inhabitation. The wisdom of experience is beginning to check the
perhaps natural tendency to spoil ruthlessly the conquered forest;
and even the most materially minded are beginning to act toward the
universal mother no more harshly than they would toward a captive or
slave whose usefulness is increased by considerate treatment.
“‘The peculiar relations between nature and the human spirit in the
United States, however, seem to me worthy of extended study. Thus,
it is undoubtedly because of our unique environment, that so just an
observer as Emerson found American perceptions keener than any he met
with elsewhere. Our poets have certainly recorded other and more varied
aspects of nature than their English brethren, who in comparison seem
to deal chiefly with the “common or garden variety.” Nothing is more
mistaken than to consider Bryant a kind of inferior Wordsworth. There
is more truth in the remark that Wordsworth himself was not primarily
a nature poet, since nature was to him chiefly the source of certain
stimuli to the mental life, which was his fundamental interest.
Bryant not only feels this stimulus, along with nature’s suggestive
and representative qualities, and its physical benefits; but he also
apprehends nature as an independent world of physical life and order,
of which man is a citizen so far as he is a creature, and of which he
may be a ruler so far as his mind works in harmony with natural law,
and partakes of the power behind it.
“‘This aspect of nature was not, I believe, apprehended by Wordsworth
at all. He at least gave no utterance to it. Similarly, in the
treatment of the water-world, in which English poets have usually
excelled, the English critic Henley has shown how Longfellow, through
a simple self-forgetfulness in his impressions, found eternal beauties
hitherto unnoticed. Emerson’s nature-teaching is fairly well known, but
the depth and breadth of Whitman’s sympathy for land and sea has yet
to be generally appreciated; and these poets are only a few of many
examples.
“‘American painting, too, has found itself in landscape; our sculpture
and music have drawn inspiration from aboriginal life; and our natural
science is second to none in its careful, accurate, and tireless study.
“‘The special field in which we may learn from the older world is in
the employment of nature as the material of art; and for this with our
advance in wealth and leisure, we are now ready. Roman, Italian, and
English examples have already been followed in making real for us some
of Poe’s visions of cultivated landscape; and I am daily expecting
those delightful intellectual and aesthetic results which have always
come when men, wearied with the cultivation of cities, retire to the
contrasting peace, simplicity, and beauty of nature.’
“There were, of course,” continued Professor Maturin, “many other
general ideas in my friend’s system, and he has accumulated a vast
hoard of particular facts to illustrate them. The last aspect of the
subject, however, continued to interest me most; for I was experiencing
hourly the truth of what he said concerning the thaumaturgic, healing
power of nature. I never felt such gentle and cumulative refreshment in
my life. The varied sensations of travel, which is perhaps the favorite
form of recreation, merely whip the jaded spirit into new activity. But
these peaceful, natural scenes and sounds allow the senses to relax,
and the mind to renew its texture and recover its tone. As Browning
puts it,
_my soul
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll._
I have experienced a real re-creation.
“Therefore,” concluded Professor Maturin, as we finished our cigars,
“you must not be surprised if, within the next few weeks, I compose
a pastoral symphony, or become a new Theocritus, or--what is less
unlikely--retire to a villa, as Horace did.”
V
_Food for Thought_
I was just ordering dinner at the Athenaeum when Professor Maturin
entered the room and peered about over his spectacles in search of a
congenial corner. Happily for me, his glance encountered mine, and his
smile accepted my invitation. I settled myself for an hour of rare
conversation.
“And what are you planning to have?” he queried. I passed him the
order I was signing, but noticed, as he read it, first surprise, then
incredulity, and finally sorrow in his expression.
“My friend, my friend,” he said, mournfully shaking his head, “and you
a literary man!”
“Won’t you, then, order for me instead?” I responded, cancelling the
slip, outwardly meek, but inwardly rejoicing that my friend’s energy
had created a situation which his kindliness would require him to
explain at length.
“In the cause of the advancement of learning, sir, I will!” he replied.
And taking a new blank, he began to write from the bottom upward,
remarking: “In the first place, I always feel, in order that a dinner
may have unity and consistency, it should be planned like a poem, from
the end toward the beginning; all the more, since there is no chance
for revision. There,” he resumed, finishing, “I think that will do, as
simple, nourishing, and suggestive.”
And he read: “Oysters, with a few Platonic olives, for the sake of
Dr. Holmes and criticism; a bit of tenderloin, in memory of Mary
Lamb’s beefsteak pudding; asparagus, which, according to Charles Lamb,
inspires gentle thoughts; cauliflower, which Dr. Johnson preferred to
all other flowers; Vergil’s salad; apple pie, according to Henry Ward
Beecher’s recipe, with a bit of Dean Swift’s cheese; and, finally, a
little coffee. I have considerably increased my usual ration in order
that you may not miss what the French call ‘the sensation of satiety.’
“I find it difficult,” sighed Professor Maturin, as he passed the
order to an attendant and leaned back in his chair, “to absolve men of
letters from what has been called the crime of unintelligent eating. Of
all men their need of and their opportunity for wisdom in such matters
is the greatest. And yet you have Gray wondering at his ailments and
his melancholia, when he was eating chiefly marmalade and pastry,
taking no exercise, and dosing himself with tar water and sage tea.
“Shelley did scarcely better in a more enlightened age. Byron’s
habitual flesh-reducing mixture, potatoes and vinegar, is chemically
indigestible. And Thoreau literally consumed himself in following and
advocating a diet which so prepared him for tuberculosis that living
half his time in the open air could not prevent it.
“The opposite extreme, which is yet more common, is even less
attractive in men of genius. Who likes to remember that Spenser and
Milton had gout, or that Goethe drank in his time fifty thousand
bottles of wine? As for Pepys, what do you think of having one’s ‘only
mayde’ dress such a home dinner as this, copied from his ‘Diary:’ ‘A
fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton, three carps, a
side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, four lobsters, three tarts, a
lamprey pie, a dish of anchovies, and good wine of several sorts’? No
wonder that his better qualities are obscured in our memories of him.
“Philosophers, men of action, and, interestingly enough, men of the
world, have usually set a better example. ‘They that sup with Plato,’
said Aelianus, ‘are not sick or out of temper the next day.’ Socrates,
Epicurus, and Kant, all preached and practiced judgment and restraint.
Horace and Catullus insisted that their pampered guests should bring
their luxuries with them. Montaigne highly disapproved of elaborate
cooking, and Pope refused to dine with Lady Suffolk so late in the day
as four.
“Then there is that admirable story of Cincinnatus, whom the venal
senators knew they could not bribe after they found him preparing his
own dinner of turnips. It is quite in keeping that King Alfred should
have burned the cakes, and that Napoleon should have spilled the
omelet; and it is to Lady Cromwell’s credit that she would not allow
the Protector oranges that cost a groat apiece.
“Even aside from health and morals, a man’s relation to food is always
significant. Who can think of Tasso without remembering that he loved
sweetmeats? Is there not literary suggestion in the fact that Vergil
loved garlic and Horace hated it; that Horace preferred his Falernian
and his Sabine farm to the dinners and Persian apparatus of Maecenas,
but that Cicero loved to dine with Lucullus and bought himself a
seven-thousand-dollar dinner table?
“Is it not illuminating to know that the favorite food of Burns was
oat-cake, that of Byron truffles? De Quincey’s reports that Wordsworth
used the same knife for cutting butter and the pages of books; and
that Scott, when Wordsworth’s guest, repaired secretly to an inn for
chops and ale--these are not gossip, but literary criticism. It is
as surely interpretative of Dickens to know that he disliked Italian
cookery as that he was fond of playing an accordeon.
“Carlyle’s pessimism is usually attributed to indigestion. It ought, I
think, to be as usual to explain Emerson’s optimism by a digestion that
could cope successfully with his favorite pie. We habitually associate
tea and coffee with Johnson and Balzac, and their work. Should we not
as often remember that Milton produced ‘Paradise Lost’ on coffee, and
‘Paradise Regained’ on tea? Of course, such physical criticism of
literature must be limited by other judgments. I can well agree with
Dr. Gould that many writers show the effects of eye-strain, and it
is difficult to upset the diagnosis of anaemia in Hawthorne; but I
hesitate to think, with Dr. Conan Doyle, that Shakespeare had locomotor
ataxia.”
“Why did you associate oysters with criticism?” I inquired, as
Professor Maturin paused.
“Do you not recall,” he replied, “the Autocrat’s remark that literary
reputations are largely a matter of administering oysters in the
form of suppers, to gentlemen connected with criticism? Veuillot
similarly claimed that men were elected to the French Academy chiefly
because they gave good dinners. Sydney Smith applied the principle to
religion when he said, ‘The way to deal with fanatics is not to reason
with them, but to ask them to dinner.’ On the other hand, Swift used
deliberately to test men’s tempers by offering them bad wine.”
“And did Plato like olives?” I continued.
“He often made a meal of nothing else,” was the reply.
“And what was Vergil’s salad?” It arrived at that moment.
“It is made of cheese and parsley, with a bit of garlic, rue, and
coriander, salt, oil, and vinegar. A little of it is, I think, very
pleasing. I much prefer it to Sydney Smith’s. I never understood how he
could write ‘Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day’ about a salad
made of potatoes. For the truly esoteric doctrine you must read John
Evelyn’s ‘Discourse of Sallets.’
“Indeed, I am inclined, on the whole, to think that Sydney Smith was
what Carlyle called ‘a blethering blellum,’ when he wrote about food,
as he so often did. It was perfectly proper for him to express a desire
to experience American canvasbacks, and to be glad that he was not
born before tea; but to say that roast pheasant and bread sauce was
the source of the most elevated pleasure in life, and that his idea of
heaven was eating _pâté de fois gras_ to the sound of trumpets--that
was both posing and trifling with serious subjects. Charles Lamb’s
comments on roast pig and frogs’ legs, and his kindred table talk, are
much more genuine, and, of course, charming; but even they scarcely
touch the deeper aspects of the subject.
“Thackeray had all of Lamb’s appreciation of food and, I think,
something more. He enjoyed his own and accepted others’ idiosyncrasies
of taste,--witness his treating boys to apricot omelet, which he
hated,--but his plea for simpler and more varied dinners, for more
hospitality and less ostentation, indicates, I think, that he realized
at least something of the profound moral and social significance of
food.
“This, as you know, is one of my hobbies, and I unconsciously add it
to my other criteria of judgment in my reading. That Scott invented a
venison pasty, Dickens a sandwich, Webster a clam chowder, and Henry
Clay a stew is interesting; just as it is that Buckle was discriminate
and Heine indiscriminate in choosing tea. But it is far more
significant that Dr. Johnson considered writing a cook-book, and that
Dumas’ last work actually was such a volume of more than a thousand
pages.
“That is the kind of thing we need: sound doctrine from influential
writers, but it is not easy to get. The intemperate use of food, which
is always with us, causes many to turn with prejudice from the whole
subject. Here, as elsewhere, conservatism often opposes the good. You
know, for example, how long the clergy decried the use of forks; and
I never cease to regret that the man who was opened-minded enough to
introduce umbrellas into England should have been furiously opposed to
tea.
“Many writers, too, treat the subject fancifully, without regard to its
inherent truths--witness the conventional praise of the indigestible
turtle. Often those who intend well lack knowledge: Pythagoras made it
a principle of morality to abstain from beans, an almost perfect food;
the ideal diet of Plato’s republic, barley pudding and bread, does not
contain the elements necessary to sustain life properly. Democritus
inaugurated the still repeated heresy that any food that is pleasant
is wholesome; and even Dr. Johnson defended his doubtful practice of
eating whenever he was hungry, without regard to regularity. For all
these reasons and many others I hold it, in this enlightened age,
doubly the responsibility of intelligent men, and particularly of those
who influence popular opinion, to acquire a sound knowledge of such
matters and to do all that they can to disseminate it.”
“You have previously convinced me of this,” I replied, “but I have not
found it easy to attain to such knowledge.”
“The important thing,” continued my mentor, “is a conscious attitude
of serious attention to contemporary investigations in the field. One
should welcome every item of reliable information, observe much, and,
whenever possible, experiment. Of course, our special problem, as
persons of sedentary habit, is to obtain a large quantity of blood and
brain nutriment without taxing an organism which gets comparatively
little physical exercise. The problem is not simple, indeed it is very
complex, but it can be so completely handled by knowledge and care that
the process of solving it adds another satisfaction to life.
“Cheerfulness, by the way, is an invaluable agent in the whole
business. I know of a physician who cured a persistent dyspeptic by
requiring him to tell at least one amusing story at each meal. We are
apt to forget that the taking of food is not only a necessity, but also
one of our most constant sources of pleasure.
_Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?_
Sometimes, even, as Voltaire says, ‘the superfluous is a very necessary
thing.’
“That high thinking does not require that all our living be plain, is
admirably illustrated by this quotation from Mr. Howells’s reminiscence
of the ‘very plain’ suppers which followed the meetings of Longfellow’s
memorable Dante Club. They consisted of ‘a cold turkey, or a haunch
of venison, or some braces of grouse, or a plate of quails, with a
deep bowl of salad, and the sympathetic companionship of those elect
vintages which Longfellow loved and chose with the inspiration of
affection.’
“From such pabulum came our most poetic version of the world’s most
spiritual poet.”
VI
_Beside the Sea_
Hearing that Professor Maturin was back again in town, I made an early
call, and found him hale and hearty, bleached and bronzed, and even
more than usually clear-eyed.
“Behold me returned from a summer beside the sea,” he said in greeting.
“I see that you note the visible indications of my sea-change. Whenever
you are in the mood for a tide of talk, I believe I can convince you
that my experience was as rich as its outward signs are strange.” I
reminded him that there was never any time like the present, and added
such further solicitation that he began at once.
“You know the locality of my preference: a place frequented just enough
not to be lonely, a region of bays and sounds as well as of open sea;
where the waves batter at the cliffs only to return their spoil to the
sands--where, in short, the unity of the element appears in endless
variety. My favorite station was a dune-guarded beach of sand, which
swept on either hand into pebbles and stones, until lost in the rocks
heaped below the boulder cliffs that formed the horns of a crescent
cove.
“At first I spent unmeasured hours looking over the expanse toward the
terminal haze, and watching, as far out as I could, the great ridges
rolling with the motion of wind and tide and open sea. At the farthest,
they looked like mountain ranges, one behind the other; nearer, they
were dark green hills with grayish summits. Nearer yet, one could see
them reflect the sky, and sometimes the shore. Nearest of all, there
was a visible upgathering before the rush, plunge, and sweep on the
beach--all endlessly repeated and infinitely varied.
“The same perpetual repetition and variety appeared in the surge, as
it flooded up the sands in a wide curve of plash, ripple, and foam;
paused, retreated slowly, and then swept out, only to join with the
drag of the bottom in opposing an incoming wave, until it rose high,
plunged forward, and broke into the churning shallows, which were
quickly covered by the main body of the wave as it flooded in.
“The outermost margin of almost every surge lingered long enough to
make its record in a tiny ridge of sand and to reflect the light and
color of the sky; then it sank into the sand, leaving a burden of
pebbles and shells, stubble and seaweed, and the like. This flotsam
and jetsam is so constantly swept up, drawn back, and tossed to and
fro that I was not surprised to find the sands, under a microscope,
composed entirely of such materials worn to powder. Behind me, the
sea and the wind had heaped the sand into hills, that shore grasses
burrowed into and held together. To left and right, the cliffs,
although high and precipitous, were so scarred and worn by storm and
wave that they looked almost primeval. Their tops were bared by the
winds and corroded by the alternate action of heat and moisture; their
granite sides were seamed and stained by the surge; and their feet
were encumbered with fragments of their own wreckage that must have
thundered down like avalanches. These rocks, whether flung forward in
reefs like sculptured waves, or heaped like ruins, were naturally of a
rich old rose, but they were often also gray with barnacles, or green
with sea growths, and they showed even deeper in tone when submerged
beneath the many pools that similarly mellowed and enriched the
coloring of pebbles, shells, and weeds.
“My observation of the almost infinitely varied flora and fauna of the
sea was, naturally, but superficial. Yet I saw many delightful plant
and flower-like forms of dark or light green, yellow, brown, and red,
all ceaselessly retinted by the ever-changing sky lights, and the
reflection and refraction of the water. Sometimes they rioted in thick
tangles among the rocks; again they softly swayed, outspread toward the
rising and falling surface.
“The fauna I preferred to look at under water, for, on the whole, I
found them grotesque, although I was bound to admire their adjustment
to their environment, and to respect them as possible images of our
remote ancestors. I was especially impressed with the constant warfare
beneath the surface, as exemplified in the regular manœuvring of whole
armies of tiny fish, only to have company after company routed by the
dash and gulp of some larger enemy.
“The bottom of the sea I have never seen, save through the
glass-bottomed boats of the Bermudas, but some day I hope for a diver’s
view of the depths. It is easy to understand why the imagination of the
poets should be stimulated by the idea of that cool, dim quietness,
disturbed only by the swaying of verdure and the movement of great
fish; of the richness of color, and the long, slow passage of time,
measured only by the up-building of the coral.
“The open sea is, of course, familiar to us all, and yet its apparent
boundlessness and immeasurable depth are ever new as the most immense
thing in our knowledge--the sky belonging rather to the realm of the
intangible. Mid-ocean always makes me feel the infinite continuity
of time, the omnipresence of natural law, and a stimulus to greater
harmony with its workings. Nowhere else are my ‘cosmic emotions’ so
stirred. One gets something of the same impression on land wherever
one can mark the ceaseless rising, pausing, and falling of the tide,
under the mysterious governance of the moon. I am more than fond
of the regular, gentle quality of the tide’s behavior, even if it
does sometimes seem stealthy in its creeping toward and around the
half-oblivious observer.
“I cannot similarly commend the behavior of the wind, when it opposes
the tide in bluster on the sea or pushes it in tumult on the shore.
The tide is a serene and responsible world power; the wind almost
always performs its indispensable functions with all the eccentricity
of genius. A breeze is positively attractive when ruffling the surface
or sweeping spray from the wave-crests, and the wind itself is
unobjectionable when it consistently urges the waves in one direction.
But when it plays havoc with the clouds, or ‘ruffians on the enchafèd
flood’ until it fastens upon the eluctant sea a behavior as bad and a
reputation worse than its own--then I am by no means for it.
“It was my fortune this summer to witness several storms of such
intensity that I became impressed with the routine of their procedure.
The sea--grown dark, heavy, and oily--is first flicked and spotted, and
then strangely lighted, all over, with the dash of rain and hail; the
sun is made lurid, then shrouded, and then hidden by a metallic sky;
the clouds grow gloomy and sullen until they are shattered by peals of
thunder and riven by livid lightnings. Then the wind rushes, howls,
and roars; tearing and hurtling the clouds and tumbling and lashing
the waves until they leap and plunge, reel and writhe, flinging up
hissing foam and whirling spray ‘shrewd with salt.’ It is undoubtedly
glorious--but I like it best when it is over, leaving the torn waves
heavy with foam as a reminder, by contrast, of the quieter beauties of
a calmer sea.
“Even the sky, the most beautiful thing that we know, seems to multiply
its beauty by the sea. One day I saw night gradually lapsing into dawn.
The sea glimmered as though the stars had come down, and then flashed
until, in the language of Swinburne, it blossomed rosily and flowered
in the sun, floating all fiery upon the burning water. I saw many long
mornings of sapphire sky and lapis-lazuli sea, and many noons when
the waves glittered until their spray became diamonds. Through long
afternoons the sea reflected sky and clouds in every shade of silver,
blue, and green. The amber fire of the setting sun not only made the
heavens splendid, but poured both direct and reflected rays upon the
sea until nothing but the idea of a stupendous opal could suggest its
coloring. Later, all would fade until land was lost, the sea grew deep
and dark, and the only light was the foam and the reflections of the
stars. With the moon, all grew new again. Rising low and large, it
threw a broad, undulating pathway as golden as that of the sun was
silver. Where it reached the shore its glitter extended along the
surf, gleaming over the sands, and twinkling wherever spray or dew had
fallen. Later yet, as the moon quietly sank, the general illumination
grew dim, until obscurity covered land and sea alike, and the sea
seemed to merge into infinite space.