unaffectedly ashamed to meet anybody's gaze, and therefore turned my back
or my shoulder as much as possible upon the world. At dinner, behold an
immense joint of roast veal! I would willingly have had some assistance
in the discussion of this great piece of calf. I am ashamed to eat
alone; it becomes the mere gratification of animal appetite,--the tribute
which we are compelled to pay to our grosser nature; whereas in the
company of another it is refined and moralized and spiritualized; and
over our earthly victuals (or rather vittles, for the former is a very
foolish mode of spelling),--over our earthly vittles is diffused a sauce
of lofty and gentle thoughts, and tough meat is mollified with tender
feelings. But oh! these solitary meals are the dismallest part of my
present experience. When the company rose from table, they all, in my
single person, ascended to the study, and employed themselves in reading
the article on Oregon in the Democratic Review. Then they plodded onward
in the rugged and bewildering depths of Tieck's tale until five o'clock,
when, with one accord, they went out to split wood. This has been a
gray day, with now and then a sprinkling of snow-flakes through the
air. . . . To-day no more than yesterday have I spoken a word to
mortal. . . . It is now sunset, and I must meditate till dark.
April 11th.--I meditated accordingly, but without any very wonderful
result. Then at eight o'clock bothered myself till after nine with this
eternal tale of Tieck. The forenoon was spent in scribbling; but at
eleven o'clock my thoughts ceased to flow,--indeed, their current has
been wofully interrupted all along,--so I threw down my pen, and set out
on the daily journey to the village. Horrible walking! I wasted the
customary hour at the Athenaeum, and returned home, if home it may now be
called. Till dinner-time I labored on Tieck's tale, and resumed that
agreeable employment after the banquet.
Just when I was on the point of choking with a huge German word, Molly
announced Mr. Thoreau. He wished to take a row in the boat, for the last
time, perhaps, before he leaves Concord. So we emptied the water out of
her, and set forth on our voyage. She leaks, but not more than she did
in the autumn. We rowed to the foot of the hill which borders the North
Branch, and there landed, and climbed the moist and snowy hillside for
the sake of the prospect. Looking down the river, it might well have
been mistaken for an arm of the sea, so broad is now its swollen tide;
and I could have fancied that, beyond one other headland, the mighty
ocean would outspread itself before the eye. On our return we boarded a
large cake of ice, which was floating down the river, and were borne by
it directly to our own landing-place, with the boat towing behind.
Parting with Mr. Thoreau, I spent half an hour in chopping wood, when
Molly informed me that Mr. Emerson wished to see me. He had brought a
letter of Ellery Channing, written in a style of very pleasant humor.
This being read and discussed, together with a few other matters, he took
his leave, since which I have been attending to my journalizing duty; and
thus this record is brought down to the present moment.
April 25th.--Spring is advancing, sometimes with sunny days, and
sometimes, as is the case now, with chill, moist, sullen ones. There is
an influence in the season that makes it almost impossible for me to
bring my mind down to literary employment; perhaps because several
months' pretty constant work has exhausted that species of energy,--
perhaps because in spring it is more natural to labor actively than to
think. But my impulse now is to be idle altogether,--to lie in the sun,
or wander about and look at the revival of Nature from her death-like
slumber, or to be borne down the current of the river in my boat. If I
had wings, I would gladly fly; yet would prefer to be wafted along by a
breeze, sometimes alighting on a patch of green grass, then gently
whirled away to a still sunnier spot. . . . O, how blest should I be
were there nothing to do! Then I would watch every inch and
hair's-breadth of the progress of the season; and not a leaf should put
itself forth, in the vicinity of our old mansion, without my noting it.
But now, with the burden of a continual task upon me, I have not freedom
of mind to make such observations. I merely see what is going on in a
very general way. The snow, which, two or three weeks ago, covered hill
and valley, is now diminished to one or two solitary specks in the
visible landscape; though doubtless there are still heaps of it in the
shady places in the woods. There have been no violent rains to carry it
off: it has diminished gradually, inch by inch, and day after day; and I
observed, along the roadside, that the green blades of grass had
sometimes sprouted on the very edge of the snowdrift the moment that the
earth was uncovered.
The pastures and grass-fields have not yet a general effect of green; nor
have they that cheerless brown tint which they wear in later autumn, when
vegetation has entirely ceased. There is now a suspicion of verdure,--
the faint shadow of it,--but not the warm reality. Sometimes, in a happy
exposure,--there is one such tract across the river, the carefully
cultivated mowing-field, in front of an old red homestead,--such patches
of land wear a beautiful and tender green, which no other season will
equal; because, let the grass be green as it may hereafter, it will not
be so set off by surrounding barrenness. The trees in our orchard, and
elsewhere, have as yet no leaves; yet to the most careless eye they
appear full of life and vegetable blood. It seems as if, by one magic
touch, they might instantaneously put forth all their foliage, and the
wind, which now sighs through their naked branches, might all at once
find itself impeded by innumerable leaves. This sudden development would
be scarcely more wonderful than the gleam of verdure which often
brightens, in a moment, as it were, along the slope of a bank or
roadside. It is like a gleam of sunlight. Just now it was brown, like
the rest of the scenery: look again, and there is an apparition of green
grass. The Spring, no doubt, comes onward with fleeter footsteps,
because Winter has lingered so long that, at best, she can hardly
retrieve half the allotted term of her reign.
The river, this season, has encroached farther on the land than it has
been known to do for twenty years past. It has formed along its course a
succession of lakes, with a current through the midst. My boat has lain
at the bottom of the orchard, in very convenient proximity to the house.
It has borne me over stone fences; and, a few days ago, Ellery Channing
and I passed through two rails into the great northern road, along which
we paddled for some distance. The trees have a singular appearance in
the midst of waters. The curtailment of their trunks quite destroys the
proportions of the whole tree; and we become conscious of a regularity
and propriety in the forms of Nature, by the effect of this abbreviation.
The waters are now subsiding, but gradually. Islands become annexed to
the mainland, and other islands emerge from the flood, and will soon,
likewise, be connected with the continent. We have seen on a small scale
the process of the deluge, and can now witness that of the reappearance
of the earth.
Crows visited us long before the snow was off. They seem mostly to have
departed now, or else to have betaken themselves to remote depths of the
woods, which they haunt all summer long. Ducks came in great numbers,
and many sportsmen went in pursuit of them, along the river; but they
also have disappeared. Gulls come up from seaward, and soar high
overhead, flapping their broad wings in the upper sunshine. They are
among the most picturesque birds that I am acquainted with; indeed, quite
the most so, because the manner of their flight makes them almost
stationary parts of the landscape. The imagination has time to rest upon
them; they have not flitted away in a moment. You go up among the
clouds, and lay hold of these soaring gulls, and repose with them upon
the sustaining atmosphere. The smaller birds,--the birds that build
their nests in our trees, and sing for us at morning-red,--I will not
describe. . . . But I must mention the great companies of blackbirds--
more than the famous "four-and-twenty" who were baked in a pie--that
congregate on the tops of contiguous trees, and vociferate with all the
clamor of a turbulent political meeting. Politics must certainly be the
subject of such a tumultuous debate; but still there is a melody in each
individual utterance, and a harmony in the general effect. Mr. Thoreau
tells me that these noisy assemblages consist of three different species
of blackbirds; but I forget the other two. Robins have been long among
us, and swallows have more recently arrived.
April 26th.--Here is another misty day, muffling the sun. The
lilac-shrubs under my study window are almost in leaf. In two or three
days more, I may put forth my hand and pluck a green bough. These lilacs
appear to be very aged, and have lost the luxuriant foliage of their
prime. Old age has a singular aspect in lilacs, rose-bushes, and other
ornamental shrubs. It seems as if such things, as they grow only for
beauty, ought to flourish in immortal youth, or at least to die before
their decrepitude. They are trees of Paradise, and therefore not
naturally subject to decay; but have lost their birthright by being
transplanted hither. There is a kind of ludicrous unfitness in the idea
of a venerable rose-bush; and there is something analogous to this in
human life. Persons who can only be graceful and ornamental--who can
give the world nothing but flowers--should die young, and never be seen
with gray hairs and wrinkles, any more than the flower-shrubs with mossy
bark and scanty foliage, like the lilacs under my window. Not that
beauty is not worthy of immortality. Nothing else, indeed, is worthy of
it; and thence, perhaps, the sense of impropriety when we see it
triumphed over by time. Apple-trees, on the other hand, grow old without
reproach. Let them live as long as they may, and contort themselves in
whatever fashion they please, they are still respectable, even if they
afford us only an apple or two in a season, or none at all. Human
flower-shrubs, if they will grow old on earth, should, beside their
lovely blossoms, bear some kind of fruit that will satisfy earthly
appetites; else men will not be satisfied that the moss should gather on
them.
Winter and Spring are now struggling for the mastery in my study; and I
yield somewhat to each, and wholly to neither. The window is open, and
there is a fire in the stove. The day when the window is first thrown
open should be an epoch in the year; but I have forgotten to record it.
Seventy or eighty springs have visited this old house; and sixty of them
found old Dr. Ripley here,--not always old, it is true, but gradually
getting wrinkles and gray hairs, and looking more and more the picture of
winter. But he was no flower-shrub, but one of those fruit-trees or
timber-trees that acquire a grace with their old age. Last Spring found
this house solitary for the first time since it was built; and now again
she peeps into our open windows and finds new faces here. . . .
It is remarkable how much uncleanness winter brings with it, or leaves
behind it. . . . The yard, garden, and avenue, which should be my
department, require a great amount of labor. The avenue is strewed with
withered leaves,--the whole crop, apparently, of last year,--some of
which are now raked into heaps; and we intend to make a bonfire of
them. . . . There are quantities of decayed branches, which one tempest
after another has flung down, black and rotten. In the garden are the
old cabbages which we did not think worth gathering last autumn, and the
dry bean-vines, and the withered stalks of the asparagus-bed; in short,
all the wrecks of the departed year,--its mouldering relics, its dry
bones. It is a pity that the world cannot be made over anew every
spring. Then, in the yard, there are the piles of firewood, which I
ought to have sawed and thrown into the shed long since, but which will
cumber the earth, I fear, till June, at least. Quantities of chips are
strewn about, and on removing them we find the yellow stalks of grass
sprouting underneath. Nature does her best to beautify this disarray.
The grass springs up most industriously, especially in sheltered and
sunny angles of the buildings, or round the doorsteps,--a locality which
seems particularly favorable to its growth; for it is already high enough
to bend over and wave in the wind. I was surprised to observe that some
weeds (especially a plant that stains the fingers with its yellow juice)
had lived, and retained their freshness and sap as perfectly as in
summer, through all the frosts and snows of last winter. I saw them, the
last green thing, in the autumn; and here they are again, the first in
the spring.
Thursday, April 27th.--I took a walk into the fields, and round our
opposite hill, yesterday noon, but made no very remarkable observation.
The frogs have begun their concerts, though not as yet with a full choir.
I found no violets nor anemones, nor anything in the likeness of a
flower, though I looked carefully along the shelter of the stone-walls,
and in all spots apparently propitious. I ascended the hill, and had a
wide prospect of a swollen river, extending around me in a semicircle of
three or four miles, and rendering the view much finer than in summer,
had there only been foliage. It seemed like the formation of a new
world; for islands were everywhere emerging, and capes extending forth
into the flood; and these tracts, which were thus won from the watery
empire, were among the greenest in the landscape. The moment the deluge
leaves them, Nature asserts them to be her property by covering them with
verdure; or perhaps the grass had been growing under the water. On the
hill-top where I stood, the grass had scarcely begun to sprout; and I
observed that even those places which looked greenest in the distance
were but scantily grass-covered when I actually reached them. It was
hope that painted them so bright.
Last evening we saw a bright light on the river, betokening that a boat's
party were engaged in spearing fish. It looked like a descended star,--
like red Mars,--and, as the water was perfectly smooth, its gleam was
reflected downward into the depths. It is a very picturesque sight. In
the deep quiet of the night I suddenly heard the light and lively note of
a bird from a neighboring tree,--a real song, such as those which greet
the purple dawn, or mingle with the yellow sunshine. What could the
little bird mean by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the note
gushed out from the midst of a dream, in which he fancied himself in
Paradise with his mate; and, suddenly awaking, he found he was on a cold,
leafless bough, with a New England mist penetrating through his feathers.
That was a sad exchange of imagination for reality; but if he found his
mate beside him, all was well.
This is another misty morning, ungenial in aspect, but kinder than it
looks; for it paints the hills and valleys with a richer brush than the
sunshine could. There is more verdure now than when I looked out of the
window an hour ago. The willow-tree opposite my study window is ready to
put forth its leaves. There are some objections to willows. It is not a
dry and cleanly tree; it impresses me with an association of sliminess;
and no trees, I think, are perfectly satisfactory, which have not a firm
and hard texture of trunk and branches. But the willow is almost the
earliest to put forth its leaves, and the last to scatter them on the
ground; and during the whole winter its yellow twigs give it a sunny
aspect, which is not without a cheering influence in a proper point of
view. Our old house would lose much were this willow to be cut down,
with its golden crown over the roof in winter, and its heap of summer
verdure. The present Mr. Ripley planted it, fifty years ago, or
thereabouts.
Friday, June 2d.--Last night there came a frost, which has done great
damage to my garden. The beans have suffered very much, although,
luckily, not more than half that I planted have come up. The squashes,
both summer and winter, appear to be almost killed. As to the other
vegetables, there is little mischief done,--the potatoes not being yet
above ground, except two or three; and the peas and corn are of a hardier
nature. It is sad that Nature will so sport with us poor mortals,
inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her; and then, when we are
entirely in her power, striking us to the heart. Our summer commences at
the latter end of June, and terminates somewhere about the first of
August. There are certainly not more than six weeks of the whole year
when a frost may be deemed anything remarkable.
Friday, June 23d.--Summer has come at last,--the longest days, with
blazing sunshine, and fervid heat. Yesterday glowed like molten brass.
Last night was the most uncomfortably and unsleepably sultry that we have
experienced since our residence in Concord; and to-day it scorches again.
I have a sort of enjoyment in these seven-times-heated furnaces of
midsummer, even though they make me droop like a thirsty plant. The
sunshine can scarcely be too burning for my taste; but I am no enemy to
summer showers. Could I only have the freedom to be perfectly idle now,
--no duty to fulfil, no mental or physical labor to perform,--I should be
as happy as a squash, and much in the same mode; but the necessity of
keeping my brain at work eats into my comfort, as the squash-bugs do into
the heart of the vines. I keep myself uneasy and produce little, and
almost nothing that is worth producing.
The garden looks well now: the potatoes flourish; the early corn waves in
the wind; the squashes, both for summer and winter use, are more forward,
I suspect, than those of any of my neighbors. I am forced, however, to
carry on a continual warfare with the squash-bugs, who, were I to let
them alone for a day, would perhaps quite destroy the prospects of the
whole summer. It is impossible not to feel angry with these
unconscionable insects, who scruple not to do such excessive mischief to
me, with only the profit of a meal or two to themselves. For their own
sakes they ought at least to wait till the squashes are better grown.
Why is it, I wonder, that Nature has provided such a host of enemies for
every useful esculent, while the weeds are suffered to grow unmolested,
and are provided with such tenacity of life, and such methods of
propagation, that the gardener must maintain a continual struggle or they
will hopelessly overwhelm him? What hidden virtue is in these things,
that it is granted them to sow themselves with the wind, and to grapple
the earth with this immitigable stubbornness, and to flourish in spite of
obstacles, and never to suffer blight beneath any sun or shade, but
always to mock their enemies with the same wicked luxuriance? It is
truly a mystery, and also a symbol. There is a sort of sacredness about
them. Perhaps, if we could penetrate Nature's secrets, we should find
that what we call weeds are more essential to the well-being of the world
than the most precious fruit or grain. This may be doubted, however, for
there is an unmistakable analogy between these wicked weeds and the bad
habits and sinful propensities which have overrun the moral world; and we
may as well imagine that there is good in one as in the other.
Our peas are in such forwardness that I should not wonder if we had some
of them on the table within a week. The beans have come up ill, and I
planted a fresh supply only the day before yesterday. We have
watermelons in good advancement, and muskmelons also within three or four
days. I set out some tomatoes last night, also some capers. It is my
purpose to plant some more corn at the end of the month, or sooner.
There ought to be a record of the flower-garden, and of the procession of
the wild-flowers, as minute, at least, as of the kitchen vegetables and
pot-herbs. Above all, the noting of the appearance of the first roses
should not be omitted; nor of the Arethusa, one of the delicatest,
gracefullest, and in every manner sweetest of the whole race of flowers.
For a fortnight past I have found it in the swampy meadows, growing up to
its chin in heaps of wet moss. Its hue is a delicate pink, of various
depths of shade, and somewhat in the form of a Grecian helmet. To
describe it is a feat beyond my power. Also the visit of two friends,
who may fitly enough be mentioned among flowers, ought to have been
described. Mrs. F. S------ and Miss A. S------. Also I have neglected
to mention the birth of a little white dove.
I never observed, until the present season, how long and late the
twilight lingers in these longest days. The orange line of the western
horizon remains till ten o'clock, at least, and how much later I am
unable to say. The night before last, I could distinguish letters by
this lingering gleam between nine and ten o'clock. The dawn, I suppose,
shows itself as early as two o'clock, so that the absolute dominion of
night has dwindled to almost nothing. There seems to be also a
diminished necessity, or, at all events, a much less possibility, of
sleep than at other periods of the year. I get scarcely any sound repose
just now. It is summer, and not winter, that steals away mortal life.
Well, we get the value of what is taken from us.
Saturday, July 1st.--We had our first dish of green peas (a very small
one) yesterday. Every day for the last week has been tremendously hot;
and our garden flourishes like Eden itself, only Adam could hardly have
been doomed to contend with such a ferocious banditti of weeds.
Sunday, July 9th.--I know not what to say, and yet cannot be satisfied
without marking with a word or two this anniversary. . . . But life now
swells and heaves beneath me like a brim-full ocean; and the endeavor to
comprise any portion of it in words is like trying to dip up the ocean in
a goblet. . . . God bless and keep us! for there is something more
awful in happiness than in sorrow,--the latter being earthly and finite,
the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that
spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.
July 18th.--This morning I gathered our first summer-squashes. We should
have had them some days earlier, but for the loss of two of the vines,
either by a disease of the roots or by those infernal bugs. We have had
turnips and carrots several times. Currants are now ripe, and we are in
the full enjoyment of cherries, which turn out much more delectable than
I anticipated. George Hillard and Mrs. Hillard paid us a visit on
Saturday last. On Monday afternoon he left us, and Mrs. Hillard still
remains here.
Friday, July 28th.--We had green corn for dinner yesterday, and shall
have some more to-day, not quite full grown, but sufficiently so to be
palatable. There has been no rain, except one moderate shower, for many
weeks; and the earth appears to be wasting away in a slow fever. This
weather, I think, affects the spirits very unfavorably. There is an
irksomeness, a restlessness, a pervading dissatisfaction, together with
an absolute incapacity to bend the mind to any serious effort. With me,
as regards literary production, the summer has been unprofitable; and I
only hope that my forces are recruiting themselves for the autumn and
winter. For the future, I shall endeavor to be so diligent nine months
of the year that I may allow myself a full and free vacation of the other
three.
Monday, July 31st.--We had our first cucumber yesterday. There were
symptoms of rain on Saturday, and the weather has since been as moist as
the thirstiest soul could desire.
Wednesday, September 13th.--There was a frost the night before last,
according to George Prescott; but no effects of it were visible in our
garden. Last night, however, there was another, which has nipped the
leaves of the winter-squashes and cucumbers, but seems to have done no
other damage. This is a beautiful morning, and promises to be one of
those heavenly days that render autumn, after all, the most delightful
season of the year. We mean to make a voyage on the river this
afternoon.
Sunday, September 23d.--I have gathered the two last of our
summer-squashes to-day. They have lasted ever since the 18th of July,
and have numbered fifty-eight edible ones, of excellent quality. Last
Wednesday, I think, I harvested our winter-squashes, sixty-three in
number, and mostly of fine size. Our last series of green corn, planted
about the 1st of July, was good for eating two or three days ago. We
still have beans; and our tomatoes, though backward, supply us with a
dish every day or two. My potato-crop promises well; and, on the whole,
my first independent experiment of agriculture is quite a successful one.