Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
PASSAGES FROM THE AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS, VOLUME II
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
[EXTRACTS FROM HIS PRIVATE LETTERS.]
Brook Farm, Oak Hill, April 13th, 1841.--. . . . Here I am in a polar
Paradise! I know not how to interpret this aspect of nature,--whether it
be of good or evil omen to our enterprise. But I reflect that the
Plymouth pilgrims arrived in the midst of storm, and stepped ashore upon
mountain snowdrifts; and, nevertheless, they prospered, and became a
great people,--and doubtless it will be the same with us. I laud my
stars, however, that you will not have your first impressions of
(perhaps) our future home from such a day as this. . . . Through faith,
I persist in believing that Spring and Summer will come in their due
season; but the unregenerated man shivers within me, and suggests a doubt
whether I may not have wandered within the precincts of the Arctic
Circle, and chosen my heritage among everlasting snows. . . . Provide
yourself with a good stock of furs, and, if you can obtain the skin of a
polar bear, you will find it a very suitable summer dress for this
region. . . .
I have not yet taken my first lesson in agriculture, except that I went
to see our cows foddered, yesterday afternoon. We have eight of our own;
and the number is now increased by a transcendental heifer belonging to
Miss Margaret Fuller. She is very fractious, I believe, and apt to kick
over the milk-pail. . . . I intend to convert myself into a milkmaid
this evening, but I pray Heaven that Mr. Ripley may be moved to assign me
the kindliest cow in the herd, otherwise I shall perform my duty with
fear and trembling. . . .
I like my brethren in affliction very well; and, could you see us sitting
round our table at meal-times, before the great kitchen fire, you would
call it a cheerful sight. Mrs. B------ is a most comfortable woman to
behold. She looks as if her ample person were stuffed full of
tenderness,--indeed, as if she were all one great, kind heart.
* * * * * *
April 14th, 10 A. M.--. . . . I did not milk the cows last night, because
Mr. Ripley was afraid to trust them to my hands, or me to their horns, I
know not which. But this morning I have done wonders. Before breakfast,
I went out to the barn and began to chop hay for the cattle, and with
such "righteous vehemence," as Mr. Ripley says, did I labor, that in the
space of ten minutes I broke the machine. Then I brought wood and
replenished the fires; and finally went down to breakfast, and ate up a
huge mound of buckwheat cakes. After breakfast, Mr. Ripley put a
four-pronged instrument into my hands, which he gave me to understand was
called a pitchfork; and he and Mr. Farley being armed with similar
weapons, we all three commenced a gallant attack upon a heap of manure.
This office being concluded, and I having purified myself, I sit down to
finish this letter. . . .
Miss Fuller's cow hooks the other cows, and has made herself ruler of the
herd, and behaves in a very tyrannical manner. . . . I shall make an
excellent husbandman,--I feel the original Adam reviving within me.
April 16th.--. . . . Since I last wrote, there has been an addition to
our community of four gentlemen in sables, who promise to be among our
most useful and respectable members. They arrived yesterday about noon.
Mr. Ripley had proposed to them to join us, no longer ago than that very
morning. I had some conversation with them in the afternoon, and was
glad to hear them express much satisfaction with their new abode and all
the arrangements. They do not appear to be very communicative, however,
--or perhaps it may be merely an external reserve, like my own, to shield
their delicacy. Several of their prominent characteristics, as well as
their black attire, lead me to believe that they are members of the
clerical profession; but I have not yet ascertained from their own lips
what has been the nature of their past lives. I trust to have much
pleasure in their society, and, sooner or later, that we shall all of us
derive great strength from our intercourse with them. I cannot too
highly applaud the readiness with which these four gentlemen in black
have thrown aside all the fopperies and flummeries which have their
origin in a false state of society. When I last saw them, they looked as
heroically regardless of the stains and soils incident to our profession
as I did when I emerged from the gold-mine. . . .
I have milked a cow!!! . . . . The herd has rebelled against the
usurpation of Miss Fuller's heifer; and, whenever they are turned out of
the barn, she is compelled to take refuge under our protection. So much
did she impede my labors by keeping close to me, that I found it
necessary to give her two or three gentle pats with a shovel; but still
she preferred to trust herself to my tender mercies, rather than venture
among the horns of the herd. She is not an amiable cow; but she has a
very intelligent face, and seems to be of a reflective cast of character.
I doubt not that she will soon perceive the expediency of being on good
terms with the rest of the sisterhood.
I have not yet been twenty yards from our house and barn; but I begin to
perceive that this is a beautiful place. The scenery is of a mild and
placid character, with nothing bold in its aspect; but I think its
beauties will grow upon us, and make us love it the more, the longer we
live here. There is a brook, so near the house that we shall be able to
hear its ripple in the summer evenings, . . . . but, for agricultural
purposes, it has been made to flow in a straight and rectangular fashion,
which does it infinite damage as a picturesque object. . . .
It was a moment or two before I could think whom you meant by Mr. Dismal
View. Why, he is one of the best of the brotherhood, so far as
cheerfulness goes; for if he do not laugh himself, he makes the rest of
us laugh continually. He is the quaintest and queerest personage you
ever saw,--full of dry jokes, the humor of which is so incorporated with
the strange twistifications of his physiognomy, that his sayings ought to
be written down, accompanied with illustrations by Cruikshank. Then he
keeps quoting innumerable scraps of Latin, and makes classical allusions,
while we are turning over the goldmine; and the contrast between the
nature of his employment and the character of his thoughts is
irresistibly ludicrous.
I have written this epistle in the parlor, while Farmer Ripley, and
Farmer Farley, and Farmer Dismal View were talking about their
agricultural concerns. So you will not wonder if it is not a classical
piece of composition, either in point of thought or expression.
* * * * * *
Mr. Ripley has bought four black pigs.
April 22d.--. . . . What an abominable hand do I scribble! but I have
been chopping wood, and turning a grindstone all the forenoon; and such
occupations are apt to disturb the equilibrium of the muscles and sinews.
It is an endless surprise to me how much work there is to be done in the
world; but, thank God, I am able to do my share of it,--and my ability
increases daily. What a great, broad-shouldered, elephantine personage I
shall become by and by!
I milked two cows this morning, and would send you some of the milk, only
that it is mingled with that which was drawn forth by Mr. Dismal View and
the rest of the brethren.
April 28th.--. . . . I was caught by a cold during my visit to Boston.
It has not affected my whole frame, but took entire possession of my
head, as being the weakest and most vulnerable part. Never did anybody
sneeze with such vehemence and frequency; and my poor brain has been in a
thick fog; or, rather, it seemed as if my head were stuffed with coarse
wool. . . . Sometimes I wanted to wrench it off, and give it a great
kick, like a football.
This annoyance has made me endure the bad weather with even less than
ordinary patience; and my faith was so far exhausted that, when they told
me yesterday that the sun was setting clear, I would not even turn my
eyes towards the west. But this morning I am made all over anew, and
have no greater remnant of my cold than will serve as an excuse for doing
no work to-day.
The family has been dismal and dolorous throughout the storm. The night
before last, William Allen was stung by a wasp on the eyelid; whereupon
the whole side of his face swelled to an enormous magnitude, so that, at
the breakfast-table, one half of him looked like a blind giant (the eye
being closed), and the other half had such a sorrowful and ludicrous
aspect that I was constrained to laugh out of sheer pity. The same day,
a colony of wasps was discovered in my chamber, where they had remained
throughout the winter, and were now just bestirring themselves, doubtless
with the intention of stinging me from head to foot A similar discovery
was made in Mr. Farley's room. In short, we seem to have taken up our
abode in a wasps' nest. Thus you see a rural life is not one of unbroken
quiet and serenity.
If the middle of the day prove warm and pleasant, I promise myself to
take a walk. . . . I have taken one walk with Mr. Farley; and I could
not have believed that there was such seclusion at so short a distance
from a great city. Many spots seem hardly to have been visited for
ages,--not since John Eliot preached to the Indians here. If we were to
travel a thousand miles, we could not escape the world more completely
than we can here.
* * * * * *
I read no newspapers, and hardly remember who is President, and feel as
if I had no more concern with what other people trouble themselves about
than if I dwelt in another planet.
May 1st.--. . . . Every day of my life makes me feel more and more how
seldom a fact is accurately stated; how, almost invariably, when a story
has passed through the mind of a third person, it becomes, so far as
regards the impression that it makes in further repetitions, little
better than a falsehood, and this, too, though the narrator be the
most truth-seeking person in existence. How marvellous the tendency
is! . . . Is truth a fantasy which we are to pursue forever and never
grasp?
* * * * * *
My cold has almost entirely departed. Were it a sunny day, I should
consider myself quite fit for labor out of doors; but as the ground is so
damp, and the atmosphere so chill, and the sky so sullen, I intend to
keep myself on the sick-list this one day longer, more especially as I
wish to read Carlyle on Heroes.
* * * * * *
There has been but one flower found in this vicinity,--and that was an
anemone, a poor, pale, shivering little flower, that had crept under a
stone-wall for shelter. Mr. Farley found it, while taking a walk with
me.
. . . . This is May-day! Alas, what a difference between the ideal and
the real!
May 4th.--. . . . My cold no longer troubles me, and all the morning I
have been at work under the clear blue sky, on a hillside. Sometimes it
almost seemed as if I were at work in the sky itself, though the material
in which I wrought was the ore from our gold-mine. Nevertheless, there
is nothing so unseemly and disagreeable in this sort of toil as you could
think. It defiles the hands, indeed, but not the soul. This gold ore is
a pure and wholesome substance, else our mother Nature would not devour
it so readily, and derive so much nourishment from it, and return such a
rich abundance of good grain and roots in requital of it.
The farm is growing very beautiful now,--not that we yet see anything of
the peas and potatoes which we have planted; but the grass blushes green
on the slopes and hollows. I wrote that word "blush" almost
unconsciously; so we will let it go as an inspired utterance.
When I go forth afield, . . . . I look beneath the stonewalls, where the
verdure is richest, in hopes that a little company of violets, or some
solitary bud, prophetic of the summer, may be there. . . . But not a
wildflower have I yet found. One of the boys gathered some yellow
cowslips last Sunday; but I am well content not to have found them, for
they are not precisely what I should like to send to you, though they
deserve honor and praise, because they come to us when no others will.
We have our parlor here dressed in evergreen as at Christmas. That
beautiful little flower-vase . . . . stands on Mr. Ripley's study-table,
at which I am now writing. It contains some daffodils and some
willow-blossoms. I brought it here rather than keep it in my chamber,
because I never sit there, and it gives me many pleasant emotions to look
round and be surprised--for it is often a surprise, though I well know
that it is there--by something connected with the idea [of a friend].
* * * * * *
I do not believe that I should be patient here if I were not engaged in a
righteous and heaven-blessed way of life. When I was in the Custom-House
and then at Salem I was not half so patient. . . .
We had some tableaux last evening, the principal characters being
sustained by Mr. Farley and Miss Ellen Slade. They went off very
well. . . .
I fear it is time for me--sod-compelling as I am--to take the field
again.
May 11th.--. . . . This morning I arose at milking-time in good trim for
work; and we have been employed partly in an Augean labor of clearing out
a wood-shed, and partly in carting loads of oak. This afternoon I hope
to have something to do in the field, for these jobs about the house are
not at all to my taste.
June 1st.--. . . . I have been too busy to write a long letter by this
opportunity, for I think this present life of mine gives me an antipathy
to pen and ink, even more than my Custom-House experience did. . . .
In the midst of toil, or after a hard day's work in the goldmine, my
soul obstinately refuses to be poured out on paper. That abominable
gold-mine! Thank God, we anticipate getting rid of its treasures in the
course of two or three days! Of all hateful places that is the worst,
and I shall never comfort myself for having spent so many days of blessed
sunshine there. It is my opinion that a man's soul may be buried and
perish under a dung-heap, or in a furrow of the field, just as well as
under a pile of money.
Mr. George Bradford will probably be here to-day, so that there will be
no danger of my being under the necessity of laboring more than I like
hereafter. Meantime my health is perfect, and my spirits buoyant, even
in the gold-mine.
August 12th.--. . . . I am very well, and not at all weary, for
yesterday's rain gave us a holiday; and, moreover, the labors of the farm
are not so pressing as they have been. And, joyful thought! in a little
more than a fortnight; I shall be free from my bondage,--. . . . free to
enjoy Nature,--free to think and feel! . . . . Even my Custom-House
experience was not such a thraldom and weariness; my mind and heart were
free. O, labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it
without becoming proportionably brutified! Is it a praiseworthy matter
that I have spent five golden months in providing food for cows and
horses? It is not so.
August 18th.--I am very well, only somewhat tired with walking half a
dozen miles immediately after breakfast, and raking hay ever since. We
shall quite finish haying this week, and then there will be no more very
hard or constant labor during the one other week that I shall remain a
slave.
August 22d.--. . . . I had an indispensable engagement in the bean-field,
whither, indeed, I was glad to betake myself, in order to escape a
parting scene with ------. He was quite out of his wits the night
before, and I sat up with him till long past midnight. The farm is
pleasanter now that he is gone; for his unappeasable wretchedness threw a
gloom over everything. Since I last wrote, we have done haying, and the
remainder of my bondage will probably be light. It will be a long time,
however, before I shall know how to make a good use of leisure, either as
regards enjoyment or literary occupation. . . .
It is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Ripley will succeed in locating his
community on this farm. He can bring Mr. E------ to no terms, and the
more they talk about the matter, the further they appear to be from a
settlement. We must form other plans for ourselves; for I can see few or
no signs that Providence purposes to give us a home here. I am weary,
weary, thrice weary, of waiting so many ages. Whatever may be my gifts,
I have not hitherto shown a single one that may avail to gather gold. I
confess that I have strong hopes of good from this arrangement with
M------; but when I look at the scanty avails of my past literary
efforts, I do not feel authorized to expect much from the future. Well,
we shall see. Other persons have bought large estates and built splendid
mansions with such little books as I mean to write; so that perhaps it is
not unreasonable to hope that mine may enable me to build a little
cottage, or, at least, to buy or hire one. But I am becoming more and
more convinced that we must not lean upon this community. Whatever is to
be done must be done by my own undivided strength. I shall not remain
here through the winter, unless with an absolute certainty that there
will be a house ready for us in the spring. Otherwise, I shall return to
Boston;--still, however, considering myself an associate of the
community, so that we may take advantage of any more favorable aspect of
affairs. How much depends on these little books! Methinks if anything
could draw out my whole strength, it would be the motives that now press
upon me. Yet, after all, I must keep these considerations out of my
mind, because an external pressure always disturbs instead of assisting
me.
Salem, September 3d.--. . . . But really I should judge it to be twenty
years since I left Brook Farm; and I take this to be one proof that my
life there was an unnatural and unsuitable, and therefore an unreal one.
It already looks like a dream behind me. The real Me was never an
associate of the community; there has been a spectral Appearance there,
sounding the horn at daybreak, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes,
and raking hay, toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to assume my
name. But this spectre was not myself. Nevertheless, it is somewhat
remarkable that my hands have, during the past summer, grown very brown
and rough, insomuch that many people persist in believing that I, after
all, was the aforesaid spectral horn-sounder, cow-milker, potato-hoer,
and hay-raker. But such people do not know a reality from a shadow.
Enough of nonsense. I know not exactly how soon I shall return to the
farm. Perhaps not sooner than a fortnight, from to-morrow.
Salem, September 14th.--. . . . Master Cheever is a very good subject for
a sketch, especially if he be portrayed in the very act of executing
judgment on an evildoer. The little urchin may be laid across his knee,
and his arms and legs, and whole person indeed, should be flying all
abroad, in an agony of nervous excitement and corporeal smart. The
Master, on the other hand, must be calm, rigid, without anger or pity,
the very personification of that immitigable law whereby suffering
follows sin. Meantime the lion's head should have a sort of sly twist on
one side of its mouth, and a wink of one eye, in order to give the
impression that, after all, the crime and the punishment are neither of
them the most serious things in the world. I could draw the sketch
myself, if I had but the use of ------'s magic fingers.
Then the Acadians will do very well for the second sketch. They might be
represented as just landing on the wharf; or as presenting themselves
before Governor Shirley, seated in the great chair. Another subject
might be old Cotton Mather, venerable in a three-cornered hat and other
antique attire, walking the streets of Boston, and lifting up his hands
to bless the people, while they all revile him. An old dame should be
seen, flinging water, or emptying some vials of medicine on his head from
the latticed window of an old-fashioned house; and all around must be
tokens of pestilence and mourning,--as a coffin borne along,--a woman or
children weeping on a doorstep. Can the tolling of the Old South bell be
painted?
If not this, then the military council, holden at Boston by the Earl of
Loudon and other captains and governors, might be taken, his lordship in
the great chair, an old-fashioned, military figure, with a star on his
breast. Some of Louis XV.'s commanders will give the costume. On the
table, and scattered about the room, must be symbols of warfare,--swords,
pistols, plumed hats, a drum, trumpet, and rolled-up banner in one leap.
It were not amiss to introduce the armed figure of an Indian chief, as
taking part in the council,--or standing apart from the English, erect
and stern.
Now for Liberty Tree. There is an engraving of that famous vegetable in
Snow's History of Boston. If represented, I see not what scene can be
beneath it, save poor Mr. Oliver, taking the oath. He must have on a
bag-wig, ruffled sleeves, embroidered coat, and all such ornaments,
because he is the representative of aristocracy and an artificial system.
The people may be as rough and wild as the fancy can make them;
nevertheless, there must be one or two grave, puritanical figures in the
midst. Such an one might sit in the great chair, and be an emblem of
that stern, considerate spirit which brought about the Revolution. But
this would be a hard subject.
But what a dolt am I to obtrude my counsel. . . .
September 16th.--. . . . I do not very well recollect Monsieur du Miroir,
but, as to Mrs. Bullfrog, I give her up to the severest reprehension.
The story was written as a mere experiment in that style; it did not come
from any depth within me,--neither my heart nor mind had anything to do
with it. I recollect that the Man of Adamant seemed a fine idea to nee
when I looked at it prophetically; but I failed in giving shape and
substance to the vision which I saw. I don't think it can be very
good. . . .
I cannot believe all these stories about ------, because such a rascal
never could be sustained and countenanced by respectable men. I take him
to be neither better nor worse than the average of his tribe. However, I
intend to have all my copyrights taken out in my own name; and, if he
cheat me once, I will have nothing more to do with him, but will
straightway be cheated by some other publisher,--that being, of course,
the only alternative.
Governor Shirley's young French wife might be the subject of one of the
cuts. She should sit in the great chair,--perhaps with a dressing-glass
before her,--and arrayed in all manner of fantastic finery, and with an
outre French air, while the old Governor is leaning fondly over her, and
a puritanic councillor or two are manifesting their disgust in the
background. A negro footman and a French waiting-maid might be in
attendance.
In Liberty Tree might be a vignette, representing the chair in a very
shattered, battered, and forlorn condition, after it had been ejected
from Hutchinson's house. This would serve to impress the reader with the
woful vicissitudes of sublunary things. . . .
Did you ever behold such a vile scribble as I write since I became a
farmer? My chirography always was abominable, but now it is outrageous.
Brook Farm, September 22d, 1841.--. . . . Here I am again, slowly
adapting myself to the life of this queer community, whence I seem to
have been absent half a lifetime, so utterly have I grown apart from the
spirit, and manners of the place. . . . I was most kindly received; and
the fields and woods looked very pleasant in the bright sunshine of the
day before yesterday. I have a friendlier disposition towards the farm,
now that I am no longer obliged to toil in its stubborn furrows.
Yesterday and to-day, however, the weather has been intolerable,--cold,
chill, sullen, so that it is impossible to be on kindly terms with Mother
Nature. . . .
I doubt whether I shall succeed in writing another volume of
Grandfather's Library while I remain here. I have not the sense of
perfect seclusion which has always been essential to my power of
producing anything. It is true, nobody intrudes into my room; but still
I cannot be quiet. Nothing here is settled; everything is but beginning
to arrange itself, and though I would seem to have little to do with
aught beside my own thoughts, still I cannot but partake of the ferment
around me. My mind will not be abstracted. I must observe, and think,
and feel, and content myself with catching glimpses of things which may
be wrought out hereafter. Perhaps it will be quite as well that I find
myself unable to set seriously about literary occupation for the present.
It will be good to have a longer interval between my labor of the body
and that of the mind. I shall work to the better purpose after the
beginning of November. Meantime I shall see these people and their
enterprise under a new point of view, and perhaps be able to determine
whether we have any call to cast in our lot among them.
* * * * * *
I do wish the weather would put off this sulky mood. Had it not been for
the warmth and brightness of Monday, when I arrived here, I should have
supposed that all sunshine had left Brook Farm forever. I have no
disposition to take long walks in such a state of the sky; nor have I any
buoyancy of spirit. I am a very dull person just at this time.
September 25th.--. . . . One thing is certain. I cannot and will not
spend the winter here. The time would be absolutely thrown away so far
as regards any literary labor to be performed. . . .
The intrusion of an outward necessity into labors of the imagination and
intellect is, to me, very painful. . . .
I had rather a pleasant walk to a distant meadow a day or two ago, and we
found white and purple grapes in great abundance, ripe, and gushing with
rich, pure juice when the hand pressed the clusters. Did you know what
treasures of wild grapes there are in this land? If we dwell here, we
will make our own wine. . . .
September 27th.--. . . . Now, as to the affair with ------, I fully
confide in your opinion that he intends to make an unequal bargain with
poor, simple, innocent me,--never having doubted this myself. But how is
he to accomplish it? I am not, nor shall be, the least in his power,
whereas he is, to a certain extent, in mine. He might announce his
projected Library, with me for the editor, in all the newspapers in the
universe; but still I could not be bound to become the editor, unless by
my own act; nor should I have the slightest scruple in refusing to be so,
at the last moment, if he persisted in treating me with injustice. Then,
as for his printing Grandfather's Chair, I have the copyright in my own
hands, and could and would prevent the sale, or make him account to me
for the profits, in case of need. Meantime he is making arrangements for
publishing the Library, contracting with other booksellers, and with
printers and engravers, and, with every step, making it more difficult
for himself to draw back. I, on the other hand, do nothing which I
should not do if the affair with ------ were at an end; for, if I write a
book, it will be just as available for some other publisher as for him.
Instead of getting me into his power by this delay, he has trusted to my
ignorance and simplicity, and has put himself in my power.
He is not insensible of this. At our last interview, he himself
introduced the subject of the bargain, and appeared desirous to close it.
But I was not prepared,--among other reasons, because I do not yet see
what materials I shall have for the republications in the Library; the
works that he has shown me being ill adapted for that purpose; and I wish
first to see some French and German books which he has sent for to New
York. And, before concluding the bargain, I have promised George Hillard
to consult him, and let him do the business. Is not this consummate
discretion? and am I not perfectly safe? . . . . I look at the matter
with perfect composure, and see all round my own position, and know that
it is impregnable.
* * * * * *
I was elected to two high offices last night,--viz. to be a trustee of
the Brook Farm estate, and Chairman of the Committee of Finance! . . . .
From the nature of my office, I shall have the chief direction of all the
money affairs of the community, the making of bargains, the supervision
of receipts and expenditures, etc., etc., etc. . . .
My accession to these august offices does not at all decide the question
of my remaining here permanently. I told Mr. Ripley that I could not
spend the winter at the farm, and that it was quite uncertain whether I
returned in the spring. . . .
Take no part, I beseech you, in these magnetic miracles. I am unwilling
that a power should be exercised on you of which we know neither the
origin nor consequence, and the phenomena of which seem rather calculated
to bewilder us than to teach us any truths about the present or future
state of being. . . . Supposing that the power arises from the
transfusion of one spirit into another, it seems to me that the
sacredness of an individual is violated by it; there would be an intruder
into the holy of holies. . . . I have no faith whatever, that people
are raised to the seventh heaven, or to any heaven at all, or that they
gain any insight into the mysteries of life beyond death by means of this
strange science. Without distrusting that the phenomena have really
occurred, I think that they are to be accounted for as the result of a
material and physical, not of a spiritual, influence. Opium has produced
many a brighter vision of heaven, I fancy, and just as susceptible of
proof as these. They are dreams. . . . And what delusion can be more
lamentable and mischievous, than to mistake the physical and material for
the spiritual? what so miserable as to lose the soul's true, though
hidden knowledge and consciousness of heaven in the mist of an earth-born
vision? If we would know what heaven is before we come thither, let us
retire into the depths of our own spirits, and we shall find it there
among holy thoughts and feelings; but let us not degrade high heaven
and its inhabitants into any such symbols and forms as Miss L------
describes; do not let an earthly effluence from Mrs. P------'s corporeal
system bewilder and perhaps contaminate something spiritual and sacred.
I should as soon think of seeking revelations of the future state in the
rottenness of the grave,--where so many do seek it. . . .
The view which I take of this matter is caused by no want of faith in
mysteries; but from a deep reverence of the soul, and of the mysteries
which it knows within itself, but never transmits to the earthly eye and
ear. Keep the imagination sane,--that is one of the truest conditions of
communion with heaven.
Brook Farm, September 26th.--A walk this morning along the Needham road.
A clear, breezy morning, after nearly a week of cloudy and showery
weather. The grass is much more fresh and vivid than it was last month,
and trees still retain much of their verdure, though here and there is a
shrub or a bough arrayed in scarlet and gold. Along the road, in the
midst of a beaten track, I saw mushrooms or toadstools which had sprung
up probably during the night.
The houses in this vicinity are, many of them, quite antique, with long,
sloping roots, commencing at a few feet from the ground, and ending in a
lofty peak. Some of them have huge old elms overshadowing the yard. One
may see the family sleigh near the door, it having stood there all
through the summer sunshine, and perhaps with weeds sprouting through the
crevices of its bottom, the growth of the months since snow departed.
Old barns, patched and supported by timbers leaning against the sides,
and stained with the excrement of past ages.
In the forenoon I walked along the edge of the meadow towards Cow Island.
Large trees, almost a wood, principally of pine with the green
pasture-glades intermixed, and cattle feeding. They cease grazing when
an intruder appears, and look at him with long and wary observation, then
bend their heads to the pasture again. Where the firm ground of the
pasture ceases, the meadow begins, loose, spongy, yielding to the tread,
sometimes permitting the foot to sink into black mud, or perhaps over
ankles in water. Cattle-paths, somewhat firmer than the general surface,
traverse the dense shrubbery which has overgrown the meadow. This
shrubbery consists of small birch, elders, maples, and other trees, with
here and there white-pines of larger growth. The whole is tangled and
wild and thick-set, so that it is necessary to part the nestling stems
and branches, and go crashing through. There are creeping plants of
various sorts which clamber up the trees; and some of them have changed
color in the slight frosts which already have befallen these low grounds,
so that one sees a spiral wreath of scarlet leaves twining up to the top
of a green tree, intermingling its bright hues with their verdure, as if
all were of one piece. Sometimes, instead of scarlet, the spiral wreath
is of a golden yellow.
Within the verge of the meadow, mostly near the firm shore of pasture
ground, I found several grapevines, hung with an abundance of large
purple grapes. The vines had caught hold of maples and alders, and
climbed to the summit, curling round about and interwreathing their
twisted folds in so intimate a manner that it was not easy to tell the
parasite from the supporting tree or shrub. Sometimes the same vine had
enveloped several shrubs, and caused a strange, tangled confusion,
converting all these poor plants to the purpose of its own support, and
hindering their growing to their own benefit and convenience. The broad
vine-leaves, some of them yellow or yellowish-tinged, were seen
apparently growing on the same stems with the silver-mapled leaves, and
those of the other shrubs, thus married against their will by the
conjugal twine; and the purple clusters of grapes hung down from above
and in the midst so that one might "gather grapes," if not "of thorns,"
yet of as alien bushes.
One vine had ascended almost to the tip of a large white-pine, spreading
its leaves and hanging its purple clusters among all its boughs,--still
climbing and clambering, as if it would not be content till it had
crowned the very summit with a wreath of its own foliage and bunches of
grapes. I mounted high into the tree, and ate the fruit there, while the
vine wreathed still higher into the depths above my head. The grapes
were sour, being not yet fully ripe. Some of them, however, were sweet
and pleasant.
September 27th.--A ride to Brighton yesterday morning, it being the day
of the weekly cattle-fair. William Allen and myself went in a wagon,
carrying a calf to be sold at the fair. The calf had not had his
breakfast, as his mother had preceded him to Brighton, and he kept
expressing his hunger and discomfort by loud, sonorous baas, especially
when we passed any cattle in the fields or in the road. The cows,
grazing within hearing, expressed great interest, and some of them came
galloping to the roadside to behold the calf. Little children, also, on
their way to school, stopped to laugh and point at poor little Bessie.
He was a prettily behaved urchin, and kept thrusting his hairy muzzle
between William and myself, apparently wishing to be stroked and patted.
It was an ugly thought that his confidence in human nature, and nature in
general, was to be so ill rewarded as by cutting his throat, and selling
him in quarters. This, I suppose, has been his fate before now!
It was a beautiful morning, clear as crystal, with an invigorating, but
not disagreeable coolness. The general aspect of the country was as
green as summer,--greener indeed than mid or latter summer,--and there
were occasional interminglings of the brilliant hues of autumn, which
made the scenery more beautiful, both visibly and in sentiment. We saw
no absolutely mean nor poor-looking abodes along the road. There were
warm and comfortable farm-houses, ancient, with the porch, the sloping
roof, the antique peak, the clustered chimney, of old times; and modern
cottages, smart and tasteful; and villas, with terraces before them, and
dense shade, and wooden urns on pillars, and other such tokens of
gentility. Pleasant groves of oak and walnut, also, there were,
sometimes stretching along valleys, sometimes ascending a hill and
clothing it all round, so as to make it a great clump of verdure.
Frequently we passed people with cows, oxen, sheep, or pigs for Brighton
Fair.
On arriving at Brighton, we found the village thronged with people,
horses, and vehicles. Probably there is no place in New England where
the character of an agricultural population may be so well studied.
Almost all the farmers within a reasonable distance make it a point, I
suppose, to attend Brighton Fair pretty frequently, if not on business,
yet as amateurs. Then there are all the cattle-people and butchers who
supply the Boston market, and dealers from far and near; and every man
who has a cow or a yoke of oxen, whether to sell or buy, goes to Brighton
on Monday. There were a thousand or two of cattle in the extensive pens
belonging to the tavern-keeper, besides many that were standing about.
One could hardly stir a step without running upon the horns of one
dilemma or another, in the shape of ox, cow, bull, or ram. The yeomen
appeared to be more in their element than I have ever seen them anywhere
else, except, indeed, at labor,--more so than at musterings and such
gatherings of amusement. And yet this was a sort of festal day, as well
as a day of business. Most of the people were of a bulky make, with much
bone and muscle, and some good store of fat, as if they had lived on
flesh-diet; with mottled faces, too, hard and red, like those of persons
who adhered to the old fashion of spirit-drinking. Great, round-paunched
country squires were there too, sitting under the porch of the tavern, or
waddling about, whip in hand, discussing the points of the cattle. There
were also gentlemen-farmers, neatly, trimly, and fashionably dressed, in
handsome surtouts, and trousers strapped under their boots. Yeomen, too,
in their black or blue Sunday suits, cut by country tailors, and
awkwardly worn. Others (like myself) had on the blue stuff frocks which
they wear in the fields, the most comfortable garments that ever were
invented. Country loafers were among the throng,--men who looked
wistfully at the liquors in the bar, and waited for some friend to invite
them to drink,--poor, shabby, out-at-elbowed devils. Also, dandies from
the city, corseted and buckramed, who had come to see the humors of
Brighton Fair. All these, and other varieties of mankind, either
thronged the spacious bar-room of the hotel, drinking, smoking, talking,
bargaining, or walked about among the cattle-pens, looking with knowing
eyes at the horned people. The owners of the cattle stood near at hand,
waiting for offers. There was something indescribable in their aspect,
that showed them to be the owners, though they mixed among the crowd.
The cattle, brought from a hundred separate farms, or rather from a
thousand, seemed to agree very well together, not quarrelling in the
least. They almost all had a history, no doubt, if they could but have
told it. The cows had each given her milk to support families,--had
roamed the pastures, and come home to the barn-yard, had been looked upon
as a sort of member of the domestic circle, and was known by a name, as
Brindle or Cherry. The oxen, with their necks bent by the heavy yoke,
had toiled in the plough-field and in haying-time for many years, and
knew their master's stall as well as the master himself knew his own
table. Even the young steers and the little calves had something of
domestic sacredness about them; for children had watched their growth,
and petted them, and played with them. And here they all were, old and
young, gathered from their thousand homes to Brighton Fair; whence the
great chance was that they would go to the slaughter-house, and thence be
transmitted, in sirloins, joints, and such pieces, to the tables of the
Boston folk.
William Allen had come to buy four little pigs to take the places of four
who have now grown large at our farm, and are to be fatted and killed
within a few weeks. There were several hundreds, in pens appropriated to
their use, grunting discordantly, and apparently in no very good humor
with their companions or the world at large. Most or many of these pigs
had been imported from the State of New York. The drovers set out with a
large number, and peddle them along the road till they arrive at Brighton
with the remainder. William selected four, and bought them at five cents
per pound. These poor little porkers were forthwith seized by the tails,
their legs tied, and they thrown into our wagon, where they kept up a
continual grunt and squeal till we got home. Two of them were yellowish,
or light gold-color, the other two were black and white speckled; and all
four of very piggish aspect and deportment. One of them snapped at
William's finger most spitefully, and bit it to the bone.
All the scene of the Fair was very characteristic and peculiar,--cheerful
and lively, too, in the bright, warm sun. I must see it again; for it
ought to be studied.
September 28th.--A picnic party in the woods, yesterday, in honor of
little Frank Dana's birthday, he being six years old. I strolled out,
after dinner, with Mr. Bradford, and in a lonesome glade we met the
apparition of an Indian chief, dressed in appropriate costume of blanket,
feathers, and paint, and armed with a musket. Almost at the same time, a
young gypsy fortune-teller came from among the trees, and proposed to
tell my fortune. While she was doing this, the goddess Diana let fly an
arrow, and hit me smartly in the hand. The fortune-teller and goddess
were in fine contrast, Diana being a blonde, fair, quiet, with a moderate
composure; and the gypsy (O. G.) a bright, vivacious, dark-haired,
rich-complexioned damsel,--both of them very pretty, at least pretty
enough to make fifteen years enchanting. Accompanied by these denizens
of the wild wood, we went onward, and came to a company of fantastic
figures, arranged in a ring for a dance or a game. There was a Swiss
girl, an Indian squaw, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one or two
foresters, and several people in Christian attire, besides children of
all ages. Then followed childish games, in which the grown people took
part with mirth enough,--while I, whose nature it is to be a mere
spectator both of sport and serious business, lay under the trees and
looked on. Meanwhile, Mr. Emerson and Miss Fuller, who arrived an hour
or two before, came forth into the little glade where we were assembled.
Here followed much talk. The ceremonies of the day concluded with a cold
collation of cakes and fruit. All was pleasant enough,--an excellent
piece of work,--"would 't were done!" It has left a fantastic impression
on my memory, this intermingling of wild and fabulous characters with
real and homely ones, in the secluded nook of the woods. I remember
them, with the sunlight breaking through overshadowing branches, and they
appearing and disappearing confusedly,--perhaps starting out of the
earth; as if the every-day laws of nature were suspended for this
particular occasion. There were the children, too, laughing and sporting
about, as if they were at home among such strange shapes,--and anon
bursting into loud uproar of lamentation, when the rude gambols of the
merry archers chanced to overturn them. And apart, with a shrewd, Yankee
observation of the scene, stands our friend Orange, a thick-set, sturdy
figure, enjoying the fun well enough, yet rather laughing with a
perception of its nonsensicalness than at all entering into the spirit of
the thing.
This morning I have been helping to gather apples. The principal farm
labors at this time are ploughing for winter rye, and breaking up the
greensward for next year's crop of potatoes, gathering squashes, and not
much else, except such year-round employments as milking. The crop of
rye, to be sure, is in process of being thrashed, at odd intervals.
I ought to have mentioned among the diverse and incongruous growths of
the picnic party our two Spanish boys from Manilla;--Lucas, with his
heavy features and almost mulatto complexion; and Jose, slighter, with
rather a feminine face,--not a gay, girlish one, but grave, reserved,
eying you sometimes with an earnest but secret expression, and causing
you to question what sort of person he is.
Friday, October 1st.--I have been looking at our four swine,--not of the
last lot, but those in process of fattening. They lie among the clean
rye straw in the sty, nestling close together; for they seem to be beasts
sensitive to the cold, and this is a clear, bright, crystal morning, with
a cool northwest-wind. So there lie these four black swine, as deep
among the straw as they can burrow, the very symbols of slothful ease and
sensuous comfort. They seem to be actually oppressed and overburdened
with comfort. They are quick to notice any one's approach, and utter a
low grunt thereupon,--not drawing a breath for that particular purpose,
but grunting with their ordinary breath,--at the same time turning an
observant, though dull and sluggish eye upon the visitor. They seem to
be involved and buried in their own corporeal substance, and to look
dimly forth at the outer world. They breathe not easily, and yet not
with difficulty nor discomfort; for the very unreadiness and oppression
with which their breath cones appears to make them sensible of the deep
sensual satisfaction which they feel. Swill, the remnant of their last
meal, remains in the trough, denoting that their food is more abundant
than even a hog can demand. Anon they fall asleep, drawing short and
heavy breaths, which heave their huge sides up and down; but at the
slightest noise they sluggishly unclose their eyes, and give another
gentle grunt. They also grunt among themselves, without any external
cause; but merely to express their swinish sympathy. I suppose it is the
knowledge that these four grunters are doomed to die within two or three
weeks that gives them a sort of awfulness in my conception. It makes me
contrast their present gross substance of fleshly life with the
nothingness speedily to come. Meantime the four newly bought pigs are
running about the cow-yard, lean, active, shrewd, investigating
everything, as their nature is. When I throw an apple among them, they
scramble with one another for the prize, and the successful one scampers
away to eat it at leisure. They thrust their snouts into the mud, and
pick a grain of corn out of the rubbish. Nothing within their sphere do
they leave unexamined, grunting all the time with infinite variety of
expression. Their language is the most copious of that of any quadruped,
and, indeed, there is something deeply and indefinably interesting in the
swinish race. They appear the more a mystery the longer one gazes at
them. It seems as if there were an important meaning to them, if one
could but find it out. One interesting trait in them is their perfect
independence of character. They care not for man, and will not adapt
themselves to his notions, as other beasts do; but are true to
themselves, and act out their hoggish nature.
October 7th.--Since Saturday last (it being now Thursday), I have been in
Boston and Salem, and there has been a violent storm and rain during the
whole time. This morning shone as bright as if it meant to make up for
all the dismalness of the past days. Our brook, which in the summer was
no longer a running stream, but stood in pools along its pebbly course,
is now full from one grassy verge to the other, and hurries along with a
murmuring rush. It will continue to swell, I suppose, and in the winter
and spring it will flood all the broad meadows through which it flows.