_Oct. 16._

Anon with gaping fearlessness they quaff

The dewy nectar with a natural thirst,

Or wet their leathern lungs where cranberries lurk,

With sweeter wine than Chian, Lesbian, or Falernian far.

Theirs was the inward lustre that bespeaks

An open sole—unknowing to exclude

The cheerful day—a worthier glory far

Than that which gilds the outmost rind with darkness visible—

Virtues that fast abide through lapse of years,

Rather rubbed in than off.

HOMER

_Oct. 21._ Hector hurrying from rank to rank is likened to the moon

wading in majesty from cloud to cloud. We are reminded of the hour of

the day by the fact that the woodcutter spreads now his morning meal in

the recesses of the mountains, having already laid his axe at the root

of many lofty trees.[41]

_Oct. 23._ Nestor's simple repast after the rescue of Machaon is a fit

subject for poetry. The woodcutter may sit down to his cold victuals,

the hero to soldier's fare, and the wild Arab to his dried dates and

figs, without offense; but not so a modern gentleman to his dinner.

_Oct. 24._ It matters not whether these strains originate there in the

grass or float thitherward like atoms of light from the minstrel days

of Greece.

"The snowflakes fall thick and fast on a winter's day. The winds

are lulled, and the snow falls incessant, covering the tops of the

mountains, and the hills, and the plains where the lotus tree grows, and

the cultivated fields. And they are falling by the inlets and shores of

the foaming sea, but are silently dissolved by the waves."[42]

SPECULATION

_Dec. 7._ We may believe it, but never do we live a quiet, free

life, such as Adam's, but are enveloped in an invisible network of

speculations. Our progress is only from one such speculation to another,

and only at rare intervals do we perceive that it is no progress. Could

we for a moment drop this by-play, and simply wonder, without reference

or inference!

BYRON

_Dec. 8._ Nothing in nature is sneaking or chapfallen, as somewhat

maltreated and slighted, but each is satisfied with its being, and so

is as lavender and balm. If skunk-cabbage is offensive to the nostrils

of men, still has it not drooped in consequence, but trustfully

unfolded its leaf of two hands' breadth. What was it to Lord Byron

whether England owned or disowned him, whether he smelled sour and was

skunk-cabbage to the English nostril or violet-like, the pride of the

land and ornament of every lady's boudoir? Let not the oyster grieve

that he has lost the race; he has gained as an oyster.

FAIR HAVEN[43]

_Dec. 15._

When winter fringes every bough

With his fantastic wreath,

And puts the seal of silence now

Upon the leaves beneath;

When every stream in its penthouse

Goes gurgling on its way,

And in his gallery the mouse

Nibbleth the meadow hay;

Methinks the summer still is nigh,

And lurketh there below,

As that same meadow mouse doth lie

Snug underneath the snow.

And if perchance the chickadee

Lisp a faint note anon,

The snow is summer's canopy,

Which she herself put on.

Rare blossoms deck the cheerful trees,

And dazzling fruits depend,

The north wind sighs a summer breeze,

The nipping frosts to fend,

Bringing glad tidings unto me,

While that I stand all ear,

Of a serene eternity,

That need not winter fear.

Out on the silent pond straightway

The restless ice doth crack,

And pond sprites merry gambols play

Amid the deaf'ning rack.

Eager I press me to the vale

As I had heard brave news,

How nature held high festival,

Which it were hard to lose.

I crack me with my neighbor ice,

And sympathizing quake,

As each new rent darts in a trice

Across the gladsome lake.

One with the cricket in the ground,

And fuel on the hearth,

Resounds the rare domestic sound

Along the forest path.

Fair Haven is my huge tea-urn

That seethes and sings to me,

And eke the crackling fagots burn,—

A homebred minstrelsy.

SOME SCRAPS FROM AN ESSAY ON "SOUND AND SILENCE" WRITTEN IN THE LATTER

HALF OF THIS MONTH,—DECEMBER, 1838[44]

As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the

most excellent speech finally falls into silence. We go about to find

Solitude and Silence, as though they dwelt only in distant glens and the

depths of the forest, venturing out from these fastnesses at midnight.

Silence _was_, say we, before ever the world was, as if creation had

displaced her, and were not her visible framework and foil. It is only

favorite dells that she deigns to frequent, and we dream not that she is

then imported into them when we wend thither, as Selden's butcher busied

himself with looking after his knife, when he had it in his mouth. For

where man is, there is Silence.

* * * * *

Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself. If the soul

attend for a moment to its own infinity, then and there is silence. She

is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will we

may always hearken to her admonitions.

* * * * *

Silence is ever less strange than noise, lurking amid the boughs of

the hemlock or pine just in proportion as we find ourselves there. The

nuthatch, tapping the upright trunks by our side, is only a partial

spokesman for the solemn stillness.

* * * * *

She is always at hand with her wisdom, by roadsides and street corners;

lurking in belfries, the cannon's mouth, and the wake of the earthquake;

gathering up and fondling their puny din in her ample bosom.

* * * * *

Those divine sounds which are uttered to our inward ear—which are

breathed in with the zephyr or reflected from the lake—come to us

noiselessly, bathing the temples of the soul, as we stand motionless

amid the rocks.

* * * * *

The halloo is the creature of walls and mason work; the whisper is

fittest in the depths of the wood, or by the shore of the lake; but

silence is best adapted to the acoustics of space.

* * * * *

All sounds are her servants and purveyors, proclaiming not only that

their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought

after. Behind the most distinct and significant hovers always a more

significant silence which floats it. The thunder is only our signal gun,

that we may know what communion awaits us. Not its dull sound, but the

infinite expansion of our being which ensues, we praise and unanimously

name sublime.

All sound is nearly akin to Silence; it is a bubble on her surface

which straightway bursts, an emblem of the strength and prolificness

of the undercurrent. It is a faint utterance of Silence, and then

only agreeable to our auditory nerves when it contrasts itself with

the former. In proportion as it does this, and is a heightener and

intensifier of the Silence, it is harmony and purest melody.

* * * * *

Every melodious sound is the ally of Silence,—a help and not a hindrance

to abstraction.

* * * * *

Certain sounds more than others have found favor with the poets only as

foils to silence.

* * * * *

ANACREON'S ODE TO THE CICADA[45]

We pronounce thee happy, cicada,

For on the tops of the trees,

Sipping 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 honored among men,

Sweet prophet of summer.

The Muses love thee,

And Phœbus himself loves thee,

And has given thee a shrill song;

Age does not wrack thee,

Thou skillful, earth-born, song-loving,

Unsuffering, bloodless one;

Almost thou art like the gods.

* * * * *

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel of all dry discourses and

all foolish acts, as balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety

as [after] disappointment; that background which the painter may not

daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure he

may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum.

* * * * *

With what equanimity does the silent consider how his world goes,

settles the awards of virtue and justice, is slandered and buffeted

never so much and views it all as a phenomenon. He is one with Truth,

Goodness, Beauty. No indignity can assail him, no personality disturb

him.

* * * * *

The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when

most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his

audience.

* * * * *

Who has not hearkened to her infinite din? She is Truth's speaking

trumpet, which every man carries slung over his shoulder, and when he

will may apply to his ear. She is the sole oracle, the true Delphi and

Dodona, which kings and courtiers would do well to consult, nor will

they be balked by an ambiguous answer. Through her have all revelations

been made. Just as far as men have consulted her oracle, they have

obtained a clear insight, and their age been marked for an enlightened

one. But as often as they have gone gadding abroad to a strange Delphi

and her mad priestess, they have been benighted, and their age Dark or

Leaden.—These are garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any

sound; but the Grecian, or _silent_ and melodious, Era is ever sounding

on the ears of men.

* * * * *

A good book is the plectrum with which our silent lyres are struck. In

all epics, when, after breathless attention, we come to the significant

words "He said," then especially our inmost man is addressed. We not

unfrequently refer the interest which belongs to our own unwritten

sequel to the written and comparatively lifeless page. Of all valuable

books this same sequel makes an indispensable part. It is the author's

aim to say once and emphatically, "He said." This is the most the

bookmaker can attain to. If he make his volume a foil whereon the

waves of silence may break, it is well. It is not so much the sighing

of the blast as that pause, as Gray expresses it, "when the gust is

recollecting itself," that thrills us, and is infinitely grander than

the importunate howlings of the storm.

* * * * *

At evening Silence sends many emissaries to me, some navigating the

subsiding waves which the village murmur has agitated.

* * * * *

It were vain for me to interpret the Silence. She cannot be done into

English. For six thousand years have men translated her, with what

fidelity belonged to each; still is she little better than a sealed

book. A man may run on confidently for a time, thinking he has her under

his thumb, and shall one day exhaust her, but he too must at last be

silent, and men remark only how brave a beginning he made; for, when

he at length dives into her, so vast is the disproportion of the told

to the untold that the former will seem but the bubble on the surface

where he disappeared.

* * * * *

Nevertheless will we go on, like those Chinese cliff swallows,

feathering our nests with the froth, so they may one day be bread of

life to such as dwell by the seashore.

ANACREONTICS

RETURN OF SPRING[46]

_Dec. 23._

Behold, how, spring appearing,

The Graces send forth roses;

Behold, how the wave of the sea

Is made smooth by the calm;

Behold, how the duck dives;

Behold, how the crane travels;

And Titan shines constantly bright.

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 leaves, along the branches,

The fruit, bending them down, flourishes.

CUPID WOUNDED[47]

Love once among roses

A sleeping bee

Did not see, but was stung;

And, being wounded in the finger

Of his hand, cried for pain.

Running as well as flying

To the beautiful Venus,

I am killed, mother, said he,

I am killed, and I die.

A little serpent has stung me,

Winged, which they call

A bee,—the husbandmen.

And she said, If the sting

Of a bee afflicts you,

How, think you, are they afflicted,

Love, whom you smite?

[_Dated only 1838._] Sometimes I hear the veery's silver clarion, or the

brazen note of the impatient jay, or in secluded woods the chickadee

doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise of heroes, and set

forth the loveliness of virtue evermore.—_Phe-be._[48]

III

1839

(ÆT. 21-22)

THE THAW[49]

_Jan. 11._

I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears,

Her tears of joy, that only faster flowed.

Fain would I stretch me by the highway-side,

To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,

That, mingled soul and body with the tide,

I too may through the pores of nature flow.

But I, alas, nor trickle can nor fume,

One jot to forward the great work of Time,

'Tis mine to hearken while these ply the loom,

So shall my silence with their music chime.

THE DREAM VALLEY

_Jan. 20._ The prospect of our river valley from Tahatawan Cliff

appeared to me again in my dreams.

Last night, as I lay gazing with shut eyes

Into the golden land of dreams,

I thought I gazed adown a quiet reach

Of land and water prospect,

Whose low beach

Was peopled with the now subsiding hum

Of happy industry, whose work is done.

And as I turned me on my pillow o'er,

I heard the lapse of waves upon the shore,

Distinct as it had been at broad noonday,

And I were wandering at Rockaway.

LOVE

We two that planets erst had been

Are now a double star,

And in the heavens may be seen,

Where that we fixèd are.

Yet, whirled with subtle power along,

Into new space we enter,

And evermore with spheral song

Revolve about one centre.

_Feb. 3._

The deeds of king and meanest hedger

Stand side by side in heaven's ledger.

* * * * *

'Twill soon appear if we but look

At evening into earth's day-book,

Which way the great account doth stand

Between the heavens and the land.

THE EVENING WIND

The eastern mail comes lumbering in,

With outmost waves of Europe's din;

The western sighs adown the slope,

Or 'mid the rustling leaves doth grope,

Laden with news from Californ',

Whate'er transpired hath since morn,

How wags the world by brier and brake,

From hence to Athabasca lake.[50]

POETIZING

_Feb. 8._ When the poetic frenzy seizes us, we run and scratch with our

pen, delighting, like the cock, in the dust we make, but do not detect

where the jewel lies, which perhaps we have in the meantime cast to a

distance, or quite covered up again.[51]

_Feb. 9._ It takes a man to make a room silent.

THE PEAL OF THE BELLS[52]

_Feb. 10._

When the world grows old by the chimney-side,

Then forth to the youngling rocks I glide,

Where over the water, and over the land,

The bells are booming on either hand.

Now up they go ding, then down again dong,

And awhile they swing to the same old song,

And the metal goes round at a single bound,

A-lulling the fields with its measured sound,

Till the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom

As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.

Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone,

And seldom it is that one sound comes alone,

For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng,

And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along.

When the echo has reached me in this lone vale,

I am straightway a hero in coat of mail,

I tug at my belt and I march on my post,

And feel myself more than a match for a host.

I am on the alert for some wonderful Thing

Which somewhere 's a-taking place;

'Tis perchance the salute which our planet doth ring

When it meeteth another in space.

THE SHRIKE

_Feb. 25._

Hark! hark! from out the thickest fog

Warbles with might and main

The fearless shrike, as all agog

To find in fog his gain.

His steady sails he never furls

At any time o' year,

And, perched now on Winter's curls,

He whistles in his ear.[53]

THE POET

_March 3._ He must be something more than natural,—even supernatural.

Nature will not speak through but along with him. His voice will

not proceed from her midst, but, breathing on her, will make her the

expression of his thought. He then poetizes when he takes a fact out

of nature into spirit. He speaks without reference to time or place.

His thought is one world, hers another. He is another Nature,—Nature's

brother. Kindly offices do they perform for one another. Each publishes

the other's truth.

MORNING

_April 4._ The atmosphere of morning gives a healthy hue to our

prospects. Disease is a sluggard that overtakes, never encounters,

us. We have the start each day, and may fairly distance him before the

dew is off; but if we recline in the bowers of noon, he will come up

with us after all. The morning dew breeds no cold. We enjoy a diurnal

reprieve in the beginning of each day's creation. In the morning we do

not believe in expediency; we will start afresh, and have no patching,

no temporary fixtures. The afternoon man has an interest in the past;

his eye is divided, and he sees indifferently well either way.

DRIFTING

Drifting in a sultry day on the sluggish waters of the pond, I almost

cease to live and begin to be. A boatman stretched on the deck of his

craft and dallying with the noon would be as apt an emblem of eternity

for me as the serpent with his tail in his mouth. I am never so prone

to lose my identity. I am dissolved in the haze.

DISAPPOINTMENT

_April 7. Sunday._ The tediousness and detail of execution never occur

to the genius projecting; it always antedates the completion of its

work. It condescends to give time a few hours to do its bidding in.

RESOLVE

Most have sufficient contempt for what is mean to resolve that they will

abstain from it, and a few virtue enough to abide by their resolution,

but not often does one attain to such lofty contempt as to require no

resolution to be made.

THE TEAMSTER

_April 8._ There goes a six-horse team, and a man by its side. He

has rolled out of his cradle into a Tom-and-Jerry, and goes about his

business while Nature goes about hers, without standing agape at his

condition. As though sixty years were not enough for these things! What

have death, and the cholera, and the immortal destiny of man, to do

with the shipping interests? There is an unexplained bravery in this.

What with bare astonishment one would think that man had his hands

full for so short a term. But this is no drawback on the lace-working

and cap-making interests. Some attain to such a degree of sang-froid

and nonchalance as to be weavers of toilet cushions and manufacturers

of pinheads, without once flinching or the slightest affection of the

nerves, for the period of a natural life.[54]

FAT PINE FOR SPEARING

_April 9._ Fat roots of pine lying in rich veins as of gold or silver,

even in old pastures where you would least expect it, make you realize

that you live in the youth of the world, and you begin to know the

wealth of the planet. Human nature is still in its prime, then. Bring

axe, pickaxe, and shovel, and tap the earth here where there is most

sap. The marrowy store gleams like some vigorous sinew, and you feel a

new suppleness in your own limbs. These are the traits that conciliate

man's moroseness, and make him civil to his fellows; every such pine

root is a pledge of suavity. If he can discover absolute barrenness in

any direction there will be some excuse for peevishness.

SOCIETY

_April 14._ There is a _terra firma_ in society as well as in geography,

some whose ports you may make by dead reckoning in all weather. All the

rest are but floating and fabulous Atlantides which sometimes skirt the

western horizon of our intercourse. They impose only on seasick mariners

who have put into some Canary Island on the frontiers of society.

CIRCUMSTANCES

_April 24._ Why should we concern ourselves with what has happened to

us, and the unaccountable fickleness of events, and not rather [with]

how we have happened to the universe, and it has demeaned itself in

consequence? Let us record in each case the judgment we have awarded to

circumstances.

ACQUAINTANCE

Cheap persons will stand upon ceremony, because there is no other

ground; but to the great of the earth we need no introduction, nor do

they need any to us.

THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH

_April 25._ If we see the reality in things, of what moment is the

superficial and apparent? Take the earth and all the interests it

has known,—what are they beside one deep surmise that pierces and

scatters them? The independent beggar disposes of all with one hearty,

significant curse by the roadside. 'Tis true they are not worth a

"tinker's damn."

PICTURE

_April 30._ Of some illuminated pictures which I saw last evening, one

representing the plain of Babylon, with only a heap of brick-dust in

the centre, and an uninterrupted horizon bounding the desert, struck

me most. I would see painted a boundless expanse of desert, prairie,

or sea, without other object than the horizon. The heavens and the

earth,—the first and last painting,—where is the artist who shall

undertake it?

_May 11._ The farmer keeps pace with his crops and the revolutions of

the seasons, but the merchant with the fluctuations of trade. Observe

how differently they walk in the streets.

VICE AND VIRTUE

_May 16._ Virtue is the very heart and lungs of vice: it cannot stand

up but it lean on virtue.

* * * * *

Who has not admired the twelve labors? And yet nobody thinks if Hercules

had sufficient motive for racking his bones to that degree. Men are not

so much virtuous as patrons of virtue, and every one knows that it is

easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than the temporary

guardian of it.

THE FORM OF STRENGTH

_May 17._ We say justly that the weak person is flat; for, like all flat

substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is

on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides

all the way through life. Most things are strong in one direction,—a

straw longitudinally, a board in the direction of its edge, a knee

transversely to its grain,—but the brave man is a perfect sphere, which

cannot fall on its flat side, and is equally strong every way. The

coward is wretchedly spheroidal at best, too much educated or drawn out

on one side commonly and depressed on the other; or he may be likened to

a hollow sphere, whose disposition of matter is best when the greatest

bulk is intended.[55]

SELF-CULTURE

_May 21._ Who knows how incessant a surveillance a strong man may

maintain over himself,—how far subject passion and appetite to reason,

and lead the life his imagination paints? Well has the poet said,—

"By manly mind Not e'en in sleep is will resigned."

By a strong effort may he not command even his brute body in unconscious

moments?

MY ATTIC

_June 4._ I sit here this fourth of June, looking out on men and nature

from this that I call my perspective window, through which all things

are seen in their true relations. This is my upper empire, bounded by

four walls, viz., three of boards yellow-washed, facing the north,

west, and south, respectively, and the fourth of plaster, likewise

yellow-washed, fronting the sunrise,—to say nothing of the purlieus and

outlying provinces, unexplored as yet but by rats.

* * * * *

The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like

burs.

RENCOUNTER

_June 22. Saturday._ I have within the last few days come into contact

with a pure, uncompromising spirit, that is somewhere wandering in the

atmosphere, but settles not positively anywhere. Some persons carry

about them the air and conviction of virtue, though they themselves are

unconscious of it, and are even backward to appreciate it in others.

Such it is impossible not to love; still is their loveliness, as it

were, independent of them, so that you seem not to lose it when they are

absent, for when they are near it is like an invisible presence which

attends you.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another's. We see so much

only as we possess.

SYMPATHY[56]

_June 24._

Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy,

Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mould,

As one she had designed for Beauty's toy,

But after manned him for her own stronghold.

On every side he open was as day,

That you might see no lack of strength within,

For walls and ports do only serve alway

For a pretense to feebleness and sin.

Say not that Cæsar was victorious,

With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame;

In other sense this youth was glorious,

Himself a kingdom wheresoe'er he came.

No strength went out to get him victory,

When all was income of its own accord;

For where he went none other was to see,

But all were parcel of their noble lord.

He forayed like the subtle haze of summer,

That stilly shows fresh landscapes to our eyes,

And revolutions works without a murmur,

Or rustling of a leaf beneath the skies.

So was I taken unawares by this,

I quite forgot my homage to confess;

Yet now am forced to know, though hard it is,

I might have loved him, had I loved him less.

Each moment, as we nearer drew to each,

A stern respect withheld us farther yet,

So that we seemed beyond each other's reach,

And less acquainted than when first we met.

We two were one while we did sympathize,

So could we not the simplest bargain drive;

And what avails it now that we are wise,

If absence doth this doubleness contrive?

Eternity may not the chance repeat,

But I must tread my single way alone,

In sad remembrance that we once did meet,

And know that bliss irrevocably gone.

The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing,

For elegy has other subject none;

Each strain of music in my ears shall ring

Knell of departure from that other one.

Make haste and celebrate my tragedy;

With fitting strain resound, ye woods and fields;

Sorrow is dearer in such case to me

Than all the joys other occasion yields.

Is't then too late the damage to repair?

Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath reft

The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare,

But in my hands the wheat and kernel left.

If I but love that virtue which he is,

Though it be scented in the morning air,

Still shall we be truest acquaintances,

Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare.

THE "BOOK OF GEMS"

_July 4._

With cunning plates the polished leaves were decked,

Each one a window to the poet's world,

So rich a prospect that you might suspect

In that small space all paradise unfurled.

It was a right delightful road to go,

Marching through pastures of such fair herbage,

O'er hill and dale it led, and to and fro,

From bard to bard, making an easy stage;

Where ever and anon I slaked my thirst

Like a tired traveller at some poet's well,

Which from the teeming ground did bubbling burst,

And tinkling thence adown the page it fell.

Still through the leaves its music you might hear,

Till other springs fell faintly on the ear.

ANNURSNACK

_July 11._ At length we leave the river and take to the road which leads

to the hilltop, if by any means we may spy out what manner of earth

we inhabit. East, west, north, and south, it is farm and parish, this

world of ours. One may see how at convenient, eternal intervals men

have settled themselves, without thought for the universe. How little

matters it all they have built and delved there in the valley! It is

after all but a feature in the landscape. Still the vast impulse of

nature breathes over all. The eternal winds sweep across the interval

_to-day_, bringing mist and haze to shut out their works. Still the crow

caws from Nawshawtuct to Annursnack, as no feeble tradesman nor smith

may do. And in all swamps the hum of mosquitoes drowns this modern hum

of industry.

[Illustration: _View from Annursnack Hill_]

EVERY MAN IS A ROMAN FORUM

All things are up and down, east and west, to _me_. In me is the forum

out of which go the Appian and Sacred ways, and a thousand beside, to

the ends of the world. If I forget my centralness, and say a bean winds

with or against the _sun_, and not right or left, it will not be true

south of the equator.

THE ASSABET

_July 18._

Up this pleasant stream let's row

For the livelong summer's day,

Sprinkling foam where'er we go

In wreaths as white as driven snow.

Ply the oars! away! away![57]

Now we glide along the shore,

Chucking lilies as we go,

While the yellow-sanded floor

Doggedly resists the oar,

Like some turtle dull and slow.

Now we stem the middle tide,

Plowing through the deepest soil;

Ridges pile on either side,

While we through the furrow glide,

Reaping bubbles for our toil.

Dew before and drought behind,

Onward all doth seem to fly;

Naught contents the eager mind,

Only rapids now are kind,

Forward are the earth and sky.

Sudden music strikes the ear,

Leaking out from yonder bank,

Fit such voyagers to cheer.

Sure there must be Naiads here,

Who have kindly played this prank.

There I know the cunning pack

Where yon self-sufficient rill

All its telltale hath kept back,

Through the meadows held its clack,

And now bubbleth its fill.

Silent flows the parent stream,

And if rocks do lie below

Smothers with her waves the din,

As it were a youthful sin,

Just as still and just as slow.

But this gleeful little rill,

Purling round its storied pebble,

Tinkles to the selfsame tune

From December until June,

Nor doth any drought enfeeble.

See the sun behind the willows,

Rising through the golden haze,

How he gleams along the billows,

Their white crests the easy pillows

Of his dew-besprinkled rays.

Forward press we to the dawning,

For Aurora leads the way,

Sultry noon and twilight scorning;

In each dewdrop of the morning

Lies the promise of a day.

Rivers from the sun do flow,

Springing with the dewy morn;

Voyageurs 'gainst time do row,

Idle noon nor sunset know,

Ever even with the dawn.[58]

Since that first "Away! away!"

Many a lengthy league we've rowed,

Still the sparrow on the spray

Hastes to usher in the day

With her simple stanza'd ode.[59]

THE BREEZE'S INVITATION

_July 20._

Come let's roam the breezy pastures,

Where the freest zephyrs blow,

Batten on the oak tree's rustle,

And the pleasant insect bustle,

Dripping with the streamlet's flow.

What if I no wings do wear,

Thro' this solid-seeming air

I can skim like any swallow;

Whoso dareth let her follow,

And we'll be a jovial pair.

Like two careless swifts let's sail,

Zephyrus shall think for me;

Over hill and over dale,

Riding on the easy gale,

We will scan the earth and sea.

Yonder see that willow tree

Winnowing the buxom air;

You a gnat and I a bee,

With our merry minstrelsy

We will make a concert there.

One green leaf shall be our screen,

Till the sun doth go to bed,

I the king and you the queen

Of that peaceful little green,

Without any subject's aid.

To our music Time will linger,

And earth open wide her ear,

Nor shall any need to tarry

To immortal verse to marry

Such sweet music as he'll hear.

_July 24._

Nature doth have her dawn each day,

But mine are far between;

Content, I cry, for, sooth to say,

Mine brightest are, I ween.

For when my sun doth deign to rise,

Though it be her noontide,

Her fairest field in shadow lies,

Nor can my light abide.

Sometimes I bask me in her day,

Conversing with my mate;

But if we interchange one ray,

Forthwith her heats abate.

Through his discourse I climb and see,

As from some eastern hill,

A brighter morrow rise to me

Than lieth in her skill.

As't were two summer days in one,

Two Sundays come together,

Our rays united make one sun,

With fairest summer weather.[60]

_July 25._ There is no remedy for love but to love more.

_Aug. 31._ Made seven miles, and moored our boat on the west side of a

little rising ground which in the spring forms an island in the river,

the sun going down on one hand, and our eminence contributing its shadow

to the night on the other.[61] In the twilight so elastic is the air

that the sky seems to tinkle [_sic_] over farmhouse and wood. Scrambling

up the bank of our _terra incognita_ we fall on huckleberries, which

have slowly ripened here, husbanding the juices which the months have

distilled, for our peculiar use this night.[62] If they had been rank

poison, the entire simplicity and confidence with which we plucked them

would have insured their wholesomeness. The devout attitude of the hour

asked a blessing on that repast. It was fit for the setting sun to rest

on.

* * * * *

From our tent here on the hillside, through that isosceles door, I see

our lonely mast on the shore, it may be as an eternity fixture, to be

seen in landscapes henceforth, or as the most temporary standstill of

time, the boat just come to anchor, and the mast still rocking to find

its balance.[63]

* * * * *

No human life is in night,—the woods, the boat, the shore,—yet is it

lifelike.[64] The warm pulse of a young life beats steadily underneath

all. This slight wind is where one artery approaches the surface and is

skin deep.

* * * * *

While I write here, I hear the foxes trotting about me over the dead

leaves, and now gently over the grass, as if not to disturb the dew

which is falling. Why should we not cultivate neighborly relations with

the foxes? As if to improve upon our seeming advances, comes one to

greet us nosewise under our tent-curtain. Nor do we rudely repulse him.

Is man powder and the fox flint and steel? Has not the time come when

men and foxes shall lie down together?

* * * * *

Hist! there, the musquash by the boat is taking toll of potatoes and

melons. Is not this the age of a community of goods? His presumption

kindles in me a brotherly feeling. Nevertheless. I get up to

reconnoitre, and tread stealthily along the shore to make acquaintance

with him. But on the riverside I can see only the stars reflected in the

water, and now, by some ripple ruffling the disk of a star, I discover

him.

* * * * *

In the silence of the night the sound of a distant alarm bell is borne

to these woods. Even now men have fires and extinguish them, and, with

distant horizon blazings and barking of dogs, enact the manifold drama

of life.[65]

* * * * *

We begin to have an interest in sun, moon, and stars. What time

riseth Orion? Which side the pole gropeth the bear? East, West,

North, and South,—where are they? What clock shall tell the hours for

us?—Billerica, midnight.

_Sept. 1. Sunday._ Under an oak on the bank of the canal in Chelmsford.

From Ball's Hill to Billerica meeting-house the river is a noble stream

of water, flowing between gentle hills and occasional cliffs, and well

wooded all the way. It can hardly be said to flow at all, but rests

in the lap of the hills like a quiet lake. The boatmen call it a dead

stream. For many long reaches you can see nothing to indicate that men

inhabit its banks.[66] Nature seems to hold a sabbath herself to-day,—a

still warm sun on river and wood, and not breeze enough to ruffle the

water. Cattle stand up to their bellies in the river, and you think

Rembrandt should be here.

Camped under some oaks in Tyngsboro, on the east bank of the Merrimack,

just below the ferry.[67]

_Sept. 2._ Camped in Merrimack, on the west bank, by a deep ravine.[68]

_Sept. 3._ In Bedford, on the west bank, opposite a large rock, above

Coos Falls.[69]

_Sept. 4. Wednesday._ Hooksett, east bank, two or three miles below the

village, opposite Mr. Mitchel's.[70]

_Sept. 5._ Walked to Concord [N. H.], 10 miles.[71]

_Sept. 6._ By stage to Plymouth, 40 miles, and on foot to Tilton's inn,

Thornton. The scenery commences on Sanbornton Square, whence the White

Mountains are first visible. In Campton it is decidedly mountainous.

_Sept. 7._ Walked from Thornton through Peeling[72] and Lincoln to

Franconia. In Lincoln visited Stone Flume and Basin, and in Franconia

the Notch, and saw the Old Man of the Mountain.

_Sept. 8._ Walked from Franconia to Thomas J. Crawford's.

_Sept. 9._ At Crawford's.

_Sept. 10._ Ascended the mountain and rode to Conway.

_Sept. 11._ Rode to Concord.

_Sept. 12._ Rode to Hooksett and rowed to Bedford, N. H., or rather to

the northern part of Merrimack, near the ferry, by a large island, near

which we camped.[73]

_Sept 13._ Rowed and sailed to Concord, about 50 miles.[74]

THE WISE REST

_Sept 17._ Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even

pace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as

though the short spring days were an eternity.[75] All her operations

seem separately, for the time, the single object for which all things

tarry. Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity

were allotted for the least deed? Let him consume never so many æons,

so that he go about the meanest task well, though it be but the paring

of his nails.[76] If the setting sun seems to hurry him to improve the

day while it lasts, the chant of the crickets fails not to reassure him,

even-measured as of old, teaching him to take his own time henceforth

forever. The wise man is restful, never restless or impatient. He each

moment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole

body at each step, while others never relax the muscles of the leg till

the accumulated fatigue obliges them to stop short.

As the wise is not anxious that time wait for him, neither does he wait

for it.

_Oct 22._ Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to

lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of

its plain.[77]

ÆSCHYLUS

_Nov. 5._ There was one man lived his own healthy Attic life in those

days. The words that have come down to us evidence that their speaker

was a seer in his day and generation. At this day they owe nothing to

their dramatic form, nothing to stage machinery, and the fact that they

were spoken under these or those circumstances. All display of art for

the gratification of a factitious taste is silently passed by to come

at the least particle of absolute and genuine thought they contain. The

reader will be disappointed, however, who looks for traits of a rare

wisdom or eloquence, and will have to solace himself, for the most part,

with the poet's humanity and what it was in him to say. He will discover

that, like every genius, he was a solitary liver and worker in his day.

We are accustomed to say that the common sense of this age belonged to

the seer of the last,—as if time gave him any vantage ground. But not

so: I see not but Genius must ever take an equal start, and all the

generations of men are virtually at a standstill for it to come and

consider of them. Common sense is not so familiar with any truth but

Genius will represent it in a strange light to it. Let the seer bring

down his broad eye to the most stale and trivial fact, and he will make

you believe it a new planet in the sky.

As to criticism, man has never to make allowance to man; there is naught

to excuse, naught to bear in mind.

All the past is here present to be tried; let it approve itself if it

can.

GROWTH

We are not apt to remember that we grow. It is curious to reflect how

the maiden waiteth patiently, confiding as the unripe houstonia of the

meadow, for the slow moving years to work their will with her,—perfect

and ripen her,—like it to be fanned by the wind, watered by the rain,

and receive her education at the hands of nature.

These young buds of manhood in the streets are like buttercups in the

meadows,—surrendered to nature as they.

_Nov. 7._ I was not aware till to-day of a rising and risen generation.

Children appear to me as raw as the fresh fungi on a fence rail. By

what degrees of consanguinity is this succulent and rank-growing slip

of manhood related to me? What is it but another herb, ranging all the

kingdoms of nature, drawing in sustenance by a thousand roots and fibres

from all soils.

LACONICISM

_Nov. 8._ Prometheus' answer to Io's question, who has bound him to the

rock, is a good instance:—

Βούλουμα μὲν τὸ δῖον, Ἡφαίστου δὲ χείρ.

(The will indeed of Zeus, of Vulcan the hand.)

Also:—

Πταίσας δὲ τῷδε πρὸς κακῷ, μαθήσεται,

Ὅσον τό, τ᾽ ἄρχειν καὶ τὸ δουλούειν δίχα.

Such naked speech is the standing aside of words to make room for

thoughts.

REGRET

_Nov. 13._ Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow,

but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral

interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. By so doing you will be

astonished to find yourself restored once more to all your emoluments.

DESPONDENCY

_Nov. 14._ There is nowhere any apology for despondency. Always there is

life which, rightly lived, implies a divine satisfaction. I am soothed

by the rain-drops on the door-sill; every globule that pitches thus

confidently from the eaves to the ground is my life insurance. Disease

and a rain-drop cannot coexist. The east wind is not itself consumptive,

but has enjoyed a rare health from of old. If a fork or brand stand

erect, good is portended by it. They are the warrant of universal

innocence.

FAREWELL

_Nov. 19._

Light-hearted, thoughtless, shall I take my way,

When I to thee this being have resigned,

Well knowing where, upon a future day,

With us'rer's craft more than myself to find.

LINNÆUS

_Nov. 22._ Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and

"spare shirt," "leather breeches," and "gauze cap to keep off gnats,"

with as much complacency as Buonaparte would a park of artillery to be

used in the Russian Campaign. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and

bird, quadruped and biped. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.

These facts have even a _novel_ interest.[78]

_Nov. 29._ Many brave men have there been, thank Fortune, but I shall

never grow brave by comparison. When I remember myself I shall forget

them.

BRAVERY

_Dec. 2._ A rare landscape immediately suggests a suitable inhabitant,

whose breath shall be its wind, whose moods its seasons, and to whom

it will always be fair. To be chafed and worried, and not as serene as

Nature, does not become one whose nature is as steadfast as she. We do

all stand in the front ranks of the battle every moment of our lives;

where there is a brave man there is the thickest of the fight, there

the post of honor. Not he who procures a substitute to go to Florida is

exempt from service; he gathers his laurels in another field. Waterloo

is not the only battle-ground: as many and fatal guns are pointed at my

breast now as are contained in the English arsenals.

NOON

[_Undated._][79]

Straightway dissolved,

Like to the morning mists—or rather like the subtler mists of noon—

Stretched I far up the neighboring mountain's sides,

Adown the valleys, through the nether air,

Bathing, with fond expansiveness of soul,

The tiniest blade as the sublimest cloud.

What time the bittern, solitary bird,

Hides now her head amid the whispering fern,

And not a paddock vexes all the shore,

Nor feather ruffles the incumbent air,

Save where the wagtail interrupts the noon.

FROM A CHAPTER ON BRAVERY.—_Script_

_Dec._ Bravery deals not so much in resolute action, as in healthy

and assured rest. Its palmy state is a staying at home, and compelling

alliance in all directions.[80]

The brave man never heareth the din of war; he is trustful and

unsuspecting, so observant of the least trait of good or beautiful that,

if you turn toward him the dark side of anything, he will still see only

the bright.

* * * * *

One moment of serene and confident life is more glorious than a whole

campaign of daring. We should be ready for all issues, not daring to

die but daring to live. To the brave even danger is an ally.

* * * * *

In their unconscious daily life all are braver than they know. Man

slumbers and wakes in his twilight with the confidence of noonday; he is

not palsied nor struck dumb by the inexplicable riddle of the universe.

A mere surveyor's report or clause in a preëmption bill contains matter

of quite extraneous interest, of a subdued but confident tone, evincing

such a steadiness in the writer as would have done wonders at Bunker's

Hill or Marathon. Where there is the collected eye, there will not fail

the effective hand; χεὶρ δ᾽ ὁρᾷ τὸ δράσιμον.

* * * * *

Science is always brave, for to know is to know good; doubt and danger

quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly

scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts in

her train. Cowardice is unscientific, for there cannot be a science

of ignorance. There may be a science of war, for that advances, but

a retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is, then is it an orderly

advance in the face of circumstances.[81]

* * * * *

If his fortune deserts him, the brave man in pity still abides by her.

Samuel Johnson and his friend Savage, compelled by poverty to pass the

night in the streets, resolve that they will stand by their country.

* * * * *

The state of complete manhood is virtue, and virtue and bravery are

one. This truth has long been in the languages. All the relations of

the subject are hinted at in the derivation and analogies of the Latin

words _vir_ and _virtus_, and the Greek ἀγαθός and ἄριστος. Language

in its settled form is the record of men's second thoughts, a more

faithful utterance than they can momentarily give. What men say is so

sifted and obliged to approve itself as answering to a common want,

that nothing absolutely frivolous obtains currency in the language. The

analogies of words are never whimsical and meaningless, but stand for

real likenesses. Only the ethics of mankind, and not of any particular

man, give point and vigor to our speech.

* * * * *

The coward was born one day too late, for he has never overtaken the

present hour. He is the younger son of creation, who now waiteth till

the elder decease.[82] He does not dwell on the earth as though he had

a deed of the land in his pocket,—not as another lump of nature, as

imperturbable an occupant as the stones in the field. He has only rented

a few acres of time and space, and thinks that every accident portends

the expiration of his lease. He is a non-proprietor, a serf, in his

moral economy nomadic, having no fixed abode. When danger appears, he

goes abroad and clings to straws.

* * * * *

Bravery and Cowardice are kindred correlatives with Knowledge and

Ignorance, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil.

* * * * *

If you let a single ray of light through the shutter, it will go on

diffusing itself without limit till it enlighten the world, but the

shadow that was never so wide at first as rapidly contracts till it

comes to naught. The shadow of the moon when it passes nearest the sun

is lost in space ere it can reach our earth to eclipse it. Always the

_system_ shines with uninterrupted light, for, as the sun is so much

larger than any planet, no shadow can travel far into space. We may

bask always in the light of the system, always may step back out of

the shade. No man's shadow is as large as his body, if the rays make a

right angle with the reflecting surface. Let our lives be passed under

the equator, with the sun in the meridian.

There is no ill which may not be dissipated like the dark, if you let

in a stronger light upon it. Overcome evil with good. Practice no such

narrow economy as they whose bravery amounts to no more light than a

farthing candle, before which most objects cast a shadow wider than

themselves.[83]

* * * * *

It was a conceit of Plutarch, accounting for the preferences given

to signs observed on the left hand, that men may have thought "things

terrestrial and mortal directly over against heavenly and divine things,

and do conjecture that the things which to us are on the left hand,

the gods send down from their right hand."[84] If we are not blind, we

shall see how a right hand is stretched over all, as well the unlucky

as lucky, and that the ordering soul is only right-handed, distributing

with one palm all our fates.[85]

* * * * *

Men have made war from a deeper instinct than peace. War is but the

compelling of peace.[86]

When the world is declared under martial law, every Esau retakes his

birthright, and what there is in him does not fail to appear. He wipes

off all old scores and commences a new account. The world is interested

to know how any soul will demean itself in so novel a position. But when

war too, like commerce and husbandry, gets to be a routine, and men go

about it as indented apprentices, the hero degenerates into a marine,

and the standing army into a standing jest.

* * * * *

No pains are spared to do honor to the brave soldier. All guilds and

corporations are taxed to provide him with fit harness and equipment.

His coat must be red as the sunset, or blue as the heavens. Gold

or silver, pinchbeck or copper, solid or superficial, mark him for

fortune's favorite. The skill of a city enchases and tempers his

sword-blade; the Tyrian dye confounds him with emperors and kings.

Wherever he goes, music precedes and prepares the way for him. His life

is a holiday, and the contagion of his example unhinges the universe.

The world puts by work and comes out to stare. He is the one only man.

He recognizes no time-honored casts and conventions, no fixtures but

transfixtures, no governments at length settled on a permanent basis.

One tap of the drum sets the political and moral harmonies all ajar.

His ethics may well bear comparison with the priest's. He may rally,

charge, retreat in an orderly manner, but never flee nor flinch.[87]

Each more melodious note I hear

Brings sad reproach to me,

That I alone afford the ear,

Who would the music be.[88]

The brave man is the sole patron of music;[89] he recognizes it for his

mother-tongue,—a more mellifluous and articulate language than words,

in comparison with which speech is recent and temporary. It is his

voice. His language must have the same majestic movement and cadence

that philosophy assigns to the heavenly bodies. The steady flux of his

thought constitutes time in music. The universe falls in and keeps pace

with it, which before proceeded singly and discordant. Hence are poetry

and song. When Bravery first grew afraid and went to war, it took music

along with it. The soul delighted still to hear the echo of its own

voice. Especially the soldier insists on agreement and harmony always.

Indeed, it is that friendship there is in war that makes it chivalrous

and heroic. It was the dim sentiment of a noble friendship for the

purest soul the world has seen, that gave to Europe a crusading era.[90]

* * * * *

The day of tilts and tournaments has gone by, but no herald summons us

to the tournament of love.

* * * * *

The brave warrior must have harmony if not melody at any sacrifice.

Consider what shifts he makes. There are the bagpipe, the gong, the

trumpet, the drum,—either the primitive central African or Indian, or

the brass European. Ever since Jericho fell down before a blast of rams'

horns, the martial and musical have gone hand in hand. If the soldier

marches to the sack of a town, he must be preceded by drum and trumpet,

which shall as it were identify his cause with the accordant universe.

All woods and walls echo back his own spirit, and the hostile territory

is then preoccupied for him. He is no longer insulated, but infinitely

related and familiar. The roll-call musters for him all the forces of

nature.[91]

* * * * *

All sounds, and more than all, silence, do fife and drum for us.[92] The

least creaking doth whet all our senses and emit a tremulous light, like

the aurora borealis, over things. As polishing expresses the vein in

marble and the grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks

anywhere.[93]

* * * * *

To the sensitive soul, the universe has its own fixed measure, which is

its measure also, and, as a regular pulse is inseparable from a healthy

body, so is its healthiness dependent on the regularity of its rhythm.

In all sounds the soul recognizes its own rhythm, and seeks to express

its sympathy by a correspondent movement of the limbs. When the body

marches to the measure of the soul, then is true courage and invincible

strength.[94]

* * * * *

The coward would reduce this thrilling sphere music to a universal

wail, this melodious chant to a nasal cant. He thinks to conciliate all

hostile influences by compelling his neighborhood into a partial concord

with himself, but his music is no better than a jingle which is akin to

a jar,—jars regularly recurring.[95]

He blows a feeble blast of slender melody, because nature can have no

more sympathy with such a soul than it has of cheerful melody in itself.

Hence hears he no accordant note in the universe, and is a coward, or

consciously outcast and deserted man. But the brave man, without drum or

trumpet, compels concord everywhere by the universality and tunefulness

of his soul.[96]

"Take a metallic plate," says Coleridge, "and strew sand on it; sound

a harmonic chord over the sand, and the grains will whirl about in

circles, and other geometrical figures, all, as it were, depending on

some point relatively at rest. Sound a discord, and every grain will

whisk about without any order at all, in no figures, and with no points

of rest." The brave man is such a point of relative rest, over which

the soul sounds ever a harmonic chord.

* * * * *

Music is either a sedative or a tonic to the soul.[97] I read that

"Plato thinks the gods never gave men music, the science of melody

and harmony, for mere delectation or to tickle the ear; but that the

discordant parts of the circulations and beauteous fabric of the soul,

and that of it that roves about the body, and many times, for want of

tune and air, breaks forth into many extravagances and excesses, might

be sweetly recalled and artfully wound up to their former consent and

agreement."[98]

* * * * *

By dint of wind and stringed instruments the coward endeavors to put

the best face on the matter,—whistles to keep his courage up.

* * * * *

There are some brave traits related by Plutarch; e. g.: "Homer acquaints

us how Ajax, being to engage in a single combat with Hector, bade

the Grecians pray to the gods for him; and while they were at their

devotions, he was putting on his armor."

On another occasion, a storm arises, "which as soon as the pilot sees,

he falls to his prayers, and invokes his tutelar dæmons, but neglects

not in the meantime to hold to the rudder and let down the main yard."

"Homer directs his husbandman, before he either plow or sow, to pray

to the terrestrial Jove and the venerable Ceres, but with his hand upon

the plow-tail."

Ἀρχὴ γὰρ ὄντως τοῦ νικᾷν τὸ θαῤῥεῖν. (Verily, to be brave is the

beginning of victory.)

* * * * *

The Romans "made Fortune surname to Fortitude," for fortitude is that

alchemy that turns all things to good fortune. The man of fortitude,

whom the Latins called fortis, is no other than that lucky person

whom _fors_ favors, or _vir summae fortis_. If we will, every bark may

"carry Cæsar and Cæsar's fortune." The brave man stays at home. For an

impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself; he was an arrant coward who

first made shields of brass. For armor of proof, mea virtute me involvo

(I wrap myself in my virtue);

"Tumble me down, and I will sit

Upon my ruins, smiling yet."[99]

* * * * *

The bravest deed, which for the most part is left quite out of history,

which alone wants the staleness of a deed done and the uncertainty

of a deed doing, is the life of a great man. To perform exploits is

to be temporarily bold, as becomes a courage that ebbs and flows, the

soul quite vanquished by its own deed subsiding into indifference and

cowardice; but the exploit of a brave life consists in its momentary

completeness.[100]

FRIENDSHIP [101]

_Fall of_ 1839. Then first I conceive of a true friendship, when some

rare specimen of manhood presents itself. It seems the mission of such

to commend virtue to mankind, not by any imperfect preaching of her

word, but by their own carriage and conduct. We may then worship moral

beauty without the formality of a religion.

They are some fresher wind that blows, some new fragrance that breathes.

They make the landscape and the sky for us.

* * * * *

The rules of other intercourse are all inapplicable to this.

* * * * *

We are one virtue, one truth, one beauty. All nature is our satellite,

whose light is dull and reflected. She is subaltern to us,—an episode to

our poem; but we are primary, and radiate light and heat to the system.

* * * * *

I am only introduced once again to myself.

* * * * *

Conversation, contact, familiarity are the steps to it and instruments

of it, but it is most perfect when these are done, and distance and time

oppose no barrier.

* * * * *

I need not ask any man to be my friend, more than the sun the earth

to be attracted by him. It is not his to give, nor mine to receive. I

cannot pardon my enemy; let him pardon himself.

* * * * *

Commonly we degrade Love and Friendship by presenting them under the

aspect of a trivial dualism.

* * * * *

What matter a few words more or less with my friend,—with all

mankind;—they will still be my friends in spite of themselves. Let them

stand aloof if they can! As though the most formidable distance could

rob me of any real sympathy or advantage! No, when such interests are

at stake, time, and distance, and difference fall into their own places.

* * * * *

But alas! to be actually separated from that parcel of heaven we call

our friend, with the suspicion that we shall no more meet in nature, is

source enough for all the elegies that ever were written. But the true

remedy will be to recover our friend again piecemeal, wherever we can

find a feature, as Æetes gathered up the members of his son, which Medea

had strewn in her path.

* * * * *

The more complete our sympathy, the more our senses are struck dumb,

and we are repressed by a delicate respect, so that to indifferent eyes

we are least his friend, because no vulgar symbols pass between us. On

after thought, perhaps, we come to fear that we have been the losers by

such seeming indifference, but in truth that which withholds us is the

bond between us.

* * * * *

My friend will be as much better than myself as my aspiration is above

my performance.

* * * * *

This is most serene autumn weather. The chirp of crickets may be

heard at noon over all the land. As in summer they are heard only at

nightfall, so now by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of

the year.[102] The lively decay of autumn promises as infinite duration

and freshness as the green leaves of spring.

IV

1840

(ÆT. 22-23)

THE FISHER'S SON[103]

_Jan. 10._

I know the world where land and water meet,

By yonder hill abutting on the main;

One while I hear the waves incessant beat,

Then, turning round, survey the land again.

Within a humble cot that looks to sea,

Daily I breathe this curious warm life;

Beneath a friendly haven's sheltering lee

My noiseless day with myst'ry still is rife.

'Tis here, they say, my simple life began;

And easy credit to the tale I lend,

For well I know 'tis here I am a man.

But who will simply tell me of the end?

These eyes, fresh opened, spied the far-off Sea,

Which like a silent godfather did stand,

Nor uttered one explaining word to me,

But introduced straight Godmother Land.

And yonder still stretches that silent main,

With many glancing ships besprinkled o'er;

And earnest still I gaze and gaze again

Upon the selfsame waves and friendly shore,

Till like a watery humor on the eye

It still appears whichever way I turn,

Its silent waste and mute o'erarching sky

With close-shut eyes I clearly still discern.

And yet with lingering doubt I haste each morn

To see if ocean still my gaze will greet,

And with each day once more to life am born,

And tread once more the earth with infant feet.

* * * * *

My years are like a stroll upon the beach,

As near the ocean's edge as I can go;

My tardy steps its waves do oft o'erreach,

Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.

Infinite work my hands find there to do,

Gathering the relics which the waves upcast;

Each storm doth scour the deep for something new,

And every time the strangest is the last.

My sole employment 'tis, and scrupulous care,

To place my gains beyond the reach of tides,

Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,

Which ocean kindly to my hand confides.

I have no fellow-laborer on the shore;

They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea;

Sometimes I think the ocean they've sailed o'er

Is deeper known upon the strand to me.

The middle sea can show no crimson dulse,

Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view,

Along the shore my hand is on its pulse,

Whose feeble beat is elsewhere felt by few.

My neighbors come sometimes with lumb'ring carts.

As it would seem my pleasant toil to share,

But straightway take their loads to distant marts,

For only weeds and ballast are their care.

* * * * *

'Tis by some strange coincidence, if I

Make common cause with ocean when he storms,

Who can so well support a separate sky,

And people it with multitude of forms.

Oft in the stillness of the night I hear

Some restless bird presage the coming din,

And distant murmurs faintly strike my ear

From some bold bluff projecting far within.

My stillest depths straightway do inly heave

More genially than rests the summer's calm;

The howling winds through my soul's cordage grieve,

Till every shelf and ledge gives the alarm.

Far from the shore the swelling billows rise,

And gathering strength come rolling to the land,

And, as each wave retires, and murmur dies,

I straight pursue upon the streaming sand,

Till the returning surge with gathered strength

Compels once more the backward way to take,

And, creeping up the beach a cable's length,

In many a thirsty hollow leaves a lake.

Oft as some ruling star my tide has swelled

The sea can scarcely brag more wrecks than I;

Ere other influence my waves has quelled,

The stanchest bark that floats is high and dry.

_Jan. 19._

By a strong liking we prevail

Against the stoutest fort;

At length the fiercest heart will quail,

And our alliance court.

FRIENDS

_Jan. 26._ They are like air bubbles on water, hastening to flow

together.

History tells of Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, but why should

not we put to shame those old reserved worthies by a community of such?

* * * * *

Constantly, as it were through a remote skylight, I have glimpses of

a serene friendship-land, and know the better why brooks murmur and

violets grow.

This conjunction of souls, like waves which meet and break, subsides

also backward over things, and gives all a fresh aspect.

* * * * *

I would live henceforth with some gentle soul such a life as may be

conceived, double for variety, single for harmony,—two, only that we

might admire at our oneness,—one, because indivisible. Such community to

be a pledge of holy living. How could aught unworthy be admitted into

our society? To listen with one ear to each summer sound, to behold

with one eye each summer scene, our visual rays so to meet and mingle

with the object as to be one bent and doubled; with two tongues to be

wearied, and thought to spring ceaselessly from a double fountain.

POETRY

_Jan._ No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.

The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient,

and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its

requisitions.[104] It is indeed all that we do not know.

The poet does not need to see how meadows are something else than earth,

grass, and water, but how they are thus much. He does not need discover

that potato blows are as beautiful as violets, as the farmer thinks,

but only how good potato blows are.

The poem is drawn out from under the feet of the poet, his whole weight

has rested on this ground.

It has a logic more severe than the logician's.

You might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it

on the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought. The

best book is only an advertisement of it, such as is sometimes sewed in

with its cover.[105]

* * * * *

Its eccentric and unexplored orbit embraces the system.

_Jan. 27._ What a tame life we are living! How little heroic it is!

Let us devise never so perfect a system of living, and straightway the

soul leaves it to shuffle along its own way alone. It is easy enough

to establish a durable and harmonious routine; immediately all parts of

nature consent to it.[106] The sun-dial still points to the noon mark,

and the sun rises and sets for it. The neighbors are never fatally

obstinate when such a scheme is to be instituted; but forthwith all

lend a hand, and ring the bell, and bring fuel and lights, and put

by work and don their best garments, with an earnest conformity which

matches the operations of nature. There is always a present and extant

life which all combine to uphold, though its insufficiency is manifest

enough.[107] Still the sing-song goes on.

_Jan. 29._ A friend in history looks like some premature soul. The

nearest approach to a community of love in these days is like the

distant breaking of waves on the seashore. An ocean there must be, for

it washes our beach.

This alone do all men sail for, trade for, plow for, preach for, fight

for.

ÆSCHYLUS

The Greeks, as the Southerns generally, expressed themselves with more

facility than we in distinct and lively images, and as to the grace and

completeness with which they treated the subjects suited to their genius

they must be allowed to retain their ancient supremacy. But a rugged

and uncouth array of thought, though never so modern, may rout them at

any moment. It remains for other than Greeks to write the literature of

the next century.

Æschylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only

an enlarged common sense. He adverts with chaste severity to all natural

facts. His sublimity is Greek sincerity and simpleness, naked wonder

which mythology had not helped to explain.

Tydeus' shield had for device

"An artificial heaven blazing with stars;

A bright full moon in the midst of the shield,

Eldest of stars, eye of night, is prominent."

* * * * *

The Greeks were stern but simple children in their literature. We have

gained nothing by the few ages which we have the start of them. This

universal wondering at those old men is as if a matured grown person

should discover that the aspirations of his youth argued a diviner life

than the contented wisdom of his manhood.

* * * * *

He is competent to express any of the common manly feelings. If his

hero is to make a boast, it does not lack fullness, it is as boastful

as could be desired; he has a flexible mouth, and can fill it readily

with strong, round words, so that you will say the man's speech wants

nothing, he has left nothing unsaid, but he has actually wiped his lips

of it.

Whatever the common eye sees at all and expresses as best it may, he

sees uncommonly and describes with rare completeness. The multitude that

thronged the theatre could no doubt go along with him to the end. The

Greeks had no transcendent geniuses like Milton and Shakespeare, whose

merit only posterity could fully appreciate.

* * * * *

The social condition of genius is the same in all ages. Æschylus was

undoubtedly alone and without sympathy in his simple reverence for the

mystery of the universe.

_Feb. 10._ CRITICISM ON AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS[108]

_Feb. 11._ "Truth," says Lord Bacon, "may perhaps come to the price of

a pearl, that sheweth best by day; but it will not rise to the price

of a diamond or carbuncle, which sheweth best in varied lights." Like

the pearl, truth shines with a steady but pale light which invites

to introspection; it is intrinsically bright, not accidentally as the

diamond. We seem to behold its rear always, as though it were not coming

toward us but retiring from us. Its light is not reflected this way, but

we see the sombre and wrong side of its rays. As the dust in his beams

makes known that the sun shines.

Falsehoods that glare and dazzle are sloped toward us, reflecting full

in our faces even the light of the sun. Wait till sunset, or go round

them, and the falsity will be apparent.

* * * * *

It is never enough that our life is an easy one. We must live on the

stretch; not be satisfied with a tame and undisturbed round of weeks

and days, but retire to our rest like soldiers on the eve of a battle,

looking forward with ardor to the strenuous sortie of the morrow.[109]

"Sit not down in the popular seats and common level of virtues, but

endeavor to make them heroical. Offer not only peace offerings but

holocausts unto God." To the brave soldier the rust and leisure of

peace are harder than the fatigues of war. As our bodies court physical

encounters, and languish in the mild and even climate of the tropics,

so our souls thrive best on unrest and discontent.[110]

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.

_Feb. 12._ Opposition is often so strong a likeness as to remind us of

the difference.

* * * * *

Truth has properly no opponent, for nothing gets so far up on the other

side as to be opposite. She looks broadcast over the field and sees no

opponent.

The ring-leader of the mob will soonest be admitted into the councils

of state.

* * * * *

Knavery is more foolish than folly, for that, half knowing its own

foolishness, it still persists. The knave has reduced folly to a system,

is the prudent, common-sense fool. The witling has the simplicity and

directness of genius, is the inspired fool. His incomprehensible ravings

become the creed of the dishonest of a succeeding era.

_Feb. 13._ An act of integrity is to an act of duty what the French verb

_être_ is to _devoir_. Duty is _ce que devrait être_.

Duty belongs to the understanding, but genius is not dutiful, the

highest talent is dutiful. Goodness results from the wisest use of

talent.

The perfect man has both genius and talent. The one is his head, the

other his foot; by one he is, by the other he lives.

The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God, the end of the

world.[111]

The very thrills of genius are disorganizing. The body is never quite

acclimated to _its_ atmosphere, but how often succumbs and goes into a

decline!

_Feb. 14._ Beauty lives by rhymes. Double a deformity is a beauty. Draw

this blunt quill over the paper, and fold it once transversely to the

line, pressing it suddenly before the ink dries, and a delicately shaded

and regular figure is the result, which art cannot surpass.[112]

* * * * *

A very meagre natural history suffices to make me a child. Only their

names and genealogy make me love fishes. I would know even the number of

their fin-rays, and how many scales compose the lateral line. I fancy I

am amphibious and swim in all the brooks and pools in the neighborhood,

with the perch and bream, or doze under the pads of our river amid the

winding aisles and corridors formed by their stems, with the stately

pickerel. I am the wiser in respect to all knowledges, and the better

qualified for all fortunes, for knowing that there is a minnow in the

brook. Methinks I have need even of his sympathy, and to be his fellow

in a degree. I do like him sometimes when he balances himself for an

hour over the yellow floor of his basin.[113]

_Feb. 15._ The good seem to inhale a more generous atmosphere and be

bathed in a more precious light than other men. Accordingly Virgil

describes the _sedes beatas_ thus:—

"Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit

Purpureo: Solemque suum, sua sidera nôrunt."[114]

_Feb. 16._ Divination is prospective memory.

* * * * *

There is a kindred principle at the bottom of all affinities. The

magnet cultivates a steady friendship with the pole, all bodies with all

others. The friendliness of nature is that goddess Ceres who presides

over every sowing and harvest, and we bless the same in sun and rain.

The seed in the ground tarries for a season with its genial friends

there; all the earths and grasses and minerals are its hosts, who

entertain it hospitably, and plenteous crops and teeming wagons are the

result.

_Feb. 18._ All romance is grounded on friendship. What is this rural,

this pastoral, this poetical life but its invention? Does not the moon

shine for Endymion? Smooth pastures and mild airs are for some Corydon

and Phyllis. Paradise belongs to Adam and Eve. Plato's republic is

governed by Platonic love.

_Feb. 20._ The coward's hope is suspicion, the hero's doubt a sort of

hope. The gods neither hope nor doubt.

_Feb. 22._ The river is unusually high, owing to the melting of the

snow. Men go in boats over their gardens and potato-fields, and all the

children of the village are on tiptoe to see whose fence will be carried

away next. Great numbers of muskrats, which have been driven out of

their holes by the water, are killed by the sportsmen.

They are to us instead of the beaver. The wind from over the meadows is

laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its racy freshness advertises

us of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far off. I am

affected by the sight of their cabins of mud and grass, raised four

or five feet, along the river, as when I read of the Pyramids, or the

barrows of Asia.[115]

People step brisker in the street for this unusual movement of the

waters. You seem to hear the roar of a waterfall and the din of

factories where the river breaks over the road.

Who would have thought that a few feet might not have been spared

from the trunks of most trees? Such as grow in the meadows, and are

now surrounded by that depth of water, have a dwarfish appearance. No

matter whether they are longer or shorter, they are now equally out of

proportion.

THE FRESHET

_Feb. 24._

A stir is on the Worcester hills,

And Nobscot too the valley fills;

Where scarce you'd fill an acorn cup

In summer when the sun was up,

No more you'll find a cup at all,

But in its place a waterfall.

O that the moon were in conjunction

To the dry land's extremest unction,

Till every dike and pier were flooded,

And all the land with islands studded,

For once to teach all human kind,

Both those that plow and those that grind,

There is no fixture in the land,

But all unstable is as sand.

The river swelleth more and more,

Like some sweet influence stealing o'er

The passive town; and for a while

Each tussock makes a tiny isle,

Where, on some friendly Ararat,

Resteth the weary water-rat.

No ripple shows Musketaquid,

Her very current e'en is hid,

As deepest souls do calmest rest

When thoughts are swelling in the breast;

And she, that in the summer's drought

Doth make a rippling and a rout,

Sleeps from Nawshawtuct to the Cliff,

Unruffled by a single skiff;

So like a deep and placid mind

Whose currents underneath it wind,

For 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 faster well and swifter glide,

Though buried deep beneath the tide.

Our village shows a rural Venice,

Its broad lagunes where yonder fen is,

Far lovelier than the Bay of Naples

Yon placid cove amid the maples,

And in my neighbor's field of corn

I recognize the Golden Horn.

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.[116]

_Feb. 26._ The most important events make no stir on their first

taking place, nor indeed in their effects directly. They seem hedged

about by secrecy. It is concussion, or the rushing together of air

to fill a vacuum, which makes a noise. The great events to which all

things consent, and for which they have prepared the way, produce no

explosion, for they are gradual, and create no vacuum which requires to

be suddenly filled; as a birth takes place in silence, and is whispered

about the neighborhood, but an assassination, which is at war with the

constitution of things, creates a tumult immediately.

Corn grows in the night.[117]

_Feb. 27._ Some geniuses seem to hover in the horizon, like heat

lightning, which is not accompanied with fertilizing rain to us, but we

are obliged to rest contented with the belief that it is purifying the

air somewhere. Others make known their presence by their effects, like

that vivid lightning which is accompanied by copious rain and thunder

and, though it clears our atmosphere, sometimes destroys our lives.

Others still impart a steady and harmless light at once to large tracts,

as the aurora borealis; and this phenomenon is hardest to be accounted

for, some thinking it to be a reflection of the polar splendor, others a

subtle fluid which pervades all things and tends always to the zenith.

All are agreed that these are equally electrical phenomena, as some

clever persons have shown by drawing a spark with their knuckles. Modern

philosophy thinks it has drawn down lightning from the clouds.

_Feb. 28._ On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates

through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that

we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in

our own, to the world.

_Feb. 29._ A friend advises by his whole behavior,[118] and never

condescends to particulars; another chides away a fault, he loves it

away. While he sees the other's error, he is silently conscious of it,

and only the more loves truth himself, and assists his friend in loving

it, till the fault is expelled and gently extinguished.

_March 2._ Love is the burden of all Nature's odes. The song of the

birds is an epithalamium, a hymeneal. The marriage of the flowers spots

the meadows and fringes the hedges with pearls and diamonds. In the deep

water, in the high air, in woods and pastures, and the bowels of the

earth, this is the employment and condition of all things.

_March 4._ I learned to-day that my ornithology had done me no service.

The birds I heard, which fortunately did not come within the scope

of my science, sung as freshly as if it had been the first morning of

creation, and had for background to their song an untrodden wilderness,

stretching through many a Carolina and Mexico of the soul.[119]

_March 6._ There is no delay in answering great questions; for them all

things have an answer ready. The Pythian priestess gave her answers

instantly, and ofttimes before the questions were fairly propounded.

Great topics do not wait for past or future to be determined, but the

state of the crops or Brighton market no bird concerns itself about.

_March 8._ The wind shifts from northeast and east to northwest and

south, and every icicle which has tinkled on the meadow grass so

long trickles down its stem and seeks its water level unerringly

with a million comrades. In the ponds the ice cracks with a busy and

inspiriting din and down the larger streams is whirled, grating hoarsely

and crashing its way along, which was so lately a firm field for the

woodman's team and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the skaters

still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees

inspect the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye-force to intercede

with the ice and save the treasury.

In the brooks the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice, floating

with various speed, is full of content and promise, and where the water

gurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts hold

conversation in an undertone. Every rill is a channel for the juices of

the meadow.[120] Last year's grasses and flower-stalks have been steeped

in rain and snow, and now the brooks flow with meadow tea,—thoroughwort,

mint, flagroot, and pennyroyal, all at one draught.

In the ponds the sun makes incroachments around the edges first, as ice

melts in a kettle on the fire, darting his rays through this crevice,

and preparing the deep water to act simultaneously on the under side.

Two years and twenty now have flown;

Their meanness time away has flung;

These limbs to man's estate have grown,

But cannot claim a manly tongue.

Amidst such boundless wealth without

I only still am poor within;

The birds have sung their summer out,

But still my spring does not begin.

In vain I see the morning rise,

In vain observe the western blaze,

Who idly look to other skies,

Expecting life by other ways.

The sparrow sings at earliest dawn,

Building her nest without delay;

All things are ripe to hear her song,

And now arrives the perfect day.

Shall I then wait the autumn wind,

Compelled to seek a milder ray,

And leave no empty nest behind,

No wood still echoing to my lay?[121]

_March 16._ The cabins of the settlers are the points whence radiate

these rays of green and yellow and russet over the landscape; out of

these go the axes and spades with which the landscape is painted. How

much is the Indian summer and the budding of spring related to the

cottage? Have not the flight of the crow and the gyrations of the hawk

a reference to that roof?

* * * * *

The ducks alight at this season on the windward side of the river, in

the smooth water, 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. It is impossible to approach them within

gunshot when they are accompanied by the gull, which rises sooner and

makes them restless. They fly to windward first, in order to get under

weigh, and are more easily reached by the shot if approached on that

side. When preparing to fly, they swim about with their heads erect,

and then, gliding along a few feet with their bodies just touching the

surface, rise heavily with much splashing and fly low at first, if not

suddenly aroused, but otherwise rise directly to survey the danger.

The cunning sportsman is not in haste to desert his position, but waits

to ascertain if, having got themselves into flying trim, they will not

return over the ground in their course to a new resting-place.

_March 20._ In society all the inspiration of my lonely hours seems to

flow back on me, and then first have expression.

Love never degrades its votaries, but lifts them up to higher walks of

being. They _over-look_ one another. All other charities are swallowed

up in this; it is gift and reward both.

We will have no vulgar Cupid for a go-between, to make us the playthings

of each other, but rather cultivate an irreconcilable hatred instead of

this.

_March 21._ The world is a fit theatre to-day in which any part may be

acted. There is this moment proposed to me every kind of life that men

lead anywhere, or that imagination can paint. By another spring I may

be a mail-carrier in Peru, or a South African planter, or a Siberian

exile, or a Greenland whaler, or a settler on the Columbia River, or a

Canton merchant, or a soldier in Florida, or a mackerel-fisher off Cape

Sable, or a Robinson Crusoe in the Pacific, or a silent navigator of any

sea. So wide is the choice of parts, what a pity if the part of Hamlet

be left out!

I am freer than any planet; no complaint reaches round the world. I can

move away from public opinion, from government, from religion, from

education, from society. Shall I be reckoned a ratable poll in the

county of Middlesex, or be rated at one spear under the palm trees of

Guinea? Shall I raise corn and potatoes in Massachusetts, or figs and

olives in Asia Minor? sit out the day in my office in State Street, or

ride it out on the steppes of Tartary? For my Brobdingnag I may sail to

Patagonia; for my Lilliput, to Lapland. In Arabia and Persia, my day's

adventures may surpass the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. I may be

a logger on the head waters of the Penobscot, to be recorded in fable

hereafter as an amphibious river-god, by as sounding a name as Triton or

Proteus; carry furs from Nootka to China, and so be more renowned than

Jason and his golden fleece; or go on a South Sea exploring expedition,

to be hereafter recounted along with the periplus of Hanno. I may repeat

the adventures of Marco Polo or Mandeville.

These are but few of my chances, and how many more things may I do with

which there are none to be compared!

* * * * *

Thank Fortune, we are not rooted to the soil, and here is not all the

world. The buckeye does not grow in New England; the mockingbird is

rarely heard here. Why not keep pace with the day, and not allow of a

sunset nor fall behind the summer and the migration of birds? Shall we

not compete with the buffalo, who keeps pace with the seasons, cropping

the pastures of the Colorado till a greener and sweeter grass awaits

him by the Yellowstone? The wild goose is more a cosmopolite than we;

he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Susquehanna, and

plumes himself for the night in a Louisiana bayou. The pigeon carries

an acorn in his crop from the King of Holland's to Mason and Dixon's

line. Yet we think if rail fences are pulled down and stone walls set

up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates

decided. If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you can't go to Tierra

del Fuego this summer.[122]

But what of all this? A man may gather his limbs snugly within the shell

of a mammoth squash, with his back to the northeastern boundary, and not

be unusually straitened after all. Our limbs, indeed, have room enough,

but it is our souls that rust in a corner. Let us migrate interiorly

without intermission, and pitch our tent each day nearer the western

horizon. The really fertile soils and luxuriant prairies lie on this

side the Alleghanies. There has been no Hanno of the affections. Their

domain is untravelled ground, to the Mogul's dominions.

_March 22._ While I bask in the sun on the shores of Walden Pond, by

this heat and this rustle I am absolved from all obligation to the past.

The council of nations may reconsider their votes; the grating of a

pebble annuls them.[123]

_March 27._ How many are now standing on the European coast whom another

spring will find located on the Red River, or Wisconsin! To-day we

live an antediluvian life on our quiet homesteads, and to-morrow are

transported to the turmoil and bustle of a crusading era.

Think how finite after all the known world is. Money coined at

Philadelphia is a legal tender over how much of it! You may carry

ship biscuit, beef, and pork quite round to the place you set out

from. England sends her felons to the other side for safe keeping and

convenience.

_March 30._ Pray, what things interest me at present? A long, soaking

rain, the drops trickling down the stubble, while I lay drenched on a

last year's bed of wild oats, by the side of some bare hill, ruminating.

These things are of moment. To watch this crystal globe just sent

from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this sombre

drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.

The gathering in of the clouds with the last rush and dying breath of

the wind, and then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the country

o'er, the impression of inward comfort and sociableness, the drenched

stubble and trees that drop beads on you as you pass, their dim outline

seen through the rain on all sides drooping in sympathy with yourself.

These are my undisputed territory. This is Nature's English comfort.

The birds draw closer and are more familiar under the thick foliage,

composing new strains on their roosts against the sunshine.

_April 4._ We look to windward for fair weather.

_April 8._ How shall I help myself? By withdrawing into the garret, and

associating with spiders and mice, determining to meet myself face to

face sooner or later. Completely silent and attentive I will be this

hour, and the next, and forever. The most positive life that history

notices has been a constant retiring out of life, a wiping one's hands

of it, seeing how mean it is, and having nothing to do with it.

_April 9._ I read in Cudworth how "Origen determines that the stars do

not make but signify; and that the heavens are a kind of divine volume,

in whose characters they that are skilled may read or spell out human

events." Nothing can be truer, and yet astrology is possible. Men seem

to be just on the point of discerning a truth when the imposition is

greatest.

_April 17._ Farewell, etiquette! My neighbor inhabits a hollow sycamore,

and I a beech tree. What then becomes of morning calls with cards, and

deference paid to door-knockers and front entries, and presiding at

one's own table?

_April 19._ The infinite bustle of Nature of a summer's noon, or her

infinite silence of a summer's night, gives utterance to no dogma. They

do not say to us even with a seer's assurance, that this or that law is

immutable and so ever and only can the universe exist. But they are the

indifferent occasion for all things and the annulment of all laws.

_April 20._ The universe will not wait to be explained. Whoever

seriously attempts a theory of it is already behind his age. His yea

has reserved no nay for the morrow.

The wisest solution is no better than dissolution. Already the seer

_whispers_ his _convictions_ to bare walls; no audience in the land can

attend to them.

* * * * *

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. To my neighbors

who have risen in mist and rain I tell of a clear sunrise and the

singing of birds as some traditionary mythus. I look back to those

fresh but now remote hours as to the old dawn of time, when a solid and

blooming health reigned and every deed was simple and heroic.

_April 22._ Thales was the first of the Greeks who taught that souls are

immortal, and it takes equal wisdom to discern this old fact to-day.

What the first philosopher taught, the last will have to repeat. The

_world_ makes no progress.

* * * * *

I cannot turn on my heel in a carpeted room. What a gap in the morning

is a breakfast! A supper supersedes the sunset.

* * * * *

Methinks I hear the _ranz des vaches_ and shall soon be tempted to

desert.

* * * * *

Will not one thick garment suffice for three thin ones? Then I shall be

less compound, and can lay my hand on myself in the dark.

_May 14._ A kind act or gift lays us under obligation not so much to the

giver as to Truth and Love. We must then be truer and kinder ourselves.

Just in proportion to our sense of the kindness, and pleasure at it, is

the debt paid. What is it to be _grateful_ but to be _gratified_,—to

be _pleased_? The nobly poor will dissolve all obligations by nobly

accepting a kindness.

* * * * *

If we are not sensible of kindness, then indeed we incur a debt. Not

to be pleased by generous deeds at any time, though done to another,

but to sit crabbedly silent in a corner, what is it but a voluntary

imprisonment for debt? It is to see the world through a grating. Not

to let the light of virtuous actions shine on us at all times, through

every crevice, is to live in a dungeon.

* * * * *

War is the sympathy of concussion. We would fain rub one against

another. Its rub may be friction merely, but it would rather be

titillation. We discover in the quietest scenes how faithfully war has

copied the moods of peace. Men do not peep into heaven but they see

embattled hosts there. Milton's heaven was a camp. When the sun bursts

through the morning fog I seem to hear the din of war louder than when

his chariot thundered on the plains of Troy. Every man is a warrior

when he aspires. He marches on his post. The soldier is the practical

idealist; he has no sympathy with matter, he revels in the annihilation

of it. So do we all at times. When a freshet destroys the works of

man, or a fire consumes them, or a Lisbon earthquake shakes them down,

our sympathy with persons is swallowed up in a wider sympathy with the

universe. A crash is apt to grate agreeably on our ears.

* * * * *

Let not the faithful sorrow that he has no ear for the more fickle

harmonies of creation, if he is awake to the slower measure of virtue

and truth. If his pulse does not beat in unison with the musician's

quips and turns, it accords with the pulse-beat of the ages.[124]

_June 11._ We had appointed Saturday, August 31st, 1839, for the

commencement of our White Mountain expedition. We awake to a warm,

drizzling rain which threatens delay to our plans, but at length the

leaves and grass are dried, and it comes out a mild afternoon, of such

a sober serenity and freshness that Nature herself seems maturing some

greater scheme of her own. All things wear the aspect of a fertile

idleness. It is the eventide of the soul. After this long dripping and

oozing from every pore Nature begins to respire again more healthily

than ever. So with a vigorous shove we launch our boat from the bank,

while the flags and bulrushes curtsy a God-speed, and drop silently down

the stream.[125] As if we had launched our bark in the sluggish current

of our thoughts, and were bound nowhither.

Gradually the village murmur subsides, as when one falls into a placid

dream and on its Lethe tide is floated from the past into the future,

or as silently as fresh thoughts awaken us to new morning or evening

light.[126]

Our boat[127] was built like a fisherman's dory, with thole-pins for

four oars. Below it was green with a border of blue, as if out of

courtesy [to] the green sea and the blue heavens. It was well calculated

for service, but of consequence difficult to be dragged over shoal

places or carried round falls.

A boat should have a sort of life and independence of its own. It is a

sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, a fish to swim

and a bird to fly, related by one half of its structure to some swift

and shapely fish and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful

bird. The fins of the fish will tell where to set the oars, and the tail

give some hint for the form and position of the rudder. And so may we

learn where there should be the greatest breadth of beam and depth in

the hold. The bird will show how to rig and trim the sails, and what

form to give to the prow, that it may balance the boat and divide the

air and water best.

The boat took to the water; from of old there had been a tacit league

struck between these two, and now it gladly availed itself of the old

law that the heavier shall float the lighter.

Two masts we had provided, one to serve for a tent-pole at night, and

likewise other slender poles, that we might exchange the tedium of

rowing for poling in shallow reaches. At night we lay on a buffalo-skin

under a tent of drilled cotton eight feet high and as many in

diameter, which effectually defended from dampness, so short a step

is it from tiled roofs to drilled cotton, from carpeted floors to a

buffalo-skin.[128]

There were a few berries left still on the hills, hanging with brave

content by the slenderest threads.[129]

As the night stole over, such a freshness stole across the meadow that

every blade of cut-grass seemed to teem with life.[130]

We stole noiselessly down the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel

from the covert of the pads, or a bream from her nest, and the small

green bittern would now and then sail away on sluggish wings from

some recess of the shore.[131] With its patient study by rocks and

sandy capes, has it wrested the whole of her secret from Nature yet?

It has looked out from its dull eye for so long, standing on one leg,

on moon and stars sparkling through silence and dark, and now what a

rich experience is its! What says it of stagnant pools, and reeds, and

damp night fogs? It would be worth while to look in the eye which has

been open and seeing at such hours and in such solitudes. When I behold

that dull yellowish green, I wonder if my own soul is not a bright,

invisible green. I would fain lay my eye side by side with its and learn

of it.[132]

_End of my Journal of 546 pages._[133]

_June 14._

Λόγος τοῦ ἔργου ἄνευ ὕλης.—_Aristotle's definition of art._[134]

Ὅ χρή σε νοεῖν νόου ἄνθει.—_Chaldaic Oracles._

Ἐγώ εἰμι πᾶν τὸ γεγονὸν, καὶ ὂν, καὶ ἐσόμενον, καὶ τὸν ἐμὸν πέπλον

οὐδείς πω θνητὸς ἀπεκάλυψεν.—_Inscription upon the temple at Sais._

Plotinus aimed at ἐπαφήν, and παρουσίαν ἐπιστήμης κρείττονα, and τὸ

ἑαυτὸν κέντρον τῷ οἷον πάντων κέντρῳ συνάπτειν.

Μέλλει τὸ Θεῖον δ' ἐστὶ τοιοῦτον φύσει.—EURIPIDES in _Orestes_.

"The right Reason is in part divine, in part human; the second can be

expressed, but no language can translate the first."—EMPEDOCLES.

"In glory and in joy,

Behind his plough, upon the mountain-side!"[135]

I seemed to see the woods wave on a hundred mountains, as I read these

lines, and the distant rustling of their leaves reached my ear.

_June 15._ I stood by the river to-day considering the forms of the elms

reflected in the water. For every oak and birch, too, growing on the

hilltop, as well as for elms and willows, there is a graceful ethereal

tree making down from the roots, as it were the original idea of the

tree, and sometimes Nature in high tides brings her mirror to its foot

and makes it visible.[136] Anxious Nature sometimes reflects from pools

and puddles the objects which our grovelling senses may fail to see

relieved against the sky with the pure ether for background.

It would be well if we saw ourselves as in perspective always, impressed

with distinct outline on the sky, side by side with the shrubs on the

river's brim. So let our life stand to heaven as some fair, sunlit tree

against the western horizon, and by sunrise be planted on some eastern

hill to glisten in the first rays of the dawn.

* * * * *

Why always insist that men incline to the moral side of their being?

Our life is not all moral. Surely, its actual phenomena deserve to

be studied impartially. The science of Human Nature has never been

attempted, as the science of Nature has. The dry light has never shone

on it. Neither physics nor metaphysics have touched it.

* * * * *

We have not yet met with a sonnet, genial and affectionate, to prophane

swearing, breaking on the still night air, perhaps, like the hoarse

croak of some bird. Noxious weeds and stagnant waters have their lovers,

and the utterer of oaths must have honeyed lips, and be another Attic

bee after a fashion, for only prevalent and essential harmony and beauty

can employ the laws of sound and of light.

[Illustration: _Trees Reflected in the River_]

_June 16._ The river down which we glided for that long afternoon was

like a clear drop of dew with the heavens and the landscape reflected in

it. And as evening drew on, faint purple clouds began to be reflected in

its water, and the cow-bells tinkled louder and more incessantly on the

banks, and like shy water-rats we stole along near the shore, looking

out for a place to pitch our camp.[137]

It seems insensibly to grow lighter as night shuts in; the furthest

hamlet begins to be revealed, which before lurked in the shade of the

noon.[138] It twinkles now through the trees like some fair evening star

darting its ray across valley and wood.

* * * * *

Would it not be a luxury to stand up to one's chin in some retired swamp

for a whole summer's day, scenting the sweet-fern and bilberry blows,

and lulled by the minstrelsy of gnats and mosquitoes? A day passed in

the society of those Greek sages, such as described in the "Banquet" of

Xenophon, would not be comparable with the dry wit of decayed cranberry

vines, and the fresh Attic salt of the moss beds. Say twelve hours of

genial and familiar converse with the leopard frog. The sun to rise

behind alder and dogwood, and climb buoyantly to his meridian of three

hands' breadth, and finally sink to rest behind some bold western

hummock. To hear the evening chant of the mosquito from a thousand green

chapels, and the bittern begin to boom from his concealed fort like

a sunset gun! Surely, one may as profitably be soaked in the juices

of a marsh for one day, as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and

damp,—are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness?[139]

So is not shade as good as sunshine, night as day? Why be eagles and

thrushes always, and owls and whip-poor-wills never?

* * * * *

I am pleased to see the landscape through the bottom of a tumbler, it is

clothed in such a mild, quiet light, and the barns and fences checker

and partition it with new regularity. These rough and uneven fields

stretch away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon. The clouds are

finely distinct and picturesque, the light-blue sky contrasting with

their feathery whiteness. They are fit drapery to hang over Persia.[140]

The smith's shop, resting in such a Grecian light, is worthy to stand

beside the Parthenon. The potato and grain fields are such gardens as

he imagines who has schemes of ornamental husbandry.

If I were to write of the dignity of the farmer's life, I would behold

his farms and crops through a tumbler. All the occupations of men are

ennobled so.

Our eyes, too, are convex lenses, but we do not learn with the eyes;

they introduce us, and we learn after by converse with things.

_June 17._ Our lives will not attain to be spherical by lying on one

or the other side forever; but only by resigning ourselves to the law

of gravity in us, will our axis become coincident with the celestial

axis, and [only] by revolving incessantly through all circles, shall we

acquire a perfect sphericity.[141]

* * * * *

Men are inclined to lay the chief stress on likeness and not on

difference. We seek to know how a thing is related to us, and not if it

is strange. We call those bodies warm whose temperature is many degrees

below our own, and never those cold which are warmer than we. There are

many degrees of warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it.[142]

* * * * *

Even the motto "Business before friends" admits of a high

interpretation. No interval of time can avail to defer friendship. The

concerns of time must be attended to in time. I need not make haste to

explore the whole secret of a star; if it were vanished quite out of

the firmament, so that no telescope could longer discover it, I should

not despair of knowing it entirely one day.

We meet our friend with a certain awe, as if he had just lighted on the

earth, and yet as if we had some title to be acquainted with him by our

old familiarity with sun and moon.

_June 18._ I should be pleased to meet man in the woods. I wish he were

to be encountered like wild caribous and moose.

* * * * *

I am startled when I consider how little I am _actually_ concerned about

the things I write in my journal.

* * * * *

Think of the Universal History, and then tell me,—when did burdock and

plantain sprout first?[143]

A fair land, indeed, do books spread open to us, from the Genesis down;

but alas! men do not take them up kindly into their own being, and

breathe into them a fresh beauty, knowing that the grimmest of them

belongs to such warm sunshine and still moonlight as the present.

* * * * *

Of what consequence whether I stand on London bridge for the next

century, or look into the depths of this bubbling spring which I have

laid open with my hoe?

_June 19._ The other day I rowed in my boat a free, even lovely young

lady, and, as I plied the oars, she sat in the stern, and there was

nothing but she between me and the sky.[144] So might all our lives be

picturesque if they were free enough, but mean relations and prejudices

intervene to shut out the sky, and we never see a man as simple and

distinct as the man-weathercock on a steeple.

* * * * *

The faint bugle notes which I hear in the west seem to flash on the

horizon like heat lightning.[145] Cows low in the street more friendly

than ever, and the note of the whip-poor-will, borne over the fields,

is the voice with which the woods and moonlight woo me.

* * * * *

I shall not soon forget the sounds which lulled me when falling asleep

on the banks of the Merrimack. Far into night I hear some tyro beating

a drum incessantly with a view to some country muster, and am thrilled

by an infinite sweetness as of a music which the breeze drew from the

sinews of war. I think of the line,—

"When the drum beat at dead of night."

How I wish it would wake the whole world to march to its melody, but

still it drums on alone in the silence and the dark. Cease not, thou

drummer of the night, thou too shalt have thy reward. The stars and the

firmament hear thee, and their aisles shall echo thy beat till its call

is answered, and the forces are mustered. The universe is attentive as

a little child to thy sound, and trembles as if each stroke bounded

against an elastic vibrating firmament. I should be contented if the

night never ended, for in the darkness heroism will not be deferred,

and I see fields where no hero has couched his lance.[146]

_June 20._ Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of

beauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds. A spring is a cynosure in

the fields. All Muscovy glitters in the minute particles of mica on its

bottom, and the ripples cast their shadows flickeringly on the white

sand, as the clouds which flit across the landscape.

* * * * *

Something like the woodland sounds will be heard to echo through the

leaves of a good book. Sometimes I hear the fresh emphatic note of the

oven-bird, and am tempted to turn many pages; sometimes the hurried

chuckling sound of the squirrel when he dives into the wall.

* * * * *

If we only see clearly enough how mean our lives are, they will be

splendid enough. Let us remember not to strive upwards too long, but

sometimes drop plumb down the other way, and wallow in meanness. From

the deepest pit we may see the stars, if not the sun. Let us have

presence of mind enough to sink when we can't swim. At any rate, a

carcass had better lie on the bottom than float an offense to all

nostrils. It will not be falling, for we shall ride wide of the earth's

gravity as a star, and always be drawn upward still,—_semper cadendo

nunquam cadit_,—and so, by yielding to universal gravity, at length

become fixed stars.

* * * * *

Praise begins when things are seen partially. We begin to praise when

we begin to see that a thing needs our assistance.

* * * * *

When the heavens are obscured to us, and nothing noble or heroic

appears, but we are oppressed by imperfection and shortcoming on all

hands, we are apt to suck our thumbs and decry our fates. As if nothing

were to be done in cloudy weather, or, if heaven were not accessible

by the upper road, men would not find out a lower. Sometimes I feel

so cheap that I am inspired, and could write a poem about it,—but

straightway I cannot, for I am no longer mean. Let me know that I am

ailing, and I am well. We should not always beat off the impression of

trivialness, but make haste to welcome and cherish it. Water the weed

till it blossoms; with cultivation it will bear fruit. There are two

ways to victory,—to strive bravely, or to yield. How much pain the last

will save we have not yet learned.

_June 21._ I shall not soon forget my first night in a tent,—how the

distant barking of dogs for so many still hours revealed to me the

riches of the night. Who would not be a dog and bay the moon?[147]

* * * * *

I never feel that I am inspired unless my body is also. It too spurns a

tame and commonplace life. They are fatally mistaken who think, while

they strive with their minds, that they may suffer their bodies to

stagnate in luxury or sloth. The body is the first proselyte the Soul

makes. Our life is but the Soul made known by its fruits, the body.

The whole duty of man may be expressed in one line,—Make to yourself a

perfect body.

_June 22._ What a man knows, that he does.

* * * * *

It is odd that people will wonder how Shakespeare could write as he

did without knowing Latin, or Greek, or geography, as if these were of

more consequence than to know how to whistle. They are not backward to

recognize Genius,—how it dispenses with those furtherances which others

require, leaps where they crawl,—and yet they never cease to marvel that

so it was,—that it was Genius, and helped itself.

* * * * *

Nothing can shock a truly brave man but dullness. One can tolerate many

things. What mean these sly, suspicious looks, as if you were an odd

fish, a piece of crockery-ware to be tenderly handled? Surely people

forget how many rebuffs every man has experienced in his day,—perhaps

has fallen into a horsepond, eaten freshwater clams, or worn one shirt

for a week without washing. Cannot a man be as calmly tolerant as a

potato field in the sun, whose equanimity is not disturbed by Scotch

thistles over the wall, but there it smiles and waxes till the harvest,

let thistles mount never so high? You cannot receive a shock, unless you

have an electric affinity for that which shocks you. Have no affinity

for what is shocking.[148]

Do not present a gleaming edge to ward off harm, for that will oftenest

attract the lightning, but rather be the all-pervading ether which

the lightning does not strike but purify. Then will the rudeness or

profanity of your companion be like a flash across the face of your sky,

lighting up and revealing its serene depths.[149] Earth cannot shock

the heavens; but its dull vapor and foul smoke make a bright cloud spot

in the ether, and anon the sun, like a cunning artificer, will cut and

paint it, and set it for a jewel in the breast of the sky.[150]

When we are shocked at vice we express a lingering sympathy with it.

Dry rot, rust, and mildew shock no man, for none is subject to them.

_June 23._ We Yankees are not so far from right, who answer one question

by asking another. Yes and No are lies. A true answer will not aim to

establish anything, but rather to set all well afloat. All answers are

in the future, and day answereth to day. Do we think we can anticipate

them?

In Latin, to respond is to pledge one's self before the gods to do

faithfully and honorably, as a man should, in any case. This is good.

* * * * *