CONCORD, January 1, 1859.
MR. BLAKE,--It may interest you to hear that Cholmondeley has been
this way again, _via_ Montreal and Lake Huron, going to the West
Indies, or rather to Weiss-nicht-wo, whither he urges me to accompany
him. He is rather more demonstrative than before, and, on the whole,
what would be called "a good fellow,"--is a man of principle, and
quite reliable, but very peculiar. I have been to New Bedford with
him, to show him a whaling town and Ricketson. I was glad to hear that
you had called on R. How did you like him? I suspect that you did not
see one another fairly.
I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude, where
we meet our friends continually, and can imagine the outside world
also to be peopled. Yet some of my acquaintance would fain hustle me
into the almshouse for _the sake of society_, as if I were pining for
that diet, when I seem to myself a most befriended man, and find
constant employment. However, they do not believe a word I say. They
have got a club, the handle of which is in the Parker House at Boston,
and with this they beat me from time to time, expecting to make me
tender or minced meat, so fit for a club to dine off.
"Hercules with his club
The Dragon did drub;
But More of More Hall
With nothing at all,
He slew the Dragon of Wantley."
Ah! that More of More Hall knew what fair play was. Channing, who
wrote to me about it once, brandishing the club vigorously (being set
on by another, probably), says _now_, seriously, that he is sorry to
find by my letters that I am "absorbed in politics," and adds, begging
my pardon for his plainness, "Beware of an extraneous life!" and so he
does his duty, and washes his hands of me. I tell him that it is as
if he should say to the sloth, that fellow that creeps so slowly along
a tree, and cries _ai_ from time to time, "Beware of dancing!"
The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society.
Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering
at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was
indigestion of the society I got.
As for the Parker House, I went there once, when the Club[91] was
away, but I found it hard to see through the cigar smoke, and men were
deposited about in chairs over the marble floor, as thick as legs of
bacon in a smoke-house. It was all smoke, and no salt, Attic or other.
The only room in Boston which I visit with alacrity is the Gentlemen's
Room at the Fitchburg Depot, where I wait for the cars, sometimes for
two hours, in order to get out of town. It is a paradise to the Parker
House, for no smoking is allowed, and there is far more retirement. A
large and respectable club of us hire it (Town and Country Club), and
I am pretty sure to find some one there whose face is set the same
way as my own.
My last essay, on which I am still engaged, is called "Autumnal
Tints." I do not know how readable (_i. e._, by me to others) it will
be.
I met Mr. James the other night at Emerson's, at an Alcottian
conversation, at which, however, Alcott did not talk much, being
disturbed by James's opposition. The latter is a hearty man enough,
with whom you can differ very satisfactorily, on account of both his
doctrines and his good temper. He utters _quasi_ philanthropic dogmas
in a metaphysic dress; but they are for all practical purposes very
crude. He charges society with all the crime committed, and praises
the criminal for committing it. But I think that all the remedies he
suggests out of his head--for he goes no farther, hearty as he
is--would leave us about where we are now. For, of course, it is not
by a gift of turkeys on Thanksgiving Day that he proposes to convert
the criminal, but by a true sympathy with each one,--with him, among
the rest, who lyingly tells the world from the gallows that he has
never been treated kindly by a single mortal since he was born. But it
is not so easy a thing to sympathize with another, though you may have
the best disposition to do it. There is Dobson over the hill. Have not
you and I and all the world been trying, ever since he was born, to
sympathize with him? (as doubtless he with us), and yet we have got no
farther than to send him to the house of correction once at least; and
he, on the other hand, as I hear, has sent us to another place several
times. This is the real state of things, as I understand it, at least
so far as James's remedies go. We are now, alas! exercising what
charity we actually have, and new laws would not give us any more.
But, perchance, we might make some improvements in the house of
correction. You and I are Dobson; what will James do for us?
Have you found at last in your wanderings a place where the solitude
is sweet?
What mountain are you camping on nowadays? Though I had a good time at
the mountains, I confess that the journey did not bear any fruit that
I know of. I did not expect it would. The mode of it was not simple
and adventurous enough. You must first have made an infinite demand,
and not unreasonably, but after a corresponding outlay, have an
all-absorbing purpose, and at the same time that your feet bear you
hither and thither, travel much more in imagination.
To let the mountains slide,--live at home like a traveler. It should
not be in vain that these things are shown us from day to day. Is not
each withered leaf that I see in my walks something which I have
traveled to find?--traveled, who can tell how far? What a fool he must
be who thinks that his El Dorado is anywhere but where he lives!
We are always, methinks, in some kind of ravine, though our bodies may
walk the smooth streets of Worcester. Our souls (I use this word for
want of a better) are ever perched on its rocky sides, overlooking
that lowland. (What a more than Tuckerman's Ravine is the body itself,
in which the "soul" is encamped, when you come to look into it!
However, eagles always have chosen such places for their eyries.)
Thus is it ever with your fair cities of the plain. Their streets may
be paved with silver and gold, and six carriages roll abreast in them,
but the real _homes_ of the citizens are in the Tuckerman's Ravines
which ray out from that centre into the mountains round about, one
from each man, woman, and child. The masters of life have so ordered
it. That is their _beau-ideal_ of a country-seat. There is no danger
of being _tuckered_ out before you get to it.
So we live in Worcester and in Concord, each man taking his exercise
regularly in his ravine, like a lion in his cage, and sometimes
spraining his ankle there. We have very few clear days, and a great
many small plagues which keep us busy. Sometimes, I suppose, you hear
a neighbor halloo (Brown, maybe) and think it is a bear. Nevertheless,
on the whole, we think it very grand and exhilarating, this ravine
life. It is a capital advantage withal, living so high, the excellent
drainage of that city of God. Routine is but a shallow and
insignificant sort of ravine, such as the ruts are, the conduits of
puddles. But these ravines are the source of mighty streams,
precipitous, icy, savage, as they are, haunted by bears and
loup-cerviers; there are born not only Sacos and Amazons, but prophets
who will redeem the world. The at last smooth and fertilizing water at
which nations drink and navies supply themselves begins with melted
glaciers, and burst thunder-spouts. Let us pray that, if we are not
flowing through some Mississippi valley which we fertilize,--and it is
not likely we are,--we may know ourselves shut in between grim and
mighty mountain walls amid the clouds, falling a thousand feet in a
mile, through dwarfed fir and spruce, over the rocky insteps of
slides, being exercised in our minds, and so developed.
CONCORD, January 19, 1859.
MR. BLAKE,--If I could have given a favorable report as to the
skating, I should have answered you earlier. About a week before you
wrote there was good skating; there is now none. As for the lecture, I
shall be glad to come. I cannot now say when, but I will let you know,
I think within a week or ten days at most, and will then leave you a
week clear to make the arrangements in. I will bring something else
than "What shall it profit a Man?" My father is very sick, and has
been for a long time, so that there is the more need of me at home.
This occurs to me, even when contemplating so short an excursion as to
Worcester.
I want very much to see or hear your account of your adventures in the
Ravine,[92] and I trust I shall do so when I come to Worcester.
Cholmondeley has been here again, returning from Virginia (for he went
no farther south) to Canada; and will go thence to Europe, he thinks,
in the spring, and never ramble any more. (January 29.) I am expecting
daily that my father will die, therefore I cannot leave home at
present. I will write you again within ten days.
* * * * *
The death of John Thoreau (who was born October 8, 1787) occurred
February 3d, and Thoreau gave his lecture on "Autumnal Tints" at
Worcester, February 22, 1859. Mrs. Thoreau survived all her children
except Sophia, and died in 1872.
At his fathers death, Thoreau sent a newspaper announcement of it to
Ricketson, who had already seen it mentioned by Channing in the
_Mercury_. Ricketson at once wrote, to pay his tribute to the
character of the elder Thoreau, saying: "I have rarely met a man who
inspired me with more respect. I remember with pleasure a ramble I
took with him about Concord some two or three years ago, at a time
when you were away from home; on which occasion I was much impressed
with his good sense, his fine social nature, and his genuine
hospitality." Of this remark Thoreau took notice in his interesting
reply.