Had I, then, come to the end of my line? My eyes so pained me, and had

been so tried, that I strove to persuade myself that the evanescent

forms resulting from my unsatisfactory experiment must be optical

illusions. I determined to let matters rest as they were until the

next day, when my brain would be less heated and my eye calmer and

steadier.

They will never let a man alone,--they, the herd, who cry "Madman!"

when any worker and his work which they cannot comprehend rise before

them. In the great moment when, after years of climbing, I stood

victorious on the summit, they claimed that I had fallen to the

chasm's depths, and confined me here at Staunton as a hopeless

lunatic. This heart of mine, burning with the grandest discovery ever

made, must throb itself away in a cell, because it could not contain

its high knowledge, but went forth among men once more to mingle ideal

rays with their sunshine, and make every wind, as it passed over the

earth, waft a higher secret than was ever before attained. A lunatic!

I! But next me in array are the prisons of the only sane ones of

history, the cells dug by Inquisitorial Ignorance in every age for its

wisest men. Now I understand them; walls cannot impede the hands we

stretch out to each other across oceans and centuries. One day the

purblind world will invoke in its prayers the holy army of the martyrs

of Thought.

Yes, I was mad,--mad to think that the world's horny eyes could not

receive the severe light of knowledge,--mad as was he who ran through

the streets and cried, "_Eureka!_" The head and front of my

madness have this extent,--no more. And for this I must write the

rest of my story here amid iron gratings, through which, however,

thank God, my familiars, the stars, and the red, blue, and golden

planets, glance kindly, saying, "Courage, brother! soon thou shaft

rise to us, to whom thou belongest!" Yet I will write it: one day men

will read, and say, "Come, let us garnish the sepulchre of one immured

because his stupid age could not understand!" and then, doubtless,

they will go forth to stone the seer on whose tongue lies the noblest

secret of the Universe for that day.

When I left the last experiment mentioned in these pages, in order to

recover steadiness of brain and nerve, and to relieve my overtaxed

eyes, I had no hope of reaching success in any other way than that

pointed out in the principle which I was pressing,--a principle whose

importance is proved in the familiar experiments on stereoscopic

views, whereby things entirely invisible to the naked eye are

disclosed by lenses. But that night I dreamed out the success which

had eluded my waking hours. I have nothing to say here about the

phenomenon of dreaming: I state only the fact. In my dream there

appeared to me my father, bearing in his left hand a plate of glass,

and in his right a phial of bright blue liquid which he seemed to be

pouring on the polished surface. The phial was of singular shape,

having a long slender neck rising from a round globe. When I awoke, I

found myself standing in the middle of the floor with hands stretched

out appealingly to the vacant air.

Acknowledging, as I did, nothing but purely scientific

methods,--convinced that nothing could be reached but through all the

intervening steps fixed by Nature between Reason and Truth,--I should,

at any other than such a weary time, have forgotten the vision in an

hour. But now it took a deeper hold on my imagination. That my father

should be associated in my dream with these experiments was natural;

the glass plate which he had held was the same I was using; as for the

phial, might it not be some old compound that I had known him or the

daguerrotypist use, now casually spun out of the past and woven in

with my present pursuits? Nevertheless, I was glad to shove aside this

rationalistic interpretation: on the verge of drowning, I magnified

the straw to a lifeboat, and caught at it. I pardoned myself for going

to the shelves which still held my father's medicines, and examining

each of the phials there. But when I turned away without finding one

which at all answered to my dream, I felt mean and miserable; deeply

disappointed at not having found the phial, I was ashamed at my

retrogression to ages which dealt with incantations, and luck, and

other impostures. I was shamed to the conclusion that the phial with

its blue liquid was something I had read of in the curious old books

which my father had hidden away from me, and which, strange to say, I

had never been able to find since his death.

Whilst I was meditating thus, there was a knock at my door, and a

drayman entered with a chest, which he said had belonged to my father,

and had been by him deposited several years before with a friend who

lived a few miles from our village. I could scarcely close and bolt

the door after the man had departed; _as he brought in the chest, I

had seen through the lid the phial with the blue liquid_. So

certain was I of this, that before I opened it I went and withdrew my

glass plate, repolished it, and made all ready for a final

experiment. Opening the chest, I found the old books which had been

abstracted, and a small medicine-box, in which was the phial seen in

my dream.

But now the question arose, How was the blue fluid to be applied? I

had not looked closely at the plate which my father held to see

whether it was already prepared for an impression; and so I was at a

loss to know whether this new fluid was to prepare the glass with a

more perfect polish, or to mingle with the subtile nitrate

itself. Unfortunately I tried the last first, and there was no result

at all,--except the destruction of a third of the precious

fluid. Cleaning the plate perfectly, I burnt into it, drop by drop,

the whole of the contents of the phial. As I drained the last drop

from it, it reddened on the glass as if it were the last drop of my

heart's blood poured out.

At the first glance on the star-picture thus taken, I knew that I was

successful. Jupiter shone like the nucleus of a comet, even before a

second power was upon it. As picture after picture was formed, belts

of the most exquisite hues surrounded the luminous planet, which

seemed rolling up to me, hurled from lens to lens, as if wrested from

its orbit by a commanding force. Plainer and plainer grew its surface;

mountain-ranges, without crags or chasms, smooth and undulating,

emerged; it was zoned with a central sunlit sea. On each scene of the

panorama I lingered, and each was retained as well as the poor

materials would allow. I was cautious enough to take two pictures of

each distinct phase,--one to keep, if this happy voyage should be my

last, and the other of course as the subject from which a centre

should be selected for a new expansion.

At last there stood plainly before my eye a tower!--a tower, slender

and high, with curved dome, the work of Art! A cry burst from my

lips,--I fainted with joy. Afraid to touch the instrument with my

trembling hand, I walked the floor, imploring back my nervous

self-possession. Fixing the tower by photograph, I took the centre of

its dome as the next point for expansion. Slowly, slowly, as if the

fate of a solar system depended on each turn of the screw, I drew on

the final view. An instant of gray confusion,--another of tremulous

crystallization,--and, scarcely in contact with the tower's dome, as

if about to float from it, hovered an aerial ship, with two round

balls suspended above it. Again one little point was taken, for I felt

that this was not the culmination of my vision; and now two figures

appeared, manifestly human, but their features and dress as yet

undistinguishable.

Another turn, and I looked upon the face of a glorious man!

Another, and the illusion, Space, shrank away beneath my feet, my eye

soared over her abysses, and gazed into the eye of an immortal.

But now,--oh, horror!--turning back to earth, I remembered that I had

not analyzed the precious liquid which could so link world with

world. Seized with a sudden agony, I tried to strain one least drop

more; but, alas! the power had perished from the earth!

For this loss I deserve all that has happened to me. My haste to

fulfil my life's object proved me the victim of a mental lust, and I

saw why the highest truth is not revealed: simply, it awaits those who

can receive and not be intoxicated by it. And now the planet which I

had disobeyed for another avenges itself,--seeing, naturally, in

strange results, whose methods are untraceable, nothing but

monomania. The photographs, in which the pollens of two planet-flowers

mingle, lie in my attic, dust-eaten:--"Above all, the patient must not

see anything of _that_ kind," has been the order ever since I

published a card announcing my discovery to my fellow-citizens.

But they were gentle; they did not take away all. The old books are

with me, each a benison from a brother. The best works of ancient

times are, I think, best understood when read by prison-light.

Hist! some visitor comes! Many come from curiosity to see one who

thinks he descried a man in a planet "Distinguished man of science

from Boston to see me,"--ah, indeed! Celebrated paper on tadpoles, I

suppose! But now that I look closer, I like my Boston man-of-science's

eye, and his voice is good. I have not yet exhausted the fingers of

one hand in counting up all the sane people who have visited me since

I have been immured.

How do I test them?

As now I test you.

Here my treasure of treasures I open. It is the old suppressed volume

of John de Sacro Bosco, inscribed to that Castilian Alphonso who dared

to have the tables of Ptolemy corrected. (Had he not been a king, he

had been mad: such men as Bosco were mad after Alphonso died.) And

thus to my curious scientific visitor I read what I ask may go into

his report along with the description of my case.

"John de Sacro Bosco sendeth this book to Alphonso de Castile. A. D.

1237."

"They alone are kings who know."

"Ken and Can are twins."

"God will not be hurried."

"Sacred are the fools: God understandeth them."

"Impatient, I cried, 'I will clear the stair that leadeth to God!'

Now sit I at His feet, lame and weak, and men scoff at knowledge,

--'Aha, this cometh of ascending stairways!'"

"The silk-worm span its way up to wings. I am ashamed and dumb, who

would soar ere I had toiled.

"When riseth an Ideal in the concave of some vaulting heart or brain,

it is a new heaven and signeth a new earth."

"Each clear Idea that ascendeth the vault of Pure Reason is a

Bethlehem star; be sure a Messias is born for it on the Earth; the new

sign lit up in the heaven of Vision is a new power set in motion among

men; and, do what the Herods will, Earth's incense, myrrh, yea, even

its gold, must gather to the feet of the Omnipotent Child,--the IDEA."

IN WAR-TIME.

INSCRIBED TO W.B.

As they who watch by sick-beds find relief

Unwittingly from the great stress of grief

And anxious care in fantasies outwrought

From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught

From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet,

Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet

Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why

They scarcely know or ask,--so, thou and I,

Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong

In the endurance which outwearies Wrong,

With meek persistence baffling brutal force,

And trusting God against the universe,--

We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share

With other weapons than the patriot's prayer,

Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes,

The awful beauty of self-sacrifice,

And wrung by keenest sympathy for all

Who give their loved ones for the living wall

'Twixt law and treason,--in this evil day

May haply find, through automatic play

Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain,

And hearten others with the strength we gain.

I know it has been said our times require

No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre,

No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform

To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm,

But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets

The battle's teeth of serried bayonets,

And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these

Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys

Believe the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet,

If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat

The bitter harvest of our own device

And half a century's moral cowardice.

As Nürnberg sang while Wittenberg defied,

And Kranach painted by his Luther's side,

And through the war-march of the Puritan

The silver stream of Marvell's music ran,

So let the household melodies be sung,

The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung,--

So let us hold against the hosts of Night

And Slavery all our vantage-ground of Light.

Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake

From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake,

Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan,

And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man,

And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull

By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,--

But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease,

(God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peace:

No foes are conquered who the victors teach

Their vandal manners and barbaric speech.

And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear

Of the great common burden our full share,

Let none upbraid us that the waves entice

Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device,

Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles my pen away

From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day.

Thus, while the east-wind keen from Labrador

Sings in the leafless elms, and from the shore

Of the great sea comes the monotonous roar

Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky

Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try

To time a simple legend to the sounds

Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled bounds,--

A song of breeze and billow, such as might

Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night

Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove

Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love.

(So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay

On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay,

And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled

Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.)

Something it has--a flavor of the sea,

And the sea's freedom--which reminds of thee.

Its faded picture, dimly smiling down

From the blurred fresco of the ancient town,

I have not touched with warmer tints in vain,

If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought from pain.

AMY WENTWORTH.

Her fingers shame the ivory keys

They dance so light along;

The bloom upon her parted lips

Is sweeter than the song.

O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles!

Her thoughts are not of thee:

She better loves the salted wind,

The voices of the sea.

Her heart is like an outbound ship

That at its anchor swings;

The murmur of the stranded shell

Is in the song she sings.

She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise,

But dreams the while of one

Who watches from his sea-blown deck

The icebergs in the sun.

She questions all the winds that blow,

And every fog-wreath dim,

And bids the sea-birds flying north

Bear messages to him.

She speeds them with the thanks of men

He perilled life to save,

And grateful prayers like holy oil

To smooth for him the wave.

Brown Viking of the fishing-smack!

Fair toast of all the town!--

The skipper's jerkin ill beseems

The lady's silken gown!

But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear

For him the blush of shame

Who dares to set his manly gifts

Against her ancient name.

The stream is brightest at its spring,

And blood is not like wine;

Nor honored less than he who heirs

Is he who founds a line.

Full lightly shall the prize be won,

If love be Fortune's spur;

And never maiden stoops to him

Who lifts himself to her.

Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street,

With stately stair-ways worn

By feet of old Colonial knights

And ladies gentle-born.

Still green about its ample porch

The English ivy twines,

Trained back to show in English oak

The herald's carven signs.

And on her, from the wainscot old,

Ancestral faces frown,--

And this has worn the soldier's sword,

And that the judge's gown.

But, strong of will and proud as they,

She walks the gallery-floor

As if she trod her sailor's deck

By stormy Labrador!

The sweet-brier blooms on Kittery-side,

And green are Elliot's bowers;

Her garden is the pebbled beach,

The mosses are her flowers.

She looks across the harbor-bar

To see the white gulls fly,

His greeting from the Northern sea

Is in their clanging cry.

She hums a song, and dreams that he,

As in its romance old,

Shall homeward ride with silken sails

And masts of beaten gold!

Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair,

And high and low mate ill;

But love has never known a law

Beyond its own sweet will!

THOREAU.

Henry David Thoreau was the last male descendant of a French ancestor

who came to this country from the Isle of Guernsey. His character

exhibited occasional traits drawn from this blood in singular

combination with a very strong Saxon genius.

He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817. He

was graduated at Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary

distinction. An iconoclast in literature, he seldom thanked colleges

for their service to him, holding them in small esteem, whilst yet his

debt to them was important. After leaving the University, he joined

his brother in teaching a private school, which he soon renounced. His

father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself

for a time to this craft, believing he could make a better pencil than

was then in use. After completing his experiments, he exhibited his

work to chemists and artists in Boston, and having obtained their

certificates to its excellence and to its equality with the best

London manufacture, he returned home contented. His friends

congratulated him that he had now opened his way to fortune. But he

replied, that he should never make another pencil. "Why should I? I

would not do again what I have done once." He resumed his endless

walks and miscellaneous studies, making every day some new

acquaintance with Nature, though as yet never speaking of zoology or

botany, since, though very studious of natural facts, he was incurious

of technical and textual science.

At this time, a strong, healthy youth, fresh from college, whilst all

his companions were choosing their profession, or eager to begin some

lucrative employment, it was inevitable that his thoughts should be

exercised on the same question, and it required rare decision to

refuse all the accustomed paths, and keep his solitary freedom at the

cost of disappointing the natural expectations of his family and

friends: all the more difficult that he had a perfect probity, was

exact in securing his own independence, and in holding every man to

the like duty. But Thoreau never faltered. He was a born

protestant. He declined to give up his large ambition of knowledge and

action for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much more

comprehensive calling, the art of living well. If he slighted and

defied the opinions of others, it was only that he was more intent to

reconcile his practice with his own belief. Never idle or

self-indulgent, he preferred, when he wanted money, earning it by some

piece of manual labor agreeable to him, as building a boat or a fence,

planting, grafting, surveying, or other short work, to any long

engagements. With his hardy habits and few wants, his skill in

wood-craft, and his powerful arithmetic, he was very competent to live

in any part of the world. It would cost him less time to supply his

wants than another. He was therefore secure of his leisure.

A natural skill for mensuration, growing out of his mathematical

knowledge, and his habit of ascertaining the measures and distances of

objects which interested him, the size of trees, the depth and extent

of ponds and rivers, the height of mountains, and the air-line

distance of his favorite summits,--this, and his intimate knowledge of

the territory about Concord, made him drift into the profession of

land-surveyor. It had the advantage for him that it led him

continually into new and secluded grounds, and helped his studies of

Nature. His accuracy and skill in this work were readily appreciated,

and he found all the employment he wanted.

He could easily solve the problems of the surveyor, but he was daily

beset with graver questions, which he manfully confronted. He

interrogated every custom, and wished to settle all his practice on an

ideal foundation. He was a protestant _à l'outrance_, and few

lives contain so many renunciations. He was bred to no profession; he

never married; he lived alone; be never went to church; he never

voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank

no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist,

he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely, no doubt, for himself,

to be the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth,

and knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or

inelegance. Perhaps he fell into his way of living without forecasting

it much, but approved it with later wisdom. "I am often reminded," he

wrote in his journal, "that, if I had bestowed on me the wealth of

Croesus, my aims must be still the same, and my means essentially the

same." He had no temptations to fight against,--no appetites, no

passions, no taste for elegant trifles. A fine house, dress, the

manners and talk of highly cultivated people were all thrown away on

him. He much preferred a good Indian, and considered these

refinements as impediments to conversation, wishing to meet his

companion on the simplest terms. He declined invitations to

dinner-parties, because there each was in every one's way, and he

could not meet the individuals to any purpose. "They make their

pride," he said, "in making their dinner cost much; I make my pride in

making my dinner cost little." When asked at table what dish he

preferred, he answered, "The nearest." He did not like the taste of

wine, and never had a vice in his life. He said,--"I have a faint

recollection of pleasure derived from smoking dried lily-stems, before

I was a man. I had commonly a supply of these. I have never smoked

anything more noxious."

He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them

himself. In his travels, he used the railroad only to get over so

much country as was unimportant to the present purpose, walking

hundreds of miles, avoiding taverns, buying a lodging in farmers' and

fishermen's houses, as cheaper, and more agreeable to him, and because

there he could better find the men and the information he wanted.

There was somewhat military in big nature not to be subdued, always

manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself

except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to

pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the

drum, to call his powers into full exercise. It cost him nothing to

say No; indeed, he found it much easier than to say Yes. It seemed as

if his first instinct on hearing a proposition was to controvert it,

so impatient was he of the limitations of our daily thought. This

habit, of course, is a little chilling to the social affections; and

though the companion would in the end acquit him of any malice or

untruth, yet it mars conversation. Hence, no equal companion stood in

affectionate relations with one so pure and guileless. "I love Henry,"

said one of his friends, "but I cannot like him; and as for taking his

arm, I should as soon think of taking the arm of an elm-tree."

Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of sympathy, and

threw himself heartily and childlike into the company of young people

whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain, as he only could,

with the varied and endless anecdotes of his experiences by field and

river. And he was always ready to lead a huckleberry-party or a search

for chestnuts or grapes. Talking, one day, of a public discourse,

Henry remarked, that whatever succeeded with the audience was bad. I

said, "Who would not like to write something which all can read, like

'Robinson Crusoe'? and who does not see with regret that his page is

not solid with a right materialistic treatment, which delights

everybody?" Henry objected, of course, and vaunted the better lectures

which reached only a few persons. But, at supper, a young girl,

understanding that he was to lecture at the Lyceum, sharply asked him,

"whether his lecture would be a nice, interesting story, such as she

wished to hear, or whether it was one of those old philosophical

things that she did not care about." Henry turned to her, and

bethought himself, and, I saw, was trying to believe that he had

matter that might fit her and her brother, who were to sit up and go

to the lecture, if it was a good one for them.

He was a speaker and actor of the truth,--born such,--and was ever

running into dramatic situations from this cause. In any circumstance,

it interested all bystanders to know what part Henry would take, and

what he would say; and he did not disappoint expectation, but used an

original judgment on each emergency. In 1845 he built himself a small

framed house on the shores of Walden Pond, and lived there two years

alone, a life of labor and study. This action was quite native and

fit for him. No one who knew him would tax him with affectation. He

was more unlike his neighbors in his thought than in his action. As

soon as he had exhausted the advantages of that solitude, he abandoned

it. In 1847, not approving some uses to which the public expenditure

was applied, he refused to pay his town tax, and was put in jail. A

friend paid the tax for him, and he was released. The like annoyance

was threatened the next year. But, as his friends paid the tax,

notwithstanding his protest, I believe he ceased to resist. No

opposition or ridicule had any weight with him. He coldly and fully

stated his opinion without affecting to believe that it was the

opinion of the company. It was of no consequence, if every one present

held the opposite opinion. On one occasion he went to the University

Library to procure some books. The librarian refused to lend

them. Mr. Thoreau repaired to the President, who stated to him the

rules and usages, which permitted the loan of books to resident

graduates, to clergymen who were alumni, and to some others resident

within a circle of ten miles' radius from the College. Mr. Thoreau

explained to the President that the railroad had destroyed the old

scale of distances,--that the library was useless, yes, and President

and College useless, on the terms of his rules,--that the one benefit

he owed to the College was its library,--that, at this moment, not

only his want of books was imperative, but he wanted a large number of

books, and assured him that he, Thoreau, and not the librarian, was

the proper custodian of these. In short, the President found the

petitioner so formidable, and the rules getting to look so ridiculous,

that he ended by giving him a privilege which in his hands proved

unlimited thereafter.

No truer American existed than Thoreau. His preference of his country

and condition was genuine, and his aversation from English and

European manners and tastes almost reached contempt. He listened

impatiently to news or _bon mots_ gleaned from London circles;

and though he tried to be civil, these anecdotes fatigued him. The men

were all imitating each other, and on a small mould. Why can they not

live as far apart as possible, and each be a man by himself? What he

sought was the most energetic nature; and he wished to go to Oregon,

not to London. "In every part of Great Britain," he wrote in his

diary, "are discovered traces of the Romans, their funereal urns,

their camps, their roads, their dwellings. But New England, at least,

is not based on any Roman ruins. We have not to lay the foundations of

our houses on the ashes of a former civilization."

But, idealist as he was, standing for abolition of slavery, abolition

of tariffs, almost for abolition of government, it is needless to say

he found himself not only unrepresented in actual politics, but almost

equally opposed to every class of reformers. Yet he paid the tribute

of his uniform respect to the Anti-Slavery party. One man, whose

personal acquaintance he had formed, he honored with exceptional

regard. Before the first friendly word had been spoken for Captain

John Brown, he sent notices to most houses in Concord, that he would

speak in a public hall on the condition and character of John Brown,

on Sunday evening, and invited all people to come. The Republican

Committee, the Abolitionist Committee, sent him word that it was

premature and not advisable. He replied,--"I did not send to you for

advice, but to announce that I am to speak." The hall was filled at

an early hour by people of all parties, and his earnest eulogy of the

hero was heard by all respectfully, by many with a sympathy that

surprised themselves.

It was said of Plotinus that he was ashamed of his body, and it is

very likely he had good reason for it,--that his body was a bad

servant, and he had not skill in dealing with the material world, as

happens often to men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was

equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body. He was of short

stature, firmly built, of light complexion, with strong, serious blue

eyes, and a grave aspect,--his face covered in the late years with a

becoming beard. His senses were acute, his frame well-knit and hardy,

his hands strong and skilful in the use of tools. And there was a

wonderful fitness of body and mind. He could pace sixteen rods more

accurately than another man could measure them with rod and chain. He

could find his path in the woods at night, he said, better by his feet

than his eyes. He could estimate the measure of a tree very well by

his eye; he could estimate the weight of a calf or a pig, like a

dealer. From a box containing a bushel or more of loose pencils, he

could take up with his hands fast enough just a dozen pencils at every

grasp. He was a good swimmer, runner, skater, boatman, and would

probably outwalk most countrymen in a day's journey. And the relation

of body to mind was still finer than we have indicated. He said he

wanted every stride his legs made. The length of his walk uniformly

made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he did not

write at all.

He had a strong common sense, like that which Rose Flammock, the

weaver's daughter, in Scott's romance, commends in her father, as

resembling a yardstick, which, whilst it measures dowlas and diaper,

can equally well measure tapestry and cloth of gold. He had always a

new resource. When I was planting forest-trees, and had procured half

a peck of acorns, he said that only a small portion of them would be

sound, and proceeded to examine them, and select the sound ones. But

finding this took time, he said, "I think, if you put them all into

water, the good ones will sink"; which experiment we tried with

success. He could plan a garden, or a house, or a barn; would have

been competent to lead a "Pacific Exploring Expedition"; could give

judicious counsel in the gravest private or public affairs.

He lived for the day, not cumbered and mortified by his memory. If he

brought you yesterday a new proposition, he would bring you to-day

another not less revolutionary. A very industrious man, and setting,

like all highly organized men, a high value on his time, he seemed the

only man of leisure in town, always ready for any excursion that

promised well, or for conversation prolonged into late hours. His

trenchant sense was never stopped by his rules of daily prudence, but

was always up to the new occasion. He liked and used the simplest

food, yet, when some one urged a vegetable diet, Thoreau thought all

diets a very small matter, saying that "the man who shoots the buffalo

lives better than the man who boards at the Graham House." He

said,--"You can sleep near the railroad, and never be disturbed:

Nature knows very well what sounds are worth attending to, and has

made up her mind not to hear the railroad-whistle. But things respect

the devout mind, and a mental ecstasy was never interrupted." He

noted, what repeatedly befell him, that, after receiving from a

distance a rare plant, he would presently find the same in his own

haunts. And those pieces of luck which happen only to good players

happened to him. One day, walking with a stranger, who inquired where

Indian arrow-heads could be found, he replied, "Everywhere," and,

stooping forward, picked one on the instant from the ground. At Mount

Washington, in Tuckerman's Ravine, Thoreau had a bad fall, and

sprained his foot. As he was in the act of getting up from his fall,

he saw for the first time the leaves of the _Arnica mollis_.

His robust common sense, armed with stout hands, keen perceptions, and

strong will, cannot yet account for the superiority which shone in his

simple and hidden life. I must add the cardinal fact, that there was

an excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of men, which

showed him the material world as a means and symbol. This discovery,

which sometimes yields to poets a certain casual and interrupted

light, serving for the ornament of their writing, was in him an

unsleeping insight; and whatever faults or obstructions of temperament

might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his

youth, he said, one day, "The other world is all my art: my pencils

will draw no other; my jack-knife will cut nothing else; I do not use

it as a means." This was the muse and genius that ruled his opinions,

conversation, studies, work, and course of life. This made him a

searching judge of men. At first glance he measured his companion,

and, though insensible to some fine traits of culture, could very well

report his weight and calibre. And this made the impression of genius

which his conversation sometimes gave.

He understood the matter in hand at a glance, and saw the limitations

and poverty of those he talked with, so that nothing seemed concealed

from such terrible eyes. I have repeatedly known young men of

sensibility converted in a moment to the belief that this was the man

they were in search of, the man of men, who could tell them all they

should do. His own dealing with them was never affectionate, but

superior, didactic,--scorning their petty ways,--very slowly

conceding, or not conceding at all, the promise of his society at

their houses, or even at his own. "Would he not walk with them?" He

did not know. There was nothing so important to him as his walk; he

had no walks to throw away on company. Visits were offered him from

respectful parties, but he declined them. Admiring friends offered to

carry him at their own cost to the Yellow-Stone River,--to the West

Indies,--to South America. But though nothing could be more grave or

considered than his refusals, they remind one in quite new relations

of that fop Brummel's reply to the gentleman who offered him his

carriage in a shower, "But where will _you_ ride, then?"--and

what accusing silences, and what searching and irresistible speeches,

battering down all defences, his companions can remember!

Mr. Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields,

hills, and waters of his native town, that he made them known and

interesting to all reading Americans, and to people over the sea. The

river on whose banks he was born and died he knew from its springs to

its confluence with the Merrimack. He had made summer and winter

observations on it for many years, and at every hour of the day and

the night. The result of the recent survey of the Water Commissioners

appointed by the State of Massachusetts he had reached by his private

experiments, several years earlier. Every fact which occurs in the

bed, on the banks, or in the air over it; the fishes, and their

spawning and nests, their manners, their food; the shad-flies which

fill the air on a certain evening once a year, and which are snapped

at by the fishes so ravenously that many of these die of repletion;

the conical heaps of small stones on the river-shallows, one of which

heaps will sometimes overfill a cart,--these heaps the huge nests of

small fishes; the birds which frequent the stream, heron, duck,

sheldrake, loon, osprey; the snake, muskrat, otter, woodchuck, and

fox, on the banks; the turtle, frog, hyla, and cricket, which make the

banks vocal,--were all known to him, and, as it were, townsmen and

fellow-creatures; so that he felt an absurdity or violence in any

narrative of one of these by itself apart, and still more of its

dimensions on an inch-rule, or in the exhibition of its skeleton, or

the specimen of a squirrel or a bird in brandy. He liked to speak of

the manners of the river, as itself a lawful creature, yet with

exactness, and always to an observed fact. As he knew the river, so

the ponds in this region.

One of the weapons he used, more important than microscope or

alcohol-receiver to other investigators, was a whim which grew on him

by indulgence, yet appeared in gravest statement, namely, of extolling

his own town and neighborhood as the most favored centre for natural

observation. He remarked that the Flora of Massachusetts embraced

almost all the important plants of America,--most of the oaks, most

of the willows, the best pines, the ash, the maple, the beech, the

nuts. He returned Kane's "Arctic Voyage" to a friend of whom he had

borrowed it, with the remark, that "most of the phenomena noted might

be observed in Concord." He seemed a little envious of the Pole, for

the coincident sunrise and sunset, or five minutes' day after six

months: a splendid fact, which Annursnuc had never afforded him. He

found red snow in one of his walks, and told me that he expected to

find yet the _Victoria regia_ in Concord. He was the attorney of

the indigenous plants, and owned to a preference of the weeds to the

imported plants, as of the Indian to the civilized man,--and noticed,

with pleasure, that the willow bean-poles of his neighbor had grown

more than his beans. "See these weeds," he said, "which have been

hoed at by a million farmers all spring and summer, and yet have

prevailed, and just now come out triumphant over all lanes, pastures,

fields, and gardens, such is their vigor. We have insulted them with

low names, too,--as Pigweed, Wormwood, Chickweed, Shad-Blossom." He

says, "They have brave names, too,--Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchia,

Amaranth, etc."

I think his fancy for referring everything to the meridian of Concord

did not grow out of any ignorance or depreciation of other longitudes

or latitudes, but was rather a playful expression of his conviction of

the indifferency of all places, and that the best place for each is

where he stands. He expressed it once in this wise:--"I think nothing

is to be hoped from you, if this bit of mould under your feet is not

sweeter to you to eat than any other in this world, or in any world."

The other weapon with which he conquered all obstacles in science was

patience. He knew how to sit immovable, a part of the rock he rested

on, until the bird, the reptile, the fish, which had retired from him,

should come back, and resume its habits, nay, moved by curiosity,

should come to him and watch him.

It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the

country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths

of his own. He knew every track in the snow or on the ground, and what

creature had taken this path before him. One must submit abjectly to

such a guide, and the reward was great. Under his arm he carried an

old music-book to press plants; in his pocket, his diary and pencil, a

spy-glass for birds, microscope, jack-knife, and twine. He wore straw

hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave shrub-oaks and

smilax, and to climb a tree for a hawk's or a squirrel's nest. He

waded into the pool for the water-plants, and his strong legs were no

insignificant part of his armor. On the day I speak of he looked for

the Menyanthes, detected it across the wide pool, and, on examination

of the florets, decided that it had been in flower five days. He drew

out of his breast-pocket his diary, and read the names of all the

plants that should bloom on this day, whereof he kept account as a

banker when his notes fall due. The Cypripedium not due till

to-morrow. He thought, that, if waked up from a trance, in this swamp,

he could tell by the plants what time of the year it was within two

days. The redstart was flying about, and presently the fine grosbeaks,

whose brilliant scarlet makes the rash gazer wipe his eye, and whose

fine clear note Thoreau compared to that of a tanager which has got

rid of its hoarseness. Presently he heard a note which he called that

of the night-warbler, a bird he had never identified, had been in

search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act

of diving down into a tree or bush, and which it was vain to seek; the

only bird that sings indifferently by night and by day. I told him he

must beware of finding and booking it, lest life should have nothing

more to show him. He said, "What you seek in vain for, half your life,

one day you come full upon all the family at dinner. You seek it like

a dream, and as soon as you find it you become its prey."

His interest in the flower or the bird lay very deep in his mind, was

connected with Nature,--and the meaning of Nature was never attempted

to be defined by him. He would not offer a memoir of his observations

to the Natural History Society. "Why should I? To detach the

description from its connections in my mind would make it no longer

true or valuable to me: and they do not wish what belongs to it." His

power of observation seemed to indicate additional senses. He saw as

with microscope, heard as with ear-trumpet, and his memory was a

photographic register of all he saw and heard. And yet none knew

better than he that it is not the fact that imports, but the

impression or effect of the fact on your mind. Every fact lay in glory

in his mind, a type of the order and beauty of the whole.

His determination on Natural History was organic. He confessed that he

sometimes felt like a hound or a panther, and, if born among Indians,

would have been a fell hunter. But, restrained by his Massachusetts

culture, he played out the game in this mild form of botany and

ichthyology. His intimacy with animals suggested what Thomas Fuller

records of Butler the apiologist, that "either he had told the bees

things or the bees had told him." Snakes coiled round his leg; the

fishes swam into his hand, and he took them out of the water; he

pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail, and took the foxes

under his protection from the hunters. Our naturalist had perfect

magnanimity; he had no secrets: he would carry you to the heron's

haunt, or even to his most prized botanical swamp,--possibly knowing

that you could never find it again, yet willing to take his risks.

No college ever offered him a diploma, or a professor's chair; no

academy made him its corresponding secretary, its discoverer, or even

its member. Whether these learned bodies feared the satire of his

presence. Yet so much knowledge of Nature's secret and genius few

others possessed, none in a more large and religious synthesis. For

not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of

men, but homage solely to the truth itself; and as he discovered

everywhere among doctors some leaning of courtesy, it discredited

them. He grew to be revered and admired by his townsmen, who had at

first known him only as an oddity. The farmers who employed him as a

surveyor soon discovered his rare accuracy and skill, his knowledge of

their lands, of trees, of birds, of Indian remains, and the like,

which enabled him to tell every farmer more than he knew before of his

own farm; so that he began to feel a little as if Mr. Thoreau had

better rights in his land than he. They felt, too, the superiority of

character which addressed all men with a native authority.

Indian relics abound in Concord,--arrow-heads, stone chisels, pestles,

and fragments of pottery; and on the river-bank, large heaps of

clam-shells and ashes mark spots which the savages frequented. These,

and every circumstance touching the Indian, were important in his

eyes. His visits to Maine were chiefly for love of the Indian. He had

the satisfaction of seeing the manufacture of the bark-canoe, as well

as of trying his hand in its management on the rapids. He was

inquisitive about the making of the stone arrow-head, and in his last

days charged a youth setting out for the Rocky Mountains to find an

Indian who could tell him that: "It was well worth a visit to

California to learn it." Occasionally, a small party of Penobscot

Indians would visit Concord, and pitch their tents for a few weeks in

summer on the river-bank. He failed not to make acquaintance with the

best of them; though he well knew that asking questions of Indians is

like catechizing beavers and rabbits. In his last visit to Maine he

had great satisfaction from Joseph Polis, an intelligent Indian of

Oldtown, who was his guide for some weeks.

He was equally interested in every natural fact. The depth of his

perception found likeness of law throughout Nature, and I know not any

genius who so swiftly inferred universal law from the single fact. He

was no pedant of a department. His eye was open to beauty, and his

ear to music. He found these, not in rare conditions, but wheresoever

he went. He thought the best of music was in single strains; and he

found poetic suggestion in the humming of the telegraph-wire.

His poetry might be bad or good; he no doubt wanted a lyric facility

and technical skill; but he had the source of poetry in his spiritual

perception. He was a good reader and critic, and his judgment on

poetry was to the ground of it. He could not be deceived as to the

presence or absence of the poetic element in any composition, and his

thirst for this made him negligent and perhaps scornful of superficial

graces. He would pass by many delicate rhythms, but he would have

detected every live stanza or line in a volume, and knew very well

where to find an equal poetic charm in prose. He was so enamored of

the spiritual beauty that he held all actual written poems in very

light esteem in the comparison. He admired Aeschylus and Pindar; but,

when some one was commending them, he said that "Aeschylus and the

Greeks, in describing Apollo and Orpheus, had given no song, or no

good one. They ought not to have moved trees, but to have chanted to

the gods such a hymn as would have sung all their old ideas out of

their heads, and new ones in." His own verses are often rude and

defective. The gold does not yet run pure, is drossy and crude. The

thyme and marjoram are not yet honey. But if he want lyric fineness

and technical merits, if he have not the poetic temperament, he never

lacks the causal thought, that his genius was better than his

talent. He knew the worth of the Imagination for the uplifting and

consolation of human life, and liked to throw every thought into a

symbol. The fact you tell is of no value, but only the impression.

For this reason his presence was poetic, always piqued the curiosity

to know more deeply the secrets of his mind. He had many reserves, an

unwillingness to exhibit to profane eyes what was still sacred in his

own, and knew well how to throw a poetic veil over his experience.

All readers of "Walden" will remember his mythical record of his

disappointments:--

"I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still

on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them,

describing their tracks, and what calls they answered to. I have met

one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and

even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud; and they seemed as

anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves."

[_Walden_, p. 20.]

His riddles were worth the reading, and I confide, that, if at any

time I do not understand the expression, it is yet just. Such was the

wealth of his truth that it was not worth his while to use words in

vain. His poem entitled "Sympathy" reveals the tenderness under that

triple steel of stoicism, and the intellectual subtilty it could

animate. His classic poem on "Smoke" suggests Simonides, but is better

than any poem of Simonides. His biography is in his verses. His

habitual thought makes all his poetry a hymn to the Cause of causes,

"I hearing get, who had but ears,

And sight, who had but eyes before;

I moments live, who lived but years,

And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore."

And still more in these religious lines:--

"Now chiefly is my natal hour,

And only now my prime of life;

I will not doubt the love untold,

Which not my worth or want hath bought,

Which wooed me young, and wooes me old,

And to this evening hath me brought."

Whilst he used in his writings a certain petulance of remark in

reference to churches or churchmen, he was a person of a rare, tender,

and absolute religion, a person incapable of any profanation, by act

or by thought. Of course, the same isolation which belonged to his

original thinking and living detached him from the social religious

forms. This is neither to be censured nor regretted. Aristotle long

ago explained it, when he said, "One who surpasses his fellow-citizens

in virtue is no longer a part of the city. Their law is not for him,

since he is a law to himself."

Thoreau was sincerity itself, and might fortify the convictions of

prophets in the ethical laws by his holy living. It was an affirmative

experience which refused to be set aside. A truth-speaker he, capable

of the most deep and strict conversation; a physician to the wounds of

any soul; a friend, knowing not only the secret of friendship, but

almost worshipped by those few persons who resorted to him as their

confessor and prophet, and knew the deep value of his mind and great

heart. He thought that without religion or devotion of some kind

nothing great was ever accomplished: and he thought that the bigoted

sectarian had better bear this in mind.

His virtues, of course, sometimes ran into extremes. It was easy to

trace to the inexorable demand on all for exact truth that austerity

which made this willing hermit more solitary even than he

wished. Himself of a perfect probity, he required not less of

others. He had a disgust at crime, and no worldly success would cover

it. He detected paltering as readily in dignified and prosperous

persons as in beggars, and with equal scorn. Such dangerous frankness

was in his dealing that his admirers called him "that terrible

Thoreau," as if he spoke when silent, and was still present when he

had departed. I think the severity of his ideal interfered to deprive

him of a healthy sufficiency of human society.

The habit of a realist to find things the reverse of their appearance

inclined him to put every statement in a paradox. A certain habit of

antagonism defaced his earlier writings,--a trick of rhetoric not

quite outgrown in his later, of substituting for the obvious word and

thought its diametrical opposite. He praised wild mountains and winter

forests for their domestic air, in snow and ice he would find

sultriness, and commended the wilderness for resembling Rome and

Paris. "It was so dry, that you might call it wet."

The tendency to magnify the moment, to read all the laws of Nature in

the one object or one combination under your eye, is of course comic

to those who do not share the philosopher's perception of identity. To

him there was no such thing as size. The pond was a small ocean; the

Atlantic, a large Walden Pond. He referred every minute fact to

cosmical laws. Though he meant to be just, he seemed haunted by a

certain chronic assumption that the science of the day pretended

completeness, and he had just found out that the _savans_ had

neglected to discriminate a particular botanical variety, had failed

to describe the seeds or count the sepals. "That is to say," we

replied, "the blockheads were not born in Concord; but who said they

were? It was their unspeakable misfortune to be born in London, or

Paris, or Rome; but, poor fellows, they did what they could,

considering that they never saw Bateman's Pond, or Nine-Acre Corner,

or Becky-Stow's Swamp. Besides, what were you sent into the world for,

but to add this observation?"

Had his genius been only contemplative, he had been fitted to his

life, but with his energy and practical ability he seemed born for

great enterprise and for command; and I so much regret the loss of his

rare powers of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault in him

that he had no ambition. Wanting this, instead of engineering for all

America, he was the captain of a huckleberry-party. Pounding beans is

good to the end of pounding empires one of these days; but if, at the

end of years, it is still only beans!

But these foibles, real or apparent, were fast vanishing in the

incessant growth of a spirit so robust and wise, and which effaced its

defeats with new triumphs. His study of Nature was a perpetual

ornament to him, and inspired his friends with curiosity to see the

world through his eyes, and to hear his adventures. They possessed

every kind of interest.

He had many elegances of his own, whilst he scoffed at conventional

elegance. Thus, he could not bear to hear the sound of his own steps,

the grit of gravel; and therefore never willingly walked in the road,

but in the grass, on mountains and in woods. His senses were acute,

and he remarked that by night every dwelling-house gives out bad air,

like a slaughter-house. He liked the pure fragrance of melilot. He

honored certain plants with special regard, and, over all, the

pond-lily,--then, the gentian, and the _Mikania scondens_, and

"life-everlasting," and a bass-tree which he visited every year, when

it bloomed, in the middle of July. He thought the scent a more

oracular inquisition than the sight,--more oracular and

trustworthy. The scent, of course, reveals what is concealed from the

other senses. By it he detected earthiness. He delighted in echoes,

and said they were almost the only kind of kindred voices that he

heard. He loved Nature so well, was so happy in her solitude, that he

became very jealous of cities, and the sad work which their

refinements and artifices made with man and his dwelling.

The axe was always destroying his forest. "Thank God," he said, "they

cannot cut down the clouds!" "All kinds of figures are drawn on the

blue ground with this fibrous white paint."

I subjoin a few sentences taken from his unpublished manuscripts, not

only as records of his thought and feeling, but for their power of

description and literary excellence.

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout

in the milk."

"The chub is a soft fish, and tastes like boiled brown paper salted."

"The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon,

or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the

middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them."

"The locust z-ing."

"Devil's-needles zigzagging along the Nut-Meadow brook."

"Sugar is not so sweet to the palate as sound to the healthy ear."

"I put on some hemlock-boughs, and the rich salt crackling of their

leaves was like mustard to the ear, the crackling of uncountable

regiments. Dead trees love the fire."

"The bluebird carries the sky on his back."

"The tanager flies through the green foliage as if it would ignite the

leaves."

"If I wish for a horse-hair for my compass-sight, I must go to the

stable; but the hair-bird, with her sharp eyes, goes to the road."

"Immortal water, alive even to the superficies."

"Fire is the most tolerable third party."

"Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what she could do in that

line."

"No tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an instep as the beech."

"How did these beautiful rainbow-tints get into the shell of the

fresh-water clam, buried in the mud at the bottom of our dark river?"

"Hard are the times when the infant's shoes are second-foot."

"We are strictly confined to our men to whom we give liberty."

"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be

popular with God himself."

"Of what significance the things you can forget? A little thought is

sexton to all the world."

"How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time

of character?"

"Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present a face of bronze to

expectations."

"I ask to be melted. You can only ask of the metals that they be

tender to the fire that melts them. To nought else can they be

tender."

There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our

summer plant called "Life-Everlasting," a _Gnaphalium_ like that,

which grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese mountains,

where the chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted

by its beauty, and by his love, (for it is immensely valued by the

Swiss maidens,) climbs the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes found

dead at the foot, with the flower in his hand. It is called by

botanists the _Gnaphalium leontopodium_, but by the Swiss

_Edelweisse_, which signifies _Noble Purity_. Thoreau seemed

to me living in the hope to gather this plant, which belonged to him

of right. The scale on which his studies proceeded was so large as to

require longevity, and we were the less prepared for his sudden

disappearance. The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how

great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in

the midst his broken task, which none else can finish,--a kind of

indignity to so noble a soul, that it should depart out of Nature

before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what be is. But

he, at least, is content. His soul was made for the noblest society;

he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world;

wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there

is beauty, he will find a home.

A SUMMER DAY.

At daybreak, in the fresh light, joyfully

The fishermen drew in their laden net;

The shore shone rosy purple, and the sea

Was streaked with violet,

And, pink with sunrise, many a shadowy sail

Lay southward, lighting up the sleeping bay,

And in the west the white moon, still and pale,

Faded before the day.

Silence was everywhere. The rising tide

Slowly filled every cove and inlet small:

A musical low whisper, multiplied,

You heard, and that was all.

No clouds at dawn,--but, as the sun climbed higher,

White columns, thunderous, splendid, up the sky

Floated and stood, heaped in the sun's clear fire,

A stately company.

Stealing along the coast from cape to cape,

The weird mirage crept tremulously on,

In many a magic change and wondrous shape,

Throbbing beneath the sun.

At noon the wind rose,--swept the glassy sea

To sudden ripple,--thrust against the clouds

A strenuous shoulder,--gathering steadily,

Drove them before in crowds,

Till all the west was dark, and inky black

The level ruffled water underneath,

And up the wind-cloud tossed, a ghostly rack,

In many a ragged wreath.

Then sudden roared the thunder, a great peal

Magnificent, that broke and rolled away;

And down the wind plunged, like a furious keel

Cleaving the sea to spray,

And brought the rain, sweeping o'er land and sea.

And then was tumult! Lightning, sharp and keen,

Thunder, wind, rain,--a mighty jubilee

The heaven and earth between!

And loud the ocean sang,--a chorus grand,--

A solemn music sung in undertone

Of waves that broke about, on either hand,

The little island lone,

Where, joyful in His tempest as His calm,

Held in the hollow of that hand of His,

I joined with heart and soul in God's great psalm,

Thrilled with a nameless bliss.

Soon lulled the wind,-the summer storm soon died;

The shattered clouds went eastward, drifting slow;

From the low sun the rain-fringe swept aside,

Bright in his rosy glow,

And wide a splendor streamed through all the sky

O'er land and sea one soft, delicious blush,

That touched the gray rocks lightly, tenderly,

A transitory flush.

Warm, odorous gusts came off the distant land,

With spice of pine-woods, breath of hay new-mown,

O'er miles of waves and sea-scents cool and bland,

Full in our faces blown.

Slow faded the sweet light, and peacefully

The quiet stars came out, one after one,--

The holy twilight deepened silently,

The summer day was done.

Such unalloyed delight its hours had given,

Musing, this thought rose in my grateful mind,

That God, who watches all things, up in heaven,

With patient eyes and kind,

Saw and was pleased, perhaps, one child of His

Dared to be happy like the little birds,

Because He gave His children days like this,

Rejoicing beyond words,--

Dared, lifting up to Him untroubled eyes

In gratitude that worship is, and prayer,

Sing and be glad with ever new surprise

He made His world so fair!

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

_Ravenshoe_. By HENRY KINGSLEY, Author of "Geoffry Hamlyn."

Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

This novel belongs to that class which has been most in favor of late

years, in which the incidents and characters are drawn from the daily

life that is going on around us, and the sources of interest are

sought in the acts, struggles, and sufferings of the world that lies

at our feet, discarding the idealizing charm which arises from

distance in space or remoteness in time. The novels of Disraeli,

Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Miss Bronté, Mrs. Gaskell, Miss

Muloch, and Miss Evans, differing as they do so widely in style,

treatment, and spirit, all come under this general division.

Fictitious compositions of this class have difficulties

peculiar to themselves, but success, when attained, is proportionally

great; and from the sympathetic element in man they can secure the

interest of their readers, though their plots may be improbable and

their characters unnatural. The scene of "Ravenshoe" is laid in

England, the time is the present, and the men and women are such as

may be seen at a flower-show at Chiswick or on the race-course at

Epsom on a Derby day. The plot is ingenious, thickly strewn with

sudden and startling incidents, though very improbable; but the story

flows on in so rapid and animated a current that the reader can never

pause long enough for criticism, and it is not till he lays the volume

down, and recalls the ground he has been over, that he has leisure to

remark that the close has been reached by such stepping-stones as are

never laid down in the path of real life.

The characters are various, drawn with the greatest spirit, but not

all of them natural. Lord Saltire, for instance, is a portrait with

which the author has evidently taken much pains; but the elements we

see in him are such as never were, never could be, combined in any

living and breathing man. Father Mackworth is elaborately drawn, but

the sketch wants vitality and unity. Adelaide and Ellen present

essentially the same type, modified by difference of position and

circumstances, and, in the latter, by the infusion of a fanatical

religious element. Charles Ravenshoe, the hero, is well conceived and

consistently carried; and the same may be said of Cuthbert. But the

best character in the book is old Lady Ascot. She is quite original,

and yet quite natural; and we guess that some of her peculiarities are

drawn from life.

The descriptions of scenery are admirable,--so admirable that we

pardon the author for introducing them a little too frequently. He is

evidently one of those few men who love Nature with a manly and

healthy love,--by whom the outward world is not sought as a shelter

against invading cares, or as balm for a wounded spirit, but who find

in the sunshine, the play of the breeze, and the dance of the waves, a

cheerful, enduring, and satisfying companionship. The scenery is

English, and South English too: the author's pictures are drawn from

memory, and not from imagination. And the whole tone and spirit of the

book are thoroughly English. It represents the best aspects of English

life, character, and manners as they are to-day. Whatever is most

generous, heroic, tender, and true in the men and women of England is

here to be seen, and not drawn in colors any more flattering than it

is the right of fiction to use. We think the author carries us too

much into the stable and the kennel; but this, we need not say, is

also English.

But we have yet to mention what we consider the highest charm of this

charming book, and that is the combination which we find in it of

healthiness of tone and earnestness of purpose. A healthier book we

have never read. Earnestness of purpose is apt to be attended with

something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is

nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic.

The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that is good

in the world, with a firm purpose of improving the world in all

possible ways. It is one of the many books which have appeared in

England of late years which show the influence of the life and labors

of the late Dr. Arnold. It is as inspiriting in its influence as a

gallop over one of the breezy downs of Mr. Kingsley's own Devonshire.

It is, in short, a delightful book, in which all defects of structure

and form are atoned for by a wonderful amount of energy, geniality,

freshness, poetical feeling, and moral elevation. And furthermore, we

think, no one can read it without saying to himself that he would like

to see and know the writer. Long may he live to write new novels!

_Vanity Fair._ Volumes I.-V. New York: Louis H. Stephens,

Publisher for the Proprietors.

The American is often considered to be by nature unadapted for

jollity, if not positively averse to it. This supposition is not

without some reasonable foundation, and the stranger may be readily

excused for adopting it as an axiomatic truth. Busy calculation and

restless labor appear at first to be the grand elements of American

life; mirth is apparently excluded, as the superfluous members of his

equations are eliminated by the algebraist. Fun is not practical

enough for the American, and subserves none of his profitable

projects; it provokes to idle laughter, and militates against the

unresting career of industry which he has prescribed, and his

utilitarian spirit thinks it were as well abolished. His recreations

are akin to his toil. If he give to study such hours as business

spares, fates first claim his attention, and then philosophy or

ethics: he cannot resign himself to lighter topics. When he reads in

his Horace, "_Dulce est desipere in loco_," he grants the

proposition, with the commentary that he, at least, has very rarely

been "_in loco_." He reads tragedies, and perhaps writes one; but

he does not affect comedies, and he could have no sympathy with an

uproarious burlesque or side-shaking Christmas pantomime. His brethren

who seek the theatre for amusement are of similar opinion, and so are

they who stand behind the foot-lights. Therefore it is, that, for

every passable comedian, America can produce a whole batch of very

fair tragic actors.

This serious character the American is apt to wear abroad as well as

at home. When he travels, he is wont to be in a hurry, and to examine

curious cities as if he were making sharp bargains against time. In

spite of the wonderful power of adaptation which makes him of all men

the best cosmopolitan, he never is quite perfect in his assumption of

another nationality, and he generally falls short of a thorough

appreciation of its mirthful principle. If he emigrate to France, he

soon feasts upon frogs as freely and speaks with as accurate an accent

as the Parisian, but he cannot quite assume the gay _insouciance_

of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and

imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt

raillery,--the "chaff,"--with which Britons disport themselves; if to

China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a

camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental _bizarrerie_ fails to

thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and

easily into the outward life of the people among whom he is,--while he

always reserves within himself a cold, stern individuality; he often

is angered when he should be amused, and retorts with resentment when

he should reply in repartee. Still, the American is not sombre to the

core. He has a kind of grim merriment bestowed somewhere in the

recesses of his being. It is quaint and severe, however, and abounding

in dry conceits. It inclines more to the nature of sarcasm than of

flashing wit or genial humor. There is apt to be the bitterness about

it which would provoke a heavy blow, unless it had been itself so

weighty in attack as to crush what might have sprung into

resistance. It passes from badinage into personalities and

recriminations. In these respects it is consonant with the general

bearing of the American character. The levity of wit and the

pleasantry of humor appear at first purposeless; they are immaterial,

and, even when most palpably present, seem, like Macbeth's

encountering witches, to make of themselves air, into which they

vanish. But sarcasm, and the direct application of ridicule, effect

something at once; their course may be swift and cloudy, like that of

the bullet, but it has a definite end in view; they are discharged and

sweep away invisibly, or like a dark speck at most, but the crash and

shiver of the distant target show that the shot has told. They are

practical, and the American understands them; as for mere wit and

humor, he will perhaps investigate them when there shall come to him

that season of leisure which he mythically proposes to enjoy when

there shall be no more work to do, and into which he is usually

ushered by one busier even than himself, and less tolerant of idleness

and folly,--Death, the great Chamberlain of Eternal Halls.

There is another characteristic of American wit and humor: they are

evanescent and keen, escaping adroitly from the snares of the

printer. America cannot boast of her satirists or humorists as forming

a class like the great English and European groups, and yet her

literature is enriched with many volumes wherein may be found the most

brilliant wit and the most genial, genuine humor. Seldom, however, are

these the main features of the books in which they occur; they are not

bound in the great, all-important chain, but are woven into the little

threads which underlie it; the obtuse or careless reader may easily

overlook them, passing on to the end without suspecting the treasures

which he has missed; and the foreigner, who does not look for such

qualities among a people so perversely practical as Americans, will be

apt entirely to ignore their possible existence. Again, if the

writers are first-class men, their birth is the most purely American

characteristic they possess. Their cast of thought and culture denotes

that they belong to other times and lands as well as to this. They

would have been at home among the _literati_ of Queen Anne's

day,--for their fellowship has been with such in spirit, if not in the

flesh. Therefore the prejudiced, and they whose perceptions are not

quick to recognize the finer traits which indicate the real character

of men and of their works, are wont to say that here is nothing new,

nothing indigenous to the soil, only an outgrowth of the Old

World,--merely exotics, which would soon perish from the pains of

transplanting, if they were not carefully fostered.

As a bit of drift-wood warns the most unpractised eye of the direction

which a current takes, so the light, ephemeral _brochures_ of any

epoch give a plain hint of the tendency of its thought. The librarian

and historian know the value of newspapers and pamphlets, for in them

can be found what big books and voluminous records do not

contain. From pasquinades, caricatures, and bits of comedy or satire

can be drawn an idea of the popular humor of any era, which the works

of great authors fail to convey. They are spontaneous and unstudied,

regardless alike of reputation already established, which must be

maintained, and of that which may yet be won; for they come from

unknown sources, and exist solely for their own sakes and by their own

vitality. They are, therefore, trustworthy assistants to him who

studies the spirit of any people or generation.

In this respect American humor has been ill represented. Comic

publications have appeared only at rare intervals, and comic journals

have soon degenerated into stupidity or coarseness. Yet this has not

been for lack of material, but of a proper editorial faculty, and from

the want of a habitude or a willingness on the part of those who

conceive clever things to note them down and give them out in black

and white. When "Vanity Fair" first appeared, we thought we saw in it

the germ of a journal which might be an exponent of our national

spirit of mirthfulness, and we took occasion to say so briefly. We

have not been disappointed. The five volumes which have already been

published in weekly numbers have been true to the honest purpose which

the conductors proposed to themselves and the public in their

prospectus, and are fair representatives of the wit and humor which

are in their essence allied to the merriment and the satire of

Hawthorne and Lowell, Holmes and Saxe, although, of course, they are

not yet developed with like delicacy and brilliance. There is in

these pages a vast deal of genuine, hearty fun, and of sharp, stinging

sarcasm; there are also hundreds of cleverly drawn and cleanly cut

illustrations. Better than these, there is a fearlessness of

consequences and of persons, when a wrong is to be combated, an error

to be set right. And this Touchstone has been impartial as well as

sturdy in his castigation; he has not been blind to the faults of his

friends, or slow in bidding them imitate the excellences of his

enemies; he had "a whip of scorpions" for the late Administration,

when others, whose intuitions were less quick, saw nothing to

chastise, and he has not hesitated to rebuke the official misdemeanors

of these days, because officers have _per contra_ done other

portions of their duties well. According to his creed, a wrong cannot

be palliated into a right, but must be reformed thereto; he has no

tolerance for that evil whose cure is obvious and possible, and he

treats boldly and severely the subjects of which the timid scarcely

dare to speak.

It cannot, of course, be claimed for "Vanity Fair" that it is all

clever. The brightest wit must say some dull things, and a comic

journal can hardly help letting some dreary attempts at mirth slip

into its columns. We could point out paragraphs in this serial which

are most chaotic and unmeaning, and some, indeed, which fall below its

own excellent standard of refinement; but we do not remember ever to

have met in its pages a _double-entendre_ or a foulness of

speech. We must advise its conductor (who, we may say in passing, is a

gentleman whose writings have not infrequently appeared in the

"Atlantic") never to allow his paper to descend to the level of the

_ignoble vulgus_; and we are glad that in wishing "Vanity Fair"

long life and prosperity we have to censure it only for some slight

violations of good taste, not for any offence against modesty or

decorum. It deserves admission to the library and the drawing-room.

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