To Walden with May, who takes a pencil sketch for her collection.
Thoreau's hermitage has disappeared, and the grounds are overgrown
with pines and sumac, leaving the site hardly traceable. The shores of
Walden are as sylvan as ever near Thoreau's haunt, but have been shorn
of wood on the southern side. No spot of water in these parts has a
more interesting history. It well deserved the poet's praises while
Thoreau dwelt on its shores.
"It is not far beyond the village church,
After we pass the wood that skirts the road,
A lake,--the blue-eyed Walden,--that doth smile
Most tenderly upon its neighbor pines,
And they as if to recompense this love,
In double beauty spread their branches forth.
This lake has tranquil loveliness and breadth,
And of late years has added to its charms,
For one attracted to its pleasant edge
Has built himself a little hermitage,
Where with much piety he passes life.
"More fitting place I cannot fancy now,
For such a man to let the line run off
The mortal reel, such patience hath the lake,
Such gratitude and cheer are in the pines.
But more than either lake or forest's depths
This man has in himself: a tranquil man,
With sunny sides where well the fruit is ripe,
Good front, and resolute bearing to this life,
And some serener virtues, which control
This rich exterior prudence, virtues high,
That in the principles of things are set,
Great by their nature and consigned to him,
Who, like a faithful merchant, does account
To God for what he spends, and in what way.
"Thrice happy art thou, Walden! in thyself,
Such purity is in thy limpid springs;
In those green shores which do reflect in thee,
And in this man who dwells upon thy edge,
A holy man within a hermitage.
May all good showers fall gently into thee;
May thy surrounding forests long be spared,
And may the dweller on thy tranquil shores
Here lead a life of deep tranquillity,
Pure as thy waters, handsome as thy shores,
And with those virtues which are like the stars."
"When I first paddled a boat on Walden," wrote Thoreau, "it was
completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in
some spots, coves of grape vines had run over the trees and formed
bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its shore
are so steep, and the woods on them so high, that as you looked down
the pond from the west end, it had the appearance of an amphitheatre.
For some kind of sylvan spectacle, I have spent many an hour when I
was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having
paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats
in a summer forenoon, and looking into the sky, dreaming awake until I
was aroused by my boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore
my fates had impelled me to. In these days, when idleness was the most
attractive and productive industry, many a forenoon have I stolen away,
preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day. For I was
rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them
lavishly. Nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them behind a
counter, or in a workshop, or at the teacher's desk, in which last two
places I have spent many of them.
"I must say that I do not know what made me leave the pond. I left it
as unaccountably as I went to it. To speak sincerely, I went there
because I had got ready to go. I left it for the same reason.
"These woods! why do I not feel their being cut more freely? Does
it not affect me nearly? The axe can deprive me of much. Concord is
sheared of its pride. I am certain by the loss attached to my native
town in consequence, one and a main link is broken. I shall go to
Walden less frequently.
"Look out what window I will, my eyes rest in the distance on a
forest. Is this circumstance of no value? Why such pains in old
countries to plant gardens and parks? A certain sample of wild nature,
a certain primitiveness? The towns thus bordered with a fringe and
tasselled border, each has its preservers. Methinks the town should
have more supervisors to control its parks than it has. It concerns us
all whether these proprietors choose to cut down all the woods this
winter or not. I love to look at Ebby Hubbard's oaks and pines on the
hillside from Brister's Hill, and am thankful that there is one old
miser who will not sell or cut his woods, though it is said that they
are wasting. 'It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.'"
"Walk round Walden Pond these warm winter days. The wood-chopper finds
that the wood cuts easier than when it had the frost in it, though it
does not split so readily. Thus every change in the weather has its
influence on him, and is appreciated by him in a peculiar way. The
wood-cutter and his practices and experiences are more to be attended
to; his accidents, perhaps, more than any others, should mark the
epochs in a winter's day. Now that the Indian is gone, he stands
nearest to nature. Who has written the history of his day? How far
still is the writer of books from the man, his old playmate, it may
be, who chops in the woods? There are ages between them. Homer refers
to the progress of the wood-cutter's work to mark the time of day on
the plains of Troy. And the inference from such premises commonly is,
that he lived in a more primitive state of society than the present.
But I think this is a mistake. Like proves like in all ages, and the
fact that I myself should take pleasure in preferring the simple
and peaceful labors which are always proceeding; that the contrast
itself always attracts the civilized poet to what is rudest and most
primitive in his contemporaries;--all this rather proves a certain
interval between the poet and the wood-chopper, whose labor he refers
to, than an unusual nearness to him, on the principle that familiarity
breeds contempt. Homer is to be subjected to a very different kind
of criticism from any he has received. That reader who most fully
appreciates the poet, and derives the greater pleasure from his work,
lives in circumstances most like those of the poet himself.
"This afternoon I throw off my outside coat, a mild spring day. I
must hie me to the meadows. The air is full of bluebirds. The ground
is almost entirely bare. The villagers are out in the sun, and every
man is happy whose work takes him out-of-doors. I go by Sleepy Hollow
towards the great fields. I lean over a rail to hear what is in the
air, liquid with the bluebird's warble. My life partakes of infinity.
The air is deep as our natures. Is the drawing in of this vital air
attended with no more glorious results than I witness? The air is a
velvet cushion against which I press my ear. I go forth to make new
demands on life. I wish to begin this summer well. To do something
in it worthy and wise. To transcend my daily routine and that of my
townsmen, to have my immortality now,--that it be in the quality of my
daily life,--to pay the greatest price, the greatest tax of any man
in Concord, and enjoy the most! I will give all I am for my nobility.
I will pay all my days for my success. I pray that the life of this
spring and summer may be fair in my memory. May I dare as I have never
done. May I purify myself anew as with fire and water, soul and body.
May my melody not be wanting to the season. May I gird myself to be a
hunter of the beautiful, that nought escape me. May I attain to a youth
never attained. I am eager to report the glory of the universe: may I
be worthy to do it; to have got through regarding human values, so as
not to be distracted from regarding divine values. It is reasonable
that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he
was at the beginning."
* * * * *
A delightful volume might be compiled from Thoreau's Journals by
selecting what he wrote at a certain date annually, thus giving a
calendar of his thoughts on that day from year to year. Such a book
would be instructive in many ways,--to the naturalist, the farmer,
woodman, scholar; and as he was wont to weave a sensible moral into his
writings, it would prove a suggestive treatise on morals and religion
also. Not every preacher takes his text from his time, his own eyes,
ears, and feet, in his sensible, superior manner.