CONCORD, November 16, 1857.
MR. BLAKE,--You have got the start again. It was I that owed you a
letter or two, if I mistake not.
They make a great ado nowadays about hard times;[81] but I think that
the community generally, ministers and all, take a wrong view of the
matter, though some of the ministers preaching according to a formula
may pretend to take a right one. This general failure, both private
and public, is rather occasion for rejoicing, as reminding us whom we
have at the helm,--that justice is always done. If our merchants did
not most of them fail, and the banks too, my faith in the old laws of
the world would be staggered. The statement that ninety-six in a
hundred doing such business surely break down is perhaps the sweetest
fact that statistics have revealed,--exhilarating as the fragrance of
sallows in spring. Does it not say somewhere, "The Lord reigneth, let
the earth rejoice"? If thousands are thrown out of employment, it
suggests that they were not well employed. Why don't they take the
hint? It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are
you industrious about?
The merchants and company have long laughed at transcendentalism,
higher laws, etc., crying, "None of your moonshine," as if they were
anchored to something not only definite, but sure and permanent. If
there was any institution which was presumed to rest on a solid and
secure basis, and more than any other represented this boasted common
sense, prudence, and practical talent, it was the bank; and now those
very banks are found to be mere reeds shaken by the wind. Scarcely one
in the land has kept its promise.... It would seem as if you only need
live forty years in any age of this world, to see its most promising
government become the government of Kansas, and banks nowhere. Not
merely the Brook Farm and Fourierite communities, but now the
community generally has failed. But there is the moonshine still,
serene, beneficent, and unchanged. Hard times, I say, have this value,
among others, that they show us what such promises are worth,--where
the _sure_ banks are. I heard some Mr. Eliot praised the other day
because he had paid some of his debts, though it took nearly all he
had (why, I've done as much as that myself many times, and a little
more), and then gone to board. What if he has? I hope he's got a good
boarding-place, and can pay for it. It's not everybody that can.
However, in my opinion, it is cheaper to keep house,--_i. e._, if you
don't keep too big a one.
Men will tell you sometimes that "money's hard." That shows it was not
made to eat, I say. Only think of a man in this new world, in his log
cabin, in the midst of a corn and potato patch, with a sheepfold on
one side, talking about money being hard! So are flints hard; there is
no alloy in them. What has that got to do with his raising his food,
cutting his wood (or breaking it), keeping indoors when it rains, and,
if need be, spinning and weaving his clothes? Some of those who sank
with the steamer the other day found out that money was _heavy_ too.
Think of a man's priding himself on this kind of wealth, as if it
greatly enriched him. As if one struggling in mid-ocean with a bag of
gold on his back should gasp out, "I am worth a hundred thousand
dollars." I see them struggling just as ineffectually on dry land,
nay, even more hopelessly, for, in the former case, rather than sink,
they will finally let the bag go; but in the latter they are pretty
sure to hold and go down with it. I see them swimming about in their
greatcoats, collecting their rents, really _getting their dues_,
drinking bitter draughts which only increase their thirst, becoming
more and more water-logged, till finally they sink plumb down to the
bottom. But enough of this.
Have you ever read Ruskin's books? If not, I would recommend [you] to
try the second and third volumes (not parts) of his "Modern Painters."
I am now reading the fourth, and have read most of his other books
lately. They are singularly good and encouraging, though not without
crudeness and bigotry. The themes in the volumes referred to are
Infinity, Beauty, Imagination, Love of Nature, etc.,--all treated in a
very living manner. I am rather surprised by them. It is remarkable
that these things should be said with reference to painting chiefly,
rather than literature. The "Seven Lamps of Architecture," too, is
made of good stuff; but, as I remember, there is too much about art in
it for me and the Hottentots. We want to know about matters and things
in general. Our house is as yet a hut.
You must have been enriched by your solitary walk over the mountains.
I suppose that I feel the same awe when on their summits that many do
on entering a church. To see what kind of earth that is on which you
have a house and garden somewhere, perchance! It is equal to the lapse
of many years. You must ascend a mountain to learn your relation to
matter, and so to your own body, for _it_ is at home there, though
_you_ are not. It might have been composed there, and will have no
farther to go to return to dust there, than in your garden; but your
spirit inevitably comes away, and brings your body with it, if it
lives. Just as awful really, and as glorious, is your garden. See how
I can play with my fingers! They are the funniest companions I have
ever found. Where did they come from? What strange control I have over
them! _Who_ am I? What are they?--those little peaks--call them
Madison, Jefferson, Lafayette. What is _the matter_? _My_ fingers, do
I say? Why, ere long, they may form the topmost crystal of Mount
Washington. I go up there to see my body's cousins. There are some
fingers, toes, bowels, etc., that I take an interest in, and therefore
I am interested in all their relations.
Let me suggest a theme for you: to state to yourself precisely and
completely what that walk over the mountains amounted to for
you,--returning to this essay again and again, until you are satisfied
that all that was important in your experience is in it. Give this
good reason to yourself for having gone over the mountains, for
mankind is ever going over a mountain. Don't suppose that you can tell
it precisely the first dozen times you try, but at 'em again,
especially where, after a sufficient pause, you suspect that you are
touching the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows
there, and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that the story
need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. It did
not take very long to get over the mountain, you thought; but have you
got over it indeed? If you have been to the top of Mount Washington,
let me ask, what did you find there? That is the way they prove
witnesses, you know. Going up there and being blown on is nothing. We
never do much climbing while we are there, but we eat our luncheon,
etc., very much as at home. It is after we get home that we really go
over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the
mountain do?
I keep a mountain anchored off eastward a little way, which I ascend
in my dreams both awake and asleep. Its broad base spreads over a
village or two, which does not know it; neither does it know them, nor
do I when I ascend it. I can see its general outline as plainly now in
my mind as that of Wachusett. I do not invent in the least, but state
exactly what I see. I find that I go up it when I am light-footed and
earnest. It ever smokes like an altar with its sacrifice. I am not
aware that a single villager frequents it or knows of it. I keep this
mountain to ride instead of a horse.
Do you not mistake about seeing Moosehead Lake from Mount Washington?
That must be about one hundred and twenty miles distant, or nearly
twice as far as the Atlantic, which last some doubt if they can see
thence. Was it not Umbagog?
Dr. Solger[82] has been lecturing in the vestry in this town on
Geography, to Sanborn's scholars, for several months past, at five P.
M. Emerson and Alcott have been to hear him. I was surprised when the
former asked me, the other day, if I was not going to hear Dr. Solger.
What, to be sitting in a meeting-house cellar at that time of day,
when you might possibly be outdoors! I never thought of such a thing.
What was the sun made for? If he does not prize daylight, I do. Let
him lecture to owls and dormice. He must be a wonderful lecturer
indeed who can keep me indoors at such an hour, when the night is
coming in which no man can walk.
Are you in want of amusement nowadays? Then play a little at the game
of getting a living. There never was anything equal to it. Do it
temperately, though, and don't sweat. Don't let this secret out, for I
have a design against the Opera. OPERA!! Pass along the exclamations,
devil.[83]
Now is the time to become conversant with your wood-pile (this comes
under Work for the Month), and be sure you put some warmth into it by
your mode of getting it. Do not consent to be passively warmed. An
intense degree of that is the hotness that is threatened. But a
positive warmth within can withstand the fiery furnace, as the vital
heat of a living man can withstand the heat that cooks meat.
* * * * *
After returning from the last of his three expeditions to the Maine
woods (in 1846, 1853, and 1857), Thoreau was appealed to by his friend
Higginson, then living in Worcester, for information concerning a
proposed excursion from Worcester into Maine and Canada, then but
little visited by tourists, who now go there in droves. He replied in
this long letter, with its minute instructions and historical
references. The Arnold mentioned is General Benedict Arnold, who in
1775-76 made a toilsome march through the Maine forest with a small
New England army for the conquest of Canada, while young John Thoreau,
Henry's grandfather, was establishing himself as a merchant in Boston
(not yet evacuated by British troops), previous to his marriage with
Jane Burns.