X.

Sunday, _April 9_, 1843.--....After finishing my record in the journal,

I sat a long time in grandmother's chair, thinking of many things.... My

spirits were at a lower ebb than they ever descend to when I am not

alone; nevertheless, neither was I absolutely sad. Many times I wound

and rewound Mr. Thoreau's little musical box; but certainly its peculiar

sweetness had evaporated, and I am pretty sure that I should throw it

out of the window were I doomed to hear it long and often. It has not an

infinite soul. When it was almost as dark as the moonlight would let it

be, I lighted the lamp, and went on with Tieck's tale, slowly and

painfully, often wishing for help in my difficulties. At last I

determined to learn a little about pronouns and verbs before proceeding

further, and so took up the phrase-book, with which I was commendably

busy, when, at about a quarter to nine, came a knock at my study-door,

and, behold, there was Molly with a letter! How she came by it I did not

ask, being content to suppose it was brought by a heavenly messenger. I

had not expected a letter; and what a comfort it was to me in my

loneliness and sombreness! I called Molly to take her note (enclosed),

which she received with a face of delight as broad and bright as the

kitchen fire. Then I read, and re-read, and re-re-read, and quadruply,

quintuply, and sextuply re-read my epistle, until I had it all by heart,

and then continued to re-read it for the sake of the penmanship. Then I

took up the phrase-book again; but could not study, and so bathed and

retired, it being now not far from ten o'clock. I lay awake a good deal

in the night, but saw no ghost.

I arose about seven, and found that the upper part of my nose, and the

region round about, was grievously discolored; and at the angle of the

left eye there is a great spot of almost black purple, and a broad

streak of the same hue semicircling beneath either eye, while green,

yellow, and orange overspread the circumjacent country. It looks not

unlike a gorgeous sunset, throwing its splendor over the heaven of my

countenance. It will behoove me to show myself as little as possible;

else people will think I have fought a pitched battle.... The Devil take

the stick of wood! What had I done, that it should bemaul me so?

However, there is no pain, though, I think, a very slight affection of

the eyes.

This forenoon I began to write, and caught an idea by the skirts, which

I intend to hold fast, though it struggles to get free. As it was not

ready to be put upon paper, however, I took up the Dial, and finished

reading the article on Mr. Alcott. It is not very satisfactory, and it

has not taught me much. Then I read Margaret's article on Canova, which

is good. About this time the dinner-bell rang, and I went down without

much alacrity, though with a good appetite enough.... It was in the

angle of my _right_ eye, not my left, that the blackest purple was

collected. But they both look like the very Devil.

_Half past five o'clock._--After writing the above,... I again set to

work on Tieck's tale, and worried through several pages; and then, at

half past four, threw open one of the western windows of my study, and

sallied forth to take the sunshine. I went down through the orchard to

the river-side. The orchard-path is still deeply covered with snow; and

so is the whole visible universe, except streaks upon the hillsides, and

spots in the sunny hollows, where the brown earth peeps through. The

river, which a few days ago was entirely imprisoned, has now broken its

fetters; but a tract of ice extended across from near the foot of the

monument to the abutment of the old bridge, and looked so solid that I

supposed it would yet remain for a day or two. Large cakes and masses of

ice came floating down the current, which, though not very violent,

hurried along at a much swifter pace than the ordinary one of our

sluggish river-god. These ice-masses, when they struck the barrier of

ice above mentioned, acted upon it like a battering-ram, and were

themselves forced high out of the water, or sometimes carried beneath

the main sheet of ice. At last, down the stream came an immense mass of

ice, and, striking the barrier about at its centre, it gave way, and the

whole was swept onward together, leaving the river entirely free, with

only here and there a cake of ice floating quietly along. The great

accumulation, in its downward course, hit against a tree that stood in

mid-current, and caused it to quiver like a reed; and it swept quite

over the shrubbery that bordered what, in summer-time, is the river's

bank, but which is now nearly the centre of the stream. Our river in its

present state has quite a noble breadth. The little hillock which formed

the abutment of the old bridge is now an island with its tuft of trees.

Along the hither shore a row of trees stand up to their knees, and the

smaller ones to their middles, in the water; and afar off, on the

surface of the stream, we see tufts of bushes emerging, thrusting up

their heads, as it were, to breathe. The water comes over the stone

wall, and encroaches several yards on the boundaries of our orchard.

[Here the supper-bell rang.] If our boat were in good order, I should

now set forth on voyages of discovery, and visit nooks on the borders of

the meadows, which by and by will be a mile or two from the water's

edge. But she is in very bad condition, full of water, and, doubtless,

as leaky as a sieve.

On coming from supper, I found that little Puss had established herself

in the study, probably with intent to pass the night here. She now lies

on the footstool between my feet, purring most obstreperously. The day

of my wife's departure, she came to me, talking with the greatest

earnestness; but whether it was to condole with me on my loss, or to

demand my redoubled care for herself, I could not well make out. As

Puss now constitutes a third part of the family, this mention of her

will not appear amiss. How Molly employs herself, I know not. Once in a

while, I hear a door slam like a thunder-clap; but she never shows her

face, nor speaks a word, unless to announce a visitor or deliver a

letter. This day, on my part, will have been spent without exchanging a

syllable with any human being, unless something unforeseen should yet

call for the exercise of speech before bedtime.

* * * * *

_Monday, April 10._--I sat till eight o'clock, meditating upon this

world and the next,... and sometimes dimly shaping out scenes of a tale.

Then betook myself to the German phrase-book. Ah! these are but dreary

evenings. The lamp would not brighten my spirits, though it was duly

filled.... This forenoon was spent in scribbling, by no means to my

satisfaction, until past eleven, when I went to the village. Nothing in

our box at the post-office. I read during the customary hour, or more,

at the Athenaeum, and returned without saying a word to mortal. I

gathered from some conversation that I heard, that a son of Adam is to

be buried this afternoon from the meeting-house; but the name of the

deceased escaped me. It is no great matter, so it be but written in the

Book of Life.

My variegated face looks somewhat more human to-day; though I was

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 11._--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 at 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 25._--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

deathlike 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 26._--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 door-steps,--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 27._--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 2._--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 23._--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

there 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 hue 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 1._--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 9._--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 18._--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 28._--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 31._--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 13._--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 23._--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.

This is a glorious day,--bright, very warm, yet with an unspeakable

gentleness both in its warmth and brightness. On such days it is

impossible not to love Nature, for she evidently loves us. At other

seasons she does not give me this impression, or only at very rare

intervals; but in these happy, autumnal days, when she has perfected the

harvests, and accomplished every necessary thing that she had to do, she

overflows with a blessed superfluity of love. It is good to be alive

now. Thank God for breath,--yes, for mere breath! when it is made up of

such a heavenly breeze as this. It comes to the cheek with a real kiss;

it would linger fondly around us, if it might; but, since it must be

gone, it caresses us with its whole kindly heart, and passes onward, to

caress likewise the next thing that it meets. There is a pervading

blessing diffused over all the world. I look out of the window and

think, "O perfect day! O beautiful world! O good God!" And such a day is

the promise of a blissful eternity. Our Creator would never have made

such weather, and given us the deep heart to enjoy it, above and beyond

all thought, if He had not meant us to be immortal. It opens the gates

of heaven, and gives us glimpses far inward.

Bless me! this flight has carried me a great way; so now let me come

back to our old abbey. Our orchard is fast ripening; and the apples and

great thumping pears strew the grass in such abundance that it becomes

almost a trouble--though a pleasant one--to gather them. This happy

breeze, too, shakes them down, as if it flung fruit to us out of the

sky; and often, when the air is perfectly still, I hear the quiet fall

of a great apple. Well, we are rich in blessings, though poor in

money....

* * * * *

_Friday, October 6._--Yesterday afternoon I took a solitary walk to

Walden Pond. It was a cool, windy day, with heavy clouds rolling and

tumbling about the sky, but still a prevalence of genial autumn

sunshine. The fields are still green, and the great masses of the woods

have not yet assumed their many-colored garments; but here and there are

solitary oaks of deep, substantial red, or maples of a more brilliant

hue, or chestnuts either yellow or of a tenderer green than in summer.

Some trees seem to return to their hue of May or early June before they

put on the brighter autumnal tints. In some places, along the borders of

low and moist land, a whole range of trees were clothed in the perfect

gorgeousness of autumn, of all shades of brilliant color, looking like

the palette on which Nature was arranging the tints wherewith to paint a

picture. These hues appeared to be thrown together without design; and

yet there was perfect harmony among them, and a softness and a delicacy

made up of a thousand different brightnesses. There is not, I think, so

much contrast among these colors as might at first appear. The more you

consider them, the more they seem to have one element among them all,

which is the reason that the most brilliant display of them soothes the

observer, instead of exciting him. And I know not whether it be more a

moral effect or a physical one, operating merely on the eye; but it is a

pensive gayety, which causes a sigh often, and never a smile. We never

fancy, for instance, that these gayly-clad trees might be changed into

young damsels in holiday attire, and betake themselves to dancing on the

plain. If they were to undergo such a transformation, they would surely

arrange themselves in funeral procession, and go sadly along, with their

purple and scarlet and golden garments trailing over the withering

grass. When the sunshine falls upon them, they seem to smile; but it is

as if they were heart-broken. But it is in vain for me to attempt to

describe these autumnal brilliancies; or to convey the impression which

they make on me. I have tried a thousand times, and always without the

slightest self-satisfaction. Fortunately there is no need of such a

record, for Nature renews the picture year after year; and even when we

shall have passed away from the world, we can spiritually create these

scenes, so that we may dispense with all efforts to put them into words.

Walden Pond was clear and beautiful as usual. It tempted me to bathe;

and, though the water was thrillingly cold, it was like the thrill of a

happy death. Never was there such transparent water as this. I threw

sticks into it, and saw them float suspended on an almost invisible

medium. It seemed as if the pure air were beneath them, as well as

above. It is fit for baptisms; but one would not wish it to be polluted

by having sins washed into it. None but angels should bathe in it; but

blessed babies might be dipped into its bosom.

In a small and secluded dell that opens upon the most beautiful cove of

the whole lake, there is a little hamlet of huts or shanties, inhabited

by the Irish people who are at work upon the railroad. There are three

or four of these habitations, the very rudest, I should imagine, that

civilized men ever made for themselves,--constructed of rough boards,

with the protruding ends. Against some of them the earth is heaped up to

the roof, or nearly so; and when the grass has had time to sprout upon

them, they will look like small natural hillocks, or a species of

ant-hills,--something in which Nature has a larger share than man. These

huts are placed beneath the trees, oaks, walnuts, and white-pines,

wherever the trunks give them space to stand; and by thus adapting

themselves to natural interstices, instead of making new ones, they do

not break or disturb the solitude and seclusion of the place. Voices are

heard, and the shouts and laughter of children, who play about like the

sunbeams that come down through the branches. Women are washing in open

spaces, and long lines of whitened clothes are extended from tree to

tree, fluttering and gambolling in the breeze. A pig, in a sty even more

extemporary than the shanties, is grunting and poking his snout through

the clefts of his habitation. The household pots and kettles are seen at

the doors; and a glance within shows the rough benches that serve for

chairs, and the bed upon the floor. The visitor's nose takes note of the

fragrance of a pipe. And yet, with all these homely items, the repose

and sanctity of the old wood do not seem to be destroyed or profaned. It

overshadows these poor people, and assimilates them somehow or other to

the character of its natural inhabitants. Their presence did not shock

me any more than if I had merely discovered a squirrel's nest in a tree.

To be sure, it is a torment to see the great, high, ugly embankment of

the railroad, which is here thrusting itself into the lake, or along its

margin, in close vicinity to this picturesque little hamlet. I have

seldom seen anything more beautiful than the cove on the border of which

the huts are situated; and the more I looked, the lovelier it grew. The

trees overshadowed it deeply; but on one side there was some brilliant

shrubbery which seemed to light up the whole picture with the effect of

a sweet and melancholy smile. I felt as if spirits were there,--or as if

these shrubs had a spiritual life. In short, the impression was

indefinable; and, after gazing and musing a good while, I retraced my

steps through the Irish hamlet, and plodded on along a wood-path.

According to my invariable custom, I mistook my way; and, emerging upon

the road, I turned my back instead of my face towards Concord, and

walked on very diligently till a guide-board informed me of my mistake.

I then turned about, and was shortly overtaken by an old yeoman in a

chaise, who kindly offered me a drive, and soon set me down in the

village.