My neighbors flatter me in telling me that I have one of the best
placed and most picturesque houses in our town. I know very well the
secret of what they praise. 'Tis simply adapting the color and repairs
to the architecture, and holding these in keeping with the spot.
A house, like a person, invites by amiable reserves, as if it loved
to be introduced in perspective and reached by courteous approaches.
Let it show bashfully behind shrubberies, screen its proportions
decorously in plain tints, not thrust itself rudely, like an inn, upon
the street at cross-roads. A wide lawn in front, sloping to the road
gracefully, gives it the stately air and courtly approach. I like
the ancient mansions for this reason; these old Puritan residences
for their unpretending air, their sober tints, in strict keeping
with Wordsworth's rule of coloring, viz. that of the sod about the
grounds. A slight exaltation of this defines best the architecture by
distinguishing it from surrounding objects in the landscape. Modest
tints are always becoming. White and red intolerable. And for some
variety in dressing, the neighboring barks of shrubbery suggest and
best characterize the coloring.
As for fences and gates, I was told that mine were unlike any other in
the world, yet as good as anybody's, hereby meaning to praise them,
I infer. If less durable than others, the cost is inconsiderable,
and has the associated pleasure, besides, of having come out of such
ideal capital as I had invested in my own head and hands. A common
carpenter would have spent more time in planing and fixing his pickets
and set something in straight lines with angular corners to deform the
landscape; then the painter must have followed with some tint mixed
neither by nature nor art. Now my work delights my eyes whenever I step
out-of-doors, adding its ornament to the spot. Grotesque it may be with
its knotted ornaments, Druid supports, yet in keeping with the woods
behind it. Besides, what pleasure the construction has given! Form,
color, ornamentation alike concern builder and occupant, as they were
blossoms of his taste and of the landscape. A good architect is both
builder and colorist, and should be a good man besides, according to
the ancient authorities. Roman Vitruvius claims as much, if not more,
of him:--
"It is necessary," he says, "that an architect should be instructed in
the precepts of moral philosophy; for he ought to have a great soul,
and be bold without arrogance, just, faithful, and totally exempt
from avarice. He should have a great docility, which may hinder him
from neglecting the advice that is given him, not only of the meanest
artist, but also of those that understand nothing of architecture; for
not only architects but all the world must judge his works."
Houses have their history, are venerable on account of their age and
origin. Even our newly-settled country of but a century or two has
already crowned homesteads still standing with royal honors. Mine, I
conjecture, is not far from one hundred and fifty years' standing.
It was a first-class country house in its day, with its window-seats
in parlor and chambers, ornamental summers and casements, its ample
fireplaces, and lean-to on the northern side. Like most of its period
it was open to the road with overshadowing elms still embowering
the mansion; had a lion-headed door-knocker, and huge chimney-tops
surmounting the gables. Of learned ancestry, moreover; having been
the homestead of a brother of President Hoar, of Harvard College, and
remained in possession of members of that venerable family down to
near the beginning of the present century. The site is hardly surpassed
by any on the old Boston road; the woods behind crowning the range
of hills running north almost to the village, and bordering east on
Wayside, Hawthorne's last residence. It must have been chosen by an
original settler, probably coming with the Rev. Peter Bulkeley from
England, in 1635.[1]
[Footnote 1: Johnson, in his "Wonder Working Providence Concerning
New England," describes the company of settlers on their way from
Cambridge, under the lead of the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, the principal
founder of Concord.]
The ancient elms before the house, of a hundred years' standing and
more, are the pride of the yard. It were sacrilege to remove a limb or
twig unless decayed, so luxuriant and far-spreading, overshadowing the
roof and gables, yet admitting the light into hall and chambers. Sunny
rooms, sunny household. "Build your house," says a mystic author, "upon
a firm foundation, and let your aspect be towards the east, where the
sun rises, that so you may enjoy its fruitfulness in your household and
orchards."
Whether the first settler planted these elms, or whether they are
survivors of the primitive forest which was felled to make way and
room for the rude shelter of the hardy settlers, is not ascertained.
Their roots penetrate primitive soil; the surrounding grounds have
become productive by the industry and skill, mellowed and meliorated
by the humanities of their descendants. They came honestly by their
homesteads, paying their swarthy claimants fair prices for them; the
landscape is still inviting by its prairie aspects, its brook-sides and
meadows where the red men trod.
It was these broad meadows beside the "Grass ground River" that
tempted alike the white and red man,--the one for pasturage, the other
for fishing,--and brought the little colony through the wilderness
to form the settlement named "Musketaquid," after the river of that
name (signifying grass ground), and later taking that of Concord, not
without note in history.
"Beneath low hills, in the broad interval
Through which at will our Indian rivulet
Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw,
Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies;
Here, in pine houses, built of new-fallen trees,
Supplanters of the tribe, the planters dwelt."
The view from the rustic seat overlooking my house commands the
amphitheatre in which the house stands, and through which flows Mill
brook, bordered on the south and east by the Lincoln woods. It is a
quiet prospect and might be taken for an English landscape; needs but
a tower or castle overtopping the trees surrounding it. The willows by
the rock bridge over the brook, the winding lane once the main track
of travel before the turnpike branching off from the old Boston road
by Emerson's door was built, adds to the illusion, while on the east
stands the pine-clad hill, Hawthorne's favorite haunt, and hiding his
last residence from sight.
On the southwest is an ancient wood, Thoreau's pride, beyond which is
Walden Pond, distant about a mile from my house, and best reached by
the lane opening opposite Hawthorne's. Fringed on all sides by woods,
the interval, once a mill pond, is now in meadow and garden land, the
slopes planted in vineyards, market gardens and orchards lining the
road along which stand the farmers' houses visible in the opening.
This road has more than a local interest. If any road may claim
the originality of being entitled to the name of American, it is
this,--since along its dust the British regulars retreated from their
memorable repulse at the Old North Bridge, the Concord military
following fast upon their heels, and from the hill-tops giving them
salutes of musketry till they disappeared beyond Lexington, and gave a
day to history.
An agricultural town from the first, it is yet such in large
measure; though like others in its neighborhood becoming suburban
and commercial. Fields once in corn and grass are now in vineyards
and orchards, tillage winding up the slopes from the low lands to
the hill-tops. The venerable woods once crowning these are fast
falling victims to the axe. The farmsteads are no longer the rural
homes they were when every member of the family took part in domestic
affairs; foreign help serves where daughters once served; they with
their brothers having left the housekeeping and farming for school,
factories, trade, a profession, and things are drifting towards
an urbane and municipal civilization, the metropolis extending its
boundaries, and absorbing the townships for many miles round.
Moreover, the primitive features of the landscape are being obliterated
by the modern facilities for business and travel, less perhaps than in
most places lying so near the metropolis; the social still less than
the natural; the descendants of the primitive fathers of the settlement
cherishing a pride of ancestry not unbecoming in a republic, less
favorable for the perpetuation of family distinctions and manners than
in countries under monarchical rule.