
felt
my
I
feelings.
speak
of
only now,
for
had long
differently
Not
that I
my
As
the
last
gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to
years that I carried a
is
a finer
than
this.
It requires so
Yet
not-
am
compelled to doubt
if
of
my
me
let
remembering that
have answered,
HIGHEE LAWS
of
67
sports-
my
education,
men
them
only at
first, if
mighty hunters
at last,
as well as fishers
game large enough for any vegetable wilderness, hunters of men. Thus far I am of the opinion
of Chaucer's nun,
who
That
" yave not of the text a pulled hen ben not holy men."
There
is
of the race,
a period in the history of the individual, as when the hunters are the " best men," as
We
who
he
is
no more
humane, while
This was
been sadly
neglected.''
my
they
No humane
any
creature,
which holds
that he does.
tions.
Such
is
oftenest the
to
He
goes thither at
last,
if
first
as a hunter
fisher, until at
life
in him, he
may
be,
fish-pole behind.
The mass
respect.
men
are
still
in this
is
no
68
Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far from being the Good I have been surprised to consider that Shepherd. the only obvious employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the like business, which ever to my
uncommon
knowledge detained at Walden Pond for a whole half day any of my fellow-citizens, whether fathers
or children of the town, with just one exception, was
fishing.
Commonly they
the while.
They
might go there a thousand times before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their
purpose
pure;
but no
doubt
such
clarifying
The process would be going on aU the while. the councU faintly remember governor and his
pond, for they went a-fishing there
boys
but
now they
a-fishing,
no more for
Yet
If the
last.
it is
number
for the
bait.
of
pond
Thus,
itself,
even
communities,
the
of
little
in self-respect.
I have
tried it again
and
again.
have
skill at
it,
and, like
HIGHER LAWS
69
my fellows, a certain instinct for it, which from time to time, but always when I have done I feel that it would have been better if I had not fished. I think that I do not mistake. It is a
many
of
revives
There
is
me which
yet with
every year I
am
less
more humanity or even wisdom at present I am no fisherman at all. But I see that if I were to live in a wilderness I should again be tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest. Beside, there is something essentially unclean about this diet and
all flesh,
began to see where housework commences, and whence the endeavour, which costs so much, to wear
I
and
odours and
Having been
my own
and cook,
as well as the
gentleman for
whom
the
complete experience.
animal food in
besides,
when
The practical objection to was its uncleanness and, had caught and cleaned and cooked
my
case
and eaten
essentially.
and
cost
they seemed not to have fed me was insignificant and unnecessary, more than it came to. A little bread or a
fish,
my
It
well,
with
less
Like
many of my
contemporaries,
had rarely
etc.
for
;
many
or coffee,
not so
much
because of any
ill
effects
<
which
had traced
were not
70
t'
agreeable to
my
is
imagination.
The repugnance
but
is
to
animal food
instinct.
not
an
It
fare hard in
so,
many
far
respects
and though
I never did
I
went
enough to please
my
imagination.
man who
from animal
It is
it
food,
of
any
kind.
I find
a significant
fact,
by
entomologists,
in
insects in their
of feeding,
perfect state,
make no
them
it
down
as " a
much
less
than in that of
The
voracious
. . .
caterpillar
when
"and the gluttonous maggot when become a fly,'' content themselves with a drop or two of honey or
some other sweet
This
is
liquid.
the
represents
the larva.
fate.
The
gross feeder
man
clean
but
this, I
when we feed the bodyj they down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt
to be fed
sit
should both
HIGHER LAWS
the worthiest pursuits.
into your dish,
71
and
if
it
not
live
by
rich cookery.
Most men
would
feel
shame
own
animal or
Yet
till
this is otherwise
ladies, are
we
and,
if
gentlemen and
not true
men and
is
women.
be made.
will
to
may be
vain to ask
why the
fat.
imagination
am
satisfied
that
not.
Is it
?
man
;
is
carnivorous animal
a great measure,
this is
live,
in
but
a miserable way,
as
will
go to
may
learn,
and he
who
shall teach
man
to confine himself to a
diet.
more
Whatever
it is
my own
a part of
may
be, I
human race,
left
each other
when
they came in contact with the more civilised. If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius,
true,
it
he sees
lead
may
him and
his road
The
faintest
assured
man
feels will at
length
and customs
of
mankind.
; !
72
No man
Though
it
misled
Hm.
no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to
If the day and the night are such them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more ^that is your elastic, more starry, more immortal,
higher principles.
that you greet
success.
^All nature
is
have
cause momentarily
The
greatest gains
appreciated.
and values are furthest from being We easily come to doubt if they exist.
We
They
Perhaps the
harvest of
never communicated by
man
is
to
man.
The
true
somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. ) Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish
daily
life
my
I could
if it
relish,
were necessary.
to
am
the natural
fain keep
of
^sky
an opium-eater's heaven.
always
;
would
is
jsober
infinite
degrees
/drunkenness.
for a wise
water
man
wine
is
and
warm
coffee,
I fall
when
am tempted by them
Such apparently
intoxicating.
HIGHER LAWS
slight causes destroyed
73
will
Of
all ebriosity,
who
he
air
have found
it
to be the
most serious
also.
compelled
tell
me
to eat
But to
am
wiser
am
however much
questions are
it is
Perhaps these
"nowhere,''
My
practice
is
my
opinion
is
here.
Nevertheless I
when
it
faith
that
his
is
exists,"
that
who
is, is
is
food, or
prepares
as
and even in
their case it
to
be
observed,
Hindoo
commentator
has
"the time of
distress."
Who
share
1
satisfaction
I
from
his food in
owed a
my genius.
The
self,"
74
see
; one listens, and one does not hear ; one eats, and one does not know the savour of food." He who
a glutton puritan
he
who
may
mouth
defileth
It is
it is
eaten.
when
that which
is
eaten
is
not
us.
If
the
made
from
over the
sea,
He
goes to the
is
The wonder
how
life,
they,
I,
eating and drinking. Our whole life is startlingly moral. Thejp is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice^ Goodness
is
fails.
In the music
it is is
of the
the the
insisting
on
this
which
thrills
usi^The harp
little
Com-
pany, recommending
is all
its laws,
and our
goodness
the youth
we pay.
Though
at last
grows
indifferent, the
most
sensitive.
it is
reproof, for
unfortunate
HIGHER LAWS
75
who
it.
We
move a
Many an
our
lives.
irksome
noise,
go a long
satire
way
off, is
heard
of
as music, a
proud sweet
on the meanness
and
sensual,
expelled;
health,
like the
draw from
that
it
nature.
its
I fear
;
a certain health of
own
that
from the
from brute
superior
beasts,''
a thing
common herd
it
lose it very
men
preserve
carefully.''
if
Who
knows what
1
sort of life
would
result
we had
attained
If I knew so wise a man as could teach to purity me purity I would go to seek him forthwith. "Ai command over our passions, and over the external
and good
spirit
acts,
are declared
by the
Ved
to God."
Yet the
and control every member and function of the body, and transmute what in form is the grossest sensuality
into purity
and devotion.
76
which,
unclean,
when we are loose, dissipates and makes us when we are continent invigorates and
Chastity
is
inspires us.
the flowering of
man and
;
what
like,
and the
it.
Man
is
flows at once to
God when
open.
By
casts us
down.
is
He
is
blessed
who
is
assured that
the animal
none but
I fear that
we
and
'
that, to
life
is
our
dis-
'
How
To
happy's he
his beasts
Can use
and ev'ry
the rest
beast,
And
Else
is
man
But
Them
All sensuality
all
one,
though
it
takes
many
forms
eat,
purity
is
one.
It is the
They
are
know how
is
great a
with
pui'ity.
When
the reptile
attacked at one
mouth
of his burrow, he
HIGHEE LAWS
If
77
you would be
is
1
chaste,
man know if he is know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is. We speak conformably to the rumour which we have heard. From exertion come wisdom and purity from sloth
chastity
?
What
How
shall a
chaste
He
shall not
An
unclean person
sits
is
one who
by a
stove,
whom
and
who
reposes with-
the sins,
work
though
it
be at
cleaning a stable.
Nature
hard to be overcome,
What avails it that you you are not purer than the heathen, you deny yourself no more, if you are not more
if
]/'
religious?
know
of
many
systems
fill
of
religion
the reader
endeavours,
new
rites
it is
though
it
be to the performance of
merely.
''
but
not because
but
of
I care not
how
obscene
my
words
betraying
my impurity.
We discourse
freely without
silent
shame
about
,,
another.
We
'
was too
offensive it
may
be to modern
He
teaches
78
how
and
urine,
and the
what
is
by
/ Every
man
is
off
We are
is
all
sculptors
flesh
our
own
Any
noble-
John Farmer sat at his door one September evening, hard day's work, his mind stUl running on his labour more or less. Having bathed he sat down to recreate his intellectual man. It was a rather cool evening, and some of his neighbours were apprehending a frost. He had not attended to the train of his thought;. 3ng when he heard some one playing on a flute, and that sound harmonised with his mood. Still he thought of his work but the burden of his
after a
1 ;
his
it
little.
It
which was
from
constantly shuffled
of the flute
came home
that he
worked in, and suggested work for certain faculties which slumbered in him. They gently did away with the street, and the village, and the state A voice said to him, Why do in which he lived. you stay here and live this mean moiling life, when
a glorious existence
is
possible for
you
Those same
HIGHER LAWS
stars twinkle over other fields
79
these.-
than
But how
into his
to
come out
"i
of this condition
thither
some new
mind descend
HOUSE-WAEMING
In October I went a-graping to the river meadows, and loaded myself with clusters more precious for There too their beauty and fragrance than for food.
I
small
of the
meadow
grass,
meadow
in a snarl,
them by the bushel and the and sells the spoils of the meads to
York, destined to be jammed,
to
Boston and
satisfy
New
So
and drooping
plant.
The
for
my
eyes merely;
but
I collected
had overlooked.
When
up
under the
stick to
railroad,
and a
my
HOUSE-WARMING
not always wait for the
leaves
frost,
81
of
and
the jays,
sometimes
stole,
contain sound
climbed and
shook the
trees.
They grew
behind
my
house,
it,
when
in flower, a bouquet
before they
them
Many
other substitutes
ilsh-
worms
on
its string,
had
its
it.
had often
it
since
seen
knowing
to be the same.
it.
It has a
sweetish taste,
much
and
found
like
it
This tuber
seemed
period.
own
children
some future
humble
root,
an Indian
known
82
only'by
its
but
let
man
the crow
may
the
God
south-west,
whence he
and
itself
its
and dignity
hunter
Some
in-
when
art.
the reign
of
leaves
and string
of nuts
may
Already, by the
of
three
aspens
Ah, many a
And
gradually
from week
out,
to
week
and
it
admired
gallery
substituted
some new
picture,
distin-
upon the walls. The wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October, as to winter quarters, and settled on my windows within and on the walls overhead, sometimes deterring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they were numbed with cold, I swept some of
HOUSE-WAEMING
them
rid
out,
83
but
;
much
to get
of
them
even
felt
complimented by their
shelter.
regarding
my
house as a desirable
They
me
seriously,
me and
;
crevices I
they gradually disappeared, into what do not know, avoiding winter and unspeak-
able cold.
I finally
Walden, which the sun, reflected from the woods and the stony shore, made the fireside of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be warmed by the sun while you can I thus warmed myself be, than by an artificial fire. by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a departed hunter, had left.
east side of
pitch-pine
When
masonry.
came to build
my
chimney
studied
required
more
fifty
one of
men
an
wiseacre
of
them.
Many
of
the villages of
Mesopotamia are
is
84
still.
However
that
may
be,
worn
As
my bricks
had been in a chimney before, though I did not read the name of Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out
as
many
work
fireplace,
Indeed, I
worked
at the
that though I
commenced
of bricks
my
it
pillow at night
that I
stiff
neck
for
remember
my
stiff
neck
is of
older date.
it
for room.
He He
me
was
pleased to see
degrees,
my work
to
and
solid
by
it
and
reflected, that, if it
proceeded slowly,
was calculated
is
The chimney
to
structure, standing
is
burned
it still
stands
sometimes, and
apparent.
It
summer.
to cool the
HOUSE-WAEMING
pond, though
to accomplish
it
85
of steady
took
many weeks
so deep.
blowing
it,
it is
When
began to
house,
have a
fire at
my
Yet I
My
my
eye so
much
was
confess that
every apartment
enough to
flickering
was more comfortable. Should not in which man dwells be lofty create some obscurity overhead, where
rafters?
shadows may play at evening about the These forms are more agreeable to the
I now first began to when I began to use it
my
house, I
may
say,
warmth
as well as shelter.
wood from
me good to see the soot form on the back of chimney which I had built, and I poked the fire with more right and more satisfaction than usual. My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an
did
the
echo in it ; but it seemed larger for being a single All the apartment and remote from neighbours. attractions of a house were concentrated in one
room it was kitchen, chamber, parlour, and keepingroom; and whatever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I
;
enjoyed
it
all.
86
(patremfamilias)
must have
oleariam, vinaraim, dolia multa, uti lubeat caritatem expectare, et rei, et virtuti, et glorias erit," that is,
" an oil
and wine
cellar,
many
casks, so that it
;
may
his
be pleasant to expect
advantage, and
hard times
it will
be for
virtue,
and glory."
had in
my
my
shelf a little
peek each.
I
shall
still
useful
to
keep
off rain
and
to
snow
to
reverence
the prostrate
Saturn of
sill
an older dynasty on
you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft
;
on
rafters
if
they choose
a house
which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over ; where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse,
and
as
sleep,
such a shelter
HOUSE-WARMING
night, containing all the essentials of a house,
87
and
all
its
peg that a
parlour,
man
should use
store-
once kitchen,
pantry,
;
chamber,
house,
and garret
so necessary
and
the necessary
and
utensils
is
the
chief
nor
and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trap-door, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn
whether the ground
without stamping.
is
solid or
as open
and manifest as a bird's nest, and you cannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing
some
of its inhabitants
where to be a guest
is
to be
it,
shut
up in a particular
cell,
and told
to
make
yourself at
home
there,
in
solitary
confinement.
Nowadays
the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has
am
aware that
88
but I
am
many
men's
houses.
might
visit in
my
described,
queen who lived simply in such a house as I have if I were going their way; but backing
all
ever I
am
caught in one.
PEIMEVAL NATUEEi
Pekhaps
else
this
was primeval,
men
call
it,
down
mountain.
We
no recent marks of
fire,
much
as a charred
reclaimed by
man
what brother or sister or kinsman of our race made it and claimed it, I expected the proprietor to rise up
and dispute
my
passage.
It is difficult to conceive of
a region uninhabited
by man.
We
habitually pre-
sume his presence and influence everywhere. And yet we have not seen pure Nature, unless we have seen her thus vast and drear and inhuman, though in
*
Thoreau
visited the
90
the midst of
looked with
awe
at the
ground
had made
heard,
there, the
their work.
made out
Here was
It
globe.
was
It
and
ever,
so
to
Nature made
he
can.
Man was
of,
It
was
Matter, vast,
terrific,
not
his
Mother Earth
that
we
have heard
in,
no,
lie
it
bones
Fate.
there,
the
home,
felt
this,
of Necessity
and
was a place
for
rites,-
to
it
be inhabited
by men nearer
animals than we.
of
and to wild
with a certain
We
walked over
which grew
there,
spicy
leaves
on
but
it
was a specimen
of
fit
to
make
this world.
What
is it
to be admitted to a
museum,
to see a
myriad
of particular things,
compared with
PRIMEVAL NATURE
being shown some
its
91
in
star's surface,
home
which
I stand in
I
awe
of
my
I
to
am bound
I fear
not
spirits, ghosts, of
which
am
one,
that
body might,
them.
but
is
my
I fear bodies,
I tremble to
meet
What
this
!
Talk of mysteries
Think
me ?
of
our
life
in
nature,
it,
in contact with
Con-
WTio are
we 1
we ?
About four o'clock, the same afternoon, we commenced our return voyage, which would require but little if any poling. In shooting rapids the boatmen
use large and broad paddles, instead of poles, to guide the boat with.
Though we
where
for
had cost us no
slight
if
we
we were
sur-
instant.
When
a boat
is
the boatmen
these circumstances,
difficulty in
keeping
their cargo
if
up
way down
The
the stream
and
way
is
of
where the water rushes up stream faster than elsewhere it does down, and being carried round and
round under the
surface
till
92
M'Causlin pointed out some rocks which had been Sometimes the scene of a fatal accident of this kind.
the body
is
He
fortunately
breath.
this
thrown
out
in
season
to
recover his
problem to solve
course
moving
hour.
will
Stop he cannot
is,
where
he go?
course with
all his
paddle,
course.
The stern-man
were
soon
at
We
the Aboljacarmegus
Falls.
labour, of
first to
and concluded to
let
the batteau
down
the
falls,
Jumping from rock to rock until nearly in the middle of the stream, we were ready to receive the boat and let her down over the first fall, some six or seven feet perpendicular. The boatmen stand upon the edge of
a shelf of rock, where the
feet perpendicular, in
fall is
and
shde
feet
gently over,
till
the
bow
and
his
compan-
PRIMEVAL NATURE
ion following, they are whirled
93
the rapids to a
down
new
fall,
or to
smooth water.
would be as foolhardy
needed only a
skill,
It
seemed as
little
if
it
familiarity,
and a
more
to navigate
with safety.
such
down such falls as Niagara itself At any rate, I should not despair of
saw
falls,
men
them
so cool, so collected,
so fertile in resources
are they.
falls,
and that
were not
waded through with impunity, like a mudpuddle. There was really danger of their losing their sublimity in losing their power to harm us. Familiarity breeds contempt. The boatman pauses, perchance, on some shelf beneath a table-rock under the fall, standing in some cove of back-water two feet deep, and you hear his rough voice come up through
the spray, coolly giving directions
how
to launch the
Falls,
our
Oak
over,
we
way
on fresh shoulders. One shoulder of each of the boatmen showed a red spot as large as one's hand, worn by the batteau on this expedition; and this
shoulder, as
it
did
all
lower than
its
fellow,
from long
Such
toil
the strongest
constitution.
The
94
work
one
falls in all
if
till
night,
is
then,
One who
called
by a
lead
particular nickname, or
this life
turned
off.
None can
to
who
M'Causlin
tell,
said soberly,
what
is
at
under
The
We lay that
a party,
still
night on
the
such
damp and
faded bed
we
carried
making haste lest the wind should rise. The boatmen ran down Passamagamet, and, soon after, Ambejijis Falls, while we walked round with the baggage. We made a hasty breakfast at the head of Ambejijis Lake, on the remainder of our pork, and were soon rowing across its smooth surface again, under a pleasant sky, the mountain being now clear of clouds, in the north-east. Taking turns at the oars, we shot rapidly across Deep Cove, the foot of Pamadumcook, and the North Twin, at the rate of six miles an hour, the wind not being high enough to disturb us, and reached the Dam at noon. The boatlaunched
it,
PRIMEVAL NATURE
95
of
where the
fall
was ten
was
as
Shooting
down
sometimes at the
we
an hour,
to
if
we
struck a rock
we were
split
from end
end in an
some river
Now, like a bait bobbing for monster, amid the eddies, now darting to
instant.
now to that, gliding swift and smooth near to our destruction, or striking broad off with the paddle and drawing the boat to right or left
this side of the stream,
with
all
suppose that
was
like
Saute de
St.
We
and
floated in
Quakish Lake.
the troubled and
terrible
angry
to be
and not
;
trifled with,
they had
and
all
their spirit
and
of
seemed
but playthings
henceforth.
began,
at
and contempt
for,
the rapids.
"
said Mrs. M'Causlin, " are perfect ducks for the water."
to Lincoln, according to
her,
96
a doctor,
when
it
see
be almost a continuous rapid, so that the doctor cried, when they brought him up by daylight, " Why, Tom,
how
much,
steer?"
"We
And
more
didn't
steer
only kept
her straight."
It is true, the
with no accident.
When we
us over, for
Falls,
we had
up
left
we
men
in
each, turning
we were
came
to
along.
The
last
proved to be Louis
last,
Neptune and
his companion,
now, at
;
on
a
their
way up
so disguised that
we
hardly
knew them.
At
little
or,
Met
face to
whom you
meet
city.
There
is,
in fact, a remarkable
PRIMEVAL NATURE
classes in
97
of
a great
city.
The one
is
no more a child
the distinction of races is soon lost. Neptune at first was only anxious to know what we "kill," seeing some partridges in the hands of one of the party, but
we had assumed
too
of a reply.
We
But
"Me
0,
me
unwell now.
You make
They had in fact been dego." drunken by a frolic at the Five Islands, and they had not yet recovered from its effects. They had some young musquash in their canoes,
bargain, then
me
layed so long
of
the
Tom
at his home.
Thus a man
in a
away
here on the
new
have a
flute to
echo to the
live,
stars,
of wolves; shall
as
it
a primitive man.
and in
this
century be
my
contemporary
of
perchance
shall read
literature,
and
lives
Why
now 1
He
described
by
poets.
Can you
98
Ay
ay
up but
still
now
into the
mouth
of
Millinooket stream a
is
not
In a bark vessel
hornbeam
misty to
way along. He is but dim and me, obscured by the aeons that lie between
but a
wigwam
of
skins.
and the
and
cloud
is
fat of bears.
He glides up
by behind a
is lost
to
my
sight, as a
seen flitting
and
is lost
in space.
of
So he goes about
man.
After having passed the night, and buttered our
batteau, with a
man
to
to
At
the middle
of that
long story,
finished bridge
we dropped our buggy over the halfat Oldtown, where we heard the
at six o'clock the
never
of the
rest,
and
way
What
the
is
is
Except
PRIMEVAL NATURE
the
99
on,
the
rivers,
lakes
damp and
is
The" aspect
of
the country,
from
hills,
civilising in a degree.
The
for
;
they
up so
some jewel
shores,
so
take place
refined,
on
their
even
now
civil
and
royal
and
fair as
Here prevail no
The
country
full of
evergreen
trees, of
mossy
silver birches
damp
with salmon,
;
and
pickerel,
fishes
the
forest
the
blue-jay,
the
woodpecker, the
'**^ylOO
howling
OTv wolves;
blaxsk flies
summer, swarming
with
and mosquitoes, more formidSuch is the able than wolves iS^^the white man.
myriads of
home
T^ho
of
the
grim
is
forest,
it
be'^i(i-wkiter,
decaying trees are not old, but seem to enjoy a perpetual youth
;
and
is
blissful,
serene infant,
too
happy
live,
make a
and
noise, except
rills
?
by
trickling
What
buried in
a place to
!
what a place to
die
and be
and laugh
will,
;
mean
My nature
I
am
this
reminded by
country
my
journey
new
for a
of
still is.
many
America
Gosnold,
which
come to that very Northmen, and Cabot, and Smith, and Ealeigh visited. If
old States, to
the
the
first
to
discover
the
islands,
PKIMEVAL NATUEB
101
Americus Vespucius and Cabot, and the Puritans, and we their descendants, have discovered only the shores
of
America.
a history world-wide,
While the republic has already acquired America is still unsettled and
Like the English in
unexplored.
live
New
Holland,
we
hardly
know where
our navy.
of
moose runs
within her
New York
;
own
borders
Europe
boat on
are
familiar
with the
soundings of
her
waters, an Indian
scientific
is
still
necessary to
guide her
men
much
Adirondac country.
Have we even
the shores?
coast,
so
as discovered
and
settled
now,
if
he
swift
enough
to overtake
it,
faithfully following
^with a desolate
me
if it
month
houses,
to
when
and
tell
looks
like a discovered
and
settled country,
and not
rather,
for
and Noand
man's Land.
We
Pacific,
102
left
many
us.
behind
Though the
railroad
have been established on the shores of Maine, the Indian still looks out from her interior mountains
over
all
city of
Bangor,
miles
up the Penobscot,
head
of
class,
the principal
lumber depot on
this continent,
with a population of
still
hewing
at the forests of
which
it
is
buUt, already
of
overflowing with
the
luxuries
and refinement
its vessels
to Spain, to England,
and yet Indies, for its groceries, only a few axe-men have gone " up river," into the
howling wilderness which feeds
deer are
as
still
it.
;
found within
its limits
is
entangled amid
its
by
foreign sailors in
harbour.
Twelve miles in the rear, twelve miles of railroad, are Orono and the Indian Island, the home of the Penobscot tribe,
canoe,
and then commence the batteau and the and sixty miles above, ;
virtually
still
the country
and there
World.
we turned up
small
moose
lifted
signs.
We
we saw very
mud
and Joe
time before.
We
meadow on
As
most
with alders.
the
design being to
well,
camp up
stream,
if
it
promised
heard a slight
whereupon he began
;
to
push
half
when we suddenly
passed, not
two moose
six or
us.
more than
104
and
half-inquisitive, half-frightened
(I
looks
saw at
once),
tilling
first I
been
is
me,
said to mean,
homespun.
but
we ducked,
heads one
of
creature
it
was;
whereupon
this
meadow and
outlines on
north-east, so rapidly as to
its
my
mind.
At
or rather
its
squeaks.
toward
its
The second barrel was levelled and when we expected to see it drop in
little hesitation,
it,
too,
got out of
in a some-
up the
hill,
though
what
different direction.
work
of a
few seconds, and our hunter, having never seen a moose before, did not know but they were deer, for
they stood partly in the water, nor whether he had
fired at the
not.
From
the style
105
off,
and the
firing
fact that
he was not
I
from a canoe,
judged
more of them. The Indian said that they were a cow and her calf, yearling, or perhaps two years old, for they accompany their dams so long but, for my part, I had not
see anything
we should not
noticed
much
It
meadow
bank, which,
like
;
all
densely wooded
as soon as the
carpets that
silence
reigned.
We all landed at
the
once.
My
his
hat,
He
told
me
we
elastic, noiseless,
and stealthy
and
left
tracks of the
every
side,
freshly broken,
else
the
spruce
gum.
followed,
watching his
106
of the moose.
After
for there
were
many
more to the last blood-stain, traced it a little way and lost it again, and, too soon, I thought, for a good hunter, gave it up entirely. He traced a few steps,
also,
but, seeing
no blood, soon
He
did not
of interest
which
done, though
may have
At
another
when we heard
stealing
least possible
noise, in
it
way
in
which no white
man
does,
as
half
each time.
About
to a part
we
it
We
was absorbed
of
He had
107
its
after it
abovit a
and it was swollen with water. It had run hundred rods and sought the stream again,
No
it
was
it
great
size, horse-like,
My
companion went in
down stream
out,
difficulty, its
it
shallower
black, or perhaps a
sides,
dark
canoe's painter,
and with
each time.
reduced
and
fractions of
my
ceeded
at
Chesuncook the
and, moreover, I
made myself
six inches.
108
obtained I will
The
my own
measure,
of
for this
is
tall horse.
am now
measurement was
incorrect,
them
in a
extreme
length
more recent visit to those woods.) The was eight feet and two inches.
I
those woods with a tape, was just six feet from the
as she lay.
When
afterward
how much taller the male was, he answered, " Eighteen inches," and made me observe the height of a crossstake over the
fire,
feet
from the
ground, to give
chest
me some
Another Indian,
at Oldtown, told
me
that
they were nine feet high to the top of the back, and
that
pounds.
The length
is
between
the shoulders
very great.
white hunter,
who
was the best authority among hunters that I could have, told me that the male was not eighteen inches
taller
two
feet or
109
four,
and sometimes
all,
in
sometimes,
moose
period,
is
as
tall,
though
may
it
"very
far
ton " being " upward of ten feet high from the ground
to the highest point of the antlers."
Joe said, that, though the moose shed the whole horn annually, each
and tenderness
up,
of the hoofs,
and the one half could be pressed very much behind the other, thus probably making the animal
surer-footed on the uneven ground and slippery moss-
forest.
They were
was
stiff
and battered
horny part
and oxen.
The
bare,
of the fore-foot
The moose
to
is
awkward
look
at.
?
shoulders
Why should it stand so high at the Why have so long a head Why have
?
no
tail to
it
my
examination
it is
I over-
looked
Naturalists say
an inch and
a half long.
reminded me at once
of the camelo-
and
trees.
no wonder,
browse on
The upper
lip
110
purpose.
man
that was at
home
there;
ground
of the Indian.
;
The moose
but
how
naturally then,
when
and unseen
as that,
may
sort of
a forest as this
murmuring
rapids,
Joe now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocketknife, while I looked
on
it
was,
to
see that
still
from within
it.
was made
to hide
The
ball
My
He
companion keeps
it
to
show
to his grandchildrea
and
stuffed,
sole. Joe said, if moose stood fronting you, you must not fire, but advance toward him, for he will turn slowly and give you a fair shot. In the bed of this narrow, wild, and rocky stream, between two lofty walls of spruce and
firs,
a mere
cleft in
stripped
111
probably
fifty
He
cut off
would have been nearer the a large mass of the meat to carry
lie
along,
there
all
night,
we
returned.
of leaving this
any
This
creature
would touch
in the
but nothing
did.
our
rivers
Twice, however, in
of a species of large
had a glimpse
mouse.
This stream was so withdrawn, and the moosetracks were so fresh, that
my
companions,
it
still
bent
and camp,
and then hunt up or down at night. above this, at a place where I saw the
and the beaked
hazel,
Half a mile
aster puniceus
along,
as
we paddled
Joe,
something black about two rods off, jumped up and whispered, " Bear " but before the hunter had dis!
" Hedgehog
"
!
"
The
hedgehog
feet
The
quills
were rayed out and flattened on the hinder part of its back, even as if it had lain on that part, but were
erect
this
and the
tail.
Their
finely
points,
examined,
were seen to be
112
bearded or barbed, and shaped like an awl, that is, a After about little concave, to give the barbs effect.
a mile of
still
water,
the
fall.
of
We
had moose-meat
like veal.
risen,
fried for
supper.
It
more
to
flavour,
sometimes
made
moon having
we proceeded
about
hunt a mile up
falls.
the
We
single-file
logs,
Joe,
it
who brought up
if
it
were a
where
was
difi&cult to get
We
still
became rapid
again,
though
was
still
very
difficult for
him
to
pick his
way amid
We
on
and drifted
trees, and of bushes projecting and now and then we made our
way
of
across the
mouth
of a small tributary
on a kind
in
network
of alders.
So we went tumbling on
the moose and bears that might be thereabouts. At length we came to a standstill, and Joe went
forward to reconnoitre
it
was
MURDER OF THE MOOSE
still
113
mile, with
no prospect
of
improvement, as
if
it
were
So we turned about,
still
I,
water.
night,
and
getting
sleepy as
grew
late,
for I
had nothing
to do,
found
it difficult
This stream
was much more unfrequented than the main one, lumbering operations being no longer carried on in
this quarter.
It
but the
firs
trickled
seemed yet
state,
taller
by
contrast.
Being in
I
this
dreamy
very high
of porticoes
for
I asso-
up
and
their tops,
merely fancy
illusion.
still
but in
my
drowsy
state
I fairly lost
myself in sleep
dreaming
of that architecture
and
but
all
at once I
of
back to a sense
of Joe's birch
my
calling
the
and
meadow by our
side.
114
of
moose-hunting.
this purpose,
nor had
had not come to the woods for I foreseen it, though I had been
the Indian manoeuvred
if
;
willing to learn
how
but one
moose
killed
was as good,
The
afternoon's tragedy,
and
my
share in
it,
as
it
my
adventure.
to as
It is true, I
came as near
and miss
as is possible
come
it
is,
to being a hunter
I
it,
myself ; and
on the
raised,
which
also attracts
me.
But
not even
is
too
much
by
horses, as
enough
two before had shot down several oxen by night, somewhere in the Maine woods, mistaking them for
moose.
And
so
might any
of
the hunters;
and
what
is
because that
is
common trophy, and, moreover, you have heard that it may be sold for moccasins, cut a steak from
its
115
no
better,
at least, than to
assist at a slaughter-house.
men
The
all hirelings,
paid so
day
Other white
men and
who come
is
other
other
employments than
these,
employments
sing, a
perfectly
What a coarse and come with an axe or rifle. imperfect use Indians and hunters make of Nature No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated. I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience,
!
life
should be lived as
With
these thoughts,
my
companions to
stream, while
I
continue moose-hunting
down
the
me
not to
chop much nor make a large fire, for fear I should In the midst of the damp fir-wood,
high on the mossy bank, about nine o'clock of this fire, when they
; ;
116
on the
fir-twigs,
within sound of
examined by
its light
I had collected that afternoon, and wrote down some of the reflections which I have here expanded or I walked along the shore and gazed up the stream, where the whole space above the falls was filled with mellow light. As I sat before the fire on my fir-twig
which
seat,
how
stretched,
before you
came
if
wondered
light of
my
fire
any bear or moose was watching the for Nature looked sternly upon me ;
on account
of the
murder
of the moose.
how
to
success;
in the
shape of
many broad
deem
houses
is
no more
lumber than
is
man
is,
no more
There
its
truest use of a
man
is
into
manure.
to pines as well as to
pine, is
men.
A pine
human
carcass
is
a man.
of the
be said to have
the elephant
just as
if
"
117
for every-
bones
may
men and
it
it.
pine-trees,
than destroy
is
it,
and understands
has barked
it,
nature best
who
or he
who
no
!
has boxed
for turpentine,
whom posterity
at last
?
will fable to
No
it
the poet
he
it
is
who makes
fondle
it
it
the
with
an axe, nor
plane,
tickle it
with a
cutting into
without who knows whether heart ^who has not bought the stumpage
is false
it,
of the township
on which
it
stands.
that
No,
it is
the poet,
air,
own shadow
in the
and
them
stand.
and the turpentine clearing but when at length I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the
light at a distance high over all the rest of the forest,
I realised that the
the pine.
It is
I love most.
its spirit of
which heals
above
my
cuts.
It is as
immortal
as I
am, and
me
still.
FOKEST PHENOMENA
When we
prevent
its
it
to
The Indian
cut
damp and
fire
rotten hard-wood to
The
was
of thin
cotton cloth and quite small, forming with the ground a triangular prism closed at the rear end, six feet
long, seven wide,
barely
sit
up
in the middle.
ridge-pole,
two forked
stakes, a
smooth
it.
to pitch
ordinary rain,
and a dozen or more pins It kept off dew and wind, and an and answered our purpose well enough.
it
till
We
reclined within,
bedtime,
else sat
about the
having
As we
through the dusky wood, the Indian heard a noise which he said was made by a snake. He imitated it
at
my
request,
making
pheet
FOREST PHENOMENA
pheet,
119
two
In answer
my inquiries,
making
it,
while
snake.
This, he said
on another
occasion,
was a sign
our
of rain.
When
had selected
he saw them.
"
hurt," I said.
say, it
makes no
difference to me."
He
he
said,
ear,
and he wanted
lay there, he
I replied
As we
him
if
inquired
if
I ever
heard "Indian
sing.''
he would not
He
readily assented,
and
yet
him,
he commenced a slow,
somewhat
nasal,
own
was taught
sionaries.
He
it.
translated
to
us,
sentence
if
by
sentence,
afterward,
It
wishing to see
we
could
remember
there
exercise or
the world.
at
all,
merely
He
but
we did not
in
detect
any
rest
it,
the
120
me back
when Europeans
the Indian.
first
of
about
it
mild and
infantile.
The sentiments
of humility
and
fir
wood
in
which we
fire,
perfectly dark
and when
awoke
a loon from a
midnight to
while
collect the
my
partly in the
about
It
and from one eighth to one quarter of an inch wide. was fully as bright as the fire, but not reddish or
scarlet like a coal,
light,
fire
like the
glowworm's.
its
from the
saw at once that it must be phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of,
whiteness.
only by
see.
Putting
my
it
finger
on
it,
little hesitation, I
found that
had cut
off'
Using
my
from that portion of the sap-wood immediately under the bark, and thus presented a regular ring at the
end, which, indeed, appeared raised above the level
FOREST PHENOMENA
of the
121
pared
off
was
all
was
wood
commenced
in the
and
I cut
out some
little
placing
them
in the hollow of
them
to him.
my hand, carried them waked my companion, and showed They lit up the inside of my hand,
lines
revealing
the
and
saw at once how, probably, the Indian jugglers had imposed on their people and on travellers, pretending
to hold coals of fire in their mouths.
I also noticed that part of a
fire,
whether our
fire
had any-
thing to do with
this,
this
phenomenon,
It
and already
form
paid for
my
journey.
if it
could
me more
human
of letters, or of the
face.
fire,
I should
have been
more
little
told
me
their
name
for
Artoosogu',
122
fires
passing
and making a noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most startling and unimagined phenomena
witnessed by " his folks," they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets to us.
I did not regret
my
since I
I
now saw
it
mind to see something phenomenon adequate to my circumstances and expectation, and it put me on the alert to see more like it. I exulted like " a pagan suckled in a creed " that had never been worn at all, but was bran new, and adequate to the occasion. I
was in just the frame
wonderful, and this was a
let science slide,
if it
had
been a fellow-creature.
saw that
it
it
was
excellent,
was so cheap.
is
That
Science with
;
its
retorts
sleep
it
improved.
me
thing to be seen
of
made
me more
than before.
I belie\'ed that
empty chamber, in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house, and for a few moments I enjoyed
not an
FOREST PHENOMENA
fellowship with them.
123
Your
so-called wise
is
man
goes
no entity
a great deal
One
made
man.
of the
am
all
me
my
religion
promise to teach
me
his.
;
Long enough
of irrelevant things now at length I was glad to make acquaintance with the light that dwells in rotten wood. Where is all your knowledge gone to ? It
it
has no depth.
kept those
little
light.
THE SHIPWEECK
Wishing
to get a better view than I
of
we
may
of another world, I
made
a visit to
succeeding
first
and
last
have spent, in
all,
dozen times on
to the sea, I
my way
salted.
My readers
must expect only so much saltness as the land breeze acquires from blowing over an arm of the sea, or is
tasted on the
of trees I
twenty
have been
my
THE SHIPWEECK
I
125
why
as
my
neighbour
on
Human
same
for
the
thing,
title,
As
is
my
from the
head
of a
caput, a
which
thing
is,
we take hold
Take
Time by the
forelock.
It is also the
And
as for Cod,
which
fish,
it
contains
whence
also,
("pomum
coctile " ?)
and coddle,
to
the
cook green
chusetts
like peas.
is
(V. Die.)
Cape Cod
:
the
shoulder
is
at
Buzzard's
Bay
Truro
fist
at Provincetown,
feet
which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann. On studying the map, I saw that there must be
her other
fist,
126
an uninterrupted beach on the east or outside of the forearm of the Cape, more than thirty miles from
the general line of the coast, which would afford a
good sea view, but that, on account of an opening in the beach, forming the entrance to Nauset Harbour, in Orleans, I must strike it in Eastham, if I approached
by land, and probably I could walk thence straight to Eace Point, about twenty -eight miles, and not meet with any obstruction.
it
We
left
Concord,
Massachusetts,
on
Tuesday,
On
reaching Boston,
we found
we
decided to go by
cars,
way
sur-
of Cohasset.
We
going
to identify bodies
vivors,
and
which was
to
the passengers
in
them streaming oflF over Cohasset common some on foot and some in waggons, and among them were some sportsmen in their
As we passed the graveyard we saw a large dug there, and, just before reaching the shore, by a pleasantly winding and
THE SHIPWRECK
rocky road,
127
we met several hay-riggings and farmwaggons coming away toward the meeting-house,
each loaded with three large, rough deal boxes.
did not need to ask what was in them.
of the
We
Many
The owners
of the wreck.
There
on
to
called
Brook
This
said to be the
from Nantasket
hard
St.
sienitic rocks,
laid bare,
many
a shipwreck.
The
it
brig
John,
still
on a green hillside, a few rods from the and surrounded by a crowd. The bodies which had been recovered, twenty-seven or eight in
tioned, lying
water,
all,
had been
collected there.
Some were
the
lids,
rapidly
nailing
down
the
lids,
which were
still
adhered to
it,
was
no
I witnessed
128
know in what I saw many marble box a certain child was put. feet and matted heads as the cloths were raised, and one livid, swollen, and mangled body of a drowned
carpenter was calling to another to
girl,
who
still
probably had
intended
to
go out to
service in
to
which some
rags
the
flesh,
about
swollen neck
of a
human
hulk, gashed
by the rocks or
merely red
and white,
with wide-open
;
and staring eyes, yet lustreless, deadlights or like the cabin windows of a stranded vessel, filled with sand. Sometimes there were two or more children,
or a parent and child, in the same box, and on the
lid
such-a-one, and
child."
The surrounding
sails
and
clothing.
lives
by
this beach,
that a
left
probafter,
sister's
;
arms, as
if
found thus
We
shore.
"
THE SHIPWRECK
but
it
129
first
took
it
to be
years.
lain there
many
cast
about
in the neighbourhood.
St.
asked a
it
sailor if
John.
struck.
He He
said
was.
asked
pointed to a rock in
Grampus
up ;
it
You
saw
now
sticking
It
cables
I
asked
if
saw were
" "
Not a quarter
that piece
you
It
to
make
It
alone,
off.
and that
was several
would take many days to cart it feet deep, and here and there
was a bonnet or a jacket on it. In the very midst of the crowd about this wreck, there were men with carts busily collecting the seaweed which the storm had cast up, and conveying it beyond the reach of
the tide, though they were often obhged to separate
fragments of clothing from it, and they might at any moment have found a human body under it.
Drown who
130
see, rising
above the
St.
British brig
which the
Cohasset Harbour.
little
shore
we saw a man's
scarf,
clothes
on a rock;
woman's
caboose,
and one
together.
by
four-
teen wide.
than
on this shattered fragment, had been at the sight of the smaller fragments
before.
The
largest timbers
I
could withstand the power of the waves that iron must go to pieces in such a case, and an iron vessel would be cracked up like an egg-shell on the rocks.
Some
I
of these timbers,
my
They
some were saved on this piece, and also showed where the sea had heaved it into this cove which was now dry. When I saw where it had
come
of
in,
and
in
what
condition, I
it.
little
men was
collected
THE SHIPWRECK
131
a slim-looking
story.
He was
little excited.
He was
saying that
when
filled,
saying,
tells
a straight story
You
see,
A boat full
in
of
water
is
very
and
so on,
if
earnest tone, as
but
had no humane
sea,
of
him.
off.
"Come," says another to his companion, "let's be We've seen the whole of it. It's no use to stay
Further,
to the funeral."
were
told,
we saw one standing upon a rock, who, we was one that was saved. He was a soberI
which he answered
it,
By
oil-cloth
who
told us
to the relief of
St.
all
her
crew,
for
132
who were on
known
A little farther
was the flag of the St. John spread on a rock to dry, and held down by stones at the This frail, but essential and significant corners.
portion of the vessel, which had so long been the
sport of the winds,
had
sustained.
to live.
we might
see
more
of the
Cohasset Rocks.
there were an old
In a
little cove,
man and
which that
if
storm had
employed as
on which the
St.
John
had struck. The old man had heard that there was a wreck and knew most of the particulars, but he
said that
It
it
happened.
was the wrecked weed that concerned him most, rockweed, kelp, and seaweed, as he named them, which he carted to his barnyard; and those bodies
were to him but other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of no use to him. We afterwards
came to the
lifeboat
in
its
harbour,
waiting for
another emergency,
and
in the afternoon
we saw
THE SHIPWRECK
133
On
I
the whole,
it
cast
some lonely
I
if
place, it
would
have affected
poor
this
me
more.
human
"!
why
awe or pity
we should
saw that
not think so
much about
exceptions to the
all
common
lot of
humanity.
Take
majority.
A man
life,
Yet
would be not a little affected by this event. They would watch there many days and nights for the sea to give up its dead, and their imaginations and sympathies would supply the place of mourners far
away,
who
as yet
this,
knew not
of the wreck.
Many
days after
the water
It
was approached in a boat, and found to be the body of a woman, which had risen in an upright position, whose white cap was blown back with the
wind.
I saw that the beauty of the shore itself was wrecked for many a lonely walker there, until he could perceive, at last, how its beauty was enhanced
134
by wrecks
and
it
sublimer beauty
Why
have
They
really
worms
or fishes.
Their
New
World, as Columbus
within a mile of
it,
they were
shores
but, before
they
dreamed
evidence
science
of,
we
believe
that there
far
though has not yet been discovered by than Columbus had this: not merely
of
all
our
we
are
all
we
may
be
No doubt,
we have
reason to thank
God
in
life
again."
The mariner
who makes
the
safest port
heaven, perchance,
though
fairest
there,
It
is
it is
easy
All
enough to do without
it
when once
it
is
gone.
THE SHIPWRECK
their plans
135
Infants
like a bubble
by the score dashed on the rocks by the enraged Atlantic Ocean If the St. John did not No, no
!
make her port here, she has been telegraphed The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit
;
there.
it is
Spirit's
split
breath.
A
till it
THE BEACH
At length we reached the
seemingly retreating boundary of the plain, and entered what had appeared at a
distance an upland marsh, but proved to be dry sand
we approached
of sand
the shore
were prepared
go half a mile
farther,
we
suddenly
to a
The
dropping
rain,
to
as the
sympathy with the already agitated ocean. The waves broke on the bars at some distance from the shore, and curving green or yellow as if over so
foam
to
the
sand.
THE BEACH
137
Having got down the bank, and as close to the we could, where the sand was the hardest, leaving the Nauset Lights behind us, we began to walk leisurely up the beach, in a north-west direction,
water as
sailing
we
walked,
The white breakers were rushing to the shore; the foam ran up the sand, and then ran back as far as we
could see (and
farther along
master of
wand
and ever
hastily to deviate
Kke droves
Neptune,
rushing to the shore, with their white manes streaming far behind
for
;
and when, at length, the sun shone was tossed up from time to
in sight,
all
sail
^for
they had
late storm,
and had not been able to get out again and the only human beings whom we saw on the
138
beach for several days were one or two wreckers looking for drift-wood, and fragments of wrecked
vessels.
beach
is
After an easterly storm in the spring, this sometimes strewn with eastern wood from
it
belongs to
him who
is
is
We
we
distinguished no particular
sail
was
like
an old
endowed with
life,
a hanging-cliff
He had on
coat
of
of weather-beaten flesh,
like
one of
many
and
colours,
though
if
it
was
it
had been
a rich
was
if
study to us when
round.
It
we had
him
to
true,
he had not
front.
He
as indiff'erent as a clam,
legs,
hat on and
He may
White, at
who
Peregrine
He was
even
joists,
THE BEACH
chips which
139
he drew out
and
stacked up to dry.
carry
it,
When
far,
he cut
it
it
up where the
or rolling
two
Some
Maine cumbers the ground, and is, perchance, thrown into the water on purpose, is here thus carefully picked up, split and dried, and
rotten trunk, which in
husbanded.
up the bank on
his shoulders
by
see
in the
there
is
no hollow
at hand.
You may
hooked
pike-staff
is
is
for use.
He
is
as
much
quotes
Crantz,
in
account
of
Greenland,
Dalagen's relation of the ways and usages of the Grreenlanders, and says, " Whoever finds drift-wood,
or the spoils of a shipwreck on the strand, enjoys
as his own,
it
live
thera
But he
it,
must haul
as a
it,
and
deed of
to
security, for
no other Greenit
lander
will
offer
meddle with
afterwards,"
Such
(the
is
We
:
have
"As he
Founder
its
140
without ice, but the most part along with it, and lodges Were it not for this, we itself between the islands.
Europeans should have no wood to burn there, and the poor Greenlanders (who, it is true, do not use wood,
but
train, for
and to shaft their arrows (yet there grew some small but crooked alders, etc.), by which they must procure their maintenance, clothing and train Among this wood for warmth, light, and cooking.
their boats,
are great trees torn up by the roots, which, by driving up and down for many years and rubbing on the ice, are quite bare of branches and bark, and corroded with
great wood-worms.
come out
;
of
(i.e.
of Greenland)
also large
is
pine and
fir.
We
which
find also a
finely veined,
stony mountains.
of
There
is
also
a solid,
reddish wood,
a more
visible
common
fir,
with
which
the beautiful
of cedar,
silver-firs, or zirbel, that have the smell and grow on the high Grison hills, and the Switzers wainscot their rooms with them." The
called
for
not
difiicult, it
THE BEACH
This sand-bank
directly
feet or
141
of the
the backbone
ocean.
It
Cape
rose
of a
hundred
emotions that
what a place
right,
we first stood upon it and discovered we had chosen to walk on. On our
us,
beneath
of
white breakers
farther
still,
On
our
left,
by small
sand-
fifteen
or twenty feet
of vegetation,
a succession
shrubbery,
autumnal
this
tints
and beyond
were
seen, here
and
Here, in Wellfleet,
to sailors as the Table
known
Lands of Eastham, on account of its appearance, as seen from the ocean, and because it once made a
part of that town,
width, and in
full
many
places
one
hundred and fifty feet above the ocean, stretched away northward from the southern boundary of the
town,
without a particle of
almost as a table,
vegetation,
;
as
level
for
two and a
142
wards the ocean, then stooping to the beach, by as steep a slope as sand could lie on, and as regular as a It was like the military engineer could desire.
escarped rampart of a stupendous fortress, whose
glacis
ocean.
From
surface
the Cape.
part of
desert,
with the view of an autumnal landscape of extraordinary brilliancy, a sort of Promised Land, on the
Yet, though
the prospect was so extensive, and the country for the most part destitute of trees, a house was rarely
visible,
solitude
bined.
thousand
it,
men
interrupted
The whole
coast
is
so free
from
rocks, that
we saw
The
eyes,
when
some wreckers had painfully brought up the bank and stacked up there to dry, being the only objects in
the desert, looked indefinitely large and distant, even
like
For sixteen
Lights,
miles,
commencing
its
the
Nauset
height,
though farther
beach-grass and
its edge.
north
it
was not
so level as here,
but interrupted by
of
slight hollows,
THE BEACH
There are some pages entitled
Eastern
Coast
143
Description of the
of the
County of Barnstable,
printed
Humane Society have erected huts called Humane Houses, "and other places where shipwrecked seamen may look for shelter." Two
the
Charity or
which frequented
I
might be provided
with one.
have read
Shipwrecked Seaman's
Manual with
sound
the
sea, is
for the
of
you might
it,
say, the
moaning
Of
heard
all
through
as
if
its
author were
this
extremely
difficult to
climb, especially in
a storm.
tides,
the sea
it
then
between
ocean.
and
sea."
By
us,
the word
the
an
;
upper
both
144
from Nauset
shallow inlet at
not
full sea,
would make a beach forty miles long, and the bank and beach, on the east side of Nantucket, are but a
continuation of these.
I
was comparatively
It
satisfied.
There
as
if
were riding
barebacked.
was not
;
as
on the
I
!
but there
found
as
it
real.
Cape Cod
it
as
you
thing
it,
itself,
is
nothing
more
I
like
was.
They commonly
alone.
humane house
But
is
where
is
of
it.
We
beach,
now on
the
sitting
from time
to time
now
at last settled on
THE BEACH
145
we might we
The bank
of its
It
was so
caving,
steep, that,
sat
on
edge as on a bench.
was
difficult for
it,
we
saw.
it
;
for,
though
The was
and,
heavy
"
walking in
it, it
was
notwithstanding that
days,
it
when
it
in fair
weather or
foul,
or
when
and shining on
so white,
its
and each
;
slight
in-
so distinctly revealed
and when
ocean.
your eyes
they
fall
on
.the
In
mackerel-gulls
which
pursue the
like
traveller anxiously,
now and
Though
for
of the
moment
if
146
may
be with
rests.
less
din
We were
him,
though in a
different
mood from
we walked
sea.
silent
put in a
it
little
because
sounds so
much
though
doubt
if
so
loud as
The
attention of those
is
who
meetings at Eastham
With what
effect
may we
say,
"My
On
John N.
little
Maffit
on
this,
the Eeverend
Poluphloisboios Thalassa.
weed
cast
up
here,
and that
Who
when he had
We have no word iu English to express the sound of many waves dashing at once, whetlier gently or violently ToXvipXoiiT^ows to the car, and, iu the ocean's gentle moods, an dvdpiff/iov ^Aacr/ui
to the eye.
THE BEACH
this great
147
quite
brown apron, drifting half upright, and submerged through the green water, clasping a
it
have seen
my
a
if
head.
like
We
of this cable-
weed, as
crest
in,
of
come
as
was some treasure buoyed up by it; but we were always surprised and disappointed at the insigthere
nificance of the
us.
As
so
we looked out
floating
on
it
appeared indefinitely
we were
we
saw.
We were
came ashore, the ridiculous bits of wood or weed, with which the ocean laboured, that
of such things as
we began
bear a
to doubt
still
closer inspection,
if it
itself would and would not turn out should come ashore to us.
as
various
species
are
called,
appeared
product, a
to
fit
All that
is
told of the
and
as
if
all its
One
148
long,
St. Vincent, has a stem fifteen hundred feet and hence is the longest vegetable known, and a brig's crew spent two days to no purpose collecting the trunks of another kind cast ashore on the Falk-
Bory
land Islands,
mistaking
it
;
for
driftwood. ^
This
were starving,
would try
One
sailor told
;
me
it.
for I took
down and
it, it,
deliberately
up a fathom or two
it
of
how
it cut,
were hollow
all
the
way
through.
The
stretched
worn and ragged from the lashing of the waves. A which I carried home shrunk to one quarter of its size a week afterward, and was comThe
is
my
his,
greenness,
though perchance,
for
it
it
not
live
by
When we
how
it
consider in
what meadows
of
grew, and
hay weather
it.
got in or out,
we may
also
sea-
of
at
first
THE BEACH
149
mangled.
What
its
and mosses,
when
it
fabrics
wrecked against
it?
Strange that
it
arm.
same which
Harbour,
as
if
in
Boston
rising,
to
meet the
far
and wide,
so that I
seemed
through a
en-
mere
sun-fish
soup.
They say
it
that
when you
other
your hand
like quicksilver.
became dry land, chaos reigned; and between high and low water mark, where she is partially disrobed and rising, a sort of
rose out of the ocean, and
chaos reigns
still,
can inhabit.
Mackerel-gulls were
two white ones pursuing a black one ; quite at home in the storm, though they are as delicate organisations
as sea-jellies
and mosses
Theirs must be an
essentially
of larks
and
robins.
of the surf, as
if
on the shore
150
of
which haunts
Their voices,
too, are
is
ever
who have
But
been
lost in the
all this
deep since
dreariness
first it
was
to
created.
through
we seem
have a pure
and unqualified
same
strain
which
is
morning song
of rejoicing to another.
we
struck
we
hills
and
whither the
for
some
a mile,
uncommonly near
were apparently so
could hardly
that there
lie
Their garrets
down straight, and we did not doubt was room for us there. Houses near the
These were a story
high; but
if
you merely counted the windows in their gable ends, you would think that there were many stories more, or, at any rate, that the half-story was the only one thought worthy of
and a
half
being illustrated.
of
windows
in
and
position, here
us agreeably,
as
152
who had their cunabula behind had punched a hole where his necessities required it, and according to his size and stature, without regard to outside effect. There were windows for the grown folks, and windows
for the children,
as a certain
man had
cat,
Some-
that part
as
more
exactly.
The ends
of the houses
if
had thus
many muzzles
as a revolver, and,
the
windows that some of our neighbours have, a traveller must stand a small chance with them. Generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses
on the Cape looked more comfortable, as well
picturesque, than the
ones,
as
which were
less in
of
a chain of
they
soon.
its
perhaps, be
We
knocked
at the door
house, but
inhabitants were
gone away.
In the meanwhile,
we saw the occupants of the next one looking out the window at us, and before we reached it an old woman
came out and fastened the door
went
in again.
of her bulkhead,
and
Nevertheless,
we
"
"
153
at
her
door,
wken
a grizzly-looking
man
appeared,
whom we
asked
He
us, at first,
where we
which we
to
How
far is
"
he inquired.
by railroad." miles by railroad," he repeated. "Didn't you ever hear of Concord of Revolutionary fame ?
miles
" Didn't I ever hear of Concord
?
Why,
heard
guns
fire at
[They hear
I
I
am
was
almost ninety
am
and where were you then 1 We were obliged to confess that we were not
the
fight.
in
" Well,
he.
walk
in, we'll
leave
it
to the
women,"
said
So we walked in, surprised, and sat down, an old woman taking our hats and bundles, and the old man continued, drawing up to the large, old-fashioned
fire-place,
"I am a
says
;
am
broken down
this year.
am
under
petticoat
government here."
consisted of the old man, his wife,
The family
his
and
daughter,
who appeared
nearly as
old as her
mother, a
fool,
who was
154
when we
ately went out), and a little boy of ten. While my companion talked with the women, I They said that he was old talked with the old man.
and
foolish,
for
them.
"These women,"
I
them
wife.
poor good-for-nothing
This one
is
my
is
She
eighty-
not
much
better."
spoke
He
well,
of
it,
for that
would not
man
of his age.
He
years,
said
attentively for
many
and
he had
much
He
seemed
own nothingness,
is
a poor good-for-nothing
crittur,
and everything
God sees fit and disposes." name % " I said. "Yes," he answered, "I am not ashamed to tell my name. My name is My great-grandfather
is
just as
settled here."
He was an
still
old
Wellfleet
oysterman,
who had
engaged in
it.
Our host
it
was raked
155
small
When
closes
this enters
them on
to catch
it.
it,
and
is
drawn
out.
It
has been
known
and
I
New
this,
when
man
informed
me
that,
out his
young ducks to seek their food amid the samphire (Salicornia) and other weeds along the riverside at
low tide that morning, at length he noticed that one
remained
preventing
it
stationary,
it
amid
the
weeds,
others,
something
and going to
he found
its
He
and
The
old
man
said
that the great clams were good to eat, but that they
"People said
it
would
a cat."
I did
not
tell
him
that I
had eaten a
cat.
He
came round
there,
and sometimes
the
clams
it
some
places.
He
also said
156
was poisonous
across
it,
sailors
came
it
but heaved
I
him that
had handled
that afternoon, and had felt no ill effects as yet. But he said it made the hands itch, especially if they had previously been scratched, or if I put it into my bosom, I should find out what it was.-
At
"
length the
fool,
in,
whom my
all
companion
called
teeth,
the wizard,
came
Damn
book-pedlers,
books.
'em.
Better do something.
Damn 'em.
I'll
shoot
Got a doctor down here. Damn him, I'll get a gun and shoot him " never once holding up his head. Whereat the old man stood up and said in a loud voice, as if he was accustomed to command, and
this
first
:
"John, go
sit
business,
talk
is
But,
muttered the
same
down
ate
at the table
He
aU there was
his
to the apples,
which
aged
some apple-sauce
drew them
away and
sent
I
him
When
(jver
and the
shore, which
arc
worthy
of Ossian, I
saw
"
157
I
mistook
him
for a scarecrow.
and one
Kabelais.
of the
best preserved.
He would have made a good Panurge. Or rather he was a sober Silenus, and we were the boys Ohromis and Mnasilus, who listened to his story.
" Not by Hsemonian hills the Thraoiaii bard,
Nor awful Phcebiis was on Pindus heard With deeper silence or with more regard.
of past
and present
conversation, for he
when Napoleon
and the moderns generally were born. and the mother country
of fifteen,
first
He
said that
broke out, as
of a cart,
he,
a boy
one Donne,
an old Tory,
Whig,
said to him,
who was talking with his father, a good "Why, Uncle Bill, you might as
He remembered
to
well General
and he stood up
show us how
he looked.
"He was
a r
a ther
"There,
with a
I'll
way with Washington.'' Then he jumped up again, and bowed gracefully to right
"
158
and
making show
as
if
hat.
He told us many anecdotes of the Revolution, and was much pleased when we told him that we had read the same in history, and that his account agreed
with the written.
" Oh," he said, " I know, I
fellow of sixteen, with
know
is
was a young
my
ears
you know,
and
likes to
!
know
know He
wreck
of the Franklin
boy came
morning
to
know
was
a
and and
he,
first ate
of the
by the
shore,
down
there,
having found
She
a comfortable
seat,
from him,
nearer to the
men on
the beach,
who had
all
crowded
of the cabin windows and were drawn on deck by the others. "I saw the captain get out his boat," said he; " he had one little one and then they jumped into
;
it
down
as straight as an arrow.
counted them.
One was
159
woman, and she jumped as straight as any of them. Then they shoved off. The sea took them back, one wave went over them, and when they came up there
were six
still
counted them.
The next wave turned the boat bottom upward, and emptied them all out. None of them ever came
ashore alive.
rest of
They had seen all that happened At length a heavy sea separated the
rest of the wreck,
forecastle
from the
saved
and
set it inside
them, and
it
all
and the boat was able to reach that were left, but one woman." few months before we were
He
there,
aground on
and
who roamed
"the most
hill
by the
He
Why
quam fama
secuta
est,
Ah
"
?
160
than the cat he told of; but he answered, that he was a plain-spoken man, and he could tell me that it
was
all
imagination.
emetic in
my
case,
and
my
expense.
the landing
of
the Pilgrims
:
in
Provincetown
(the
"
and very
fat
and
full of sea-pearl
made us
.
all
.
brought
me
was so
like
Moreover,
it
was a
valuable
am
prepared now
I
was
still
man and
at the
notice
Like
Cleopatra,
swallowed
in the
full
They could
squirt
marks
on the sand.
"Now
am
know
as
you can
I
tell
me
what
got
by natur."
thought,
It
was in vain
I
that
to
we reminded him
confusion.
our
"I've
ever
met
"
"
161
question.
it is
?
Can you
Axy.
tell
to ask
spelt,
means?
named
Is it
Now
What
does
mean
it."
Scripture?
read
my
Bible twenty-five
years
it
asked.
" Well,
is it
spelt
Wife,
;
how
is it
spelt
She
"I
said, " It is in
the Bible
" Well,
don't
h,
ach,
h,
seh,
Achseh."
" Does that spell Axy ? Well, do you know what means ? " asked he, turning to me. " No," I replied, " I never heard the sound before."
it
"There was a schoolmaster down here once, and it meant, and he said it had no more meaning than a bean-pole." I told him that I held the same opinion with the schoolmaster. I had been a schoolmaster myself, and had had strange names to deal with. I also heard of such names as Zoheth, Beriah, Amaziah, Bethuel, and Shearjashub, hereabouts. At length the little boy, who had a seat quite in
they asked him what
the chimney-corner, took off his stockings and shoes,
warmed
salved,
his feet,
went
off to
and
the old
man exposed
gaze.
We
to see an
"
162
them
fair
and plump
as an infant's,
He
then
dis-
proceeded to
make
preparations for
retiring,
coursing meanwhile with Panurgic plainness of speech on the ills to which old humanity is subject. We
He
to,
them
at once,
laity at leisure.
for him.
As
would not go to bed, ^it was getting late for people but the old man, who had not yet done
;
if
old
his
You
I,
you
"i
"
Oh
no," said
"I
am
in no hurry.
I believe I
cape.''
;
They are good," said he "I wish them now.'' " They never hurt me,'' said the old "But then you took out the part
cat," said
I.
had some
of
lady.
that killed a
At
after
last
we
cut
his stories,
Yet,
who came
into our
room
us
in.
rattled, as she
Old
women
made
any
was probably
windy night
for
locality,
dis-
163
was proper to the ocean from was due to the wind alone.
The sounds which the ocean makes must be very and interesting to those who live near it. When I was leaving the shore at this place the next summer, and had got a quarter of a mile distant, ascending a hill, I was startled by a sudden, loud
significant
sea, as if
my
breath
I
and
my
between
me and
hill,
the
ocean,
which
I lost
of the sea,
if
hearing of
my
ascending
or descending,
died
away
in a
the while.
The
man
which,
however, he could
tell all
account
for.
He
New
England
in 1638,
among
of the sea
from the
and murmuring
of
the
wind to
follow."
164
east,
me
sea,
Atlantic
had travelled
faster
than
it.
Sailors teU of
"tide-
to the
come out
The
woman
of eighty-
girl,
to milk.
and
who were
fire
sitting,
the
various
dishes which
At
breakfast
we had
eels,
THE WELLFLEET OYSTEEMAN
green beans, doughnuts, and
a steady stream
;
165
tea.
The
old
man talked
and when
the
apple-sauce
thought had
but
my
of the
to
him
how
it
;
it
suffered repeatedly,
that,
and therefore
avoided
be,
but he declared
he
After breakfast
we
for
tinkers or pedlers
visions,
one night.
He was
belonged.
curious to
religious sect
we
He
said
join
any of them,
he stuck to
sect
his Bible.
There was
I
While
to
was
com-
my
panion
to
what
he
belonged,
which he
answered,
"Oh, I belong to the Universal Brotherhood." "What's that?" he asked, "Sons o' Temperance?"
166
he was pleased to find that we called by the same name that he did, and paying for our entertainment,
we took our departure; but he followed doors, and made us tell him the names of
us out of
the vege-
tables which he had raised from seeds that came out They were cabbage, broccoli, and of the Franklin.
parsley.
things,
As
he tried
had asked him the names of so many me in turn with aU the plants which
both wild and cultivated.
It
grew in
self.
his garden,
was
common garden
vegetables, there
Gill-go-over-
fish
the
"he
didn't dive, he
wet
his claws."
this time,
though
it
enough
his talons
but as he
to the
it.
it fell
ground, and
we did not
see that
he recovered
That
is
eaves, he
and we took
to the
it
being
now
late in the
167
Bank was broken open and robbed by two men from the interior, and we
the Provincetown
we were
the
N"ATUEAL HISTOEY OF
MASSACHUSETTS^
[1842]
Books
delight,
of natural
history
winter reading.
I read in
cheerful
thrill of
when
the
of the
sea-
warm
up
snow
and owe an
accession
WitMn
tlie circuit of this plodding life, There enter moments of an azure hue, Untarnished fair as is the violet Or anemone, when the spring strews them By some meandering rivulet, which make The hest philosophy untrue that aims
'
Reports
on
and Birds ;
the Herhaeeous
to
an Order of
and Animals of Massachusetts. Published agreeably the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the
State.
Zoological
169
Some unrecorded beam slanted across The upland pastures where the Johnswort gi-ew Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind, The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag Loitering amidst the mead or busy rill, Which now through all its course stands still and dumb purling at its play Its own memorial, Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
;
;
Until
its youthful sound was hushed at last In the staid current of the lowland stream Or seen the furrows shine hut late upturned.
;
And where
When
around lay bound and hoar Beneath a thick integument of snow. So by God's cheap economy made rich To go upon my winter's task again.
all the fields
am
when
Is
?
I hear of
service-berries,
poke-weed, juniper.
not heaven
made up
of these cheap
summer
glories
There
is
How
there
If
were no other vicissitudes than the seasons, our inMuch more is adoing than terest would never tire.
Congress wots
of.
What
and the buckeye keep, and the sharp-shinned hawk 1 What is transpiring from summer to winter in the
Carolinas,
170
of the
Moliawk
The merely
;
land
is
men
are degraded
when
considered as the
members
of a political organisation.
only the symptoms of Bunker Hill and Sing-Sing, the District of Columbia and Sullivan's Island, with a few avenues connecting them. But paltry are they
this side all lands present
On
decay.
see but
all
livid.
Society
so.
is
the most
There
no scent in
it
so
wholesome as that
of the pines,
as
would keep
as a sort
some book
by me
To
To him
of
who contemplates a
beauty no harm
doctrines
The
tyranny or servitude,
of
we
are flanked
by
the
to
Fur Countries.
There
is
The
spruce, the
vestries in furs
and churches do
Slave
wrapped
by the Great
171
of the
hunter does not give over to follow the seal and walrus
on the
tions
ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginawho would toll the world's knell so soon. Can-
The
if
men
belies
disit
it
What
is
any man's
am
and cheery
In
must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am not constantly greeted and refreshed
the woods
as
by the
Surely joy
is
the condition of
Think
of the
being on a
summer
its
wings,
minnow
stoutly
stemming the
current,
attrition
reflected
We fancy that
philosophy, which
and
and is
as catholic
;
but
if
man
set
it all
and dawn.
It is the three-inch
swing
dulum
in a cupboard,
of nature
lift
vibrates
When we
172
disappears with
smoke
I
When
spirit in
am
which
pressible privacy of a
bitious it
is.
how
is
silent
and unam-
The beauty
is
there
in mosses
must be
What an
active war-
admirable training
fare of
life.
more
far
trumpeted valour
of the warrior.
am
pleased to
up and
stirring
by night not
comb
"
and "spare
cap to keep
shirt,"
oif gnats,''
as
Bonaparte a park of
Russian campaign.
of the
man
is
admirable.
bird,
His eye
to take in
fish,
is
flower,
and
quadruped and
is
biped.
Science
;
to
know good doubt and danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly
scrutinises,
But cowardice
for that
;
unscientific
ance.
advances
it
is,
but a retreat
is it
is
if
then
of
circumstances.
But
to
draw a
little
"
173
limits of being in a
in nature
new
walk
with a sense of
the universe
details.
is
Nature
she
leaf,
and take an
interstices
;
insect
view
of
its plain.
She has no
I explore, too,
every part
is full of life.
which eternity
is
made.
Who
roll-call of
the harvest
We pronounce thee
happy, Cicada, For on the tops of the trees, Drinking a little dew, Like any king thou singest, For thine are they all, Whatever thou seest in the fields, And whatever the woods bear. Thou art the friend of the husbandmen, In no respect injuring any one And thou art honoured among men, Sweet prophet of summer. The Muses love thee, And Phcebus himself loves thee, And has given thee a shrill song Age does not wrack thee,
; ;
Thou
Almost thou
is
174
Nor can
beat
is
all
Every
pulse-
with these
make us
a passing visit.
him on
the crow
from autumn
preserving
unbroken
^
the chain of
summers
the
hawk with
winter
in the
;
the robin
springs
woods
shrike,
curls,
He
^
mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should be found on the ground but this bird seems to be less
It is
;
particular than
most
have seen
NATURAL
As
HlSTOfiY OF
MASSACHUSETTS
is
175
melting in
make
New
RETURN OF SPRING
" Behold how, Spring appearing, The Graces send forth roses
;
Behold,
Is
how
Behold,
made smooth hy the calm how the dnck dives Behold, how the crane travels
;
And
The shadows of the clouds are moving The works of man shine The earth puts forth fruits The fruit of the olive puts forth. The cup of Bacchus is crowned,
;
;
Along the
The
fruit,
The ducks alight at this season in the still water, company with the gulls, which do not fail to improve an east wind to visit our meadows, and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves, and diving to peck at the root of the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has not loosened. The first
in
flock of geese is seen beating to north, in long
harrows
the plaintive
its
one instance, where the adjacent country was nearly destitute of trees, together with two of the phcebe, upon the end of a board in
the loft of a saw-mill, but a few feet from the saw, which vibrated
several inches with the motion of the machinery [Thoreau's note].
176
meadow
The
fish-hawk, too,
occasion-
water,
it
on
its
beam
ends,
and holding
talons
up
as if
soil,
an intruder on
its
domains.
is
And
then
its retreat,
sailing so steadily
away,
a
of
kind of advance.
ospreys,
have by
me
one of a pair
for some years fished in this by a neighbouring pond, measuring more than two feet in length, and six in the stretch of its
which have
vicinity, shot
wings.
"The
ancients, par-
ticularly Aristotle,
their
young
unable to
do so were destroyed.
had
all
and grasp a
is
educated eye
less.
now
Its
shrill
throat,
is
There
in
and
his
wrath
It re-
177
me
of
the
Argonautic
diillest
expedition,
and
over
would
inspire
the
to
take
flight
Parnassus.
The booming
in the
by Goldpump,
or the chopping of
distant farm-yard.
is
On
my
it
and suck
head,
it
its
two or three
feet,
At length the summer's eternity is ushered in by among the oaks on the hillside, and a new dynasty begins with calm security. In May and June the woodland quire is in full tune, and given the immense spaces of hollow air,
the cackle of the flicker
and
this curious
human
ear,
filled.
how
summer round.
As the season advances, and those birds which make us but a passing visit depart, the woods become
silent again,
air.
ruffle
the drowsy
But the
178
The phcBbe
still
sings in
sultry
de-
of the village
Upon
The
During the
Striving to
summer
days,
street.
With
spring.
air
the autumn begins in some measure a new The plover is heard whistling high in the
flit
from
tree
and
and
The
stand
now
to congregate
you may
low and straggling over the landscape, singly or by twos and threes, at inas they fly
hundred have
passed.
have seen
it
so
well
described
by
Nuttall, but
is
vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it yorrick, from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the traveller through the underwood. The cowbird's
egg
is
by Audubon
[Thoreau's note].
179
;
this
shall as
these pines
and hemlocks.
but rather
flits
He
is
no spaniel
our steps
the
dusky
reminding
me
oftener
of Philip
He
is
and Powhatan, than of Winthrop and Smith. a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight, by
is
crow
in
New
England.
Thou dusky
spirit of the wood, Bird of an ancient brood, Flitting thy lonely way, A meteor in the summer's day.
From wood
Why
? ?
What makes thy melancholy float What bravery inspires thy throat. And bears thee up above the clouds, Over desponding human crowds,
Which
far
below
?
The
late
walker or
sailor, in
may hear the murmurings of the snipe, circling over the meadows, the most spirit-like sound in nature; and still later in the autumn, when the frosts have
tinged the leaves, a solitary loon pays a visit to our
retired ponds,
till
passed,
name;
for
when
180
will dive,
and swim
like a
under water, for sixty rods or more, as fast as a boat can be paddled, and its pursuer, if he would discover his game again, must put his ear to the
surface to hear
where
it
comes up.
When
it
comes
disturbed.
hears a quite
new
note,
It appears
among
and
When
the
banks in the
spring,
wind from the meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not I am affected by the sight of the cabins far off then.
of the musk-rat,
made
of
mud and
grass,
and
raised
when
is
I read of
The musk-rat
the beaver of
Among
the
which empty into the Merrimack, the Concord known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The
it
Musketaquid, or
181
being
much more
the rest,
it
sluggish,
and
its
water more
muddy than
The
abounds
more
in fish
and game
of every kind.
According to
fur-trade
very important.
As
early as 1641, a
company was
of
and other
all
and
one twentieth of
of the far
they obtained."
still,
as well as
on the streams
West,
who
One of these takes from one two hundred musk-rats in a year, and even thirty-six have been shot by one man in a day. Their fur, which is not nearly as valuable as formerly, is in good condition in the winter and
out fear of the Indian.
fifty
hundred and
to
spring only
of the ice,
when they
by the
water,
the greatest
number
is
ming or resting on
grass
and
reeds,
by the
Though
is
the surface.
high banks of
and shoots them when they come Their burrows are usually in the the river, with the entrance under
182
water,
and rising within to above the level of high Sometimes their nests, composed of dried water. grass and flags, may be discovered where the meadow
bank is low and spongy, by the yielding of the ground under the feet. They have from three to seven or eight young in the spring.
Frequently, in the morning or evening, a long
ripple
is
seen in the
still
is
its
mouth
to
build
it
its
When
it
will dive
and swim
five or six
itself in its
when
undisturbed,
ice,
which contracted
and expanded
squirrel,
as it breathed at leisure.
it
When
it
and survey
a
its
In the
fall, if
meadow
mud
edge.
and
grass,
its
them
Their
food consists chiefly of flags and fresh-water muscles, the shells of the latter being left in large quantities
entire skin of a
183
girdle, for a
The
and
ever
the otter
is
rarely
less
if
is
common
than formerly.
Perhaps
of all
of
^sop
to the present
walk.
before
gone
me by some
trail of
started,
were
I
on the
in its
lair.
am
know what has determined its graceful curvatures, and how surely they were coincident with the fluctuations of some mind. I know which way a mind wended, what horizon it faced, by the setting of these tracks, and whether it moved
curious to
slowly or rapidly,
by
Sometimes you
many
and where they have gambolled and gone through a hundred evolutions, which testify to
together,
a singular listlessness
and
leisure in nature.
When I
184
give
up
to
prietor.
He
seems to
him and it. Sometimes, when the snow lies light, and but five or six inches deep, you may give chase and come up with one on foot. In such a case he
will
of
mind, choosing
lose
may
ground
by
it.
fright,
he will take no
is
step
which
is
not beautiful.
if
His pace
a sort of
leopard canter, as
the
is
When
the ground
is
a
of
the surface.
He
head
comes
aloft,
when
When
he
to a declivity,
and
him.
slide swiftly
down
He
it
hear
sion that
distance.
Of fishes, seventy-five genera and one hundred and seven species are described in the Repmt. The
fisherman will be startled to learn that there are but
about a dozen kinds in the ponds and streams of any inland town and almost nothing is known of their
;
habits.
Only
their
"
185
of their
lateral
compose the
all
am
knowledges,
knowing
I
minnow
in the brook.
Methinks
trivial
and now, when I turn the pages and ponder the plates
of the Angler's Souvenir, I
'
am
fain to exclaim,
be,
?
'
And overcome
Next to nature, it seems as if man's actions were the most natural, they so gently accord with her. The small seines of flax stretched across the shallow and transparent parts of our river, are no more inI stay my boat trusion than the cobweb in the sun. water to sunny look down in the in midcurrent, and wonder how the his nets, and see the civil meshes of this have done town could blustering people of the
elvish work.
The twine
looks like a
and
is
do not suspect
is
my
feet
that there
as
good as
pickerel
a mine under
me wherever
I go.
How many
186
The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens
again.
Early in the spring, after the ice has melted, time for spearing
fish.
is
the
shifts
from north-east and east to west and south, and every icicle, which has tinkled on the meadow grass so
long, trickles
down
roof
its
stem,
up from every
Her
and
fence.
tears,
In the brooks
small cakes of
ice, floating
full of
may
an undertone.
Every
riU
In the
ponds the
din,
whirled grating
hoarsely,
lately a
fox,
way
along,
which was
so
highway
for the
fresh
upon
if
it,
for pickerel.
Town
by mere
187
No
ripple
shows Musketaquid,
When
And
thoughts are swelling in the breast, she that in the summer's drought
a rippUng and a rout,
Doth make
Sleeps from
Nahshawtuok
to the Cliff,
UnrufSed by a single skiff. But by a thousand distant hills The louder roar a thousand rills, And many a spring which now is dumb, And many a stream with smothered hum. Doth swifter well and faster glide.
tide.
is
As
Yon And
my neighbour's
of corn
I recognise
Here Nature taught from year to year. When only red men came to hear, Methinks 'twas in this school of art Venice and Naples learned their part
But still their mistress, to my mind, Her young disciples leaves behind.
The fisherman now repairs and launches his boat. The best time for spearing is at this season, before the weeds have begun to grow, and while the fishes
lie
summer they prefer the cool depths, and in the autumn they are still more The first requisite is or less concealed by the grass.
in the shallow water, for in
188
fuel for
of
your crate
and
commonly
With
a crate, or jack,
fire,
made
of iron hoops, to
of
contain your
your
with seven
tines,
and fourteen
feet
long,
a large
your
fish,
for a cruise.
should be a
fire
warm and
evening
The
of Pluto.
And much
to the
meadows
or,
if
he
human
round
its
candle.
The
silent navigator
shoves his
and sense
of benefaction, as
or light-bringer, to these
light.
The
waters,
depth, are
lit
two on either hand and several feet in up with more than noonday distinctness,
and
189
fishes.
There
their
sus-
some on some
active
and wide-awake,
city
would present.
on a tussuck.
fit,
He may exercise
his dexterity,
fish,
he sees
or
his hands.
But these
pursuit,
never-ending novelty of
The
floats
pines
and
as
he
under
wake on her perch, and sing that strain at midnight, which she had meditated for the morning. And when he has done, he may have to steer his way home through the dark by the north star, and he will feel himself some degrees nearer to it for having lost
his
way on
The
the earth.
fishes
commonly taken
in this
way are
pickerel,
and
shiners,
from
Some
are hard to
which,
his
dark bands
being exaggerated,
of these
The number
190
It
we have
of
twelve snakes,
frogs
but one
which
venomous,
nine
and
and one
lizard, for
our neighbours.
I
am
particularly attracted
serpent tribe.
by the motions of the They make our hands and feet, the
fins of
making them.
fiits
and
forms of animal
wUy
as the serpent, to
perform as
and
feet.
meadows and
in the river.
The
distance of
many
rods,
and
through
its
swimming
drawing
its
head under,
191
eggs,
flies,
and
is
said to emit
from
its
mouth
to attract them.
the
education and
refinement
of
her
children.
exert,
no
in the
I
meadow than
walk in the woods, am reminded that a wise purveyor has been there
When
before
there.
me my most delicate experience is typified I am struck with the pleasing friendships and
;
unanimities of nature, as
trees takes the
when
form
of their leaves.
In the most
which suggest a high refinement, a noble It is not hard to blood and breeding, as it were.
sprays,
Bring a spray
nobler fashion
if
wave superior
circle.
there, as
It has
used
more
refined
and polished
all
a salute
and a response to
how
the trees
of the
man
does, but
now
is
192
Earth,
they air, sun, and rain, are occasion enough were no better in primeval centuries. The " winter Witness the buds of their discontent " never comes.
of the native poplar standing gayly out to the frost
on the sides of
its
bare switches.
They
express a
naked confidence.
With
he were sure to
find
When
turers,
by
Baffin's
Bay
little
vegetable redeemers.
will hold
They
had a greater than Minerva or Ceres for their inventor. Who was the benignant goddess that bestowed them
on mankind 1
Nature
is
She
art.
Having a
shape, as
it
of
some fabulous
his
may
study a
new department
called crystal-
what may be
The winter of 1837 was unusually favourable for this. In December of that year, the Genius of vegetation seemed to hover by night over its summer haunts with unusual persistency.
193
very
uncommon
here or any-
forth early
on a
on that hurrying
off in
Indian
file
and
fairies of
their diminished
The
river,
viewed
though
all
Every
iceits
shrub,
and
answering, as
dress.
it
summer
fibres
in the night.
diverging, and
more minute
of the
it
indented.
possible angles
upon one another, with no twig or stubble supporting them. When the first rays of the sun slanted over
the scene, the grasses seemed
jewels,
and
It
struck
me
but
194
one law; that in obedience to the same law the vegetable juices swell gradually into the perfect leaf,
on the one hand, and the crystalline particles troop to their standard in the same order, on the other.
As
and
if
invariable,
and every plant in the spring but filled a permanent and eternal
is
waiting
is
common how
observable in
many
other
as
in
the
natural
counterpart
some vegetable.
As, indeed,
all
rhymes imply
of
any
particular
As
is
but
may
observe how,
on the window,
or shocks
waving
\vith grain,
on the other,
arctic pines
frozen, with
downcast branches.
all
growth
their-
is
more
simple,
part
195
fleeting,
would
it
not be as philogrowth,
all
as convenient
to consider all
up within the
less
tion
more or
rapid
On
bank
of
formed a cavity,
armour.
feathers,
its
of the
warriors
into
the
fortress
in
another,
the
plumes
of
From
five inches
when
its
smooth
Gothic
side,
city, or
a press of canvas.
in the road,
where
recti-
the ice
crystallised
with deep
linear fissures,
of the ruts
sides
Around the
and
form
flower-stalks,
In
196
human
new
"The
distribution of
Common-
narrow point
to
nowhere many miles wide; but this of land has hitherto proved a barrier
of
the
migrations
many
species
of
MoUusca.
Several
genera and
numerous
species,
which
are
...
and
Of the one hundred and ninety-seven marine do not pass to the south
shore,
species, eighty-three
fifty
Cape."
That common muscle, the Unio complanatus, or more properly fluviatilis, left in the spring by the musk-rat upon rocks and stumps, appears to have been an important article of food with the Indians.
In one place, where they are said to have feasted,
of
depth of a
remains.
foot,
much
197
of its natural
directly useful.
The reports on
search,
and
In-
of the object
of the legislature.
much
value, as long as
accessible.
less
We
They serve but to indicate, with more or exactness, what species are found in the State. detect several errors ourselves, and a more pracin-
tised
eye would no doubt expand the list. The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and
to allure
But the
he
raises
no flowers with
It is astonish-
fact
it
will
ing
how few
The
man
himself
is still
being gradually
Men are knowing enough after their fashion. Every countryman and dairymaid knows that the
coats of the fourth
milk,
stomach of the calf will curdle and what particular mushroom is a safe and
198
nutritious
You
field
or
wood, but
will
seem
it
is
much
is
easier to discover
It
than to see
off.
prone."
Wisdom
does
We
we can
see.
sophy.
He
who
can
" Water
We
runs
may have been taught in the schools. science will know nature better by his
tion
;
he will smell,
not learn
of
than
other men.
finer experience.
We do
by
inference
application
direct intercourse
as with ethics,
and sympathy.
is
with science
any
other,
friend-
WALKING
[1862]
I
WISH
to speak a
word
civil,
for Nature,
for absolute
to
regard
man
as
an
in-
and parcel
I
of Nature, rather
than
member
are
of society.
if
statement,
there
so I
may make an
of
enough champions
the
you
I
course of that
is,
my
life
of taldng walks,
speak,
for
sauntering:
idle
which
word
is
beautifully
derived
"from
people
the
under
Land,
till
the
children exclaimed,
Holy-Lander.
They
who never go
to
in their walks, as
'W"^
200
who do go
sans
sense, such as I
mean.
the
word from
no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He
who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest
vagrant of
is
all
sense,
which
is all
to the sea.
But
I prefer the
first,
which, indeed,
is
is
go forth
by some Peter the Hermit and reconquer this Holy Land from
we
never-ending enterprises.
tours,
we
set out.
is
steps.
We
prepared
relics to
to send back
our desolate
you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again, if you have
kingdoms.
If
made your
free
will,
and
settled all
your
for
affairs,
and are a
a walk.
WALKING
201
new, or rather an
not Equestrians or
but Walkers, a
class, I trust.
or riders,
still
honourable
spirit
The
chivalric
to the Eider
now
to reside in, or
into, the
Walker,
is
not
have
their
He
and People.
We
least, if
felt
that
we almost
;
alone
tell
hereabouts
though, to
the truth, at
own
most
I do,
of
my townsmen
No
God.
from Heaven
non
to
become a walker.
of
You must
it is
Ambulator
true,
Some
my
townsmen,
have described to
me some
know very
to the
highway ever
may make
No
doubt
moment
202
he came to grene wode, In a mery mornynge, There he herde the notes small
When
sayd Robyn,
;
That
was
last here
Me
I
At the donne
dere."
my
health and
spirits,
it is
commonly more than that, sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely
from
all
and
safely
free
say,
worldly engagements.
You may
When
sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the
forenoon, but
legs so
sit all
many
of them,
as
if
made
all
to
I think
com-
redeem
felt as
the day,
when
sin
to be atoned for,
confess that I to
neighbours
the whole day for weeks and months, ay, and years
WALKING
almost together.
I
203
know
they are
of,
sitting there
it
now
afternoon, as
if
Bonaparte
may talk
it is
courage, but
sit
down
whom you
ties of
have known
all
the
are
whom you
I
wonder that about this time, or say between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the morning
sympathy.
papers and too early for the evening ones, there
not a general explosion heard
scattering
is
a legion of
notions
an
airing,
and so the
womankind, who are confined to the house more than men, stand it I do not know ; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do not
still
How
When, early in a summer afternoon, we have been shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making haste past those
staiid it at all.
my
companion
gone to bed.
Then
it is
that I appreciate
never
tiu'ns in,
erect,
No
all,
have
older.
As
man grows
204
He grows
life
evening of
approaches,
at last he
all
comes forth
of
which
in
it is called, as
the sick
as the
Think
swinging of
dumb-bells or chairs
but
If
is itself
a man's
up in
far-off pastures
unsought by him
is
when
walking.
When
traveller
asked
Wordsworth's
out of doors."
servant to show
"
him her
Here
is
study
is
Living
will
much out
of doors, in the
grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labour robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may produce a softness and
will cause a thicker cuticle to
by an
increased sensibility
to certain
impressions.
to
Perhaps we should
growth,
us a
be more susceptible
some
and moral
little less
and no doubt
it is
a nice matter to
WALKING
proportion rightly the
thick
205
and thin
skin.
But
methinks that
is
enough,
that
will
to be found in the
There
be so
much
The
the
more
air
thoughts.
callous
palms
whose touch
of idleness.
thrills
That
When we
woods
in
:
walk, we naturally go to the fields and what would become of us, if we walked only a garden or a mall 1 Even some sects of philo-
sophers
have
felt
the necessity
of
importing
the
to the
of Platanes,"
ambulationes in porticoes
it is of
Of course
if
no use to direct
have walked a
am alarmed when
woods
In
it
happens that
my
morning occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work
my
will
run in
my
head and
am
In
not where
my
body
is,
I am
woods,
out of
my
senses.
my
return to
if
my
1
senses.
What
am
206
woods
I suspect myself,
when
called
good works,
for this
My vicinity
for so
affords
many
and sometimes
An
new
prospect
noon.
Two
me
A
of
dis-
which
is
some-
times as
Dahomey.
in fact a sort of
harmony
human
life.
It will
to you.
Nowadays almost
called,
all
man's
improvements,
so
down of the
cheap.
and
A
and
people
let
make it more and more tame and who would begin by burning the
!
fences
look-
around him, and he did not see the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the
midst of paradise.
I
a boggy,
stygian fen,
WALKING
surrounded by
devils,
207
his
bounds
fifteen,
of miles,
commencing
at
my own
:
by any house, without crossing a road except where first along by the river, the fox and the mink do
and then the brook, and then the
wood-side.
meadow and
the
my
vicinity
I
can
The
his
Man and
them
all,
am
pleased to see
Politics
how little
is
but a narrow
and that
I
still
narrower highway
world,
yonder leads to
thither.
If
you would go
it
you
straight
to it
for
it,
too,
has
its
occupy
all space.
I pass
it is
from
it
as
from a bean-field
In one half-hour
and
forgotten.
where a
another,
man
and
208
At
land
is
not
will
come when
it will
be
parti-
only,
when
road,
shall
men
to the public
To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then,
man's grounds.
before the evil days come.
What
is
is
it
that
makes
will
it
so
1
hard sometimes
to
determine whither
we
walk
we
un-
consciously yield to
It is
is
way we
liable
walk.
There
way
from heedlessness
We would
fain
world
it
difiicult
to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.
When
myself to
go out
of the
bend
my
steps,
and submit
my
WALKING
and whimsical as
it
209
may
wood
or
meadow
direction.
degrees,
is
My needle is slow to settle, varies a few and does not always point due south-west, it
it
true,
it
and
hut
west.
between west and south-southThe future lies that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. The outline which would bound my walks would be, not
always
a circle, but a parabola, or rather like one of those
cometary orbits which have been thought to be nonreturning curves, in this case opening westward, in
which
my
sometimes for a
Eastward
go only by force
but westward I go
It is
free.
hard for
me
to
am
not excited
by the prospect
of a
walk thither
and there are no towns nor cities in it of enough Let me live where I
on
this side is the city,
and ever I
am
on
much
stress
my
210
countrymen.
toward Europe.
And
that
way the
nation
is
moving,
and
may
west.
phenomenon
settlement of Australia
but this
affects
us as a retro-
generation of Australians,
The
is
nothing west
beyond Thibet.
"beyond there
We
works
race
of
;
go eastward to
of art
realise history
and study
the
and
we go westward
enterprise
and adventure.
to forget the
The
Atlantic
is
had an opportunity
institutions.
is
its
If
we do not
of the
arrives
on the banks
not
in the
Lethe
I
of the Pacific,
which
know
how
significant it
or
how
far
it is
movement
of the race
but I
know
known
that something
which,
in
some
instances,
is
to have affected
them
to a general and
WALKING
somBj crossing the broadest rivers, each on
ticular chip,
its
211
par-
with
its tail
raised for a
sail,
and bridging
something
that
which
aflFects
is
spring,
tails,
and which
affects
referred to a
worm
Not a
it
in their
to
some
if
Than longen
And
witness inspires
as distant
me
with
West
and as
fair as
He
appears to
He
is
whom
the nations
dream all night of those mountain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapour only, which were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islands and gardens of the Hesperides,
follow.
We
West
mystery
gardens
and poetry.
Who
into
has
the
not
seen
in
imagination,
when looking
fables?
sunset
sky,
the
of the Hesperides,
of all those
Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly He obeyed it, and found a New
212
World
"
and Leon.
The herd
from
of
men
in
afar.
And now the sun had stretched out all the hlUs, And now was dropped into the western bay
;
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."
Where on
by the bulk
its
of our
produc-
European, as this
trees are
in
in the
observations.
his youthful
Humboldt came
dreams
to America to realise
of a tropical vegetation,
and he
beheld
it
forests of the
The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes further than I am ready to foUow him yet not when he says, "As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is made for the animal world, America is made for the man of the Old World. The man of the Old World sets out upon his
further,
way.
Each
of
marked by a new
civilisation superior to
WALKING
the preceding,
213
of development.
by a greater power
ocean, the
unknown
bounds
of
which he knows
an instant."
Europe, and
So
Guyot.
From
and
this
the barrier of
enterprise
modern
The younger
common inquiry in the newly settled West was, " From what part of the world have you come"!' As if these vast and fertile regions would
says that the
'
To use an
Oriente
Iwx, ;
Ex
ex Occidente
fruit.
FRUX.
From
for the
The West of which I speak is but another name Wild; and what I have been preparing to
is,
say
that in Wildness
is
World.
its fibres
it
the Wild.
The
cities
it.
import
at
any
price.
Men
plough and
ness
sail for
From
come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of Eomulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable.
The founders
of
214
drawn
Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the Northern forests who were.
the
I believe in
We
require an
tea.
There
is
The Hottentots
eagerly devour the marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course.
marrow
they are
soft.
And
herein,
of
They
is
get
fire.
This
probably better
than stall-fed
beef
and
slaughter-house pork to
make
man
of.
Give me
as
if
we
lived on the
marrow
of
koodoos devoured
raw.
strain
which
would migrate,
squatted; to
wild
which,
lands
where no
settler
has
methinks, I
am
already acclimated.
tells
us that the
most
delicious
perfume
of
and
grass.
like a wild
antelope, so
much a
WALKING
215
and remind us
I
no disposition to be
when
;
the trapper's
it is
musquash even
a sweeter
scent to
me
When
am reminded
of
dusty merchants'
A tanned
man,
skin
is
a
!
"The
white
pale white
man
"
"A
man
bathing
side of a Tahitian
was
by
dark green
fields."
How
near to good
is
what
is fair!"
So
would
say,
How
near to good
is
what
is
wild
freshes
The most alive is the Not yet subdued to man, its presence reOne who pressed forward incessantly him.
and never rested from his labours, who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded
216
He would
be climbing
future for
me
and
cities,
but in the
formerly,
When,
I
have analysed
my
partiality for
a natural
dazzled me.
the
my
There
my
which
tender places on
me
the names of
grow
there,
the
my
high -blueberry,
all
I often
house front on
plots
to have
Why
under
soil
my
in
my
house,
my
assemblage of
curiosities,
that
I call
my
It
is
WALKING
when the carpenter and mason have
done as
217
departed, though
much
The most
tasteful
front -yard
me
wearied
Bring your
sills
up
to the very
it
may
not be the
dry
cellar), so
on that side to
to
citizens.
made
walk
in,
in the
back way.
Yes, though,
if
it
were proposed to
of the
me
swamp,
should cer-
swamp.
rise
How
vain, then,
!
have
the
been
all
your labours,
spirits
citizens, for
me
My
infallibly
in proportion
to
outward dreariness.
or the wilderness
!
Give
me
and solitude
Burton says
of
it,
"
cordial, hospitable
and
single-
There
is
animal existence."
" On reentering
;
travelling
and turmoil
the air
as
if
seemed to
fail
and we
felt
every
I
moment
When
would recreate
218
and most
a
is
There
swamp as a sacred place, a sandwn sa/nctorum. The the strength, the marrow of Nature.
and
A
the same
trees.
man's health
requires as
his
many
acres of
meadow
to his prospect as
A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below, such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.
meats on which he feeds.
To
So
the
them
to dwell in or resort
to.
with man.
A
of
sold
bark in our
very
streets peeled
In
aspect
those
and
rugged
men's thoughts.
Ah
generate days of
collect a load of
my
native village,
when you
cannot
and
we no
The
civilised nations
Greece,
Rome, England
They
survive
WALKING
as long as the soil is
219
Alas for
not exhausted.
culture
little is to
be expected of a nation,
mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous
vegetable
fat,
bones.
the virgin
soil,"
assumes proportions
unknown everywhere
meadow, and
respects
else.''
think that the farmer displaces the Indian even beso makes himself more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a single straight line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp, at whose entrance might have been written the words which Dante read over the entrance to "Leave all hope, ye that enter," the infernal regions,
stronger and in
some
that
still
is,
where at one
though
time I saw
my
swimming
was
I
winter.
He had
another similar
all,
swamp which
because
it
was completely
re-
swamp, which
not part with
the
to
he would
of
for
mud which
it
contained.
And
it
that
man
intends
of forty
by the magic
of
his spade.
him only
220
down
as heirlooms
lance,
and the bog-hoe, rusted with the many a meadow, and begrimed with the
a hard-fought
field.
many
He had no
is
But
spade.
us.
In Literature
Dulness
is
It is the
uncivilised
in
Hamlet and
the
Iliad,
in
all
and Mythologies,
us.
As
the
tame, so
is
the wild
the mallardthought,
its
which
way above
the fens.
book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a
in the jungles of the East.
Genius
is
a light which
makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself, and not a taper lighted at the hearth-stone of the race, which pales before the light of common day.
Lake Poets,
Milton,
no quite
WALKING
fresh
221
It is
and in
an essentially
Greece and
tame and
Eome.
Her wilderness
a green wood,
is
her
wild
man
of
a Eobin Hood.
There
chronicles inform us
much of Nature herself. Her when her wild animals, but not
is
when the wild man in her, became extinct. The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry
another thing.
The poet
Where
Nature
1
is
He would
be a poet
who
who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved who derived his words as often as he used them, transplanted them to his page with earth
;
spring,
though
ay, to
sym-
adequately
do not know of any poetry to quote which expresses this yearning for the Wild.
this side, the best poetry is tame.
Approached from
I
find in any literature, ancient any account which contents me of that Nature with which even I am acquainted. You will
do not
know where to
or modern,
; !
222
perceive that I
demand
Mythology comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight and which it
;
still
bears,
wherever
its
pristine vigour
is
unabated.
but this
Isles,
is
as old as mankind,
makes the
soil in
which
it
thrives.
is
The West
of the East.
preparing to add
The
remains
Plate,
what the
valleys of the
Amazon, the
St.
produce.
Perchance, when, in the course of American liberty has become a fiction of the
it is
as
to
some extent a
by American
mythology.
The
may
is
which
the
common
sense.
as
WALKING
for
223
truth are
is,
the cabbage.
Some
expressions of
sensible,
reminiscent,
others raerely
as the phrase
of disease,
others prophetic.
Some forms
of health.
even,
The
geologist has
griffins, flying
man was
created,
and hence
of
faint
The Hindoos dreamed that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a
serpent; and
though
it
may
be an
unimportant
I confess
In short,
is
all
There
the
something in a strain
whether produced
voice,
take
which by
its
me
by wild
for
forests.
so
much
understand.
Give
me
my
friends
and neighbours
The
good
men and
lovers meet.
224
I love
wholly
as
when
gray
my
early in
cow breaks out of her pasture the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold,
neighbour's
It
is
the
crossing
the
the herd in
my
eyes,
already dignified.
The
seeds
of
and
earth,
an indefinite period.
sportiveness in cattle
is
Any
unexpected.
saw
rats,
They shook
and
a sudden
at once,
loud TFJioa
stiffened
and sinews
life
like
the locomotive.
Who
is
cried, "
Whoa
" to
mankind ?
many men,
and man, by
his
machinery,
meeting the
Whatever part the whip has touched is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a sids of any of the supple cat tribe, as we
speak of a
side of beef
%
and
steers
have to be broken
WALKING
before they can be
225
made tbe slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society.
Undoubtedly,
civilisation
;
all
men
fit
subjects for
like
dogs and
sheep, are
tame by inherited
disposition, this is
no
reason
why
Men are
in
is
may be reduced to the same level. main alike, but they were made several order that they might be various. If a low use to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as
in the
;
well as another
is
if
to be regarded.
Any man
the
Confucius
of the tiger
they are tanned, are as the skins of the dog and the
sheep tanned."
to
tame
to
make sheep
is
ferocious
for shoes
not
put.
When
looking over a
of men's
names
in a
who have written on a particular subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The name MenschikofF, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more human than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles and
Russians are to us, so are ours to them.
It is as
if
named by
lery
226
I see in
my mind
a herd
own
dialect.
The names
of
men
are of course as
known.
We
name
own,
because we
his playmates,
and
this rightly
tian name.
Some
his
but earned
and
name was
fame
tribes he
new name with every new exploit. It is when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame. I will not allow mere names to make distinctions
acquired a
pitiful
still
see
men
familiar
It
may be given to a savage own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as* ours.
I see that
my
neighbour,
who
WALKING
takes
it
227
It does
off
not adhere to
him when
some
in
passion or inspiration.
of his
some jaw-breaking or
Here
is this vast,
all
Nature, lying
affection for
we
are so early
to society, to
man on man,
sort of breeding in
and
in,
which
civilisa-
have a speedy
limit.
it is
When we
should
be growing children,
we
Give
me
soil,
Many
of
ally,
if,
would grow
instead of sitting
up
slumbered a
fool's allowance.
There
Niepce,
may be an
a Frenchman,
power in the sun's rays which produces a chemical effect, that granite rocks, and stone structures, and
statues of metal,
"are
all
228
visions
of
perish under
most
subtile of
But he observed that this change during underwent which "those bodies of restoring thempower possessed the the daylight
the agencies of the universe."
selves to their original conditions during the hours of
night,
when
this
them."
Hence
it
we know night and sleep are to the organic kingNot even does the moon shine every night, dom."
as
man
would not have every man nor every part of a cultivated, any more than I would have every
:
meadow and
mould
of the vegeta-
which
it
supports.
letters for the child to learn than
Cadmus
invented.
a kind
which
have referred.
have heard
of
We
power
;
Useful Knowledge.
said
that knowledge
is
is
and the
like.
Methinks there
equal need
what we
Knowledge, a knowledge
for
what
is
most
of our
WALKING
boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit ttat
229
we
is
us of the advantage of
call
What we
;
knowledge
knowledge.
By
but
files
of
newspapers
a myriad
facts, lays
them up
in his
memory, and
it
then
when in some
spring of his
life
he saunters abroad
were, goes
into the
and leaves
all his
harness behind
Diffusion of Useful
grass.
Go
to
You have
The spring
are
its
May
though
his
have heard
of
who kept
cow
Diffasion of Useful
Knowledge
his
A man's
ignorance sometimes
but beautiful,
while
man
knowledge, so
Which
is
the best
to deal with,
he who
knows
rare,
is
extremely
knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all.
My
my
desire for
knowledge
is
intermittent
but
my
desire to bathe
my
is
feet is perennial
we can
attain to
230
with Intelligence.
this higher
knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of
the insufficiency of
before,
all
that
we caUed Knowledge
of in our philo-
up
of the mist
by the
this,
sun.
Man
any
in
vorjaei'i,
after a
law which we
may
law.
obey.
knows no
It is
an unfortunate
before that
we were bound.
Live
the mist,
all
and
is
ledge
we
are
superior to
the laws, by
" That
is
bondage
:
liberation
all
all
other duty
is
other knowledge
It is
remarkable
been in
had.
I
how few events or crises there how little exercised we have our minds; how few experiences we have would fain be assured that I am growing
"
WALKING
apace and rankly, though
this dull
231
my
equanimity,
though
be with struggle
muggy
would be
well, if all
comedy
or farce.
Dante,
do not contemplate.
may scream
live for, ay,
at his name,
and to die
When,
as
at rare intervals,
is
some thought
visits one,
perchance he
the cars go
by without
goes
And
Traveller of the
windy
left
glens,
my ear
so soon
all
men
feel
an attraction drawing
to Nature.
men
appear to
me
for
among us
We
have to
Kotr/(,o9,
we do not
it
see clearly
why they
and we esteem
at best only a
232
For
into
my
live a sort of
border
life,
on the confines
of a world
which
transitional
and
tran-
my
whose
territories I
seem to
life
retreat
I call
Unto a
which
fire-fly
has shown
me the causeway to
it.
Nature
we have
in the
The walker
my
native town
is
defar-
were in some
away
field
on the confines
where
These
which I have
mist
;
set up,
appear dimly
still
as through a
fix
them
they
commonly
have no
acquainted
anniversary.
I
and
it
Farm
noon.
wood
if
as into
some noble
hall.
was impressed
as
WALKING
that part of the land called Concord,
233
unknown
to me,
to whom
on.
who
gone
called
The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. Their house was not obvious to vision the trees grew
;
through
it.
heard the
They seemed
on the sunbeams.
daughters.
path,
They
does
their neighbour,
notwithstanding
lives.
it
heard
him whistle
coat of
as he drove his
arms
is
simply a lichen.
saw
painted on
They
are of no politics.
I did
There was no
noise of labour.
weaving or spinning.
Yet
I did detect,
when
the
and hearing was done away, the finest as of a distant hive imaginable sweet musical hum, in May, which perchance was the sound of their
wind
lulled
thinking.
They had no
idle thoughts,
and no one
But
I find it difficult to
remember them.
even
They
while I
my mind
now
234
my best
of their cohabitancy.
families
move out
of Concord.
We
New
England that
us
every year.
laid waste,
sold
mill,
is scarcely a twig left for them to perch They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial season, perchance, a faint shadow
and there
on.
flits
tilings
tion,
we
itself.
They no
Those gra-a-ate
We
thinks
hug the earth, how rarely we mount we might elevate ourselves a little more.
!
We
might climb a
top of a
tree, at least.
found
tall
my
account in
It
was a
and though
it,
was
in
for I discovered
new mountains
so
much
more
of the
might have
WALKING
235
and
ten,
and yet
I certainly should
all,
them.
But, above
I discovered
around me,
of the
on the ends
it
topmost
heavenward.
topmost
spire,
and showed
it
to stranger
jurymen who
walked the
hunters,
streets,
for
it
was court-week,
and
to
like before,
but
Tell of
first
by them.
We
see only
Above
present.
all,
we cannot
is
He
blessed over
mortals
who
loses
no
moment
remembering the
belated.
past.
it
is
That
236
thought.
There
is
something suggested
he has
is
by
it
that
is
a newer testament,
to this
moment.
He
It is
an expression
a brag for
all
of the health
and soundness
of Nature,
the world,
healthiness
Where he
as of a spring
burst forth, a
new
no
fugitive
his
Who
master
many
The merit
from
all
freedom
plaintiveness.
The
move
he who can
in doleful
morning joy ?
or,
When,
stillness of
our wooden
house of mourning,
I
one of us
well, at
any
rate,"
senses.
of a small
brook,
and the
softest, brightest
morning sunlight
fell
on the
meadow
we
its
WALKING
beams.
It
237
was such a
light as
imagined a
moment
before,
and the
was so
warm and
this
make
a paradise of that
meadow.
When we
reflected that
was not a
but that
solitary
it
again,
infinite
number
of evenings,
The sun
house
it
sets
is visible,
lavishes
before,
on
cities,
and perchance,
there
is
set
where
hawk
to
or only a musis
some
little
We
light,
and
leaves, so softly
and
murmur
to
it.
The west
gleamed
side
of
ground
like the
boundary
home at evening. So we saunter toward the Holy Land, the sun shall shine more brightly than
us
till
one day
ever he has
warm and
side in
autumn.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
HEARTILY accept the motto, "That government and I should like to is best which governs least " see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, "That government is best which governs not at all " and when men are prepared for it, that
I
;
will
Government
at best but
governments are
The
many and
may
also
The standing army is only an arm of the standing "^ The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted
government.
before the people can act through it." Witness the
work
of comparatively a
as
for,
would not
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
239
is it
what
but a
tra-
some bend
It
man;
man
can
to his
'will.
It is a sort of
wooden gun
to the
people themselves.
for this
;
to satisfy that
Governments
show thus
how
successfully
men
own
Yet
advantage.
we must
which
all allow.
this govern-
ment never
of itself furthered
it
any
enterprise,
its
but by
It
got out of
It
way.
The
that
and
it
somewhat more,
times got in
its
if
way.
For government
an ex-
pedient
when
let
it
is
alone
by
it.
Trade and
of
commerce,
if
would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way and, if one were to
made
India-rubber,
judge these
men wholly by
240
chievous
railroads.
who put
obstructions
on
the
who
call
ask
government.
of
Let every
kind
and that
the
will be
reason why,
when
power
is
is
right,
But a
all cases
even as far
as
men
understand
it.
Can
in
applicable
Must the
Why
It is
think that
has every man a conscience, then 1 we should be men first, and subjects not desirable to cultivate a respect
afterward.
for
the
law, so
much
as for
the right.
The
is
only
to do at
said,
I think right,
It is truly
enough
that a corporation
cor-
poration of conscientious
conscience.
men is a corporation with a Law never made men a whit more just
"
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
and,
241
by means
it,
of injustice.
A
for
common and
law
is,
natural result of an
undue respect
that you
may
of soldiers, colonel,
all,
powder-monkeys, and
hill
common
sense
it
very steep
a damnable
that
it is
;
business in
they are
all
Now, what are they 1 Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the Visit service of some unscrupulous man in power f the Navy- Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as
peaceably inclined.
it
can
its
black
arts,
reminiscence of humanity, a
man laid out alive and may say, buried under accompaniments, though it may
be
" Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
;
The mass
are
of
men
men
They
the
standing
army,
and the
militia,
jailers,
242
purpose as well.
respect
than
men
of
straw or a lump of
They have
the
same
sort of
Yet
Others,
lawyers,
ministers,
politicians,
serve
the
state chiefly
to
as God.
and so necessarily
they are
most
part
and
it.
enemies by
treated
as
useful as a
office
"
am
too
Mgh-born
to be propertied,
To be
a secondary at control,
To any
He who
gives
but he who
to
them
is
pronounced a
How
this
does
it
political organ-
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
isation as
243
slave's
my government which
is
the
govern-
ment
also.
All
is,
men
that
and to
resist,
the
are
government,
great
is
when
its
tyranny or
its inefficiency
and unendurable.
But almost all say that such But such was the case, they
me
is
that this
certain foreign
commodities brought to
I
its ports, it
should not
make an ado
All machines
about
for I can
do without them.
;
and possibly
evil.
this does
enough
At any
it.
rate, it is a
make
a stir about
its
comes to have
In other words,
when
is
men
duty
to rebel
and revolutionise.
is
What makes
is
this
the
more urgent
is
the
fact,
overrun
the invading
army.
Paley, a
common
authority with
many on moral
civil
Civil
Government," resolves
;
obligation
into expediency
and he proceeds to
244
government cannot
the will of
God
ance
is
of the of the
and
and expense
of redressing it
on the
other."
Of
this,
he says, every
man
shall
judge for
himself.
But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do If I have unjustly wrested justice, cost what it may. a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to
This, according to
This people
and
to
cost
them
what
"
is
drab of
To have her
trail in the
dirt"
politicians
farmers here,
who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
245
what
it
may.
I quarrel
not with
far-off foes,
but
do the bidding
the latter
of,
whom
;
would be harmless.
is
We
the
are accustomed
but
not not
improvement
because
few
are
It is
many.
important that
many
the
that there
for
that
will
whole
lump.
There
are
thousands
who
;
are in opinion
opposed to slavery
nothing to put
who
yet in
effect -do
what
and do nothing
it
may
asleep over
of
them
both.
What
is
the price-
current
an
honest
man and
regret,
patriot
to-day?
sometimes
earnest
disposed,
They
hesitate,
and
but
they
and
well
they petition;
they do
will
nothing
wait,
in
and with
effect.
They
for others to
remedy the
to regret.
evil,
that they
may no
longer have
it
At
goes by them.
But
it
is
24:6
guardian of
it.
All voting
is
a
;
The
character
vote, pervitally
I
voters
as
I
is
not staked.
I cast
my
chance,
think right;
but I
am
not
am
Its obligation,
Even
should
is
it.
It is only
it
mercy power
of chance,
of the majority.
There
but
little
virtue in
When
the majority
it
will be because
because there
is
but
little
by their vote. They wiU then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the aboHtion of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.
I hear of a convention to
be held at Baltimore, or
Presidency,
made up
to
chiefly of
editors,
and men
and
to
1
who
what
Shall
are
is
politicians
it
by
profession;
but I think,
any independent,
decision they
intelligent,
respectable
man what
may come
we not have
honesty,
nevertheless'?
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
247
some
independent
votes?
who do
ventions
But no
man,
so called, has
more reason
to
of
him.
He
forthwith
is
himself
for
of
any purposes
of the
demagogue.
of
His
vote
is
any un-
principled
or hireling native,
who may
a man, and,
for a
man who
!
is
my
Our
to
statistics
there
?
square
one.
thousand
country
Hardly
here?
Fellow,
an
Odd
one
who may
be
knovm by
the
whose
world,
repair
;
first
is
and
chief concern,
donned the
short,
who, in
by the aid
has
of the
promised to
248
most enormous
other
at least, to
vs^rong;
he
may
him
of
;
still
properly have
it is his
if
concerns to engage
but
duty,
it
wash
If I
his
hands
to
it,
and,
it
he gives
give
practically his
contemplations, I
must
first,
first
do
must get
off
him
that he
may
of
templations too.
tolerated.
I
my
townsmen
or
say,
to help
to
put
down an
to
the slaves,
"
;
march and
Mexico
see
soldier
if
would go
and yet
these very
men have
The
each, directly
by
their allegiance,
so indirectly, at least,
by
is
their
money, furnished
a substitute.
war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught as if the
to serve in an unjust
;
it
hired one
that
it left off
the
name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own
meanness.
indifference
After the
;
first
its
becomes, as
it
were,
Mjimoral,
life
which
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
the most
slight
249
it.
disinterested
virtue
to
sustain
The
is
commonly
it
their
and support, are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most
serious obstacles to reform.
Some
are petitioning
of
the President.
Why
do they not
their
themselves,
and
its
the
State,
?
quota into
treasury
Union ?
the State
And have
How
merely,
if
can a
man be
it ?
satisfied to entertain
an opinion
it,
and enjoy
Is there
any enjoyment in
If
he
is
aggrieved?
you
are
Action
it is
essentially
revolutionary,
divides
ay,
it
divides
the
250
him from
the
divine.
shall we be content to obey we endeavour to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we
them, or shall
transgress
them
at
once?
this,
Men
generally,
under
such a government as
them.
They think
that, if
they should
resist,
the
remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform ?
Why
does
it
does
it
it
not cherish
its
wise minority?
it is
Why
does
hurt
Why
not encourage
citizens to
be on the
it
alert to
point out
its faults,
would have
ex-
them ?
Why does
it
One would
denial of
its
and
practical
contemplated by government;
assigned
its definite, its
why
has
it
not
suitable
and proportionate
put in
that
I
penalty
If
man who
by any law
of those
who
placed
him there
but
if
he should
steal ninety
is
soon per-
CiViL DISOBEDIENCE
If
251
the injustice
is
go, let it
go
per-
chance
will
it
will
out.
wear smooth,
If
certainly
the machine
wear
may
remedy
such a
but
if it is
of
nature that
requires
you
Let your
life
What
have to do
is
to see, at
any
rate, that I
do not lend
As
ways.
will
know
not of such
life
time,
and a man's
attend
to.
be gone.
have other
affairs to
came into
this world,
not chiefly to
it,
make
it
this a
good
be
good or bad.
;
A man
and
not necessary
It is
not
my
and,
it is
theirs to petition
petition,
me
my
do then
But in
this case
way:
but
its
very Constitution
the
evil.
This
may
and con-
sideration
the
deserves
birth
it.
So
is
all
252
I
do not hesitate
their
who
call
them-
draw
till
support, both
in person
and property,
that
enough
if
they have
God on
their side,
Moreover, any
man more
I
meet
this
American government, or
its repre-
once a year
;
gatherer
this
is
mode
;
in
it
which a man
;
situated as I
am
necessarily meets
and
it
then
me and
most
effectual, and, in
the indispensablest
mode
it
with
it
on
this
satisfaction with
and
is
to
deny
is
all,
then.
My
civil
neighbour,
the tax-gatherer,
the very
for
ever
it is,
after
with
man I have to deal with, men and not with parchvoluntarily chosen
ment that
I quarrel,
and he has
is
to be an agent of
the government.
How
as
shall
he
know
well
what he
and does
an
is
officer of
obliged to
as a neighbour and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neigh-
bourliness
without a ruder
and
more
impetuous
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
253
I
know
if
one thousand,
if
one hundred,
ten
men whom
ay,
if
I could
name,
only,
if
ten honest
this
men
of
one
honest man,
to
in
State
Massachusetts, ceasing
hold slaves,
were actually to
county
jail therefor, it
of slavery in
America.
For
it
how
small
the beginning
may seem
ever.
is
to be
what
is
once well
done
is
done
:
foij
about
it
that
we say
many
man.
my
who
bassador,
of
the
question
human
being
the
Council
the
Chamber, instead of
prisons of Carolina,
threatened
with
were to
sit
down
is
the prisoner of
so anxious to foist
upon her
sister,
unjustly,
man
is also a prison.
The
spirits, is
by her own act, as they have already It is there put themselves out by their principles. that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on
of the State
254
parole,
his
and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of race, should find them ; on that separate, but more
free
those
who
the
only-
man
can abide
would be
the ear of
lost there,
any think that their influence and their voices no longer afflict the State, that they would not be as an
enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice
who
has experienced a
little
in his
own person.
your whole
it
influence.
A minority is
;
powerless while
it is
then
but
it is irresistible
when
it
by
its
whole
in
weight.
If the alternative is to
keep
just
men
prison, or give
up war and
hesitate
which to choose.
a thousand
men
to
were
not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as
it
would be
pay
This
if
is,
a peaceable revolution,
any such
shall I
possible.
If
officer,
asks me,
"But what
do ?"
my answer
" If
you
really wish to
office."
When
the
is
officer
accomplished.
Is there
when
the conscience
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
is
255
real
wounded ? Through
this
wound a man's
man-
offender,
his
goods,
because
who
and consequently
State,
commonly
small
much time
State
in accumulating property.
To such the
service,
renders
comparatively
and a
if
slight tax is
wont
If
to appear exorbitant,
it
particularly
by
special
who
lived
itself
it
of him.
But the
comparison,
rich
not
to
make any
invidious
is
always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue
for
obtains
money comes between a man and his objects, and them for him and it was certainly no great
;
virtue to obtain
it.
It puts to rest
many
is
questions
new
question which
it
puts
it.
superfluous one,
how
to
spend
ground
tunities
is
of
man
The when he is
he entertained
when he was
poor.
Christ answered
"
Show
256
me
and
one took a
if
it,
is,
if you are
and gladly enjoy the advantages of Csesar's government, then pay him back some of his
own when
he
demands
it;
"Eender
is Caesar's,
" and to G-od those things which are God's, leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which ; for they did not wish to know.
freest of
my neighbours,
say about the
whatever they
may
of the question,
and
their
the
dread
the
consequences
their
property
and
part,
families of disobedience to
I
For
I
my own
when
it
presents
all
my
property, and
me
and
my
This
hard.
This
makes
at the
It will
it
impossible for a
man
perty
You must
and
raise
You must
up and
affairs.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
257
if
rich in
Turkey even,
" If a state
he will be in
respects a
ment.
the
Confucius said
of
;
is
governed by
principles
reason,
if
subjects of
principles
shame
of
a state
riches
reason,
subjects
of
shame."
No
until I
tection of Massachusetts
to be extended to
me
in
is
my
liberty
am
an estate at
home by peaceful
life.
my
property and
It costs
me
every
than
it
would
to obey.
I should feel as if I
Some
met me
in behalf of
and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose
the Church,
preaching
"Pay,''
my
it said,
jail."
declined to pay.
man
saw
fit
to
pay
it.
why
the school-
schoolmaster,
but I
I
supported myself
did
by
the
voluntary subscription.
not
see
why
its tax-bill,
demand,
as this in
258
writing
:
" Know
all
men by
I,
Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have
not joined."
he has
it.
The
State,
made
it
a like
though
it
said that
name them,
from
all
I should
know where
on
to find a complete
I
list.
was put
two
soHd
stone,
wood and
iron, a foot
light,
I could of
me
as
if
were
mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had
never thought to avail
itself of
my
services in some
way.
saw
that,
if
tween
me and my townsmen,
more
difficult
moment
feel confined,
great
all
I alone of
my
not
my
They
plainly did
know how
to treat
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
259
who
are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought
that
my
chief
desire
was
to
stand on the
other
I could not
how
my
medilet or
tations,
hindrance,
ous.
and
tJiey
were really
all
to
punish
my
body
I
just as boys,
if
at
whom
they have a
half-witted,
spoons,
foes,
was timid as a lone woman with her silver and that it did not know its friends from its
I lost all
and
it.
my
it,
and
pitied
It
is
wit or
I
was
my own
What
the strongest.
They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of rmn being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What
force has a
sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, " Your money or your
Ufe,"
It
why may be
:
it
my money
;
do
to
as
I do.
; ;
260
I
am
am
that,
by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best
chestnut
they can,
till
and destroys
its
the other.
nature,
it
dies
and so a man.
The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. ^ The prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up" and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into
;
the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer, as " a first-rate fellow and a clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in .the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me there and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to' be an honest man, of course and, as the world goes, I believe he was. "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn but I never did it. " As near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much longer but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated. He occupied one window, and I the other and I saw, that, if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed on, and heard the history of the various occupants of that room for I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the
; ; ; ; ; ;
'
to
pay the
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
261
town where verses are composed, whioli are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them. I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never see him again but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp. It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the evening sounds of the village for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village-inn, a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about. In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in
; ;
the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left ; but my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a neighbouring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till noon ; so he bade me good-day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again. When I came out of prison, for some one interfered, and paid that tax,' I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common, such as he observed who went in a youth, and emerged a tottering and gray-headed man ; and yet a change had to my eyes come over the scene, the town, and State, and country, greater than any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom that I lived could be trusted as good neighbours and friends their friendship was for summer weather only that they did not greatly propose to do right ; that they were a distinct race
^ This was not Emerson, as has been supposed, but Thoreau's mother and aunts. The jailer, who is still living, says the pay-
"mad
as the devil."
262
from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are that, in their sacrifices to humanity, they ran no risks, not even to their property that, after all, they were not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my
; ;
neighbours harshly for I believe that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail in their village. It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, How do ye do ? " My neighbours did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct and in half an hour, for the horse was soon tackled, was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen. This is the whole history of " My Prisons."
; '
'
tax,
because
as I
am am
as desirous of being
a good neighbour
as for supporting
am
of being a
schools, I
doing
my
part to educate
my
fellow-
countrymen now.
It is for
no particular item
it.
in the
pay
I
I simply wish to
from
it effectually.
course of
my
am
but
the dollar
I will still
innocent,
of
effects
my
the
allegiance.
In
fact,
I quietly declare
war with
is
State, after
my
fashion,
though
make what
usual
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
If others
263
of
is
demanded
me,
own
case, or rather
in-
jail, it
is
how
This, then,
is
my
position at present.
his
But one
case, lest
cannot be too
his action
much on
guard in such a
men.
only
what belongs
to himself
I think sometimes.
Why,
;
mean
if
well
they
knew how why give your neighbours this pain to But I think treat you as they are not inclined to ?
again, this is
no reason
why
I should
do as they
do,
much
greater pain of
When many
ill
will,
of
you a few
is
such
their present
possibility,
on
your
side,
millions,
why
expose yourself
You do not
waves, thus
resist cold
obstinately;
264
But
just
in
proportion as
force,
but partly a
to
human
of
is
force,
have relations
those millions as to so
many
mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal possible, first and instantaneously, from them to
the
Maker
fire,
of
themselves.
But,
is
put
my
the
fire,
there
I
no appeal to
I
or to the
Maker
of
and
If I
could
satisfied
with
men
as
are,
my
requisi-
and expectations
and say
is
it is
And, above
all,
there
this
difference
between
resisting this
and
with some
effect
nation.
do not wish to
make
fine distinctions,
my
neighbours.
seek rather, I
may
am
conform to them.
taxre-
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
265
And
any time we alienate Our love or industry from doing it honour, We must respect effects and teach the soul Matter of conscience and religion,
if at
And
all
its faults,
is
American government
a great
are,
many
;
respects,
for,
very
such as
many have
them
;
described
them
a
what
are,
have
described
seen
shall
from
higher
still,
and
the highest,
who
or that
1
all
me
It is
many moments
man
is
thoughtis
fancy-free, imagination-free,
to
that which
be to
not
him, unwise
The authority
of
am
obey those
in
better than
I,
and
many
266
who
neither
:
so
it
is
still
an impure one
must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and proThe progress from perty but what I concede to it. an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited
monarchy
to a democracy, is a progress
toward a true
philo-
we
know
ment 1
it,
Is it
man?^There
all its
own power
all
which even
it
inconsistent with
it,
its
own
repose,
nor embraced by
it,
who
it
kind of
ripened,
fruit,
and suffered
would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined,
but not yet anywhere seen.
CK
will
pardon
me
I
my
forced myself.
Little as
know
of
Captain
my
my
It costs us
just.
We
what
can at
of,
least express
him and
his companions,
and that
is
now
propose to do.
First, as to his history.
as
much
of
as possible,
most
I
am
officer in
in Connecticut
father to Ohio.
heard him
furnished
;
who
1812
army
there, in the
war
of
that he
1 Eead to the citizens of Concord, Mass., Sunday evening, October 30, 1859.
268
accompanied him to the camp, and assisted him in that employment, seeing a good deal of military life,
if
for
much
experience and
said that few
lead
in battle.
of
He
pecuniary
cost, of firing
He
a
rate,
disgust
him with
indeed, to excite in
him a
great abhor-
rence of
so
much
so,
by the offer of some petty office in the army, when he was about eighteen, he not only declined that, but he also refused to train when warned, and was fined for it. He then resolved that he would never have anything to do withfany war, unless it were a war for liberty, When the troubles in Kansas began, he sent
f
the Free
State men,
as
fitting
weapons
he had
telling
would
counsel.
follow,
to
assist
them with
hand and
This, as
you
all
and
it
was through
other's, that
For aJart
went to Europe
as an
269
made many
stance, that
rich,
original observations.
He
it
said,
for in-
he saw
why
the
(I
soil
of
England was so
was) so poor,
think
which they
cultivate,
but
villages, at night.
make
vations.
I should
man
in
and
its
permanence of
this
Union.
Slavery he deemed to be
determined foe.
He was by descent and birth a New England farmer, a man of great common-sense, deliberate and He practical as that class is, and tenfold more so. stood at was like the best of those who Concord Bridge once, on Lexington Common, and on Bunker
Hill,
was
him.
Ethan
whom
he
may
field.
their country's
j
when
A "Western writer
many
perils,
''
says, to
as
rights,
wear a
270
He
old
Alma Mater
is
He was
pap that
there furnished.
of
As he phrased
of
"I
know no more But he went to the great university of the West, where he sedulously pursued the study of Liberty, for which he had early betrayed a fondness, and having taken many degrees, he finally commenced the public practice of Humanity in Kansas, as you all know. Such were his humanities and not any study
calves.''
your
of
grammar.
slanting the
He would have left a Greek accent wrong way, and righted up a falling
class of
man.
He was
Puritans.
one of that
whom we
kill
hear a great
all,
most
part, see
nothing at
him.
the
died
It
would be in vain to
He
Why
should he not
Some
of the Puritan
settled in
New
else
England.
They were a
something
that
time.
They were
but
;
nor
Eepublicans,
men
of
not think-
much of rulers who did not fear God, not making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates.
"In
as I
his
he permitted no
profanity; no
man
of
loose morals
was
suffered to
"
271
would
fever,
and cholera,
together in
my
camp, than a
... It is a mistake, sir, that our people make, when they think that bullies are the best fighters, or that they are the fit men to
man without
principle.
Give men,
God-fearing
men
if
men
them
me men who
of
good
respect
I will
oppose
as these
Buford
rufiians.'
He
or
said that
under him,
what he could
would
do,
he had but
little
He was
of recruits
whom
dozen,
faith.
among them
whom
he had perfect
When
few a
to a
manuscript book,
it,
book "
his
I think
he called
company in Kansas, and the rules by which they bound themselves and he stated that several of them had already sealed the contract with their blood.
;
When some
a chaplain,
troop,
it
a perfect Cromwellian
who
could
fill
that
office
worthily.
easy enough
I believe
that he
had prayers
a
evening,
nevertheless.
He was
man
of
272
your
table,
excusing
by
saying that he
fare hard, as
became a
himself for
diflficult
A man
man
of
of rare
speech, as of action
ideas
a transcendentalist above
principles,
and
that
was what
dis-
tinguished him.
Not
yielding to a
whim or transient
life.
within bounds.
his speech here,
in
to
his
pent-up
fire.
ordinary chimney-flue.
of
away
an experienced
soldier,
They had a
in
hung."
He was
not
the least a
stituents anywhere,
j
but to
tell
;
own
resolution
strong,
he
appeared
incomparably
seemed
of
of
an ordinary
merely
king.
As
and prudence,
scarcely a
I will
say,
that at a time
when
man from
the Free
273
enemy.
he
still
When,
for instance,
he saw a knot
course,
and one
of his sons,
and proceed to
and run on
his line
he was out
When
Kansas at
large a
he could
by
saying, " It
is
Much
in
of the
But though
it
swamp,
him.
there
commonly did not care to go in after could even come out into a town where were more Border Euffians than Free State
his foes
He
274
long,
little
men, and transact some business, without delaying and yet not be molested ; for, said he, " No
handful of
men were
willing to undertake
it,
and a large body could not be got together in season." As for his recent failure, we do not know the facts
about
it.
It
was evidently
far
desperate attempt.
is
Not
was
it
a failure,
or did it
show a want
of
not months,
court-room on his
way and
telling
it
what he had
?
done,
was not
profitable to
and
this,
He
reason
why
cause,
a kind
of
armour which
the time came,
lives
When
they did
275
make
act,
and
its effects.
many
does
as
to a
town through-
who think much as the present speaker about him and his enterprise. I do not hesitate
they are an important and growing party.
to say that
We
aspire to
we breathe
not told.
are
Why
do they
still
dodge the
of
truth
They
so
anxious
because
dim
distinctly
the United
if
it
had
They at most only criticise the tactics. Though we wear no crape, the thought of that man's
succeeded.
position
and probable
seen
fate is spoiling
many
a man's
If
any
who has
of.
successfully
made
If
there
him
to fatten easily
my
pillow,
and when
wrote in
the dark.
276
On
my
I
respect for
my
fellow-men,
is
except as one
may outweigh
a million,
not being
which newspaper writers and men generally speak of this event, as if an ordinary malefactor, though one of unusual " pluck," as the Governor of
way
in
Virginia
is
gamest
man he
ever saw,"
had
was
He
when
he looked so brave.
neighbours.
dead, one of
It turns
of,
what sweetness
first
my
When we
heard at
that he was
" he died as
my
suggested a likeness in
living.
him dying
to
my
neighbour
that
"he threw
pray
he
resisted
their
the government.
lives,
"i
man
for attack-
What
will he gain
by
it
"
as
if
his pockets
by
this
enterprise.
this
of gain but in
"
wordly
if
party,
vote of thanks,
must be a
it."
failure.
gain anything by
and such a
soul
277
not.
when good
seed
is
planted,
good
when you
is
bury a hero
that
This
to
The momentary charge at Balaclava, in obedience a blundering command, proving what a perfect
is,
been
by a poet laureate but the steady, and the most part successful, charge of this man, for
an
infinitely higher
that, as
command,
is
as
much
man
is
superior to a
Do you
"Served him
is
right,"
undoubtedly
insane.''
their sane,
and
wise,
down
into a wolf's
The
nam.
reading of
the Church in
unless
it
278
some pastors are wolves in sheep's clothing. "The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions " even, might dare to protest against that wolf. I have heard of boards, and of American boards, but
it
till
And
women, and children, by families, buying a "lifemembership " in such societies as these. A lifeYou can get buried membership in the grave
!
Our
There
is
foes
are in
all
about
us.
divided against
itself,
woodenness
of both
is
of vitality in
man, which
fear,
kinds.
We
are
The
curse
is
the worship
into
is
of idols,
much an
This
man
was an exception,
political
A church
broad and
churches
!
exists
Away
with your
tall
style of out-houses.
The modern
to say
all
Christian
is
man who
has consented
279
after-
him go
straight to
ward.
Now
I lay
me
down
and he
shall
is
the time
when he
go to his "long
He has
He shows
and the blacks
week.
The
evil is
Many, no doubt, are weU by constitution and by habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by
but a stagnation of
nounce this
man
know that
they could
We
space
;
dream
but
let
and
races of
some
occur in
distance
our midst,
and we
They
are
discover,
often,
this
and
this strangeness
nearest neighbours.
Chinas,
and
Islands.
all
at once,
a
it
We
was that we never got beyond compliments and surfaces with them before we become aware of as many versts between us and them as
discover
;
why
town.
280
us, or
dumb steppes
It is the difference of
faith,
and
and mountains, that make the true and impassable boundaries between individuals and between states.
None but
come plenipotentiary
week
and
Some voluminous
It
sheets decided
full
was as
if
a publisher
New
Testament,
journal
filled,
last
speech.
The same
them was
too
steep.
been
To
men
Office-
and speech-makers, who do not so much as lay an honest egg, but wear their breasts bare upon Their great game is the game of an egg of chalk
seekers
!
game
hub,
of
the platter,
at
hub!
and
political con-
of a living
man.
281
object not
omitted, as to
Liberator called it
what they have Even the " a misguided, wild, and apparently
so to
inserted.
much
insane effort."
As
and
know an
editor in the
country
who
anything which
number
it
of his subscribers.
They do not
believe that
would be expedient.
1
How
And
truth
If
we do not say
nobody
some
travelling auctioneers,
who
order to
Eepublican
morning
thing
tion,
by the
nor
true
"
deluded
fanatics,"
''
mistaken
men,"
" insane,"
;
these
men
or " crazed."
It suggests
what a
we
men "
is
who know
buttered, at
A
once,
man
on
all sides,
humane deed, and at we hear people and parties declarnor countenance him to do
It can't
it,
do
it,
in
my
past career."
I,
for one,
am
not interested to
I don't
know
that I
I think it is
mere egotism,
so
time.
Ye
needn't take
much pains
to
wash your
skirts of him.
No
intelli-
282
gent
man
will ever
be convinced that
lie
was any
He went and came, as he himself creature of yours. informs us, " under the auspices of John Brown and
nobody
ceive
else."
how many
correctly
The Republican party does not perhis failure will make to vote more than they would have them. They have
&
Co.,
but they
vote.
little
He
sails,
and
the
they
may
What though he
method
or his
magnanimity.
Would you
that,
is like,
or likely, to you?
?
Do you think that you would lose your reputation so What you lost at the spUe, you would gain at the
bung.
If
all
this,
They
are
him
modest in
his
the subject of
when
he
of indignation unparalleled."
its
The
ocean
slave-ship
;
is
dying victims
;
new
283
be obtained,
ments of
way by which deliverance is to by " the quiet diffusion of the sentihumanity," without any " outbreak." As if
is
companied by
all
its
deeds, and
you could
disperse them,
dust.
What
the
is
The bodies
That
is
of the
way we
and
its senti-
ments with
Prominent and
deal
influential editors,
accustomed to
lower
with politicians,
men
of
an infinitely
on the
They do not know the man. principle of revenge." They must enlarge themselves to conceive of him. I have no doubt that the time will come when they will begin to see him as he was. They have got to conceive of a man of faith and of religious principle,
and not a politician or an Indian
not wait
till
;
of a
man who
did
of
Walker may be considered the representative the South, I wish I could say that Brown was the
He was
life
a superior man.
He
in comparison with
He
human
For once we
of politics
and dust
284
No man in into the region of truth and manhood. America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing
himself for a man, and the
all
governments. can of us
all.
He
false issues,
to defend him.
He was more
American
than a
match
voters, or
office-holders
create.
He
When
man
stands
up
of
and vengeance
a whole
vilest
literally ly
body,
even
though
he were
of
late
the
himself,
the
it,
spectacle
Liberators,
is
a sublime one,
didn't
Do
ye know
ye
ye Tribunes, ye Republicans?
and
we become
respect.
criminal in comparison.
yourselves
of your
He needs
none
are not
not
feel
may
say.
little,
am aware
;
that I anticipate a
that he was
along found
foes
case, I
have
all
to those
who
; !
285
Brown
in the Massachusetts
know.
man whom am
his
contemporary.
What
a contrast,
is
when we turn
to that political
party which
plot out of
so anxiously shuffling
him and
his
its
one
who will
and
all
up
arms to annul
Insane
law,
!
least as
as
many
at
all
and a
Kansas.
foe,
Ask
the tyrant
who
is
!
his
most
the
dangerous
thousands
the sane
man
or the insane
Do
best,
who have
rejoiced at
his deeds in
him insane 1
Such a use
of this
word
it,
persist in using
Eead
his
How
On
the one side, half-brutish, half-timid questioning on the other, truth, clear as lightning, crashing into
their obscene temples.
They
are
made
to stand with
286
Pilate,
and Gesler, and the Inquisition. How ineffecand action and what a void their
!
They
It
work.
What have Massachusetts and the North sent a few sane representatives to Congress for, of late
years
?
to
?
what kind
of. senti-
ments
down,
do not match
Brown, on the
house,
manly
directness
and
force,
and
that
He was
If
too fair a
specimen
of
man
to
Who,
you read
his
no
Truth
is
his inspirer,
He
speech,
a Sharpe's
the
!
rifle of infinitely
range.
And
words
I
New York
It does
tion verbatim
it is
know
of
what undying
made the
vehicle.
who can
287
the ring
the principal in
it
insane.
It has
of
habits of
I can
not otherwise.
So
far as
am
fully.
my
word,
spirit,
sir."
talk
have no test by which to detect a noble amalgam to combine with his pure gold. man, no They mix their own dross with it.
It
is
relief to
testimony of his
more
but frightened
jailers
and hangmen.
know
him again on
this
subject.
He
says
"
They
are themselves
mistaken
is
who
man.
... He
cool,
collected,
and indomitable,
and
to
it is
humane
with
his
prisoners.
And
he
inspired
me
man
of truth.
He
is
and
Mr. Wise), "but firm, truthful, and intelligent. His Colonel men, too, who survive, are like him.
.
Washington says that he was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw in defying danger and death. With
one son dead by his side, and another shot through,
he
felt
held his
288
and to
Of
Brown,
Stephens,
and
Almost the
was hard to say which was most firm." first Northern men whom the slaveof
The testimony
valuable,
is
of the
man
or his
conspiracy.
He
ary
is
ruflSan, fanatic,
is
madman."
"All
What
when
this
is
I regard
We
it
by the
light
of history.
needed to see
its
itself.
When
a govern-
the liberators of
the slave,
It
is
I see
There
slaves
sits
;
This most
hypocritical
its
and
diabolical
seat
on the gasping
foiu-
and
inquires
me
for
"!
Am
I not
"
289
slave of
on
make a
hang you."
government; but
is
We
what a monster
not represented.
a government
and the
but
I
top of
its
on their stumps
when
their legs
were shot
oif,
by such a government
The only government that I recognise, and it how few are at the head of it, or how small its army, is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. What shall we think of a government to which all
matters not
and
just
men
standing between
it
and those
whom
!
it
oppresses?
crucifies
Treason
I
Where
its rise
governments.
thought?
fountains
resistance
of
to
man.
When
and is first makes and for ever you have caught and hung all
origin in,
human rebels, you have accomplished nothing but your own guilt, for you have not struck at the fountain-head. You presume to contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets and rifled cannon U
these
290
point not.
Can
all
cannon-founder
maker ? Is the form casts it more essential in which the founder thinks he himself 1 than the constitution of it and of The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this
tempt matter to turn against
condition
;
and Massachusetts
is
they
who
rule
here.
was Massa-
and she
its
will
have
is
to
pay
own
run to
us,
and
Is
protects
work
to
the government,
so-called.
not that
government
and becoming
obliged
contemptible to mankind
If private
men are
weak and
perform menial
is
Of
course, that
but the
shadow
of a
necessitates
a Vigilant Committee.
What
should
we
think
of the
whom worked
is
;
in secret a
But such
each has
Vigilant
And, to a certain extent, these crazy governments recognise and accept this relation.
291
for
work
you
it."
And
with
that.
it
its
of its labour
on repairing
as I go by,
When
work sometimes,
who in winter
their barrel
contrive to turn a
business.
And what
1
made
to hold
They
the
Underground Eailroad,
is
breadth of
its
Such
a
as
is
government is losing power and respectability surely as water runs out of a leaky vessel, and
held
I hear
by one that can contain it. many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority 1 Would you have had him wait till that time came'! till you and I came over to him 1 The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to pass
Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, culled out
muster.
of
of
many
thousands,
if
not millions
apparently a
man
ready to
292
benefit
of
fellow-man.
It
may be
doubted
if
there were
as
many more
;
their
I
equals in
these
only;
far
These alone
men you
That was the greatest comwhich this country could pay them. pliment They gallows. She has tried a long time, were ripe for her
could select to
be hung.
she has
the
When
and
and
his
son-in-law, not to
for
humanely
to
if
upon
it,
spectacle.
cause,''
any organ,
as the phrase
is,
monotonously and
fatal to
way
so as to
be
let alone
suspected.
by the government, he might have been It was the fact that the tyrant must give
the reformers of the day that I know.
him from
It
all
was
man
has a per-
by
293
to
rescue the
slave.
They who
Such
will be
more
be
shocked by his
life
I shall not
who
speak for
when I say, that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me. At any rate, I do not
it is
think
life
is
in talking or writing
continuously inspired,
and
so.
do not
nor to be
stances in
unavoidable.
We
community by deeds
at
every day.
!
and handcuffs
!
Look
at
Look
at
the gallows
!
Look
the
We
on the outskirts
So we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and mainI know that the mass of my countrymen think that the only righteous use that can be made of Sharpe's rifles and revolvers is to fight duels with them, when we are insulted by other nations, or tain slavery. to
or the like.
and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them.
294
said to
have
cleared
is
again.
The
question
not about the weapon, but the spirit in which you No man has appeared in America, as yet, use it.
who loved
tenderly.
so
He
and he
laid it
down
is
life
violence
by soldiers, but by is much citizens, not so by laymen as by peaceable much the Gospel, no't so by the fighting ministers of the Quakers, and not so much by Quaker sects as by Quaker women 1 as men by
that which
encouraged, not
me
that there
is
such a
fact
the
It seems
;
as
if
no
man had
for
in order to die
you must
have
lived.
I don't that
case,
and funerals
pretty
much
as they
had rotted
or
sloughed along.
hole
No
dug somewhere. Let the dead bury their dead. The best of them fairly ran down like a clock.
Franklin,
^
Washington, they
were
I hear
many pretend
!
Nonsense
got
life
defy them to do
in
it.
They
haven't
enough
them.
They'll
eulogists
deliquesce like
spot
fungi,
mopping the
where they
Only
295
Do you
!
No
there's
no hope
You
after school.
We
make
punishment,
taking
We
lives,
Memento mori!
sentence which
gravestone once.
Do your
you
If
to begin,
know when
to end.
how
how
to live.
man's acts
be the
do.
It
will
on the
acts
and
heart,
called
commercial and
a
How many
suicide has
lately
!
contemplating
now something
to live for
One writer says that Brown's peculiar monomania made him to be " dreaded by the Missourians as a
supernatural being.''
midst of us cowards
that thing.
is
He
is
just
He shows
He
296
Newspaper
a proof
of
his insanity that he thought he was appointed to do that he did not suspect this work which he did,
himself
possible
in these
They talk as if it were imfor a moment could man be "divinely appointed" that a work whatever as if vows to do any days
!
could only be somebody appointed by the President, They talk as if a man's or by some political party. and his continued life, be it of were a failure, death
success.
what a cause this man devoted When himself, and how religiously, and then reflect to what cause his judges and all who condemn him so angrily
and fluently devote themselves,
as far apart as the heavens
I see that they are
The amount
of
it
is,
know
well enough
Who
man
?
is
it
Brown be hung
Is there
Is it indispensable to
any Northern
this
man
also
to the Minotaur?
distinctly.
it,
say so
done,
lie.
While
these
are
being
a screeching
!
Think
it
of
him,
as
mock hero, nor the representative of any party. man such as the sun may not rise upon again in
A
this
297
the costhest
those in captivity
him is to hang him at the end of a rope You who pretend to care for Christ crucified, consider what you are about to do to him who offered himcan put
self
and
all
the
the world
justly
life of
punished
a
man without
it is
an
own dissolution. Is it not possible that an indimay be right and a government wrong 1 Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made 1 or declared by any number of men to be good, if they
vidual
are not
good?
Is there
any necessity
for a man's
Is it the intention of
law-makers
men
shall
be hung ever 1
What
within you
up your mind,
not accept
whatever,
and
do not believe
in
of attacking or defending a
own ground,
298
it
is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves.
they were the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another
If
thing.
What
1
kind
of laws
men
am
I plead
his immortal
is
and so
it
not
Some
;
this
not without
;
He
is
any longer
I see
he
is
an angel
it
of light.
now
that
himself.
may
a prolonged
any life, can do as much good as his death. "Misguided"! "Garrulous"! "Insane"! "Vin!
dictive "
he,
So ye write in your
easy-chairs,
floor of the
and thus
Armoury,
prompt-
No man
sent
me
here
it
was
my own
my
Maker.
acknowledge no master
strain he proceeds,
:
human
form."
And
think,
in
addressing his
who
"I
my
friends,
wrong
299
it
right for
free those
interfere with
you
wilfully
age."
is,
in
my
man
can render to
God."
to
them ; that
is
why
am
here
not to gratify
spirit.
sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you, and as precious in
the sight of God."
my
You
don't
see
it.
respect
the
and weakest
of coloured people,
much
as I
do
you had
better,
you people
sooner you
dispose of
are
prepared
easily.
You may
me
very
am
nearly disposed of
to be settled,
now; but
yet."
this
the
end
of
that
is
not
time
when
the
and, with
300
Independence,
will
national gallery,
wten
slavery shall be no
liberty to
till
more
We
shall then be at
weep
for Captain
Brown.
then,
we
will take
our revenge.
LIFE
At
WITHOUT PEINOIPLE
me
as
much
as
He
There was,
his
in the lecture.
compliment that
asked
I
my
answer.
am
as
well
happens,
as if
if
such a rare
delighted,
tool.
Commonly,
is
only to
their
land,
since
know how I am a
I
or,
at
have
They never
shell.
will
go to law for
my meat
302
theirs,
I declined.
take
it
when
is
am
where,
business,
fool
and not
wiU
assent to
and I
them a
They have
I
am
determined that
So now
readers.
my
my
readers,
and
have not
been much
of a traveller, I will
off,
a thousand miles
As the time
and retain
lives.
is
all
the criticism.
is
a place of business.
What
an
in-
am awaked
is
the panting of
the locomotive.
interrupts
my
dreams.
to see
There
no sabbath.
I
would be
glorious
mankind
It is nothing
they are
commonly
for granted
An
If
Irishman, seeing
it
me making
out of a
a minute in the
fields,
took
a
my wages.
window when an
infant,
and so made a
LIFE
cripple for
life,
WITHOUT PEINCIPLE
303
or scared
Indians, it
is
incapacitated for
business
to
life
is
more opposed
itself,
to poetry, to
philosophy,
business.
ay,
than this
incessant
There
is
who
is
going to
meadow.
three
head to
me
to spend
The
result will
money
to
If
an industrious
choose to devote
myself
profit,
to
more
real
though but
money, they
idler.
may
be inclined
to look
on
me
as
an
Nevertheless, as I do
not need the police of meaningless labour to regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praiseworthy
in
this
fellow's
undertaking,
any more
to
than
in
many an
I
enterprise of our
it
own may be
or foreign govern-
him
a
or them,
dififerent
my
education
at
school.
If a of
man walk
is
if
in the
woods
of
for love of
them
half
each day, he
in danger
being regarded as a
loafer; but
he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and
304
enterprising citizen.
its
interest in
to
Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and
employed now.
summer morning,
one of
my
neighbours
heavy hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an atmosphere of industry, his day's work begun, his brow commenced to sweat, a reproach to all sluggards and idlers, pausing abreast the shoulders
of his oxen,
flourish of
him.
And
Such
is
American Congress
toil,
exists to protect,
honest
as the
day
is
long,
which
of
men
one
the
stirring
by, and at
many
I
fool-
common
stock,
and there
of the
morning lying
beside
Timothy Dexter's premises, and the dignity forthwith departed from the teamster's labour, in my eyes.
LIFE
In
WITHOUT PKINCIPLE
was made
good part
305
my
to light worthier
toil
than
may
since
run
in debt to a
town, and,
after passing
where
else,
more a patron
get
of
the arts.
money almost To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to
without exception lead downward.
If
money
a
is
writer
to
or
lecturer,
popular,
services
which
go down perpendicularly.
will
Those
for, it is
to render.
You
are paid
for being
The State does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet-laureate would rather not have to celeHe must be bribed brate the accidents of royalty.
than a man.
with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet
called
is
away from
his
muse
As
for
my own
most
satisfaction,
my
emI
ployers
do not want.
They would
prefer
that
my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks
should do
which will give him the most land, not which is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cordwood, and tried to introduce
it
in
Boston
but the
306
me
wood measured
their
that
he was
commonly got
wood measured
in Charlestown
The aim
certain
of the labourer
his
living, to get
"a good
job," but to
perform well a
sense,
it
would be economy
well that they
for
a pecuniary
to
pay
its
labourers so
feel that
scientific,
Do
who
who
does
it
for love of
It is
men
so well
little
employed, so
much
to their minds,
but that a
off
money
or
from
young men,
man's
as if activity
capital.
Yet
embark
in
some enterprise
of his, as
if
had
abso-
my
life
What
As
if
a doubtful compliment
to
pay me
he had met
me
half-way across
me
what do you think the underwriters would say 1 No, no I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. To tell the truth, I saw an
1
when
was a
LIFE
boy, sauntering in
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
307
my
came
of
age I embarked.
bribe that will tempt a
money enough to timnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. An
raise
efficient
You may
the
and valuable man does what he can, whether community pay him for it or not. The inefficient
the highest bidder, and are
office.
be put into
One would
re-
Perhaps
spect to
am more
my freedom.
Those
my connection with
very slight and which afford me a
still
slight labours
it is
and by which
allowed that I
am
to
my
contemporaries, are as
commonly a pleasure
But
to me,
and
am
not often
I
So far
am
I foresee, that, if
my wants should be
them
should
sell
much
both
my
am
me
worth living
my
wish to
suggest that a
man may
There
is
no more
fatal
blunderer than he
who consumes
The
poet,
must
308
sustain his
mill
body by
the shavings
it
makes.
as
it
is
by
loving.
But
tried
the
is
life
of
men
generally,
by
this
standard,
a failure,
and bankruptcy
may
be surely
prophesied.
Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be stiU-born, rather.
To be supported by
government -pension,
breathe,
by whatever
is
provided
fine
these relations,
to
In the
make a
up all, and think to Thus men wiU lie on their backs, talkstart again. fall of man, and ing about the never make an eflfort
clean confession, give
to get up.
As
on
life,
with a level
marks can
other,
all
be hit
may
be,
much
rather be the
man, though, as
all
who
is
down
and
those
who
LIFE
It is
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
is little
309
or nothing to
how
;
to
make
getting a
for
if getting
a living
is
not
so,
then living
not.
One would
think,
from looking
that
at literature,
solitary
individual's musings.
men
are too
it
"i
much The
value which
money
teaches,
which the
Author
the
of the
teach us,
we
As
for
means
of living, it is wonderful
how
indifferent
men
about
it,
even reformers, so
it.
called,
whether they
my
nature
ward them
off.
The
How
he does not
know
he
is
if
?
Does
Wisdom work
to
how
as
Is there
Is she
to life
who
fully
It is pertinent to
way
or
more
success-
or did he succumb to
men
%
Did he seem
310
to prevail over
some
of
them merely by
1
indifference,
or by assuming grand
airs
or find
it
easier to live,
1
The
ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere make -shifts, and a shirking of the real chiefly because they do not know, business of life,
The rush
and the
atti-
and prophets,
so called, in relation to
it,
reflect the
That so many
are
manding the labour of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society And that is I know of no more startling called enterprise development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a hving. The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it. Even Mahomet knew
! !
make this world in jest. It makes moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle A subsistence in the
that
God
did not
God
to be a
domains
of
Nature a thing to be
that
raflled for
What
!
The
itself
mankind
all
will
hang
upon a
tree.
And have
the precepts in
all
the
LIFE
Bibles taught
WITHOUT PKINCIPLE
only this? and
of the
is
311
the last and
race only
men
human
an
improved muck-rake
Orientals
so to get
Is this the
ground on which
Did God
direct us
our living, digging where we never planted, would, perchance, reward us with lumps
the righteous
and
of
He
"i
gold
God gave
him
to food
man
a certiiicate entitling
and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a, facsimile of the same in God's coffers, and
appropriated
the former.
it,
like
It is
of counterfeiting
know
I
that
mankind were
want
it
have seen a
little of it.
know
that
very
grain of
as a
much
The gold-digger
as
is
much a gambler
of
San Francisco.
the loser.
What difference
1
does
If
is
it
make, whether
society
of the
you win,
The
gold-digger
the
enemy
may
be.
It is
not enough to
tell
me
that you
worked hard to get your gold. So does the Devil work hard. The way of transgressors may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer who goes
to the
is
of the
is
character of a lottery
not
But,
312
practically,
he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly
proves another lottery, where the fact
obvious.
is
not so
my
mind's eye,
numerous
half a
valleys,
feet deep,
and
dozen feet
filled
across, as close as
with water,
the
then-
their
which men furiously rush to probe for fortunes, uncertain where they shall break
ground,
camp
it
itself,
not knowing but the gold sometimes digging one turned into
is
under
hundred and
of
by a
foot,
whole
suddenly honeycombed by
drowned
with
of
in them,
standing
I
in water,
and covered
this,
mud and
clay,
Having read
and
and
I
partly forgotten
was thinking,
life,
accidentally, of
;
my own
unsatisfactory
doing as others do
why /might
it
though
why
/ might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. There is a Ballarat, a Bendigo for
}'ou,
what
though
it
were a sulky-gully?
LIFE
WITHOUT PKINCIPLE
313
At any
solitary
rate, I might pursue some path, however and narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence. Wherever a man
and goes
is
his
own way
may
gap in the
Men
that
is
if
the
true gold
were
to
where
They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead, and are most unfortunate when
it lies.
Is not
our
auriferous
and has not this for more than geologic ages been
bringing
down
nuggets for us
Yet, strange to
tell, if
a digger steal
away, prospecting for this true gold, into the unexplored solitudes around us, there
is
no danger that
and endeavour to supplant him. He may claim and undermine the whole valley even, both the cultivated and the uncultivated portions, his whole life long in peace, for no one will
any will dog his
steps,
ever dispute
his
claim.
They
is
will
He
may mine
any-
in his tom.
314
"He
soon began to
drink
full
all
about, generally at
when he met people, called out to inquire if they knew who he was, and then kindly informed them that he was the bloody wretch that had found the nugget.' At last he rode full speed
gallop, and,
'
for
he had already knocked his brains out against the Howitt adds, " He is a hopelessly ruined nugget.
man."
fast
But he
is
a type of the
of the
class.
They
of
are
all
men.
Hear some
names
the places
" Sheep's-Head
Is there
no
satire
these
names ?
Fiat,'' if
ill-gotten
still
am
thinking
it
wiU
be
"Jackass
live.
The
last resource of
its
New
Granada,
" In the
To emigrants he
;
says:
"Do
bring no
a
LIFE
tent
;
WITHOUT PEINOIPLE
315
a pick,
and axe
is
of
good material
:
will
be
almost
that
required "
advice
which might
Guide.
the Burker's
line
And
this
in
italics
and small
which
may
getting a
stay there."
But
church.
It
why
She
is
the
child of
New
own
the
school and
is
all
preachers
of
me, with a
an aspiration and
of gold of
to
lump
all that,
that
is,
make a lump
it.
The
was grovelling.
The burden
of it was,
It is not
this
particular.
;
Do
not ask
how your
you
do,
bread
buttered
it
will
make you
sick, if
and
the like.
lose his
If
man had
man
is
there
is
not an un-
As we grow
obey our
old,
we
more
coarsely,
we
some
extent,
But we should be
316
fastidious to the
gibes of those
selves.
who
our-
In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof
amid the
stars.
You have
Why
1
as
It
Kane was
But
it
was a more
There
is
cruel
why
the
latter.
not a
comment.
It
must be submitted
to the D.D.s.
would
it
to attend to a natural
phenomenon.
intellectual
A little
thought
sexton to
I hardly
all
the world.
know an
is
so
to talk
that
viewing
is,
some
not universal,
way
things.
roof,
They
with
will
its
own low
sky,
when
it is
Get out
LIFE
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
In some lyceums they
tell
317
windows, I say
me
that
But how do
I
know what
their religion
it ?
is,
and when
a clean
am
my
best to
make
what
religion I
The
was as harmless as moonshine to them. Whereas, if I had read to them the biography of the
greatest scamps in history, they
that I
lives of the
is.
church.
Where
come from ?
Where
are
you going ?
my
"What
my
men
does he
lecture for
"
It
made me quake
in
shoes.
To
part,
that I
know
flatter
We
we
build
but we
Our
of
sills
are rotten.
What
stuff is the
man
made
who
is
the purest
and
my
for, finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity compliments, we do not while there are manners and the lessons of meet, we do not teach one another of steadihonesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or The fault is ness and solidity that the rocks do.
318
commonly mutual, however for we do not demand any more of each other.
characteristic,
!
habitually
That excitement about Kossuth, consider how only another but superficial, it was
kind
of
politics
or
all
dancing.
speeches to
him
No man
stood on truth.
as
They were
usual,
;
one leaning on
as the Hindoos
made
For
all fruit of
we have
When
ceases to be inward
and
private, con-
tell
tea,
and we have
not.
In
we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his
life fails,
long while.
it is
too
much to
it
paper a week.
have tried
recently,
and
for so
LIFE
long
it
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
319
seems to
not so
me
my
native region.
trees say
The sun, the clouds, the snow, the much to me. You cannot serve two
more than a day's devotion
things
to
masters.
It requires
know and to possess the wealth of a day. We may well be ashamed to tell what
have read or heard in our day.
I
we
do not know
why
one's
my news
should be so
trivial,
considering what
hear, for the
It is the
the developments
most
such
stalest
repetition.
You
why
stress is laid
have had,
you should
on the
?
of Deeds, again
sideis
inch, then
float in
Such
appear to
the atmo-
sphere, insignificant as
the
sporules
thallus,
of
fungi,
and
or surface of our
growth.
We should
is
of
such news.
explode,
if
?
explosion
In health
we have not
do not
We
amuse-
to see the
full of
news to you.
Your
320
walks were
the
affairs
You
attended, not to
own
to live
affairs
in
Massachusetts
If
you chance
and move
and have your being in that thin stratum in which thinner the events that make the news transpire,
than the paper on which
things will fiU the
it is
printed,
then
if
these
soar
you
above or dive below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. Really to see the sun rise
or go
down every
fact,
!
universal
Nations
What
!
Tartars,
and Huns,
and Chinamen
It is for
Like
insects,
they swarm.
The
want
of a
man
It is individuals that
thinking
"
may
I
And
down from my height on nations, they become ashes before me ; Calm is my dwelling in the clouds
look
;
my
rest."
hill
and
dale,
and
Not without
often perceive
into
slight
how
;
near
my mind
willing
the
news
of the street
and
am
astonished to observe
how
men
such rubbish,
of the
to permit
insignificant
most
LIFE
WITHOUT PKINCIPLE
Shall the
321
mind
Or
I
be a quarter of heaven
itself,
an hypsethral
the gods?
facts
few
which
to
me
my
which are
insignificant,
which
for the
only a divine
mind could
illustrate.
Such
is,
respect.
Think
of
many
hours
to
make
a very bar-room
if
the very
and
!
with
all
its
travel, its
bustle,
filth,
had
not
Would
it
When
I have
been compelled to
sit
room
time,
for
my
in
neighbours,
from time to
my
when
they took
expanded
few
wondered
322
if,
wash
had
It
seemed to me,
the witnesses, the jury and the counsel, the judge and
convicted,
guilty
criminal,
and a thunderbolt might be expected to descend and consume them all together. By all kinds of traps and signboards, threatening
the extreme penalty of the divine law, exclude such
trespassers
to you.
It is so
it is
worse than
useless to
I
remember
it
If I
am
to be a thoroughfare,
prefer that
There
of
the attentive
is
There
and the
The same
which
ear
is
fitted to
receive both
communications.
shall
be open,
and to which
closed.
mind can be
to
with
triviality.
it
Our very
were,
be macinto
;
adamised, as
its
foundation broken
roll
over
and
will
make
LIFE
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
323
If we have thus desecrated ourselves, as who has not? the remedy will be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once more a fane
of the
mind.
We
are,
is,
ourselves, as innocent
guardians
we
Read
Read the
Eternities.
Convention-
are at length as
bad as impurities.
Even the
facts of science
may
by the dews of fresh and living Knowledge does not come to us by details,
Yes,
every
and tear
streets of
it,
Pompeii, evince
how much
How many
them,
we
had better
be driven,
by which we
from
Have we no
no refinement,
but to
1
and make a
and
shell,
false
show with
it,
as if
we were
all
husk
Shall our institutions be like those chestnut-burrs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the
fingers
1
324
battle of
Even
if
we grant
the
the republic,
and moral tyrant. Now that has been settled, it is the res-puUica,
res-privata,
the private
its
state,
to
see, as
the
Roman
senate charged
consuls,
Do we
to
call this
What
is it
of
King Prejudice 1
?
What What is
is it
Is it a
freedom to be
slaves,
or a freedom to be free, of
which we boast ?
It is
We are
be
is
really free.
We
part of us which
not represented.
It is taxation
without representation.
quarter fools and cattle of
We
quarter
we
till
all sorts
upon
ourselves.
We
up
all
With
we
not metropolitan,
mere Jonathans.
not find at
We
we do
home our
standards,
LIFE
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
325
we
by an exclusive devoand commerce and manufactures and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and
tion to trade
So
is
Mere
arises for
them
to settle,
why
The
finest
manners in the
mere
but
they are
cast-
or
shells,
claiming
the
respect which
You
are presented
it is
no
fishes,
more worth than the meat. The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of It was curiosities, when I wished to see himself.
not in this sense that the poet Decker called Christ
"the
first
Christendom
is
provincial,
having authority to
consult
the affairs of
Eome.
praetor or proconsul
would
326
suffice to settle
Congress.
Government and
legislation
respectable professions.
We
whose names at
;
least
may
stand for
regulate
!
ideal legislators
What have
what humane
God,
any son
in
and has
is
it
He no
you get
say for
family which
it
extinct?
again
What
shall
itself
What
I
ground
derive
is
my
from
statistical
tables
which the
A
this
of
and her
seemed hardly
worth the while to tempt the dangers of the sea between Leghorn and New York for the sake of a
cargo of juniper-berries and bitter almonds.
America
Is not the
LIFE
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
327
enough to make
the cup of
extent,
is
life
go down here ?
;
who
the
And
activity
well, well,
of
about
one,
I, if
a
if
molasses-
hogshead.
oysters.
Very
observes
men were
mos-
very
answer
men were
quitoes.
Lieutenant Herndon,
to explore the
whom
Amazon, and,
and
it is said,
area of
slavery,
industrious
who
the comforts of
the country."
to be
wants to draw out the great resources of But what are the "artificial wants"
encouraged?
Not the
slaves
of,
the
tobacco and
believe,
his
native
wealth of
and granite and other material our native New England; nor are "the
which produces these. The chief want, have been into, was a high and This alone draws inhabitants. in its earnest purpose " " and at last taxes Nature, of resources out the great
ness of soil
in every State that I
for
man
naturally dies
When we want
illumination
culture
more than
more than sugar -plums, potatoes, and a world are taxed and of resources then the great staple production, is, or result, drawn out, and the
328
not slaves,
but
men,
those
rare
and
redeemers.
In short, as a snow-drift
a
lull in
is
is is
the wind,
so,
a lull of truth,
length blows
it
down.
have
all.
What
is
so superficial
and inhuman,
I perceive,
that, practically, I
it
concerns
me
at
The newspapers,
charge
it
;
columns specially to
;
politics or
government without
is
and
this,
all
that saves
extent, the
some
my
President's Message.
this,
when
and on
interced-
more
if
im-
I have a
mind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolent merchant's clerk, or the skipper
that brought
it
word
of
English
itself, I shall
LIFE
or forged,
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE
329
which brought it into this condition. I do not hesitate, in such a case, to suggest work, or the almshouse ; or why not keep its castle in silence,
as I
do commonly
The poor
President,
what with
preserving his popularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered. The newspapers are the ruling
power.
Any
other government
is
reduced to a few
a
If
man
neglects to
down on
is
days.
tion of
is
Those things which now most engage the attenmen, as politics and the daily routine, are, it
human
society,
but should
They
are ivfra-
human, a kind
as a
vegetation.
sometimes awake
to a half-consciousness of
cesses of digestion in a
morbid
and so have
a thinker
the dyspepsia, as
it is called.
It is as if
creation.
Politics
is,
as it were,
the gizzard of
political
split
and
be,
gravel,
two opposite
it
halves,
sometimes
itself,
into quarters,
may
other.
Not only
imagine by what
sort of eloquence.
to a great
remembering,
of that
330
waking
as as
Why
should
to congratulate each
I
glorious
morning?
surely.
demand,
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