debt; are you not that one?
To Belinda Randall, who has been here, as I told you, I was obliged for
revealing Beethoven's tenderness. She is so soft and tender herself that
she could not fail unconsciously to express it in her playing. I passed
some fine evenings with her. Since I had been here I had heard no music,
and felt that I needed to hear some as an adequate expression of all that
I felt. When she came that demand was satisfied. Ole Bull satisfies the
claim of the same nature which our whole life makes, and of itself
creates, rather reveals newer and deeper demands, and so on, I suppose,
until the celestial harmonies are heard by us.
I heard from a friend of the last Philharmonic in New York. It seems they
have made Vieux-temps an honorary member, and he played for them. On the
same evening they performed one of Beethoven's symphonies. It is one of
those accounts whose beauty is their nakedness. To lovers of music a bare
description is as an outline to a painter which he can readily fill up and
supply with the shadows and sunlight. Yet not he so magnificently as
sunlight and shadows sweep over this landscape. It seems to me that a
century of splendor has been rushing by since I have been here.
The persons who make Concord famous I have hardly seen. The consciousness
of their presence is like the feeling of lofty mountains whom the night
and thick forests hide. Of one of them, E. Hoar, I need to say nothing to
you. One evening I sat with her and Waldo Emerson and Geo. P. Bradford
while Belinda Randall played and sang.
Isaac brings you this, and will himself best tell you of himself. Burrill
is well, and unites with me in remembrance to all who remember.
Your friend,
G.W.C.
XV
CONCORD, _June 26th, 1844._
These are Tophetic times. I doubt if the sturdy faith of those heroes,
Shadrack and co., would carry them through this fervor unliquefied. Their
much vaunted furnace was but a cool retreat where thoughts of great-coats
were possible, compared with this. And if that nether region of whose
fires so much is sung by poets and other men possessed, can offer hotter
heats, let them be produced. Those Purgatorial ardencies for the gentle
suggestion of torment to thin shades can have little in common with these
perspiration-compelling torridities. Why does not some ingenious Yankee
improve such times for the purchase, at a ruinous discount, of all thick
clothes? I tremble lest some one should offer me an ice-cream for my best
woollens! Is it human to resist such an offer? Does it not savor something
of Devildom, and a too great familiarity with that lower Torrid Zone, to
entertain such a proposition cool-ly? when such a word grows suddenly
obsolete in such seasons? If I venture to move, such an atmosphere of heat
is created immediately around my body that all cool breezes (if the
imagination is competent to such a conception) are like arid airs when
they reach my mouth. Perhaps we are tending to those final, fiery days of
which Miller is a prophet. We are slowly sinking, perhaps, from heat to
heat, until entire rarefication and evanishment in imperceptible vapor
ensues; and so the great experiment of a world may end in smoke, as many
minor ones have ended. If it were not so hot, I should love to think about
these things.
June 28th. So far I had proceeded on the afternoon I returned to Concord.
When I desisted I supposed I had inscribed my final manuscript, and that
only a cinder would be found sitting over it when some one should enter.
Yet by the providence of God I am preserved for the experience of greater
heats. I did not know before what was the capacity of endurance of the
human frame. I begin to suspect we are of nearer kin to the Salamander
than our pride will allow; and since Devils only are admitted to nether
fire, I begin to lapse into the credence of total depravity!! Reflect upon
my deplorable condition! As Shelley's body, when lifeless, was caused to
disappear in flames and smoke, so may mine before its tenant is departed.
Was it not prophetic that on Sunday afternoon the following lines came to
me while thinking of that poet?
SHELLEY
A smoke that delicately curled to heaven,
Mingling its blueness with the infinite blue,
So to the air the faded form was given,
So unto fame the gentle spirit grew.
And as Shelley and Keats are associated always together in my mind,
immediately the Muse gave me this:
KEATS
A youth did plight his troth to Poesy.
"Thee only," were the fervent words he said,
Then sadly sailed across the foaming sea,
And lay beneath the southern sunset dead.
I was glad that once I could express what I think about those men. These
will show you, but you must write your own poem upon them before you will
be satisfied. Is it not so always? We cannot speak much about poets until
our thought of them sings itself.
The day I left you was very hot in Boston. Anna Shaw and Rose Russell
passed me like beautiful spirits; one like a fresh morning, the other like
an Oriental night. Then I did my business, and met James Sturgis, who
carried me to see his head cut in cameo by Mr. King. It is quite good,
though it gives him rather a finer head than he has; but that's a good
failing. I went to the Athenaeum. There I saw one or two pictures, and much
paint upon canvas. Those that I liked I saw belonged to the Athenaeum, and
I suppose were old objects to those who are familiar with the gallery. A
face of Ophelia interested me. It was very simple and sweet. But I was so
warm that I could do little more than lay upon a bench and catch dreamy
glimpses of the walls. The sculpture gallery, full of white marble heads,
seemed quite cool.
My dear Friend, I shall melt and be mailed in this letter as a spot if I
do not surcease. May you be blest with frigidity, a blessing far removed
from my hope. Of course I must be warmly, nay, _hotly_ remembered to
Charles.
Yrs ever,
G.W.C.
XVI
CONCORD, _August 7th, 1844._
My regret at not seeing you was only lessened by the beautiful day I
passed with Mr. Hawthorne. His life is so harmonious with the antique
repose of his house, and so redeemed into the present by his infant, that
it is much better to sit an hour with him than hear the Rev. Barzillai
Frost! His baby is the most serenely happy I ever saw. It is very
beautiful, and lies amid such placid influences that it too may have a
milk-white lamb as emblem; and Mrs. Hawthorne is so tenderly respectful
towards her husband that all the romance we picture in a cottage of lovers
dwells subdued and dignified with them. I see them very seldom. The people
here who are worth knowing, I find, live very quietly and retired. In the
country, friendship seems not to be of that consuming, absorbing character
that city circumstances give it, but to be quite content to feel rather
than hear or do; and that very independence which withdraws them into the
privacy of their homes is the charm which draws thither.
Mr. Emerson read an address before the anti-slavery "friends" last
Thursday. It was very fine. Not of that cold, clear, intellectual
character which so many dislike, but ardent and strong. His recent reading
of the history of the cause has given him new light and warmed a fine
enthusiasm. It commenced with allusions to the day "which gives the
immense fortification of a fact to a great principle," and then drew in
strong, bold outline the progress of British emancipation. Thence to
slavery in its influence upon the holders, to the remark that this event
hushed the old slander about inferior natures in the negro, thence to the
philosophy of slavery, and so through many detached thoughts to the end.
It was nearly two hours long, but was very commanding. He looked genial
and benevolent, as who should smilingly defy the world, the flesh, and the
devil to ensnare him. The address will be published by the society; and he
will probably write it more fully, and chisel it into fitter grace for the
public criticism. He spoke of your unfortunate call, but said you bore the
sulkiness very well. George Bradford was also very sorry; and it was bad
that you should come so far, with the faces of friends for a hospitable
city before you, and find a mirage only, or (begging Burrill's pardon) one
house.
For the last six weeks I have been learning what hard work is. Afternoon
leisure is now remembered with the holiday which Saturday brought to the
school-boy. During the haying we have devoted all our time and faculty to
the making of hay, leaving the body at night fit only to be devoted to
sheets and pillows, and not to grave or even friendly epistolary
intercourse. Oh friends! live upon faith, say I, as I pitch into bed with
the ghosts of Sunday morning resolutions of letters tickling my sides or
thumping my back, and then sink into dreams where every day seems a day in
the valley of Ajalon, and innumerable Joshuas command the sun and moon to
stay, and universal leisure spreads over the universe like a great wind.
Then comes morning and wakefulness and boots and breakfast and scythes and
heat and fatigue, and all my venerable Joshuas endeavor in vain to make
oxen stand still, and I heartily wish them and I back in our valley ruling
the heavens and not bending scythes over unseen hassocks which do
sometimes bend the words of our mouths into shapes resembling oaths! those
most crooked of all speech, but therefore best and fittest for the
occasional crooks of life, particularly mowing. Yet I mow and sweat and
get tired very heartily, for I want to drink this cup of farming to the
bottom and taste not only the morning froth but the afternoon and evening
strength of dregs and bitterness, if there be any. When haying is over,
which event will take place on Saturday night of this week, fair weather
being vouchsafed, I shall return to my moderation. Towards the latter part
of the month I shall stray away towards Providence and Newport and sit
down by the sea, and in it, too, probably. So I shall pass until harvest.
Where the snows will fall upon me I cannot yet say.
Say to Charles that I was sorry not to have seen him; but if persons of
consequence will travel without previous annunciation, they may chance to
find even the humblest of their servants not at home. I know you will
write when the time comes, so I say nothing but that I am your friend
ever.
G.W.C.
XVII
CONCORD, _Sept. 23, 1844._
Shall we not see you on the day of the cattle-show? Certainly Brook Farm
will be represented; and I think you may, by this time, be farmer enough
to enjoy the cattle and the ploughing. Besides, as I remember a similar
excursion last year at which I assisted, the splendor of the early
morning, which was not yet awake when we came away from the Farm, will
amply repay any extraordinary effort. And still another besides; I do not
want the winter to build its white, impenetrable walls between us before I
have heard your voice once more. I should hope to come and look at you for
one day, at least, in West Roxbury; but our Captain has work, autumnal
work, the end whereof is not comprehended by the unassisted human vision.
Potato-digging, apple-picking, thrashing, the gathering of innumerable
seeds, must be done before winter; and yet to-day is like a despatch from
December to announce that snow and ice and wind are to be just as cold
this winter as they were the last.
And I have had a long vacation, too. I think, on the very day after I
wrote my last letter to you, as I was whetting my scythe for the last
swath of the season, my hat half fell off, and suddenly raising my hand to
catch it, I thrust it against the scythe and cut my thumb just upon the
joint. It has healed, but I shall never find it quite as agile as
formerly. I could not use the hand--my right hand--for more than a
fortnight. It was like losing a sense to lose its use. After a week of
inaction in Concord, I went to Rhode Island and remained three weeks, and
am now at home a fortnight. I came back more charmed than ever with
Concord, which hides under a quiet surface most precious scenes. I suppose
we see more deeply into the spirit of a landscape where we have been
happy. Then we behold the summer bloom. It is spring or autumn or winter
to men generally.
We shall remain with Capt. Barrett through the winter. The spring will
bring its own arrangements, or rather the conclusion of those which are
formed during the winter. I suspect that our affections, like our bodies,
have been transplanted to Massachusetts, and that our lives will grow in
the new soil. Not at all ambitious of settling and becoming a citizen, I
am very well content with the nomadic life until obedience to the law of
things shall plant me in some home.
And are you still at home in the Farm? Rumors, whose faces I cannot fairly
see, pass by me sometimes, breathing your name and others. But I have long
ago turned rumor out-of-doors as an impostor and impertinent person, who
apes the manners and appearance of its betters. I shall receive none as
from you, however loudly they may shout your name, except they show your
hand and seal.
Autumn has already begun to leave the traces of her golden fingers upon
the brakes, and occasionally upon some tall nut-trees. It seems as if she
were trying her skill before she comes like a wind over the landscape. She
warbles a few glittering notes before the mournful, majestic Death-song.
Dear friend, why should I send you this chip of ore out of the mine of
regard which is yours in my heart? Come and dig in it.
Your friend,
G.W. CURTIS.
XVIII
CONCORD, _January 12, '45._
My dear Friend,--I have written Burrill to look at the Custom-house, and
inquire about the method of warming by water. He replies that he has been
there, but defers writing to you until he learns more about the matter.
Through him I received a message from Isaac to tell you that he (I) can
procure an edition of the Beethoven Sonatas (26, I believe) for about $10.
I think it highly probable that I shall pass some weeks in Providence next
month, and so will defer my day with you at Brook Farm until that time, of
which I will inform you.
Burrill has not yet returned, and leaves me still a hermit. I am well
pleased with my solitude, nor do I care much to go out of the country
during the winter; but domestic circumstances make it advisable to go to
Providence. There I shall have a good library at hand, which I miss a good
deal here. Indeed, I think it likely that every year while my home is in
the country I may perform a pilgrimage to the city for two or three months
for purposes of art and literature and affection, for, as there seems in
the minds of divines to be some doubt of personal identity when this
mortal coil is shuffled off, I am fain to embrace my friends' coils while
they are yet palpable. This idea of city visits implies a very free life;
but there seems now to be no hinderance to it. When the band of Phalanxes,
proceeding into desert and free air, no more allow art to rendezvous in
cities, I can take one of the nearest radiating railroads and rush from my
solitude into the healthily-peopled and cityish-countrified Phalanx.
I am loath to forgive Fourier the unmitigated slander upon the moon. I
began to suspect that was the only influence alive since the sun lights
men to cheating and deviltry; and the moon recalls the sweetest
remembrance and best hope. After our evening at Almira's it lighted me
home with such forgiving splendor that I could have fallen on my knees in
the snow and have prayed its pardon if it would not have chilled those
members.
Almira I have not seen since Wednesday. She was then well, and went with
me to hear Dr. Francis lecture upon Bishop Berkeley. He told the life,
which is the most poetical and beautiful of any of his contemporary
philosophers, and then suggested that the "limits of a lecture" did not
permit an extended notice of his philosophy, and so gave none.
Among my holiday gifts was Miss Barrett's poems. She is a woman of
vigorous thought, but not very poetical thought, and throwing herself into
verse involuntarily becomes honied and ornate, so that her verse cloys. It
is not natural, quite. Tennyson's world is purple, and all his thoughts.
Therefore his poetry is so, and so naturally. Wordsworth lives in a clear
atmosphere of thought, and his poetry is simple and natural, but no more
than Tennyson's. Pardon these critical distinctions. I make them to have
them expressed, for Burrill did not see why I called Miss Barrett purple.
It was because her highly colored robe was not harmonious with her native
style of thought. Ben Jonson, too, I have been reading. After him and
Beaumont and Fletcher (who are imitators, rather, of Shakespeare), I feel
that Shakespeare differed not in degree only but in kind from all others,
his contemporaries and successors. In his peculiar path Jonson was
unequalled, but Shakespeare includes that and so much more! He seems to be
the only one to whom poets are content to be inferior.
Remember me to Charles Dana and my other compeers at Brook Farm,
especially Charles Newcomb.
Yours sincerely,
G.W.C.
XIX
My dear Friend,--If I should come to Brook Farm on Thursday evening will
it be convenient, and shall you be at home? If all circumstances favor, I
should like to remain with you until Saturday. On Thursday I shall go into
Boston to hear what the Texas Convention is saying, and if I hear anything
very eloquent or interesting may not see you until Friday.
I was very sorry to know nothing of your convention until it was over. I
should have run down to have seen you.
On Saturday evening I was at the Academy, and on Sunday at the Handel and
Haydn. I have by Burrill a letter from Cranch, and a book of German songs
from Isaac. More anon.
Your friend ever,
G.W. Curtis.
CONCORD, _January 28th_, 1845.
XX
PROVIDENCE, _March 5th, '45._
My dear Friend,--I hope to see you at Brook Farm by Friday, intending to
remain until Friday P.M. Here in Providence I have been having a quiet
good time, though the weeks have flown faster than I thought weeks could
fly. Mrs. Burges received a _Phalanx_ from Miss Russell, in which we found
a good deal of interesting matter. I hear from her that she will write by
me to Miss Russell.
To-day it rains merrily, a warm southern April rain; and the weeks of mild
weather hint that there must be ploughing and sowing very soon. I
anticipate my summer work with a good deal of pleasure.
Yours truly and hastily,
G.W. Curtis.
XXI
CONCORD, _March 13, '45._
My dear Friend,--The cold gray days at Brook Farm were the sunniest of the
month. I wish I could step into the parlor when my heart is ready for
music, and surrender to Beethoven and Mozart or, indeed, when I find men
very selfish and mean, look in upon your kindliness and general sympathy.
But while your intercourse at the Farm is so gentle and sweet you will not
forget that it springs from the characters whose companions are still in
outer darkness and civilization! I meet every day men of very tender
characters under the roughest mien. Even in the midst of the world I
constantly balance my ledger in favor of actual virtue, and enjoy
intercourse, not so familiar but as sweet, as that I saw at Brook Farm. Is
it not the tendency of a decided institution of reform to be unjust to the
Barbarians? I do assure you the warm, tender south winds blow over us here
in the unsocial state no less than the chilly east.
The snow on the ground belies the season. It is warm to-day and the birds
sing. I should have enjoyed more my ride in the soft snow on Tuesday if
conscience had not arrayed me against Mr. Billings. But I am most glad to
see that I am withdrawing from the argumentative. I begin to enjoy more
than ever the pure still characters which I meet. Intellect is not quite
satisfying though so alluring. It is a scentless flower; but there is a
purer summer pleasure in the sweet-brier than the dahlia, though one would
have each in his garden. It is because Shakespeare is not solely
intellectual, but equally developed, that his fame is universal. The old
philosophers, the sheer intellects, lack as much fitness to life as a man
without a hand or an eye. And because life is interpreted by sentiment,
the higher the flight of the intellect the colder and sadder is the man.
Plato and Emerson are called poets, but if they were so their audience
would be as wide as the world. Milton's fame is limited because he lacked
a subtlety and delicacy corresponding with his healthiness and strength.
Milton fused in Keats would have formed a greater than Shakespeare. If
Milton's piety had been Catholic and not Puritanical I do not see why he
should not have been a greater poet.
I shall not have much work to do before we undertake our garden plot. We
take care of the cattle daily, and that is about all. Yesterday in the
sunlight I walked in the woods. It was a spectacle finer than the
sleet--the flower of winter among the trees.
I forgot to take the _Phalanxes_. Geo. Bradford asked me for a half-dozen.
If you will send them to me I will give them to him. Almira says that he
is now in a Brook Farm way. It is a species of chills and fever with him,
as you know.
Remember me to the Eaglets, Dolly and her friend, Mary especially; and
tell Abby Foord I have already learned the Polonaise which she is
practising. I sit and play it over and over, and think I shall never tire
of it. It has a peculiar charm to me, as I have never heard it except in
the Eyrie parlor. It will always float me back to that room. Will you say
to Charles Newcomb that Burrill has destroyed all "the churchmen"?
Remember me to your family and believe me, as always,
G.W.C.
XXII
CONCORD, _April 22d, 1845._
Will you forgive me if I flood you with letters now while the mood of
writing lasts? It seems that I must so exhaust some of the added life
which spring infuses into my veins. The gray herbage of winter fades so
slowly, so imperceptibly into the spring greenness, that I watch it with
the curious eyes of a lover who sees gradual developments of deeper beauty
in the face of his mistress. Do you note how every spring, sliding down
from heaven with such intense life, quenches or rather subdues the
remembrance of all past springs as a great gem surrounded in the ring by
many small ones? And as I stood to-day, as if hearing the throb of the new
active life in nature, for winter is more like the unchanged dead face of
an intellectual person, the contrast of this steaming and heating life was
suggested to me as is always the case, and necessarily so to the
perfection of the thought. The idea of day is not symmetrical except when
night is implied in thought, for if one could paint a portrait of the day,
it would be brightness against darkness.
Why are we so troubled or moved at death, elated or depressed? It cannot
give anything, nor take. Every sphere satisfies its desires by its hopes,
and so seems to show that life is only an effort at equilibrium. At least
it does show that to this state. There is a perpetual balance in every
experience, never a permanence, as night follows day, but never survives
the sunrise. Plato nor Shakespeare have drunk all this beauty, and it
seems not right to become cold and callous towards it, externally, as the
dead are. If they see the soul of things, do they see the form of nature
without the soul, as we do now? If death mark only a general expansion of
life and nature, it is no more pleasant. With greater hopes greater
desires; and, after all, it is only keeping a larger set of books. There
is no standard of life, as there is none of character. A flower is
sometimes as pure a satisfaction as a man or the thought of an archangel.
It passes into a proverb that the beggar is happier than a king, and
proverbs are only the homely disguises in which wisdom roams the world.