{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57393/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57393","id":"gutenberg_57393","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57393","summary":null,"tags":["Authors, American -- 19th century -- Diaries","Category: American Literature","Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862 -- Diaries"],"text":"Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\n  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have\n  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n\n  The following alternate spellings were noted, but retained:\n\n     contemporaries and cotemporaries\n     Bramins and Brahmins\n     Shakspeare and Shakespeare\n     Sanskrit and Sanscrit\n     Catskills and Caatskills\n\n\n\n\n     THE WRITINGS OF\n     HENRY DAVID THOREAU\n\n     IN TWENTY VOLUMES\n\n     VOLUME VII\n\n\n\n\n     MANUSCRIPT EDITION\n\n     LIMITED TO SIX HUNDRED COPIES\n\n     NUMBER  ----\n\n\n\n\n  [Illustration: _White Violets_ (_page 304_)]\n\n  [Illustration: _View from Annursnack Hill_]\n\n\n\n\n     THE WRITINGS OF\n     HENRY DAVID THOREAU\n\n     JOURNAL\n\n     EDITED BY BRADFORD TORREY\n\n     I\n     1837-1846\n\n     BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n     HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\n     MDCCCCVI\n\n\n\n\n     COPYRIGHT 1906 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.\n\n     _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHERS' NOTE\n\n\nAside from the use Thoreau himself made of his Journal in writing his\nmore formal works, the first extensive publication of the Journal\nmaterial began in 1881 with \"Early Spring in Massachusetts.\" This\nvolume consisted of extracts covering the month of March and parts\nof February and April, arranged according to the days of the month,\nthe entries for the successive years following one another under each\nday. It was edited by Thoreau's friend Mr. H. G. O. Blake, to whom the\nJournal was bequeathed by Miss Sophia Thoreau, who died in 1876. It\nwas succeeded in 1884 by a volume entitled \"Summer,\" which in reality\ncovered only the early summer, and that, in turn, by \"Winter\" in 1887\nand \"Autumn\" in 1892, all made by Mr. Blake on the same principle.\nThese volumes, from the first to the last, were received with delight\nby the ever-increasing body of Thoreau's admirers, but they have served\nto whet rather than satisfy the appetite of readers, and it has long\nbeen evident that they ought not to stand alone as representing this\nimportant phase of Thoreau's activity. The publishers therefore gladly\nseized the opportunity afforded, when the Journal, on the death of\nMr. Blake, passed into the hands of Mr. E. H. Russell of Worcester,\nwho was desirous of giving it to the public in its entirety, and they\nat once made arrangements with him to bring it out in extenso as soon\nas the long labor of copying and comparing the manuscripts could be\ncompleted. As editor the publishers have been so fortunate as to secure\nMr. Bradford Torrey, who is eminently qualified to consider Thoreau both\nas a writer and as an observer of nature.\n\n\n\n\nEDITOR'S PREFACE\n\n\nConcerning this first practically complete printing of Thoreau's Journal\nit seems proper to make the following explanations, in addition to those\ncontained in the Publishers' Note:\u2014\n\n1. It has been found necessary, if the Journal was to be of comfortable\nuse by ordinary readers, to punctuate it throughout. Otherwise each\nreader would have been compelled to do the work for himself. A literal\nreproduction, like the literal reproduction of Milton's minor poems,\nfor example, may some day be of interest to antiquaries and special\nstudents; but such an edition could never be adapted, more than the\nliteral reproduction of Milton's manuscripts, to the needs of those who\nread for pleasure and general profit.\n\n2. Certain things have been omitted; _i. e._, incomplete sentences,\nwhere parts of pages have been torn out by the writer; long quotations,\nespecially from Latin authors, entered without comment, as in a\ncommonplace-book; Maine woods matter\u2014\"Chesuncook\" and \"The Allegash and\nEast Branch\"\u2014already printed _in extenso_ in the volume entitled \"The\nMaine Woods;\" a few long lists of plants, etc., recapitulating matter\ncontained in the preceding pages; the word _ultimo_, or _ult._, which\nin hundreds of instances is written where the context makes it plain\nthat _instant_ was the word intended; a proper name here and there,\nout of regard for the feelings of possible relatives or descendants\nof the persons mentioned; guesses at the identification of particular\nplants,\u2014willows, goldenrods, and the like,\u2014often accompanied by\ntediously minute technical descriptions, the whole evidently meant as\nmere memoranda for the writer's possible future guidance, and believed\nto be of no interest now, even to the botanical reader.\n\n3. In the case of passages which Thoreau had revised, mostly in pencil,\nthe editor has commonly printed the original form when the amended one\nhas been followed in already printed volumes. In other cases the amended\nversion has been given. Corrections of error have always been allowed to\nstand, except that, where it is plain that the correction must have been\nmade at a date later than that of the original entry, the correction\nhas been printed as a footnote, without brackets.\n\n4. The footnotes of the editor are always in brackets.\n\n5. Where parts of the Journal have been printed in the author's books,\nthe editor and his associate, as far as their knowledge has gone, have\nindicated the fact, citing first the present and then the Riverside\nedition,\u2014thus: \"_Week_, p. 305; Riv. 379.\" References to \"Channing\"\nare to \"Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist,\" by William Ellery Channing, new\nedition, edited by Mr. F. B. Sanborn. References to \"Sanborn\" are to\n\"Henry D. Thoreau,\" by F. B. Sanborn, in the American Men of Letters.\n\n6. The earlier manuscript volumes of the Journal, as we now have them,\nare evidently not the originals, but are made up of selections from\nvolumes that appear to have been destroyed by the author.\n\nIt remains only to add the editor's very hearty acknowledgements to\nhis associate, Mr. Francis H. Allen, who has overseen and verified the\ncopying of the manuscript, an onerous task, and in every way, by counsel\nand labor, has facilitated, not to say made possible, the completion of\nthe work.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n     INTRODUCTION                                               xix\n\n     CHAPTER I. 1837 (\u00c6T. 20)                                     3\n\n     Opening of the Journal\u2014Quotations from Goethe\u2014Ducks\n     at Goose Pond\u2014The Arrowhead\u2014With and Against\n     the Stream\u2014Discipline\u2014Sunrise\u2014Harmony\u2014The World\n     from a Hilltop\u2014Hoar Frost\u2014Measure\u2014Thorns\u2014Jack\n     Frost\u2014Druids\u2014Immortality Post\u2014The Saxons\u2014Crystals\n     \u2014Revolutions\u2014Heroes\u2014The Interesting Facts in History.\n\n     CHAPTER II. 1838 (\u00c6T. 20-21)                                25\n\n     The Saxons\u2014Hoar Frost\u2014Zeno, the Stoic\u2014Small Talk\u2014Old\n     Books\u2014Greece\u2014Goethe\u2014Homer\u2014A Sunday Scene\u2014What\n     to Do\u2014Composition\u2014Scraps from a Lecture on\n     Society\u2014The Indian Axe\u2014Friendship\u2014Conversation\u2014The\n     Bluebirds\u2014Journey to Maine\u2014May Morning\u2014Walden\u2014Cliffs\n     \u2014Heroism\u2014Divine Service\u2014The Sabbath Bell\u2014Holy War\u2014The\n     Loss of a Tooth\u2014Deformity\u2014Crickets\u2014Sphere Music\u2014Alma\n     Natura\u2014Compensation\u2014My Boots\u2014Speculation\u2014Byron\u2014Fair\n     Haven\u2014Scraps from an Essay on Sound and\n     Silence\u2014Anacreon's Ode to the Cicada\u2014Anacreontics.\n\n     CHAPTER III. 1839 (\u00c6T. 21-22)                               71\n\n     The Thaw\u2014The Dream Valley\u2014Love\u2014The Evening\n     Wind\u2014The Peal of the Bells\u2014The Shrike\u2014Morning\u2014The\n     Teamster\u2014Fat Pine for Spearing\u2014Terra Firma in\n     Society\u2014The Kingdoms of the Earth\u2014The Form of\n     Strength\u2014My Attic\u2014Sympathy\u2014Annursnack\u2014The Assabet\u2014The\n     Breeze's Invitation\u2014The Week on the Concord and\n     Merrimack\u2014The Walk to the White Mountains\u2014The Wise\n     Rest\u2014\u00c6schylus\u2014Growth\u2014Despondency\u2014Linn\u00e6us\u2014Bravery\u2014Noon\n     \u2014Scraps from a Chapter on Bravery\u2014Friendship\u2014Crickets.\n\n     CHAPTER IV. 1840 (\u00c6T. 22-23)                               110\n\n     The Fisher's Son\u2014Friends\u2014Poetry\u2014A Tame\n     Life\u2014\u00c6schylus\u2014Truth\u2014Duty\u2014Beauty lives by\n     Rhymes\u2014Fishes\u2014Muskrats\u2014The Freshet\u2014Important\n     Events\u2014Ornithology\u2014Inward Poverty\u2014Wild Ducks\u2014The\n     World as a Theatre for Action\u2014Rain\u2014Farewell,\n     Etiquette!\u2014War\u2014The Beginning of the Voyage on\n     the Concord and Merrimack\u2014The Boat\u2014End of the\n     Journal of 546 Pages\u2014Reflections\u2014A Sonnet to\n     Profane Swearing\u2014Down the Concord\u2014The Landscape\n     through a Tumbler\u2014Likeness and Difference\u2014A Drum\n     in the Night\u2014The Inspired Body\u2014Dullness\u2014The\n     Yankee Answer\u2014Greek Philosophers\u2014Rhythm and\n     Harmony\u2014Evening\u2014Paradox\u2014Sailing\u2014A Stately\n     March\u2014Effort the Prerogative of Virtue\u2014The True\n     Poem\u2014Sunrise\u2014A Muster\u2014The Great Ball\u2014Fishing and\n     Sporting\u2014The Golden Mean\u2014Grecian History\u2014The Eye\u2014True\n     Art\u2014Necessity\u2014Dress\u2014Bravery.\n\n     CHAPTER V. 1841 (\u00c6T. 23-24)                                173\n\n     Routine\u2014Stillness\u2014Seriousness cutting Capers\u2014Wealth\n     is Power\u2014A Dream\u2014Suspicion\u2014Resistance\u2014Rough\n     Usage\u2014Trust in God\u2014Journalizing\u2014The Snow on the\n     Pitch Pines\u2014A Team coming out of the Woods\u2014The\n     Tracks of a Fox\u2014Chasing a Fox\u2014End of the Journal\n     of 396 Pages\u2014Repetition\u2014Weight\u2014Sincerity\u2014The\n     Etiquette of Keeping One's Seat\u2014The Human\n     Voice\u2014Swiss Singers\u2014Costume\u2014The Value of the\n     Recess in a Public Entertainment\u2014Assisting\n     Nature\u2014Prophecy\u2014The Geniality of Cold\u2014Recognition of\n     Greatness\u2014Victory and Defeat\u2014The Lover's Court\u2014The\n     Measure of Time\u2014My Journal\u2014The Industriousness of\n     Vice\u2014Overpraising\u2014Silence\u2014True Modesty\u2014The Helper and\n     the Helped\u2014A Poor Farm\u2014Bronchitis\u2014A Good Book\u2014The\n     Leisure of Society and Nature\u2014The Grandeur of the\n     Storm\u2014Music\u2014Friends\u2014The Care of the Body\u2014The Best\n     Medicine\u2014Life\u2014Diversion and Amusement\u2014Composition\u2014The\n     Sound of a Horn\u2014Boarding\u2014Thoroughfares of\n     Vice\u2014Reproof\u2014An Interpretation of Emerson's\n     \"Sphinx\"\u2014Homeliness in Books\u2014Aubrey\u2014The Loneliness\n     of our Life\u2014Seriousness\u2014Magnanimity\u2014Moral\n     Reflections in a Work on Agriculture\u2014Tea-Kettle and\n     Cow-Bell\u2014Plowing\u2014Eclipsing Napoleon's Career\u2014The True\n     Reformer\u2014Seeing\u2014Friendship's Steadfastness\u2014The Gods\n     side with no Man\u2014A Profane Expression\u2014The Silence of\n     the Woods\u2014The Civilization of the Woods\u2014The Oppression\n     of the House\u2014Shoulders\u2014Approaching a Great Nature\u2014The\n     Use of a Cane\u2014Wachusett\u2014Navigation\u2014The Pine\u2014Westward\n     Ho!\u2014The Echo of the Sabbath Bell heard in the\n     Woods\u2014Books\u2014The Laws of Menu\u2014A Vermonter\u2014The Moon\n     through a Telescope\u2014Immemorial Custom\u2014An Unchangeable\n     Morning Light\u2014The Book of the Hindoos\u2014History and\n     Biography\u2014The Form of a Mountain\u2014Art and Nature\u2014The\n     Strains of a Flute\u2014Earnestness\u2014Afternoon\u2014Various\n     Sounds of the Crickets\u2014The Work of Genius\u2014The\n     Idea of Man in the Hindoo Scripture\u2014The Hindoo's\n     Conception of Creation\u2014Taste and Poetry\u2014The Austerity\n     of the Hindoos\u2014The Only Obligation\u2014Seines in the\n     River\u2014Moonlight the Best Restorer of Antiquity\u2014A\n     Poem to be called \"Concord\"\u2014A Boat floating amid\n     Reflections\u2014Poetry\u2014Directions for setting out Peach\n     Trees and Grape-Vines\u2014Experience at the Harvard\n     Library\u2014The English Poets\u2014Saxon Poetry\u2014Character\u2014The\n     Inward Morning\u2014Music and Character\u2014The Form\n     of the Wind\u2014Ancient Scotch Poetry\u2014My Redeeming\n     Qualities\u2014The Smoke from an Invisible Farmhouse\u2014Latent\n     Eloquence\u2014Ghosts\u2014Sacred Forests\u2014Thoughts of a\n     Life at Walden\u2014The Rich Man\u2014The Trade of Life\u2014True\n     Greatness\u2014Chaucer\u2014Snowflakes\u2014Books of Natural History.\n\n     CHAPTER VI. 1842 (\u00c6T. 24-25)                               308\n\n     Good Courage\u2014The Church the Hospital for Men's\n     Souls\u2014Chaucer\u2014Popped Corn\u2014The Literary Style of the\n     Laboring Man\u2014Sir Walter Raleigh\u2014Calmness\u2014The Perfume\n     of the Earth\u2014Unhealthiness of Morality\u2014Music from a\n     Music-Box\u2014Raleigh's Faults\u2014Man's Puny Fences\u2014The Death\n     of Friends\u2014Chaucer the Poet of Gardens\u2014Character and\n     Genius\u2014The History of Music\u2014Chaucer's Way of Speaking\n     of God\u2014My Life\u2014Dying a Transient Phenomenon\u2014The\n     Memory of Departed Friends\u2014The Game of Love\u2014A New\n     Day\u2014The Eye\u2014Originality of Nature\u2014Raleigh\u2014The\n     Most Attractive Sentences\u2014Law and the Right\u2014An\n     Old Schoolmate\u2014Carlyle's Writing\u2014The Tracks of the\n     Indian\u2014The Stars and Man\u2014Friendship\u2014The Roominess\n     of Nature\u2014The Exuberance of Plain Speech\u2014Action and\n     Reflection\u2014Common Sense in Very Old Books\u2014Thoughts\n     like Mountains\u2014Insufficiency of Wisdom without\n     Love\u2014I am Time and the World\u2014My Errand to Mankind\u2014Two\n     Little Hawks and a Great One\u2014Flow in Books\u2014Nature's\n     Leniency toward the Vicious\u2014Intercourse\u2014A Fish\n     Hawk\u2014Poetry\u2014Lydgate's \"Story of Thebes\"\u2014Humor\u2014Man's\n     Destiny\u2014The Economy of Nature.\n\n     CHAPTER VII. 1845-1846 (\u00c6T. 27-29)                         361\n\n     The Beginning of the Life at Walden\u2014A House in\n     the Catskills\u2014The Vital Facts of Life\u2014Relics\n     of the Indians\u2014Auxiliaries and Enemies of the\n     Bean-Field\u2014Therien, the Canadian Woodchopper\u2014A\n     Visit from Railroad Men\u2014Life of Primitive Man\u2014Wild\n     Mice\u2014The Written and the Spoken Language\u2014The Interest\n     and Importance of the Classics\u2014The Fragrance\n     of an Apple\u2014The Race of Man\u2014The Mansions of the\n     Air\u2014Echo\u2014\"The Crescent and the Cross\"\u2014Carnac\u2014The\n     Heroic Books\u2014Screech Owls\u2014Bullfrogs\u2014Nature and\n     Art\u2014Childhood Memories of Walden Pond\u2014Truth\u2014John\n     Field, a Shiftless Irishman, and his Family\u2014A\n     Hard and Emphatic Life\u2014Language\u2014Plastering the\n     House\u2014Primitive Houses\u2014The Cost of a House\u2014The\n     Romans and Nature\u2014Jehovah and Jupiter\u2014Some Greek\n     Myths\u2014Difficulty of Getting a Living and Keeping out\n     of Debt\u2014The Fox as an Imperfect Man\u2014Reading suggested\n     by Hallam's History of Literature\u2014The Necessaries\n     of Life\u2014A Dog Lost\u2014Therien and the Chickadees\u2014The\n     Evening Robin\u2014The Earth as a Garden\u2014A Flock of Geese.\n\n     CHAPTER VIII. 1845-1847 (\u00c6T. 27-30)                        403\n\n     The Hero\u2014At Midnight's Hour\u2014Wordsworth\u2014Dying Young\u2014The\n     Present Time\u2014Exaggeration\u2014Carlyle's Discovery that\n     he was not a Jackass\u2014Longevity\u2014Life and Death of Hugh\n     Quoil, a Waterloo Soldier\u2014Quoil's Deserted House\u2014Old\n     Clothes\u2014Former Inhabitants of the Walden Woods\u2014The\n     Loon on Walden Pond\u2014Ducks and Geese\u2014The Pack of\n     Hounds\u2014An Unsuccessful Village\u2014Concord Games\u2014Animal\n     Neighbors\u2014Carlyle's Use of the Printer's Art\u2014Northern\n     Slavery\u2014Brister and Zilpha\u2014Making Bread\u2014Emerson and\n     Alcott\u2014A Rabbit\u2014A Town Officer.\n\n     CHAPTER IX. 1837-1847 (\u00c6T. 20-30)                          438\n\n     Friends\u2014The Loading and Launching of the\n     Boat\u2014Gracefulness\u2014On the Merrimack\u2014The Era\n     of the Indian\u2014Fate of the Indian\u2014Criticism's\n     Apology\u2014Life\u2014Suspicion\u2014The Purple Finch\u2014Gower's\n     Poetry\u2014Light\u2014Indian Implements\u2014Success in Proportion\n     to Average Ability\u2014Kindness\u2014Fog\u2014The Attitude of\n     Quarles and his Contemporaries towards Nature\u2014The\n     Mystery of Life\u2014Three-o'clock-in-the-Morning Courage\u2014A\n     Recent Book\u2014Museums\u2014Some Old English Poets\u2014Our\n     Kindred\u2014Friendship\u2014Skating after a Fox\u2014To a Marsh Hawk\n     in the Spring\u2014The Gardener\u2014A Fisherman's Account at\n     the Store\u2014Finny Contemporaries\u2014Marlowe\u2014Thaw\u2014Modern\n     Nymphs\u2014Living by Self-Defense\u2014The Survival of\n     the Birds\u2014The Slaughter-House\u2014The Tragedy of the\n     Muskrat\u2014Carlyle not to be Studied\u2014The Subject of the\n     Lecture\u2014The Character of our Life\u2014The Sovereignty\n     of the Mind\u2014Co\u00f6peration.\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n     WHITE VIOLETS, Carbon photograph (page 304)         Frontispiece\n\n     VIEW FROM ANNURSNACK HILL                          Colored plate\n\n     HENRY DAVID THOREAU IN 1854, FROM THE\n     ROWSE CRAYON IN THE CONCORD PUBLIC\n     LIBRARY                                                        1\n\n     FROST CRYSTALS AT THE MOUTH OF A HOLE\n     IN A BANK                                                     22\n\n     VIEW FROM ANNURSNACK HILL                                     84\n\n     TREES REFLECTED IN THE RIVER                                 140\n\n     WINTER LANDSCAPE FROM FAIRHAVEN HILL                         296\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThoreau was a man of his own kind. Many things may be said of him,\nfavorable and unfavorable, but this must surely be said first,\u2014that,\ntaken for all in all, he was like nobody else. Taken for all in all,\nbe it remarked. Other men have despised common sense; other men have\nchosen to be poor, and, as between physical comfort and better things,\nhave made light of physical comfort; other men, whether to their credit\nor discredit, have held and expressed a contemptuous opinion of their\nneighbors and all their neighbors' doings; others, a smaller number,\nbelieving in an absolute goodness and in a wisdom transcending human\nknowledge, have distrusted the world as evil, accounting its influence\ndegrading, its prudence no better than cowardice, its wisdom a kind\nof folly, its morality a compromise, its religion a bargain, its\npossessions a defilement and a hindrance, and so judging of the world,\nhave striven at all cost to live above it and apart. And some, no doubt,\nhave loved Nature as a mistress, fleeing to her from less congenial\ncompany, and devoting a lifetime to the observation and enjoyment of her\nways. In no one of these particulars was the hermit of Walden without\nforerunners; but taken for all that he was, poet, idealist, stoic,\ncynic, naturalist, spiritualist, lover of purity, seeker of perfection,\npanegyrist of friendship and dweller in a hermitage, freethinker and\nsaint, where shall we look to find his fellow? It seems but the plainest\nstatement of fact to say that, as there was none before him, so there\nis scanty prospect of any to come after him.\n\nHis profession was literature; as to that there is no sign that he was\never in doubt; and he understood from the first that for a writing man\nnothing could take the place of practice, partly because that is the one\nmeans of acquiring ease of expression, and partly because a man often\nhas no suspicion of his own thoughts until his pen discovers them; and\nalmost from the first\u2014a friend (Emerson or another) having given him\nthe hint\u2014he had come to feel that no practice is better or readier than\nthe keeping of a journal, a daily record of things thought, seen, and\nfelt. Such a record he began soon after leaving college, and (being\none of a thousand in this respect as in others) he continued it to the\nend. By good fortune he left it behind him, and, to complete the good\nfortune, it is at last printed, no longer in selections, but as a whole;\nand if a man is curious to know what such an original, plain-spoken,\nperfection-seeking, convention-despising, dogma-disbelieving,\nwisdom-loving, sham-hating, Nature-worshipping, poverty-proud genius\nwas in the habit of confiding to so patient a listener at the close of\nthe day, he has only to read the book.\n\nThe man himself is there. Something of him, indeed, is to be discovered,\none half imagines, in the outward aspect of the thirty-nine manuscript\nvolumes: ordinary \"blank-books\" of the sort furnished by country\nshopkeepers fifty or sixty years ago, larger or smaller as might\nhappen, and of varying shapes (a customer seeking such wares must not\nbe too particular; one remembers Thoreau's complaint that the universal\npreoccupation with questions of money rendered it difficult for him\nto find a blank-book that was not ruled for dollars and cents), still\nneatly packed in the strong wooden box which their owner, a workman\nneeding not to be ashamed, made with his own hands on purpose to hold\nthem.\n\nA pretty full result of a short life they seem to be, as one takes up\nvolume after volume (the largest are found to contain about a hundred\nthousand words) and turns the leaves: the handwriting strong and rapid,\nleaning well forward in its haste, none too legible, slow reading at\nthe best, with here and there a word that is almost past making out;\nthe orthography that of a naturally good speller setting down his\nthoughts at full speed and leaving his mistakes behind him; and the\npunctuation, to call it such, no better than a makeshift,\u2014after the\nmodel of Sterne's, if one chooses to say so: a spattering of dashes,\nand little else.[1]\n\nAs for the matter, it is more carefully considered, less strictly\nimprovised, than is customary with diarists. It is evident, in fact,\nfrom references here and there, that many of the entries were copied\nfrom an earlier pencilled draft, made presumably in the field, \"with\nthe eye on the object,\" while the work as a whole has been more or less\ncarefully revised, with erasures, emendations, and suggested alternative\nreadings.\n\nAs we have said, if a man wishes to know Thoreau as he was, let him\nread the book. One thing he may be sure of: he will find himself in\nclean, self-respecting company, with no call to blush, as if he were\nplaying the eavesdropper. Of confessions, indeed, in the spicy sense of\nthe word, Thoreau had none to make. He was no Montaigne, no Rousseau,\nno Samuel Pepys. How should he be? He was a Puritan of Massachusetts,\nthough he kept no Sabbath, was seen in no church,\u2014being very different\nfrom Mr. Pepys in more ways than one,\u2014and esteemed the Hebrew scriptures\nas a good book like any other. Once, indeed, when he was thirty-four\nyears old, he went to a \"party.\" For anything we know, that (with a\nlittle sowing of wild oats in the matter of smoking dried lily-stems\nwhen a boy) was as near as he ever came to dissipation. And he did\nnot like it. \"It is a bad place to go to,\" he says,\u2014\"thirty or forty\npersons, mostly young women, in a small room, warm and noisy.\" One of\nthe young women was reputed to be \"pretty-looking;\" but he scarcely\nlooked at her, though he was \"introduced,\" and he could not hear what\nshe said, because there was \"such a clacking.\" \"I could imagine better\nplaces for conversation,\" he goes on, \"where there should be a certain\ndegree of silence surrounding you, and less than forty talking at once.\nWhy, this afternoon, even, I did better. There was old Mr. Joseph Hosmer\nand I ate our luncheon of cracker and cheese together in the woods. I\nheard all he said, though it was not much, to be sure, and he could hear\nme. And then he talked out of such a glorious repose, taking a leisurely\nbite at the cracker and cheese between his words; and so some of him\nwas communicated to me, and some of me to him, I trust.\"\n\nHe entertains a shrewd suspicion that assemblies of this kind are got\nup with a view to matrimonial alliances among the young people! For\nhis part, at all events, he doesn't understand \"the use of going to\nsee people whom yet you never see, and who never see you.\" Some of\nhis friends make a singular blunder. They go out of their way to talk\nto pretty young women _as such_. Their prettiness may be a reason\nfor looking at them, so much he will concede,\u2014for the sake of the\nantithesis, if for nothing else,\u2014but why is it any reason for talking to\nthem? For himself, though he may be \"lacking a sense in this respect,\"\nhe derives \"no pleasure from talking with a young woman half an hour\nsimply because she has regular features.\"\n\nHow crabbed is divine philosophy! After this we are not surprised\nwhen he concludes by saying: \"The society of young women is the most\nunprofitable I have ever tried.\" No, no; he was nothing like Mr. Samuel\nPepys.\n\nThe sect of young women, we may add, need not feel deeply affronted by\nthis ungallant mention. It is perhaps the only one of its kind in the\njournal (by its nature restricted to matters interesting to the author),\nwhile there are multitudes of passages to prove that Thoreau's aversion\nto the society of older people taken as they run, men and women alike,\nwas hardly less pronounced. In truth (and it is nothing of necessity\nagainst him), he was not made for \"parties,\" nor for clubs, nor even for\ngeneral companionship. \"I am all without and in sight,\" said Montaigne,\n\"born for society and friendship.\" So was not Thoreau. He was all\nwithin, born for contemplation and solitude. And what we are born for,\nthat let us be,\u2014and so the will of God be done. Such, for good or ill,\nwas Thoreau's philosophy. \"We are constantly invited to be what we are,\"\nhe said. It is one of his memorable sentences; an admirable summary of\nEmerson's essay on Self-Reliance.\n\nHis fellow mortals, as a rule, did not recommend themselves to him. His\nthoughts were none the better for their company, as they almost always\nwere for the company of the pine tree and the meadow. Inspiration, a\nrefreshing of the spiritual faculties, as indispensable to him as daily\nbread, that his fellow mortals did not furnish him. For this state of\nthings he sometimes (once or twice at least) mildly reproaches himself.\nIt may be that he is to blame for so commonly skipping humanity and its\naffairs; he will seek to amend the fault, he promises. But even at such\na moment of exceptional humility, his pen, reversing Balaam's r\u00f4le,\nruns into left-handed compliments that are worse, if anything, than\nthe original offense. Hear him: \"I will not avoid to go by where those\nmen are repairing the stone bridge. I will see if I cannot see poetry\nin that, if that will not yield me a reflection. It is narrow to be\nconfined to woods and fields and grand aspects of nature only.... Why\nnot see men standing in the sun and casting a shadow, even as trees?...\nI will try to enjoy them as animals, at least.\"\n\nThis is in 1851. A year afterward we find him concerned with the same\ntheme, but in a less hesitating mood. Now he is on his high horse,\nwith apologies to nobody. \"It appears to me,\" he begins, \"that to one\nstanding on the heights of philosophy mankind and the works of man will\nhave sunk out of sight altogether.\" Man, in his opinion, is \"too much\ninsisted upon. The poet says, 'The proper study of mankind is man.'\nI say, Study to forget all that. Take wider views of the universe....\nWhat is the village, city, state, nation, aye, the civilized world, that\nit should concern a man so much? The thought of them affects me, in my\nwisest hours, as when I pass a woodchuck's hole.\"\n\nA high horse, indeed! But his comparison is really by no means so\ndisparaging as it sounds; for Thoreau took a deep and lasting interest\nin woodchucks. At one time and another he wrote many good pages about\nthem; for their reappearance in the spring he watched as for the return\nof a friend, and once, at least, he devoted an hour to digging out a\nburrow and recording with painstaking minuteness the course and length\nof its ramifications. A novelist, describing his heroine's boudoir,\ncould hardly have been more strict with himself. In fact, to have\nsaid that one of Thoreau's human neighbors was as interesting to him\nas a woodchuck would have been to pay that neighbor a rather handsome\ncompliment. None of the brute animals, so called,\u2014we have it on his own\nauthority,\u2014ever vexed his ears with pomposity or nonsense.\n\nBut we have interrupted his discourse midway. \"I do not value any view\nof the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very\nlargely,\" he continues.... \"Man is a past phenomenon to philosophy.\"\nThen he descends a little to particulars. \"Some rarely go outdoors,\nmost are always at home at night,\"\u2014Concord people being uncommonly well\nbrought up, it would appear,\u2014\"very few indeed have stayed out all night\nonce in their lives; fewer still have gone behind the world of humanity\nand seen its institutions like toadstools by the wayside.\"\n\nAnd then, having, with this good bit of philosophical \"tall talk,\"\nbrushed aside humanity as a very little thing, he proceeds to chronicle\nthe really essential facts of the day: that he landed that afternoon on\nTall's Island, and to his disappointment found the weather not cold or\nwindy enough for the meadow to make \"its most serious impression;\" also,\nthat the staddles from which the hay had been removed were found to\nstand a foot or two above the water; besides which, he saw cranberries\non the bottom (although he forgot to mention them in their proper\nplace), and noticed that the steam of the engine looked very white that\nmorning against the hillside.\n\nAll which setting of ordinary valuations topsy-turvy, the lords of\ncreation below the beasts that perish, may lead an innocent reader to\nexclaim with one of old, \"Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of\nhim? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?\"\n\nNevertheless, we must not treat the matter too lightly, easily as it\nlends itself to persiflage. Even in this extreme instance it is not to\nbe assumed that Thoreau was talking for the sake of talking, or merely\nkeeping his hand in with his favorite rhetorical weapon, a paradox.\nThat desiderated \"serious impression,\" at all events, was no laughing\nmatter; rather it was to have been the chief event of the day; of more\naccount to Thoreau than dinner and supper both were likely to be to his\nfarmer neighbor. As for the woodchuck, its comparative rank in the scale\nof animal existence, be it higher or lower, is nothing to the purpose.\nFor Thoreau it was simple truth that, on some days, and in some states\nof mind, he found the society of such a cave-dweller more acceptable,\nor less unacceptable, than that of any number of his highly civilized\ntownsmen. Nor is the statement one to be nervously concerned about.\nAny inveterate stroller, the most matter-of-fact man alive (though\nmatter-of-fact men are not apt to be strollers), might say the same, in\nall soberness, with no thought of writing himself down a misanthrope,\nor of setting himself up as a philosopher.\n\nFor one thing, the woodchuck is sure to be less intrusive, less\ndistracting, than the ordinary human specimen; he fits in better with\nsolitude and the solitary feeling. He is never in the way. Moreover,\nyou can say to a woodchuck anything that comes into your head, without\nfear of giving offense; a less important consideration than the other,\nno doubt, woodchucks as a class not being remarkably conversable, but\nstill worthy of mention. For, naturally enough, an outspoken freethinker\nlike Thoreau found the greater number of men not so very different from\n\"ministers,\" of whom he said, in a tone of innocent surprise, that they\n\"could not bear all kinds of opinions,\"\u2014\"as if any sincere thought were\nnot the best sort of truth!\"\n\nHe walked one afternoon with Alcott, and spent an agreeable hour, though\nfor the most part he preferred having the woods and fields to himself.\nAlcott was an ineffectual genius, he remarks, \"forever feeling about\nvainly in his speech, and touching nothing\" (one thinks of Arnold's\ncharacterization of Shelley as a \"beautiful and ineffectual angel,\nbeating in the void his luminous wings in vain,\" which, in its turn,\nmay call to mind Lowell's comparison of Shelley's genius to a St. Elmo's\nfire, \"playing in ineffectual flame about the points of his thought\"),\nbut after all, he was good company; not quite so good as none, of\ncourse, but on the whole, as men go, rather better than most. At least,\nhe would listen to what you had to offer. He was open-minded; he wasn't\nshut up in a creed; an honest man's thought would not shock him. You\ncould talk to him without running up against \"some institution.\" In a\nword,\u2014though Thoreau doesn't say it,\u2014he was something like a woodchuck.\n\nWith all his passion for \"that glorious society called solitude,\" and\nwith all his feeling that mankind, as a \"past phenomenon,\" thought\nfar too highly of itself, it is abundantly in evidence that Thoreau,\nin his own time and on his own terms, was capable of a really human\ndelight in familiar intercourse with his fellows. Channing, who should\nhave known, speaks, a little vaguely, to be sure, of his \"fine social\nqualities.\" \"Always a genial and hospitable entertainer,\" he calls him.\nAnd Mr. Ricketson, who also should have known, assures us that \"no man\ncould hold a finer relationship with his family than he.\" But of this\naspect of his character, it must be acknowledged, there is comparatively\nlittle in the journal. What is very constant and emphatic there\u2014emphatic\nsometimes to the point of painfulness\u2014is the hermit's hunger and thirst\nafter friendship; a friendship the sweets of which, so far as appears,\nhe was very sparingly to enjoy. For if he was at home in the family\ngroup and in huckleberry excursions with children, if he relished to\nthe full a talk with a stray fisherman, a racy-tongued woodchopper, or\na good Indian, something very different seems to have been habitual with\nhim when it came to intercourse with equals and friends.\n\nHere, even more than elsewhere, he was an uncompromising idealist. His\ncraving was for a friendship more than human, friendship such as it was\nbeyond any one about him to furnish, if it was not, as may fairly be\nsuspected, beyond his own capacity to receive. In respect to outward\nthings, his wealth, he truly said, was to want little. In respect to\nfriendship, his poverty was to want the unattainable. It might have\nbeen retorted upon him in his own words, that he was like a man who\nshould complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy himself\na crown. But the retort would perhaps have been rather smart than\nfair. He, at least, would never have acquiesced in it. He confided to\nhis journal again and again that he asked nothing of his friends but\nhonesty, sincerity, a grain of real appreciation, \"an opportunity once\nin a year to speak the truth;\" but in the end it came always to this,\nthat he insisted upon perfection, and, not finding it, went on his way\nhungry. Probably it is true\u2014one seems to divine a reason for it\u2014that\nidealists, claimers of the absolute, have commonly found their fellow\nmen a disappointment.\n\nIn Thoreau's case it was his best friends who most severely tried his\npatience. They invite him to see them, he complains, and then \"do not\nshow themselves.\" He \"pines and starves near them.\" All is useless. They\ntreat him so that he \"feels a thousand miles off.\" \"I leave my friends\nearly. I go away to cherish my idea of friendship.\" Surely there is no\nsentence in all Thoreau's books that is more thoroughly characteristic\nthan that. And how neatly it is turned! Listen also to this, which is\nequally bitter, and almost equally perfect in the phrasing: \"No fields\nare so barren to me as the men of whom I expect everything, but get\nnothing. In their neighborhood I experience a painful yearning for\nsociety.\"\n\nIt is all a mystery to him. \"How happens it,\" he exclaims, \"that I\nfind myself making such an enormous demand on men, and so constantly\ndisappointed? Are my friends aware how disappointed I am? Is it all my\nfault? Am I incapable of expansion and generosity? I shall accuse myself\nof anything else sooner.\" And again he goes away sorrowful, consoling\nhimself, as best he can, with his own paradox,\u2014\n\n     \"I might have loved him, had I loved him less.\"\n\nStrange that he should have suffered in this way, many will think,\nwith Emerson himself for a friend and neighbor! Well, the two men were\nfriends, but neither was in this relation quite impeccable (which is\nas much as to say that both were human), and to judge by such hints\nas are gatherable on either side, their case was not entirely unlike\nthat of Bridget Elia and her cousin,\u2014\"generally in harmony, with\noccasional bickerings, as it should be among near relations;\" though\n\"bickerings\" is no doubt an undignified term for use in this connection.\nIt is interesting, some may deem it amusing, to put side by side the\nstatements of the two men upon this very point; Emerson's communicated\nto the public shortly after his friend's death, Thoreau's intrusted nine\nyears before to the privacy of his journal.\n\nEmerson's speech is the more guarded, as, for more reasons than one, it\nmight have been expected to be. His friend, he confesses, \"was somewhat\nmilitary in his nature ... always manly and able, but rarely tender, as\nif he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy\nto expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of\nvictory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise....\nIt seemed as if his first instinct on hearing a proposition was to\ncontrovert it, so impatient was he of the limitations of our daily\nthought. This habit, of course, is a little chilling to the social\naffections; and though the companion would in the end acquit him of any\nmalice or untruth, yet it mars conversation. Hence no equal companion\nstood in affectionate relations with one so pure and guileless.\"\n\nThoreau's entry is dated May 24, 1853. \"Talked, or tried to talk, with\nR. W. E. Lost my time, nay, almost my identity. He, assuming a false\nopposition where there was no difference of opinion, talked to the\nwind, told me what I knew, and I lost my time trying to imagine myself\nsomebody else to oppose him.\"\n\nIt is the very same picture, drawn by another pencil, with a different\nplacing of the shadows; and since the two sketches were made so many\nyears apart and yet seem to be descriptive of the same thing, it is\nperhaps fair to conclude that this particular interview, which appears\nto have degenerated into something like a dispute about nothing (a\nvery frequent subject of disputes, by the way), was not exceptional,\nbut rather typical. Without doubt this was one of the occasions when\nThoreau felt himself treated as if he were \"a thousand miles off,\" and\nwent home early to \"cherish his idea of friendship.\" Let us hope that\nhe lost nothing else along with his time and identity.\n\nBut here, again, we are in danger of an unseasonable lightness.\nFriendship, according to Thoreau's apprehension of it, was a thing\ninfinitely sacred. A _friend_ might move him to petulance, as the best\nof friends sometimes will; but _friendship_, the ideal state shown to\nhim in dreams, for speech concerning that there was nowhere in English,\nnor anywhere else, a word sufficiently noble and unsoiled. And even\nhis friends he loved, although, tongue-tied New-Englander that he was,\nhe could never tell them so. He loved them best (and this, likewise,\nwas no singularity) when they were farthest away. In company, even in\ntheir company, he could never utter his truest thought. So it is with us\nall. It was a greater than Thoreau who said, \"We descend to meet;\" and\na greater still, perhaps (and he also a Concord man), who confessed at\nfifty odd: \"I doubt whether I have ever really talked with half a dozen\npersons in my life.\"\n\nAs for Thoreau, he knew at times, and owned as much to himself, that\nhis absorption in nature tended to unfit him for human society. But so\nit was; he loved to be alone. And in this respect he had no thought of\nchange,\u2014no thought nor wish. Whatever happened, he would still belong\nto no club but the true \"country club,\" which dined \"at the sign of\nthe Shrub Oak.\" The fields and the woods, the old road, the river, and\nthe pond, these were his real neighbors. Year in and year out, how near\nthey were to him!\u2014a nearness unspeakable; till sometimes it seemed as if\ntheir being and his were not two, but one and the same. With them was no\nfrivolity, no vulgarity, no changeableness, no prejudice. With them he\nhad no misunderstandings, no meaningless disputes, no disappointments.\nThey knew him, and were known of him. In their society he felt himself\nrenewed. There he lived, and loved his life. There, if anywhere, the\nSpirit of the Lord came upon him. Hear him, on a cool morning in August,\nwith the wind in the branches and the crickets in the grass, and think\nof him, if you can, as a being too cold for friendship!\n\n\"My heart leaps out of my mouth at the sound of the wind in the woods.\nI, whose life was but yesterday so desultory and shallow, suddenly\nrecover my spirits, my spirituality, through my hearing.... Ah! if I\ncould so live that there should be no desultory moments ... I would\nwalk, I would sit and sleep, with natural piety. What if I could pray\naloud, or to myself, as I went along by the brookside, a cheerful\nprayer, like the birds! For joy I could embrace the earth. I shall\ndelight to be buried in it. And then, to think of those I love among\nmen, who will know that I love them, though I tell them not.... I thank\nyou, God. I do not deserve anything; I am unworthy of the least regard;\nand yet the world is gilded for my delight, and holidays are prepared\nfor me, and my path is strewn with flowers.... O keep my senses pure!\"\n\nHighly characteristic is that concluding ejaculation. For Thoreau the\nfive senses were not organs or means of sensuous gratification, but the\nfive gateways of the soul. He would have them open and undefiled. Upon\nthat point no man was ever more insistent. Above all, no sense must be\npampered; else it would lose its native freshness and delicacy, and so\nits diviner use. That way lay perdition. When a woman came to Concord to\nlecture, and Thoreau carried her manuscript to the hall for her, wrapped\nin its owner's handkerchief, he complained twenty-four hours afterward\nthat his pocket \"still exhaled cologne.\" Faint, elusive outdoor odors\nwere not only a continual delight to him, but a positive means of grace.\n\nSo, too, he would rather not see any of the scenic wonders of the world.\nOnly let his sense of beauty remain uncorrupted, and he could trust his\nMusketaquid meadows, and the low hills round about, to feed and satisfy\nhim forever.\n\nBecause of his jealousy in this regard, partly,\u2014and partly from\nignorance, it may be, just as some of his respectable village\nacquaintances would have found the Iliad, of which he talked so much,\nduller than death in comparison with the works of Mr. Sylvanus Cobb,\u2014he\noften spoke in slighting terms of operas and all the more elaborate\nforms of music. The ear, he thought, if it were kept innocent, would\nfind satisfaction in the very simplest of musical sounds. For himself,\nthere was no language extravagant enough to express his rapturous\ndelight in them. Now \"all the romance of his youthfulest moment\" came\nflooding back upon him, and anon he was carried away till he \"looked\nunder the lids of Time,\"\u2014all by the humming of telegraph-wires or, at\nnight especially, by the distant baying of a hound.\n\nTo the modern \"musical person\" certain of his confessions under this\nhead are of a character to excite mirth. He is \"much indebted,\" for\ninstance, to a neighbor \"who will now and then, in the intervals of his\nwork, draw forth a few strains from his accordion.\" The neighbor is only\na learner, but, says Thoreau, \"I find when his strains cease that I have\nbeen elevated.\" His daily philosophy is all of a piece, one perceives:\nplain fare, plain clothes, plain company, a hut in the woods, an old\nbook,\u2014and for inspiration the notes of a neighbor's accordion.\n\nMore than once, too, he acknowledges his obligation to that famous rural\nentertainer and civilizer, the hand-organ. \"All Vienna\" could not do\nmore for him, he ventures to think. \"It is perhaps the best instrumental\nmusic that we have,\" he observes; which can hardly have been true, even\nin Concord, one prefers to believe, while admitting the possibility. If\nit is heard far enough away, he goes on, so that the creaking of the\nmachinery is lost, \"it serves the grandest use for me,\u2014it deepens my\nexistence.\"\n\nWe smile, of course, as in duty bound, at so artless an avowal; but,\nhaving smiled, we are bound also to render our opinion that the most\n_blas\u00e9_ concert-goer, if he be a man of native sensibility, will readily\nenough discern what Thoreau has in mind, and with equal readiness will\nconcede to it a measure of reasonableness; for he will have the witness\nin himself that the effect of music upon the soul depends as much upon\nthe temper of the soul as upon the perfection of the instrument. One\nday a simple air, simply sung or played, will land him in heaven; and\nanother day the best efforts of the full symphony orchestra will leave\nhim in the mire. And after all, it is possibly better, albeit in \"poorer\ntaste,\" to be transported by the wheezing of an accordion than to be\nbored by finer music. As for Thoreau, he studied to be a master of the\nart of living; and in the practice of that art, as of any other, it is\nthe glory of the artist to achieve extraordinary results by ordinary\nmeans. To have one's existence deepened\u2014there cannot be many things more\ndesirable than that; and as between our unsophisticated recluse and the\naverage \"musical person\" aforesaid, the case is perhaps not so one-sided\nas at first sight it looks; or, if it be, the odds are possibly not\nalways on the side of what seems the greater opportunity.\n\nHis life, the quality of his life, that for Thoreau was the paramount\nconcern. To the furthering of that end all things must be held\nsubservient. Nature, man, books, music, all for him had the same use.\nThis one thing he did,\u2014he cultivated himself. If any, because of his\nso doing, accused him of selfishness, preaching to him of philanthropy,\nalmsgiving, and what not, his answer was already in his mouth. Mankind,\nhe was prepared to maintain, was very well off without such helps, which\noftener than not did as much harm as good (though the concrete case at\nhis elbow\u2014half-clad Johnny Riordan, a fugitive slave, an Irishman who\nwished to bring his family over\u2014appealed to him as quickly as to most,\none is glad to notice); and, however that might be, the world needed a\nthousand times more than any so-called charity the sight of a man here\nand there living for higher ends than the world itself knows of. His\nown course, at any rate, was clear before him: \"What I am, I am, and\nsay not. Being is the great explainer.\"\n\nHis life, his _own_ life, that he must live; and he must be in earnest\nabout it. He was no indifferent, no little-carer, no skeptic, as\nif truth and a lie were but varying shades of the same color, and\nvirtue, according to the old phrase, \"a mean between vices.\" You would\nnever catch him sighing, \"Oh, well!\" or \"Who knows?\" Qualifications,\nreconciliations, _rapprochements_, the two sides of the shield, and all\nthat,\u2014these were considerations not in his line. Before everything else\nhe was a believer,\u2014an idealist, that is,\u2014the last person in the world to\nput up with half-truths or half-way measures. If \"existing things\" were\nthus and so, that was no reason why, with the sect of the Sadducees, he\nshould make the best of them. What if there _were_ no best of them? What\nif they were all bad? And anyhow, why not begin new? It was conceivable,\nwas it not, that a man should set his own example, and follow his own\ncopy. General opinion,\u2014what was that? Was a thing better established\nbecause ten thousand fools believed it? Did folly become wisdom by being\nraised to a higher power? And antiquity, tradition,\u2014what were they?\nCould a blind man of fifteen centuries ago see farther than a blind man\nof the present time? And if the blind led the blind, then or now, would\nnot both fall into the ditch?\n\nYes, he was undoubtedly peculiar. As to that there could never be\nanything but agreement among practical people. In a world where\nshiftiness and hesitation are the rule, nothing looks so eccentric\nas a straight course. It must be acknowledged, too, that a man whose\ngoodness has a strong infusion of the bitter, and whose opinions turn\nout of the way for nobody, is not apt to be the most comfortable kind of\nneighbor. We were not greatly surprised, lately, to hear an excellent\nlady remark of Thoreau that, from all she had read about him, she\nthought he must have been \"a very disagreeable gentleman.\" It could\nhardly be said of him, as Mr. Birrell says of Matthew Arnold, who was\nhimself a pretty serious person, and, after a way of his own, a preacher\nof righteousness, that he \"conspired and contrived to make things\npleasant.\"\n\nBeing a consistent idealist, he was of course an extremist, falling in\nthat respect little behind the man out of Nazareth, whose hard sayings,\nby all accounts, were sometimes less acceptable than they might have\nbeen, and of whom Thoreau asserted, in his emphatic way, that if his\nwords were really read from any pulpit in the land, \"there would not be\nleft one stone of that meeting-house upon another.\" Thoreau worshipped\npurity, and the every-day ethical standards of the street were to him\nan abomination. \"There are certain current expressions and blasphemous\nmoods of viewing things,\" he declares, \"as when we say 'he is doing\na good business,' more profane than cursing and swearing. There is\ndeath and sin in such words. Let not the children hear them.\" That\ninnocent-sounding phrase about \"a good business\"\u2014as if a business\nmight be taken for granted as good because it brought in money\u2014was as\nabhorrent to him as the outrageous worldly philosophy of an old castaway\nlike Major Pendennis is to the ordinarily sensitive reader.\n\nHe was constitutionally earnest. There are pages of the journal, indeed,\nwhich make one feel that perhaps he was in danger of being too much so\nfor his own profit. Possibly it is not quite wholesome, possibly, if\none dares to say it, it begets a something like priggishness, for the\nsoul to be keyed up continually to so strenuous a pitch. In Thoreau's\ncase, at all events, one is glad for every sign of a slackening of the\ntension. \"Set the red hen to-day;\" \"Got green grapes to stew;\" \"Painted\nthe bottom of my boat;\" trivialities like these, too far apart (one is\ntempted to colloquialize, and call them \"precious few,\" finding them so\ninfrequent and so welcome), strike the reader with a sudden sensation of\nrelief, as if he had been wading to the chin, and all at once his feet\nhad touched a shallow.\n\nSo, too, one is thankful to come upon a really amusing dissertation\nabout the tying of shoe-strings, or rather about their too easy untying;\na matter with which, it appears, Thoreau had for years experienced \"a\ngreat deal of trouble.\" His walking companion (Channing, presumably) and\nhimself had often compared notes about it, concluding after experiments\nthat the duration of a shoe-tie might be made to serve as a reasonably\naccurate unit of measure, as accurate, say, as a stadium or a league.\nChanning, indeed, would sometimes go without shoe-strings, rather than\nbe plagued so incessantly by their dissolute behavior. Finally Thoreau,\nbeing then thirty-six years old, and always exceptionally clever with\nhis hands, set his wits seriously at work upon knots, and by a stroke\nof good fortune (or a stroke of genius) hit upon one which answered\nhis end; only to be told, on communicating his discovery to a third\nparty, that he had all his life been tying \"granny knots,\" never having\nlearned, at school or elsewhere, the secret of a square one! It might be\nwell, he concludes, if all children were \"taught the accomplishment.\"\nVerily, as Hosea Biglow did not say, they didn't know everything down\nin Concord.\n\nMore refreshing still are entries describing hours of serene communion\nwith nature, hours in which, as in an instance already cited, the\nSpirit of the Lord blessed him, and he forgot even to be good. These\nentries, likewise, are less numerous than could be wished, though\nperhaps as frequent as could fairly be expected; since ecstasies, like\nfeasts, must in the nature of things be somewhat broadly spaced; and\nit is interesting, not to say surprising, to see how frankly he looks\nupon them afterward as subjects on which to try his pen. In these\n\"seasons when our genius reigns we may be powerless for expression,\" he\nremarks; but in calmer hours, when talent is again active, \"the memory\nof those rarer moods comes to color our picture, and is the permanent\npaint-pot, as it were, into which we dip our brush.\" But, in truth, the\nwhole journal, some volumes of which are carefully indexed in his own\nhand, is quite undisguisedly a collection of thoughts, feelings, and\nobservations, out of which copy is to be extracted. In it, he says,\n\"I wish to set down such choice experiences that my own writings may\ninspire me, and at last I may make wholes of parts.... Each thought that\nis welcomed and recorded is a nest-egg by the side of which more will\nbe laid.\"\n\nA born writer, he is \"greedy of occasions to express\" himself. He\ncounts it \"wise to write on many subjects, that so he may find the right\nand inspiring one.\" \"There are innumerable avenues to a perception of\nthe truth,\" he tells himself. \"Improve the suggestion of each object,\nhowever humble, however slight and transient the provocation. What else\nis there to be improved?\"\n\nThe literary diarist, like the husbandman, knows not which shall\nprosper. Morning and evening, he can only sow the seed. So it was with\nThoreau. \"A strange and unaccountable thing,\" he pronounces his journal.\n\"It will allow nothing to be predicated of it; its good is not good, nor\nits bad bad. If I make a huge effort to expose my innermost and richest\nwares to light, my counter seems cluttered with the meanest homemade\nstuffs; but after months or years I may discover the wealth of India,\nand whatever rarity is brought overland from Cathay, in that confused\nheap, and what seemed a festoon of dried apple or pumpkin will prove a\nstring of Brazilian diamonds, or pearls from Coromandel.\"\n\nWell, we make sure that whoever tumbles the heap over now, more than\nforty years after the last object was laid upon it, will be rewarded\nwith many and many a jewel. Here, for his encouragement, are half a\ndozen out of the goodly number that one customer has lately turned up,\nin a hasty rummaging of the counter:\u2014\n\n\"When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.\"\n\n\"We must be at the helm at least once a day; we must feel the tiller\nrope in our hands, and know that if we sail, we steer.\"\n\n\"In composition I miss the hue of the mind.\"\n\n\"After the era of youth is past, the knowledge of ourselves is an alloy\nthat spoils our satisfactions.\"\n\n\"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.\"\n\n\"Silence is of various depths and fertility, like soil.\"\n\n\"Praise should be spoken as simply and naturally as a flower emits its\nfragrance.\"\n\nHere, again, is a mere nothing, a momentary impression caught,\nin ball-players' language, on the fly; nothing like a pearl from\nCoromandel, if you will, but at the worst a toothsome bite out of\na wild New England apple. It is winter. \"I saw a team come out of a\npath in the woods,\" says Thoreau, \"as though it had never gone in, but\nbelonged there, and only came out like Elisha's bears.\" There will be\nfew country-bred Yankee boys, we imagine, who will not remember to\nhave experienced something precisely like that, under precisely the\nsame circumstances, though it never occurred to them to put the feeling\ninto words, much less to preserve it in a drop of ink. That is one of\nthe good things that a writer does for us. And our country-bred boy,\nif we mistake not, is likely to consider this one careless sentence\nof Thoreau, which adds not a cent's worth to the sum of what is\ncalled human knowledge, as of more value than any dozen pages of his\npainstaking botanical records.\n\nThoreau the naturalist appears in the journal, not as a master, but as\na learner. It could hardly be otherwise, of course, a journal being\nwhat it is. There we see him conning by himself his daily lesson,\ncorrecting yesterday by to-day, and to-day by to-morrow, progressing,\nlike every scholar, over the stepping-stones of his own mistakes. Of\nthe branches he pursued, as far as the present writer can presume to\njudge, he was strongest in botany; certainly it was to plants that\nhe most persistently devoted himself; but even there he had as many\nuncertainties as discoveries to set down; and he set them down with\nunflagging zeal and unrestrained particularity. The daily account\nis running over with question-marks. His patience was admirable; the\nmore so as he worked entirely by himself, with few of the helps that\nin this better-furnished time almost belie the old proverb, and make\neven the beginner's path a kind of royal road to learning. The day of\n\"How-to-Know\" handbooks had not yet dawned.\n\nOf his bird-studies it would be interesting, if there were room, to\nspeak at greater length. Here, even more than in botany, if that were\npossible, he suffered for lack of assistance, and even in his later\nentries leaves the present-day reader wondering how so eager a scholar\ncould have spent so many years in learning so comparatively little. The\nmystery is partly cleared, however, when it is found that until 1854\u2014say\nfor more than a dozen years\u2014he studied without a glass. He does not\nbuy things, he explains, with characteristic self-satisfaction, till\nlong after he begins to want them, so that when he does get them he is\n\"prepared to make a perfect use of them.\" It was wasteful economy. He\nmight as well have botanized without a pocket-lens.\n\nBut glass or no glass, how could an ornithological observer, whose\npower\u2014so Emerson said\u2014\"seemed to indicate additional senses,\" be in the\nfield daily for ten or fifteen years before setting eyes upon his first\nrose-breasted grosbeak?\u2014which memorable event happened to Thoreau on\nthe 13th of June, 1853! How could a man who had made it his business\nfor at least a dozen years to \"name all the birds without a gun,\" stand\nfor a long time within a few feet of a large bird, so busy that it\ncould not be scared far away, and then go home uncertain whether he had\nbeen looking at a woodcock or a snipe? How could he, when thirty-five\nyears old, see a flock of sparrows, and hear them sing, and not be\nsure whether or not they were chipping sparrows? And how could a man\nso strong in times and seasons, always marking dates with an almanac's\nexactness, how could he, so late as '52, inquire concerning the downy\nwoodpecker, one of the more familiar and constant of year-round birds,\n\"Do we see him in the winter?\" and again, a year later, be found asking\nwhether he, the same downy woodpecker, is not the first of our woodland\nbirds to arrive in the spring? At thirty-six he is amazed to the extent\nof double exclamation points by the sight of a flicker so early as March\n29.\n\nIt fills one with astonishment to hear him (May 4, 1853) describing\nwhat he takes to be an indigo-bird after this fashion: \"Dark throat\nand light beneath, and white spot on wings,\" with hoarse, rapid notes,\na kind of _twee, twee, twee,_ not musical. The stranger may have\nbeen\u2014most likely it was\u2014a black-throated blue warbler; which is as\nmuch like an indigo-bird as a bluebird is like a blue jay,\u2014or a yellow\napple like an orange. And the indigo-bird, it should be said, is a\ncommon New-Englander, such as one of our modern schoolboy bird-gazers\nwould have no difficulty in getting into his \"list\" any summer day in\nConcord; while the warbler in question, though nothing but a migrant,\nand somewhat seclusive in its habits, is so regular in its passage and\nso unmistakably marked (no bird more so), that it seems marvellous how\nThoreau, prowling about everywhere with his eyes open, should year after\nyear have missed it.\n\nThe truth appears to be that even of the commoner sorts of birds that\nbreed in eastern Massachusetts or migrate through it, Thoreau\u2014during\nthe greater part of his life, at least\u2014knew by sight and name only a\nsmall proportion, wonderful as his knowledge seemed to those who, like\nEmerson, knew practically nothing.[2]\n\nNot that the journal is likely to prove less interesting to bird-loving\nreaders on this account. On the contrary, it may rather be more so, as\nshowing them the means and methods of an ornithological amateur fifty\nyears ago, and, especially, as providing for them a desirable store of\nornithological nuts to crack on winter evenings. Some such reader, by\na careful collation of the data which the publication of the journal\nas a whole puts at his disposal, will perhaps succeed in settling the\nidentity of the famous \"night-warbler;\" a bird which some, we believe,\nhave suspected to be nothing rarer than the almost superabundant\noven-bird, but which, so far as we ourselves know, may have been almost\nany one (or any two or three) of our smaller common birds that are given\nto occasional ecstatic song-flights.[3] Whatever it was, it was of use\nto Thoreau for the quickening of his imagination, and for literary\npurposes; and Emerson was well advised in warning him to beware of\nbooking it, lest life henceforth should have so much the less to show\nhim.\n\nIt must be said, however, that Thoreau stood in slight need of such\na caution. He cherished for himself a pretty favorable opinion of\na certain kind and measure of ignorance. With regard to some of\nhis ornithological mysteries, for example,\u2014the night-warbler, the\nseringo-bird (which with something like certainty we may conjecture to\nhave been the savanna sparrow), and others,\u2014he flatters himself that his\ngood genius had withheld their names from him that he might the better\nlearn their character,\u2014whatever such an expression may be supposed to\nmean.\n\nHe maintained stoutly, from beginning to end, that he was not of the\nordinary school of naturalists, but \"a mystic, a transcendentalist,\nand a natural philosopher in one;\" though he believed himself, in his\nown words, \"by constitution as good an observer as most.\" He will not\nbe one of those who seek facts as facts, studying nature as a dead\nlanguage. He studies her for purposes of his own, in search of the \"raw\nmaterial of tropes and figures.\" \"I pray for such experience as will\nmake nature significant,\" he declares; and then, with the same penful of\nink, he asks: \"Is that the swamp gooseberry of Gray now just beginning\nto blossom at Saw-Mill Brook? It has a divided style and stamens,\netc., as yet not longer than the calyx, though my slip has no thorns\nnor prickles,\" and so on, and so on. Pages on pages of the journal\nare choke-full, literally, of this kind of botanical interrogation,\ntill the unsympathetic reader will be in danger of surmising that the\nmystical searcher after tropes and symbols is sometimes not so utterly\nunlike the student of the dead language of fact. But then, it is one\nof the virtues of a journal that it is not a work of art, that it has\nno form, no fashion (and so does not go out of fashion), and is always\nat liberty to contradict itself. As Thoreau said, he tumbled his goods\nupon the counter; no single customer is bound to be pleased with them\nall; different men, different tastes; let each select from the pile the\nthings that suit his fancy.\n\nFor our own part, we acknowledge,\u2014and the shrewd reader may already\nhave remarked the fact,\u2014we have not been disinclined to choose here and\nthere a bit of some less rare and costly stuff. The man is so sternly\nvirtuous, so inexorably in earnest, so heart-set upon perfection,\nthat we almost like him best when for a moment he betrays something\nthat suggests a touch of human frailty. We prick up our ears when he\nspeaks of a woman he once in a while goes to see, who tells him to\nhis face that she thinks him self-conceited. Now, then, we whisper\nto ourselves, how will this man who despises flattery, and, boasting\nhimself a \"commoner,\" professes that for him \"there is something\ndevilish in manners,\"\u2014how will this candor-loving, truth-speaking,\ntruth-appreciating man enjoy the rebuke of so unmannered a mentor? And\nwe smile and say Aha! when he adds that the lady wonders why he does\nnot visit her oftener.\n\nWe smile, too, when he brags, in early February, that he has not yet put\non his winter clothing, amusing himself the while over the muffs and\nfurs of his less hardy neighbors, his own \"simple diet\" making him so\ntough in the fibre that he \"flourishes like a tree;\" and then, a week\nlater, writes with unbroken equanimity that he is down with bronchitis,\ncontenting himself to spend his days cuddled in a warm corner by the\nstove.\n\nTrifles of this kind encourage a pleasant feeling of brotherly\nrelationship. He is one of us, after all, with like passions. But\nof course we really like him best when he is at his best,\u2014as in some\noutpouring of his love for things natural and wild. Let us have one\nmore such quotation: \"Now I yearn for one of those old, meandering, dry,\nuninhabited roads, which lead away from towns, which lead us away from\ntemptation, which conduct us to the outside of earth, over its uppermost\ncrust; where you may forget in what country you are travelling; where\nyour head is more in heaven than your feet are on earth; where you can\npace when your breast is full, and cherish your moodiness.... There I\ncan walk and recover the lost child that I am without any ringing of a\nbell.\"\n\nFor real warmth, when once the fire burns, who can exceed our stoic?\n\nWe like, also, his bits of prettiness, things in which he is second to\nnobody, though prettiness, again, is not supposed to be the stoic's\n\"note;\" and they are all the prettier, as well as ten times more\nwelcome, because he has the grace\u2014and the sound literary sense\u2014to drop\nthem here and there, as it were casually, upon a ground of simple,\nunaffected prose. Here, now, is a sentence that by itself is worth a\ndeal of ornithology: \"The song sparrow is heard in fields and pastures,\nsetting the midsummer day to music,\u2014as if it were the music of a mossy\nrail or fence-post.\" Of dragon-flies he says: \"How lavishly they are\npainted! How cheap was the paint! How free was the fancy of their\nCreator!\" In early June, when woods are putting forth leaves, \"the\nsummer is pitching its tent.\" He finds the dainty fringed polygala\n(whose ordinary color is a lovely rose-purple) sporting white blossoms,\nand remarks: \"Thus many flowers have their nun sisters, dressed in\nwhite.\" Soaring hawks are \"kites without strings;\" and when he and his\ncompanion are travelling across country, keeping out of the sight of\nhouses, yet compelled to traverse here and there a farmer's field, they\n\"shut every window with an apple tree.\"\n\nGems like these one need not be a connoisseur to appreciate, and they\nare common upon his counter. It was a good name that Channing gave him:\n\"The Poet-Naturalist.\"\n\nBut there are better things than flowers and jewels to be found in\nThoreau's stock. There are cordials and tonics there, to brace a man\nwhen he is weary; eye-washes, to cleanse his vision till he sees the\nheights above him and repents the lowness of his aims and the vulgarity\nof his satisfactions; blisters and irritant plasters in large variety\nand of warranted strength; but little or nothing, so far as the present\ncustomer has noticed, in the line of anodynes and sleeping-powders.\nThere we may buy moral wisdom, which is not only the \"foundation and\nsource of good writing,\" as one of the ancients said, but of the arts in\ngeneral, especially the art of life. If the world is too much with us,\nif wealth attracts and the \"rust of copper\" has begun to eat into the\nsoul, if we are in danger of selling our years for things that perish\nwith the using, here we may find correctives, and go away thankful,\nrejoicing henceforth to be rich in a better coinage than any that bears\nthe world's stamp. The very exaggerations of the master\u2014if we call them\nsuch\u2014may do us good like a medicine; for there are diseased conditions\nwhich yield to nothing so quickly as to a shock.\n\nAs for Thoreau himself, life might have been smoother for him had he\nbeen less exacting in his idealism, more tolerant of imperfection in\nothers and in himself; had he taken his studies, and even his spiritual\naspirations, a grain or two less seriously. A bit of boyish play now\nand then, the bow quite unbent, or a dose of novel-reading of the\nlove-making, humanizing (Trollopean) sort, could one imagine it, with\na more temperate cherishing of his moodiness, might have done him no\nharm. It would have been for his comfort, so much may confidently be\nsaid, whether for his happiness is another question, had he been one\nof those gentler humorists who can sometimes see themselves, as all\nhumorists have the gift of seeing other people, funny side out. But\nthen, had these things been so, had his natural scope been wider, his\ngenius, so to say, more tropical, richer, freer, more expansive, more\nvarious and flexible, more like the spreading banyan and less like the\nsoaring, sky-pointing spruce,\u2014why, then he would no longer have been\nThoreau; for better or worse, his speech would have lost its distinctive\ntang; and in the long run the world, which likes a touch of bitter and\na touch of sour, would almost certainly have found the man himself less\ninteresting, and his books less rememberable. And made as he was, \"born\nto his own affairs,\" what else could he do but stick to himself? \"We\nare constantly invited to be what we are,\" he said. The words might\nfittingly have been cut upon his gravestone.\n\n                                                                  B. T.\n\n\n\n\n     HENRY D. THOREAU\n\n     GLEANINGS\n     OR WHAT TIME\n     HAS NOT REAPED\n     OF MY\n     JOURNAL\n\n\n\n\n[The small manuscript volume bearing on its first fly-leaf the legend\nprinted on the preceding page is evidently a transcript of unused\npassages in the early journals, and this is also the case with several\nsucceeding small volumes. See note on page 342. The following mottoes\noccupy the next three pages of the book.]\n\n     \"By all means use sometimes to be alone.\n     Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.\n     Dare to look in thy chest; for 'tis thine own:\n     And tumble up and down what thou find'st there.\n       Who cannot rest till he good fellows find,\n       He breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind.\"\n\n                            HERBERT, _The Church Porch_.\n\n     \"Friends and companions, get you gone!\n     'Tis my desire to be alone;\n     Ne'er well, but when my thoughts and I\n     _Do domineer in privacy_.\"\n\n            BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_.\n\n     \"Two Paradises are in one,\n     To live in Paradise alone.\"\n\n           MARVELL, _The Garden_.\n\n  [Illustration: _Henry David Thoreau in 1854, from the Rowse Crayon in\n   the Concord Public Library_]\n\n\n\n\nTHE JOURNAL OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n1837\n\n(\u00c6T. 20)\n\n\n_Oct 22._ \"What are you doing now?\" he asked. \"Do you keep a journal?\"\nSo I make my first entry to-day.\n\n\nSOLITUDE\n\nTo be alone I find it necessary to escape the present,\u2014I avoid myself.\nHow could I be alone in the Roman emperor's chamber of mirrors? I seek\na garret. The spiders must not be disturbed, nor the floor swept, nor\nthe lumber arranged.\n\nThe Germans say, \"Es ist alles wahr wodurch du besser wirst.\"\n\n\nTHE MOULD OUR DEEDS LEAVE\n\n_Oct. 24._ Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one\nlife is the making room for another. The oak dies down to the ground,\nleaving within its rind a rich virgin mould, which will impart a\nvigorous life to an infant forest. The pine leaves a sandy and sterile\nsoil, the harder woods a strong and fruitful mould.\n\nSo this constant abrasion and decay makes the soil of my future growth.\nAs I live now so shall I reap. If I grow pines and birches, my virgin\nmould will not sustain the oak; but pines and birches, or, perchance,\nweeds and brambles, will constitute my second growth.[4]\n\n\nSPRING\n\n_Oct 25._ She appears, and we are once more children; we commence again\nour course with the new year. Let the maiden no more return, and men\nwill become poets for very grief. No sooner has winter left us time\nto regret her smiles, than we yield to the advances of poetic frenzy.\n\"The flowers look kindly at us from the beds with their child eyes,\nand in the horizon the snow of the far mountains dissolves into light\nvapor.\"\u2014GOETHE, _Torquato Tasso_.\n\n\nTHE POET\n\n     \"He seems to avoid\u2014even to flee from us,\u2014\n     To seek something which we know not,\n     And perhaps he himself after all knows not.\"\u2014_Ibid._\n\n\n_Oct 26._\n\n     \"His eye hardly rests upon the earth;\n     His ear hears the one-clang of nature;\n     What history records,\u2014what life gives,\u2014\n     Directly and gladly his genius takes it up:\n     His mind collects the widely dispersed,\n     And his feeling animates the inanimate.\n     Often he ennobles what appeared to us common,\n     And the prized is as nothing to him.\n     In his own magic circle wanders\n     The wonderful man, and draws us\n     With him to wander, and take part in it:\n     He seems to draw near to us, and remains afar from us:\n     He seems to be looking at us, and spirits, forsooth,\n     Appear to him strangely in our places.\"\u2014_Ibid._\n\n\nHOW MAN GROWS\n\n\"A noble man has not to thank a private circle for his culture.\nFatherland and world must work upon him. Fame and infamy must he learn\nto endure. He will be constrained to know himself and others. Solitude\nshall no more lull him with her flattery. The foe _will_ not, the\nfriend _dares_ not, spare him. Then, striving, the youth puts forth his\nstrength, feels what he is, and feels himself soon a man.\"\n\n     \"A talent is builded in solitude,\n     A character in the stream of the world.\"\n\n\"He only fears man who knows him not, and he who avoids him will soonest\nmisapprehend him.\"\u2014_Ibid._\n\n\nARIOSTO\n\n\"As nature decks her inward rich breast in a green variegated dress,\nso clothes he all that can make men honorable in the blooming garb of\nthe fable.... The well of superfluity bubbles near, and lets us see\nvariegated wonder-fishes. The air is filled with rare birds, the meads\nand copses with strange herds, wit lurks half concealed in the verdure,\nand wisdom from time to time lets sound from a golden cloud sustained\nwords, while frenzy wildly seems to sweep the well-toned lute, yet holds\nitself measured in perfect time.\"\n\n\nBEAUTY\n\n\"That beauty is transitory which alone you seem to honor.\"\u2014GOETHE,\n_Torquato Tasso_.\n\n\nTHE FOG\n\n_Oct. 27._ The prospect is limited to Nobscot and Annursnack. The trees\nstand with boughs downcast like pilgrims beaten by a storm, and the\nwhole landscape wears a sombre aspect.\n\nSo when thick vapors cloud the soul, it strives in vain to escape from\nits humble working-day valley, and pierce the dense fog which shuts out\nfrom view the blue peaks in its horizon, but must be content to scan\nits near and homely hills.\n\n\nDUCKS AT GOOSE POND\n\n_Oct 29._ Two ducks, of the summer or wood species, which were merrily\ndabbling in their favorite basin, struck up a retreat on my approach,\nand seemed disposed to take French leave, paddling off with swan-like\nmajesty. They are first-rate swimmers, beating me at a round pace,\nand\u2014what was to me a new trait in the duck character\u2014dove every\nminute or two and swam several feet under water, in order to escape\nour attention. Just before immersion they seemed to give each other\na significant nod, and then, as if by a common understanding, 'twas\nheels up and head down in the shaking of a duck's wing. When they\nreappeared, it was amusing to observe with what a self-satisfied,\ndarn-it-how-he-nicks-'em air they paddled off to repeat the experiment.\n\n\nTHE ARROWHEAD\n\nA curious incident happened some four or six weeks ago which I think\nit worth the while to record. John and I had been searching for Indian\nrelics, and been successful enough to find two arrowheads and a pestle,\nwhen, of a Sunday evening, with our heads full of the past and its\nremains, we strolled to the mouth of Swamp Bridge Brook. As we neared\nthe brow of the hill forming the bank of the river, inspired by my\ntheme, I broke forth into an extravagant eulogy on those savage times,\nusing most violent gesticulations by way of illustration. \"There on\nNawshawtuct,\" said I, \"was their lodge, the rendezvous of the tribe, and\nyonder, on Clamshell Hill, their feasting ground. This was, no doubt,\na favorite haunt; here on this brow was an eligible lookout post. How\noften have they stood on this very spot, at this very hour, when the\nsun was sinking behind yonder woods and gilding with his last rays\nthe waters of the Musketaquid, and pondered the day's success and the\nmorrow's prospects, or communed with the spirit of their fathers gone\nbefore them to the land of shades!\n\n\"Here,\" I exclaimed, \"stood Tahatawan; and there\" (to complete the\nperiod) \"is Tahatawan's arrowhead.\"\n\nWe instantly proceeded to sit down on the spot I had pointed to, and I,\nto carry out the joke, to lay bare an ordinary stone which my whim had\nselected, when lo! the first I laid hands on, the grubbing stone that\nwas to be, proved a most perfect arrowhead, as sharp as if just from\nthe hands of the Indian fabricator!!!\n\n\nSUNRISE\n\n_Oct. 30._ First we have the gray twilight of the poets, with dark and\nbarry clouds diverging to the zenith. Then glows the intruding cloud in\nthe east, as if it bore a precious jewel in its bosom; a deep round gulf\nof golden gray indenting its upper edge, while slender rules of fleecy\nvapor, radiating from the common centre, like light-armed troops, fall\nregularly into their places.\n\n\nSAILING WITH AND AGAINST THE STREAM\n\n_Nov. 3._ If one would reflect, let him embark on some placid stream,\nand float with the current. He cannot resist the Muse. As we ascend the\nstream, plying the paddle with might and main, snatched and impetuous\nthoughts course through the brain. We dream of conflict, power, and\ngrandeur. But turn the prow down stream, and rock, tree, kine, knoll,\nassuming new and varying positions, as wind and water shift the scene,\nfavor the liquid lapse of thought, far-reaching and sublime, but ever\ncalm and gently undulating.\n\n\nTRUTH\n\n_Nov. 5._ Truth strikes us from behind, and in the dark, as well as from\nbefore and in broad daylight.\n\n\nSTILL STREAMS RUN DEEPEST\n\n_Nov. 9._ It is the rill whose \"silver sands and pebbles sing eternal\nditties with the spring.\" The early frosts bridge its narrow channel,\nand its querulous note is hushed. Only the flickering sunlight on its\nsandy bottom attracts the beholder. But there are souls whose depths\nare never fathomed,\u2014on whose bottom the sun never shines. We get a\ndistant view from the precipitous banks, but never a draught from their\nmid-channels. Only a sunken rock or fallen oak can provoke a murmur,\nand their surface is a stranger to the icy fetters which bind fast a\nthousand contributory rills.[5]\n\n\nDISCIPLINE\n\n_Nov. 12._ I yet lack discernment to distinguish the whole lesson of\nto-day; but it is not lost,\u2014it will come to me at last. My desire is to\nknow _what_ I have lived, that I may know _how_ to live henceforth.\n\n\nSIN DESTROYS THE PERCEPTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL\n\n_Nov. 13._ This shall be the test of innocence\u2014if I can hear a taunt,\nand look out on this friendly moon, pacing the heavens in queen-like\nmajesty, with the accustomed yearning.\n\n\nTRUTH\n\nTruth is ever returning into herself. I glimpse one feature to-day,\nanother to-morrow; and the next day they are blended.\n\n\nGOETHE\n\n_Nov. 15._ \"And now that it is evening, a few clouds in the mild\natmosphere rest upon the mountains, more stand still than move in the\nheavens, and immediately after sunset the chirping of crickets begins to\nincrease; then feels one once more at home in the world, and not as an\nalien,\u2014an exile. I am contented as though I had been born and brought\nup here, and now returned from a Greenland or whaling voyage. Even the\ndust of my Fatherland, as it is whirled about the wagon, which for so\nlong a time I had not seen, is welcome. The clock-and-bell jingling\nof the crickets is very agreeable, penetrating, and not without a\nmeaning. Pleasant is it when roguish boys whistle in emulation of a\nfield of such songstresses. One imagines that they really enhance each\nother. The evening is perfectly mild as the day. Should an inhabitant\nof the south, coming from the south, hear of my rapture, he would deem\nme very childish. Alas! what I here express have I long felt under an\nunpropitious heaven. And now this joy is to me an exception, which I am\nhenceforth to enjoy,\u2014a necessity of my nature.\"\u2014_Itali\u00e4nische Reise._[6]\n\n\nPONKAWTASSETT\n\n_Nov. 16._ There goes the river, or rather is, \"in serpent error\nwandering,\" the jugular vein of Musketaquid. Who knows how much of\nthe proverbial moderation of the inhabitants was caught from its dull\ncirculation?\n\nThe snow gives the landscape a washing-day appearance,\u2014here a streak\nof white, there a streak of dark; it is spread like a napkin over the\nhills and meadows. This must be a rare drying day, to judge from the\nvapor that floats over the vast clothes-yard.\n\nA hundred guns are firing and a flag flying in the village in\ncelebration of the whig victory. Now a short dull report,\u2014the mere disk\nof a sound, shorn of its beams,\u2014and then a puff of smoke rises in the\nhorizon to join its misty relatives in the skies.\n\n\nGOETHE\n\nHe gives such a glowing description of the old tower, that they who\nhad been born and brought up in the neighborhood must needs look over\ntheir shoulders, \"that they might behold with their eyes, what I had\npraised to their ears, ... and I added nothing, not even the ivy which\nfor centuries had decorated the walls.\"\u2014_Itali\u00e4nische Reise._[7]\n\n\nSUNRISE\n\n_Nov. 17._ Now the king of day plays at bo-peep round the world's\ncorner, and every cottage window smiles a golden smile,\u2014a very picture\nof glee. I see the water glistening in the eye. The smothered breathings\nof awakening day strike the ear with an undulating motion; over hill\nand dale, pasture and woodland, come they to me, and I am at home in\nthe world.\n\n\nTHE SKY\n\nIf there is nothing new on earth, still there is something new in the\nheavens. We have always a resource in the skies. They are constantly\nturning a new page to view. The wind sets the types in this blue ground,\nand the inquiring may always read a new truth.[8]\n\n\nVIRGIL\n\n_Nov. 18._ \"Pulsae referunt ad sidera valles\"[9] is such a line as would\nsave an epic; and how finely he concludes his \"agrestem musam,\" now that\nSilenus has done, and the stars have heard his story,\u2014\n\n     \"Cogere donec oves stabulis, numerumque referre\n     Jussit, et invito processit Vesper Olympo.\"\n\n\nHARMONY\n\nNature makes no noise. The howling storm, the rustling leaf, the\npattering rain are no disturbance, there is an essential and unexplored\nharmony in them. Why is it that thought flows with so deep and sparkling\na current when the sound of distant music strikes the ear? When I\nwould muse I complain not of a rattling tune on the piano\u2014a Battle of\nPrague even\u2014if it be harmony, but an irregular, discordant drumming is\nintolerable.\n\n\nSHADOWS\n\nWhen a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul, where is the\nsubstance? Has it always its origin in sin? and is that sin in me?\n\n\nVIRGIL\n\n_Nov. 20._ I would read Virgil, if only that I might be reminded of the\nidentity of human nature in all ages. I take satisfaction in \"jam laeto\nturgent in palmite gemmae,\" or \"Strata jacent passim sua quaeque sub\narbore poma.\" It was the same world, and the same men inhabited it.[10]\n\n\nNAWSHAWTUCT\n\n_Nov. 21._ One must needs climb a hill to know what a world he inhabits.\nIn the midst of this Indian summer I am perched on the topmost rock of\nNawshawtuct, a velvet wind blowing from the southwest. I seem to feel\nthe atoms as they strike my cheek. Hills, mountains, steeples stand out\nin bold relief in the horizon, while I am resting on the rounded boss\nof an enormous shield, the river like a vein of silver encircling its\nedge, and thence the shield gradually rises to its rim, the horizon.\nNot a cloud is to be seen, but villages, villas, forests, mountains,\none above another, till they are swallowed up in the heavens.[11] The\natmosphere is such that, as I look abroad upon the length and breadth\nof the land, it recedes from my eye, and I seem to be looking for the\nthreads of the velvet.\n\nThus I admire the grandeur of my emerald carriage, with its border of\nblue, in which I am rolling through space.\n\n\nTHOUGHTS\n\n_Nov. 26._ I look around for thoughts when I am overflowing myself.\nWhile I live on, thought is still in embryo,\u2014it stirs not within me.\nAnon it begins to assume shape and comeliness, and I deliver it, and\nclothe it in its garment of language. But alas! how often when thoughts\nchoke me do I resort to a spat on the back, or swallow a crust, or do\nanything but expectorate them!\n\n\nHOAR FROST AND GREEN RIVER\n\n_Nov. 28._ Every tree, fence, and spire of grass that could raise its\nhead above the snow was this morning covered with a dense hoar frost.\nThe trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping. On\nthis side they were huddled together, their gray hairs streaming, in a\nsecluded valley which the sun had not yet penetrated, and on that they\nwent hurrying off in Indian file by hedgerows and watercourses, while\nthe shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to\nhide their diminished heads in the snow.\n\nThe branches and taller grasses were covered with a wonderful\nice-foliage, answering leaf for leaf to their summer dress. The centre,\ndiverging, and even more minute fibres were perfectly distinct and the\nedges regularly indented.\n\nThese leaves were on the side of the twig or stubble opposite to the sun\n(when it was not bent toward the east), meeting it for the most part at\nright angles, and there were others standing out at all possible angles\nupon these, and upon one another.\n\nIt struck me that these ghost leaves and the green ones whose forms they\nassume were the creatures of the same law. It could not be in obedience\nto two several laws that the vegetable juices swelled gradually into the\nperfect leaf on the one hand, and the crystalline particles trooped to\ntheir standard in the same admirable order on the other.\n\nThe river, viewed from the bank above, appeared of a yellowish-green\ncolor, but on a nearer approach this phenomenon vanished; and yet the\nlandscape was covered with snow.[12]\n\n\nICE-HARP\n\n_Dec. 5._ My friend tells me he has discovered a new note in nature,\nwhich he calls the Ice-Harp. Chancing to throw a handful of pebbles upon\nthe pond where there was an air chamber under the ice, it discoursed a\npleasant music to him.\n\nHerein resides a tenth muse, and as he was the man to discover it\nprobably the extra melody is in him.\n\n\nGOETHE\n\n_Dec. 8._ He is generally satisfied with giving an exact description\nof objects as they appear to him, and his genius is exhibited in the\npoints he seizes upon and illustrates. His description of Venice and\nher environs as seen from the Marcusthurm is that of an unconcerned\nspectator, whose object is faithfully to describe what he sees, and\nthat, too, for the most part, in the order in which he saw it. It\nis this trait which is chiefly to be prized in the book; even the\nreflections of the author do not interfere with his descriptions.\n\nIt would thus be possible for inferior minds to produce invaluable\nbooks.[13]\n\n\nMEASURE\n\n_Dec. 10._ Not the carpenter alone carries his rule in his pocket.\nSpace is quite subdued to us. The meanest peasant finds in a hair of\nhis head, or the white crescent upon his nail, the unit of measure for\nthe distance of the fixed stars. His middle finger measures how many\n_digits_ into space; he extends a few times his thumb and finger, and\nthe continent is _spanned_; he stretches out his arms, and the sea is\n_fathomed_.\n\n\nTHOUGHT\n\n_Dec. 12._ There are times when thought elbows her way through the\nunderwood of words to the clear blue beyond;\n\n     \"O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,\n     With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues _her_ way,\n     And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies;...\"\n\nbut let her don her cumbersome working-day garment, and each sparkling\ndewdrop will seem a \"slough of despond.\"\n\n\nPECULIARITY\n\nWhen we speak of a peculiarity in a man or a nation, we think to\ndescribe only one part, a mere mathematical point; but it is not so. It\npervades all. Some parts may be further removed than others from this\ncentre, but not a particle so remote as not to be either shined on or\nshaded by it.\n\n\nTHORNS\n\nNo faculty in man was created with a useless or sinister intent; in no\nrespect can he be wholly bad, but the worst passions have their root\nin the best,\u2014as anger, for instance, may be only a perverted sense of\nwrong which yet retains some traces of its origin.[14] So a spine is\nproved to be only an abortive branch, \"which, notwithstanding, even as\na spine, bears leaves, and, in _Euphorbia heptagona_, sometimes flowers\nand fruit.\"\n\n\nJACK FROST\n\n_Dec. 15._ As further confirmation of the fact that vegetation is a kind\nof crystallization, I observe that upon the edge of the melting frost\non the windows, Jack is playing singular freaks,\u2014now bundling together\nhis needle-shaped leaves so as to resemble fields waving with grain, or\nshocks of wheat rising here and there from the stubble. On one side the\nvegetation of the torrid zone is presented you,\u2014high-towering palms,\nand widespread banyans, such as we see in pictures of Oriental scenery;\non the other are arctic pines, stiff-frozen, with branches downcast,\nlike the arms of tender men in frosty weather.[15] In some instances\nthe panes are covered with little feathery flocks, where the particles\nradiate from a common centre, the number of radii varying from three\nto seven or eight. The crystalline particles are partial to the creases\nand flaws in the glass, and, when these extend from sash to sash, form\ncomplete hedgerows, or miniature watercourses, where dense masses of\ncrystal foliage \"high over-arched imbower.\"\n\n\nFROZEN MIST\n\n_Dec. 16._ The woods were this morning covered with thin bars of\nvapor,\u2014the evaporation of the leaves according to Sprengel,\u2014which\nseemed to have been suddenly stiffened by the cold. In some places it\nwas spread out like gauze over the tops of the trees, forming extended\nlawns, where elves and fairies held high tournament;\n\n                               \"before each van\n     Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears,\n     Till thickest legions close.\"[16]\n\nThe east was glowing with a narrow but ill-defined crescent of light,\nthe blue of the zenith mingling in all possible proportions with the\nsalmon-color of the horizon. And now the neighboring hilltops telegraph\nto us poor crawlers of the plain the Monarch's golden ensign in the\neast, and anon his \"long levelled rules\" fall sector-wise, and humblest\ncottage windows greet their lord.\n\n\nFACTS\n\nHow indispensable to a correct study of Nature is a perception of her\ntrue meaning. The fact will one day flower out into a truth. The season\nwill mature and fructify what the understanding had cultivated. Mere\naccumulators of facts\u2014collectors of materials for the master-workmen\u2014are\nlike those plants growing in dark forests, which \"put forth only leaves\ninstead of blossoms.\"\n\n\nDRUIDS\n\n_Dec. 17._ In all ages and nations we observe a leaning towards a right\nstate of things. This may especially be seen in the history of the\npriest, whose life approaches most nearly to that of the ideal man. The\nDruids paid no taxes, and \"were allowed exemption from warfare and all\nother things.\" The clergy are even now a privileged class.\n\nIn the last stage of civilization Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy will\nbe one; and this truth is glimpsed in the first. The druidical order was\ndivided into Druids, Bards, and Ouates. \"The Bards were the poets and\nmusicians, of whom some were satirists, and some encomiasts. The Ouates\nsacrificed, divined, and contemplated the nature of things. The Druids\ncultivated physiology and moral philosophy; or, as Diodorus says, were\ntheir philosophers and theologians.\"\n\n\nGOETHE\n\n_Dec. 18._ He required that his heroine, Iphigenia, should say nothing\nwhich might not be uttered by the holy Agathe, whose picture he\ncontemplated.\n\n\nIMMORTALITY POST\n\nThe nations assert an immortality _post_ as well as _ante_. The\nAthenians wore a golden grasshopper as an emblem that they sprang from\nthe earth, and the Arcadians pretended that they were \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, or\nbefore the moon.\n\nThe Platos do not seem to have considered this back-reaching tendency\nof the human mind.\n\n\nTHE PRIDE OF ANCESTRY\n\nMen are pleased to be called the sons of their fathers,\u2014so little truth\nsuffices them,\u2014and whoever addresses them by this or a similar title is\ntermed a poet. The orator appeals to the sons of Greece, of Britannia,\nof France, or of Poland; and our fathers' homely name acquires some\ninterest from the fact that Sakai-suna means sons-of-the-Sakai.[17]\n\n\nHELL\n\n_Dec. 19._ Hell itself may be contained within the compass of a spark.\n\n\nSAXONS\n\nThe fact seems at first an anomalous one that the less a people have\nto contend for the more tenacious they are of their rights. The Saxons\nof Ditmarsia contended for a principle, not for their sterile sands and\nuncultivated marshes.\n\nWe are on the whole the same Saxons that our fathers were, when it was\nsaid of them, \"They are emulous in hospitality, because to plunder and\nto lavish is the glory of an Holsatian; not to be versed in the science\nof depredation is, in his opinion, to be stupid and base.\"\n\nThe French are the same Franks of whom it is written, \"Francis familiare\nest ridendo fidem frangere;\" \"Gens Francorum infidelis est. Si perjeret\nFrancus quid novi faciet, qui perjuriam ipsam sermonis genus putat esse\nnon criminis.\"\n\n\nCRYSTALS\n\nI observed this morning that the ice at Swamp Bridge was checkered with\na kind of mosaic-work of white creases or channels; and when I examined\nthe under side, I found it to be covered with a mass of crystallizations\nfrom three to five inches deep, standing, or rather depending, at right\nangles to the true ice, which was about an eighth of an inch thick.\nThere was a yet older ice six or eight inches below this. The crystals\nwere for the most part triangular prisms with the lower end open,\nthough, in some cases, they had run into each other so as to form four\nor five sided prisms. When the ice was laid upon its smooth side, they\nresembled the roofs and steeples of a Gothic city, or the vessels of a\ncrowded haven under a press of canvas.\n\nI noticed also that where the ice in the road had melted and left\nthe mud bare, the latter, as if crystallized, discovered countless\nrectilinear fissures, an inch or more in length\u2014a continuation, as it\nwere, of the checkered ice.[18]\n\n\n_Dec. 22._ About a year ago, having set aside a bowl which had contained\nsome rhubarb grated in water, without wiping it, I was astonished to\nfind, a few days afterward, that the rhubarb had crystallized, covering\nthe bottom of the bowl with perfect cubes, of the color and consistency\nof glue, and a tenth of an inch in diameter.\n\n\nCRYSTALS\n\n_Dec. 23._ Crossed the river to-day on the ice. Though the weather is\nraw and wintry and the ground covered with snow, I noticed a solitary\nrobin, who looked as if he needed to have his services to the Babes in\nthe Woods speedily requited.\n\nIn the side of the high bank by the Leaning Hemlocks, there were some\ncurious crystallizations. Wherever the water, or other causes, had\nformed a hole in the bank, its throat and outer edge, like the entrance\nto a citadel of the olden time, bristled with a glistening ice armor.\nIn one place you might see minute ostrich feathers, which seemed the\nwaving plumes of the warriors filing into the fortress, in another the\nglancing fan-shaped banners of the Lilliputian host, and in another the\nneedle-shaped particles, collected into bundles resembling the plumes\nof the pine, might pass for a phalanx of spears.[19] The whole hill\nwas like an immense quartz rock, with minute crystals sparkling from\ninnumerable crannies. I tried to fancy that there was a disposition in\nthese crystallizations to take the forms of the contiguous foliage.\n\n\nREVOLUTIONS\n\n_Dec. 27._ Revolutions are never sudden. Not one man, nor many men, in a\nfew years or generations, suffice to regulate events and dispose mankind\nfor the revolutionary movement. The hero is but the crowning stone\nof the pyramid,\u2014the keystone of the arch. Who was Romulus or Remus,\nHengist or Horsa, that we should attribute to them Rome or England?\nThey are famous or infamous because the progress of events has chosen\nto make them its stepping-stones. But we would know where the avalanche\ncommenced, or the hollow in the rock whence springs the Amazon. The most\nimportant is apt to be some silent and unobtrusive fact in history. In\n449 three Saxon cyules arrived on the British coast,\u2014\"Three scipen gode\ncomen mid than flode, three hundred cnihten.\"[20] The pirate of the\nBritish coast was no more the founder of a state than the scourge of\nthe German shore.\n\n\nHEROES\n\nThe real heroes of minstrelsy have been ideal, even when the names of\nactual heroes have been perpetuated. The real Arthur, who \"not only\nexcelled the experienced past, but also the possible future,\" of whom it\nwas affirmed for many centuries that he was not dead, but \"had withdrawn\nfrom the world into some magical region; from which at a future crisis\nhe was to reappear, and lead the Cymri in triumph through the island,\"\nwhose character and actions were the theme of the bards of Bretagne\nand the foundation of their interminable romances, was only an ideal\nimpersonation.\n\n  [Illustration: _Frost Crystals_]\n\nMen claim for the ideal an actual existence also, but do not often\nexpand the actual into the ideal. \"If you do not believe me, go into\nBretagne, and mention in the streets or villages, that Arthur is really\ndead like other men; you will not escape with impunity; you will be\neither hooted with the curses of your hearers, or stoned to death.\"\n\n\nHOMESICKNESS\n\nThe most remarkable instance of homesickness is that of the colony of\nFranks transplanted by the Romans from the German Ocean to the Euxine,\nwho at length resolving to a man to abandon the country, seized the\nvessels which carried them out, and reached at last their native shores,\nafter innumerable difficulties and dangers upon the Mediterranean and\nAtlantic.\n\n\nTHE INTERESTING FACTS IN HISTORY\n\nHow cheering is it, after toiling through the darker pages of\nhistory,\u2014the heartless and fluctuating crust of human rest and\nunrest,\u2014to alight on the solid earth where the sun shines, or rest\nin the checkered shade. The fact that Edwin of Northumbria \"caused\nstakes to be fixed in the highways where he had seen a clear spring,\"\nand that \"brazen dishes were chained to them, to refresh the weary\nsojourner, whose fatigues Edwin had himself experienced,\" is worth all\nArthur's twelve battles.[21] The sun again shines along the highway, the\nlandscape presents us sunny glades and occasional cultivated patches as\nwell as dark primeval forests, and it is merry England after all.\n\n\n_Dec. 31._ As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the\nleast particle of truth colors our whole life. It is never isolated, or\nsimply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made,\nwe unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before. We go picking\nup from year to year and laying side by side the _disjecta membra_ of\ntruth, as he who picked up one by one a row of a hundred stones, and\nreturned with each separately to his basket.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n1838\n\n(\u00c6T. 20-21)\n\n\nHEAVEN ON EARTH\n\n_Jan. 6._ As a child looks forward to the coming of the summer, so\ncould we contemplate with quiet joy the circle of the seasons returning\nwithout fail eternally. As the spring came round during so many years\nof the gods, we could go out to admire and adorn anew our Eden, and yet\nnever tire.\n\n\nSAXONS\n\n_Jan. 15._ After all that has been said in praise of the Saxon race, we\nmust allow that our blue-eyed and fair-haired ancestors were originally\nan ungodly and reckless crew.\n\n\nWE MAKE OUR OWN FORTUNE\n\n_Jan. 16._ Man is like a cork which no tempest can sink, but it will\nfloat securely to its haven at last. The world is never the less\nbeautiful though viewed through a chink or knot-hole.\n\n\n_Jan. 21._ Man is the artificer of his own happiness. Let him beware\nhow he complains of the disposition of circumstances, for it is his own\ndisposition he blames. If this is sour, or that rough, or the other\nsteep, let him think if it be not his work. If his look curdles all\nhearts, let him not complain of a sour reception; if he hobble in his\ngait, let him not grumble at the roughness of the way; if he is weak\nin the knees, let him not call the hill steep. This was the pith of the\ninscription on the wall of the Swedish inn: \"You will find at Trolhate\nexcellent bread, meat, and wine, provided you bring them with you!\"[22]\n\n\nHOAR FROST\n\nEvery leaf and twig was this morning covered with a sparkling ice\narmor; even the grasses in exposed fields were hung with innumerable\ndiamond pendants, which jingled merrily when brushed by the foot of\nthe traveller. It was literally the wreck of jewels and the crash of\ngems. It was as though some superincumbent stratum of the earth had been\nremoved in the night, exposing to light a bed of untarnished crystals.\nThe scene changed at every step, or as the head was inclined to the\nright or the left. There were the opal and sapphire and emerald and\njasper and beryl and topaz and ruby.[23]\n\nSuch is beauty ever,\u2014neither here nor there, now nor then,\u2014neither in\nRome nor in Athens, but wherever there is a soul to admire. If I seek\nher elsewhere because I do not find her at home, my search will prove\na fruitless one.\n\n\nZENO\n\n_Feb. 7._ Zeno, the Stoic, stood in precisely the same relation to\nthe world that I do now. He is, forsooth, bred a merchant\u2014as how many\nstill!\u2014and can trade and barter, and perchance higgle, and moreover he\ncan be shipwrecked and cast ashore at the Pir\u00e6us, like one of your Johns\nor Thomases.\n\nHe strolls into a shop and is charmed by a book by Xenophon\u2014and\nstraightway he becomes a philosopher. The sun of a new life's day rises\nto him,\u2014serene and unclouded,\u2014which looks over \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03ac. And still the\nfleshly Zeno sails on, shipwrecked, buffeted, tempest-tossed; but the\ntrue Zeno sails ever a placid sea. Play high, play low,\u2014rain, sleet,\nor snow,\u2014it's all the same with the Stoic. \"Propriety and decorum\" were\nhis Palinurus,\u2014not the base progeny of fashion, but the suggestions of\nan experienced taste.\n\nWhen evening comes he sits down unwearied to the review of his\nday,\u2014what's done that's to be undone,\u2014what not done at all still\nto be done. Himself Truth's unconcerned helpmate. Another system of\nbook-keeping this than that the Cyprian trader to Ph\u0153nicia practiced!\n\nThis was he who said to a certain garrulous young man, \"On this account\nhave we two ears and but one mouth, that we may hear more, and speak\nless.\"\n\nThat he had talked concerned not our philosopher, but his audience;\nand herein we may see how it is more noble to hear than to speak. The\nwisest may apologize that he only said so to hear himself talk, for if\nhe _heard_ not, as well for him had he never spoken. What is all this\ngabble to the _gabbler_? Only the silent reap the profit of it.\n\n\nSOCIETY\n\n_Feb. 9._ It is wholesome advice,\u2014\"to be a man amongst folks.\" Go into\nsociety if you will, or if you are unwilling, and take a human interest\nin its affairs. If you mistake these Messieurs and Mesdames for so many\nmen and women, it is but erring on the safe side,\u2014or, rather, it is\ntheir error and not yours. Armed with a manly sincerity, you shall not\nbe trifled with, but drive this business of life. It matters not how\nmany men are to be addressed,\u2014rebuked,\u2014provided one man rebuke them.\n\n\nSMALL TALK\n\nTo manage the small talk of a party is to make an effort to do what was\nat first done, admirably because naturally, at your fireside.\n\n\nINFLUENCE\n\n_Feb. 13._ It is hard to subject ourselves to an influence. It must\nsteal upon us when we expect it not, and its work be all done ere we\nare aware of it. If we make advances, it is shy; if, when we feel its\npresence, we presume to pry into its free-masonry, it vanishes and\nleaves us alone in our folly,\u2014brimful but stagnant,\u2014a full channel, it\nmay be, but no inclination.\n\n\nFEAR\n\nAll fear of the world or consequences is swallowed up in a manly anxiety\nto do Truth justice.\n\n\nOLD BOOKS\n\n_Feb. 15._ The true student will cleave ever to the good, recognizing\nno Past, no Present; but wherever he emerges from the bosom of time,\nhis course is not with the sun,\u2014eastward or westward,\u2014but ever towards\nthe seashore. Day and night pursues he his devious way, lingering by how\nmany a Pierian spring, how many an Academus grove, how many a sculptured\nportico!\u2014all which\u2014spring, grove, and portico\u2014lie not so wide but he\nmay take them conveniently in his way.\n\n\nGREECE\n\n_Feb. 16._ In imagination I hie me to Greece as to enchanted ground.\nNo storms vex her coasts, no clouds encircle her Helicon or Olympus,\nno tempests sweep the peaceful Tempe or ruffle the bosom of the\nplacid \u00c6gean; but always the beams of the summer's sun gleam along\nthe entablature of the Acropolis, or are reflected through the mellow\natmosphere from a thousand consecrated groves and fountains; always her\nsea-girt isles are dallying with their zephyr guests, and the low of\nkine is heard along the meads, and the landscape sleeps\u2014valley and hill\nand woodland\u2014a dreamy sleep. Each of her sons created a new heaven and\na new earth for Greece.\n\n\nSUNDAY\n\n_Feb. 18._ Rightly named Suna-day, or day of the sun. One is satisfied\nin some angle by wood-house and garden fence to bask in his beams\u2014to\nexist barely\u2014the livelong day.\n\n\nSPRING\n\nI had not been out long to-day when it seemed that a new Spring was\nalready born,\u2014not quite weaned, it is true, but verily entered upon\nexistence. Nature struck up \"the same old song in the grass,\" despite\neighteen inches of snow, and I contrived to smuggle away a grin of\nsatisfaction by a smothered \"Pshaw! and is that all?\"\n\n\n_Feb. 19._\n\n     Each summer sound\n     Is a summer round.[24]\n\n\nGOETHE\n\n_Feb. 27._ He jogs along at a snail's pace, but ever mindful that the\nearth is beneath and the heavens above him. His Italy is not merely\nthe fatherland of lazzaroni and maccaroni but a solid turf-clad\nsoil, daily illumined by a genial sun and nightly gleaming in the\nstill moonshine,\u2014to say nothing of the frequent showers which are\nso faithfully recorded. That sail to Palermo was literally a plowing\nthrough of the waves from Naples to Trinacria,\u2014the sky overhead, and\nthe sea with its isles on either hand.\n\nHis hearty good-will to all men is most amiable; not one cross word\nhas he spoken, but on one occasion, the post boy snivelling, \"Signore,\nperdonate! qu\u00e9sta \u00e8 la mia patria,\" he confesses, \"to me poor northerner\ncame something tear-like into the eyes.\"[25]\n\n\nSPRING\n\n_March 1._ March fans it, April christens it, and May puts on its jacket\nand trousers. It never grows up, but Alexandrian-like \"drags its slow\nlength along,\" ever springing, bud following close upon leaf, and when\nwinter comes it is not annihilated, but creeps on mole-like under the\nsnow, showing its face nevertheless occasionally by fuming springs and\nwatercourses.\n\nSo let it be with man,\u2014let his manhood be a more advanced and still\nadvancing youth, bud following hard upon leaf. By the side of the\nripening corn let's have a second or third crop of peas and turnips,\ndecking the fields in a new green. So amid clumps of sere herd's-grass\nsometimes flower the violet and buttercup spring-born.\n\n\nHOMER\n\n_March 3._ Three thousand years and the world so little changed! The\nIliad seems like a natural sound which has reverberated to our days.\nWhatever in it is still freshest in the memories of men was most\nchildlike in the poet. It is the problem of old age,\u2014a second childhood\nexhibited in the life of the world. Ph\u0153bus Apollo went like night,\u2014\u1f41\n\u03b4' \u1f24\u03b9\u03b5 \u03bd\u03c5\u03ba\u03c4\u1f76 \u1f10\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03ce\u03c2. This either refers to the gross atmosphere of the\nplague darkening the sun, or to the crescent of night rising solemn and\nstately in the east while the sun is setting in the west.\n\nThen Agamemnon darkly lowers on Calchas, prophet of evil,\u2014\u1f44\u03c3\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b4\u03ad \u03bf\u1f31\n\u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c9\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5 \u1f10\u0390\u03ba\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd,\u2014such a fire-eyed Agamemnon as you may see at\ntown meetings and elections, as well here as in Troy neighborhood.\n\n\nA SUNDAY SCENE\n\n_March 4._ Here at my elbow sit five notable, or at least noteworthy,\nrepresentatives of this nineteenth century,\u2014of the gender feminine.\nOne a sedate, indefatigable knitter, not spinster, of the old school,\nwho had the supreme felicity to be born in days that tried men's souls,\nwho can, and not unfrequently does, say with Nestor, another of the old\nschool: \"But you are younger than I. For time was when I conversed with\ngreater men than you. For not at any time have I seen such men, nor\nshall see them, as Perithous, and Dryas, and \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b1\u1ff6\u03bd,\" or, in one\nword, sole \"shepherd of the people,\" Washington.\n\nAnd when Apollo has now six times rolled westward, or seemed to roll,\nand now for the seventh time shows his face in the east, eyes well-nigh\nglazed, long glassed, which have fluctuated only between lamb's wool and\nworsted, explore ceaseless some good sermon book. For six days shalt\nthou labor and do all thy knitting, but on the seventh, forsooth, thy\nreading.[26]\n\nOpposite, across this stone hearth, sits one of no school, but rather\none who schools, a spinster who spins not, with elbow resting on the\nbook of books, but with eyes turned towards the vain trumpery of that\nshelf,\u2014trumpery of sere leaves, blossoms, and waxwork, built on sand,\nthat presumes to look quite as gay, smell quite as earthy, as though\nthis were not by good rights the sun's day. I marked how she spurned\nthat innocent every-day book, \"Germany by De Sta\u00ebl,\" as though a viper\nhad stung her;\u2014better to rest the elbow on The Book than the eye on such\na page. Poor book! this is thy last chance.\n\nHappy I who can bask in this warm spring sun which illumines all\ncreatures, as well when they rest as when they toil, not without a\nfeeling of gratitude! whose life is as blameless\u2014how blameworthy soever\nit be\u2014on the Lord's Mona-day as on his Suna-day![27]\n\nThus much at least a man may do: he may not impose on his\nfellows,\u2014perhaps not on himself. Thus much _let_ a man do: confidently\nand heartily live up to his thought; for its error, if there be any,\nwill soonest appear in practice, and if there be none, so much he may\nreckon as actual progress in the way of living.\n\n\nHOMER\n\nThe poet does not leap, even in imagination, from Asia to Greece through\nmid-air, neglectful of the fair sea and still fairer land beneath him,\nbut jogs on humanly observant over the intervening segment of a sphere,\u2014\n\n                 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u1f74 \u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03cd\n     \u039f\u1f54\u03c1\u03b5\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5 \u03c3\u03ba\u03b9\u03cc\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5 \u1f20\u03c7\u03ae\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1,\u2014\n\n                 for there are very many\n     Shady mountains, and resounding seas between.[28]\n\n\n_March 5._ How often, when Achilles like one \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03be\u03b5\u03bd whether\nto retaliate or suppress his wrath, has his good Genius, like Pallas\nAthene, gliding down from heaven, \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u1ff7 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b7\u03b4\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b5, stood\nbehind him, and whispered peace in his ear![29]\n\nMen may dispute about the fact whether a goddess did actually come down\nfrom heaven, calling it a poet's fancy, but was it not, considering the\nstuff that gods are made of, a very truth?\n\n\nTHE AGE OF HONEY\n\n     \"And to them rose up the sweet-worded Nestor, the shrill orator of\n           the Pylians,\n     And words _sweeter than honey_ flowed from his tongue.\"[30]\n\nE'en in old Homer's day was honey sweet,\u2014not yet is sour,\u2014tickling the\npalate of the blind old man, forsooth, with fresher sweet; then, as now,\nwhene'er from leaky jar or drivelling lips it daubed the festive board,\nproving a baneful lure to swarms of parasites, Homer's cotemporaries,\nbut alas! like Phthian hero, vulnerable in heel.\n\n\nWHAT TO DO\n\nBut what does all this scribbling amount to? What is now scribbled\nin the heat of the moment one can contemplate with somewhat of\nsatisfaction, but alas! to-morrow\u2014aye, to-night\u2014it is stale, flat, and\nunprofitable,\u2014in fine, is not, only its shell remains, like some red\nparboiled lobster-shell which, kicked aside never so often, still stares\nat you in the path.\n\nWhat may a man do and not be ashamed of it? He may not do nothing\nsurely, for straightway he is dubbed Dolittle\u2014aye! christens himself\nfirst\u2014and reasonably, for he was first to duck. But let him do\nsomething, is he the less a Dolittle? Is it actually something done, or\nnot rather something undone; or, if done, is it not badly done, or at\nmost well done comparatively?\n\nSuch is man,\u2014toiling, heaving, struggling ant-like to shoulder some\nstray unappropriated crumb and deposit it in his granary; then runs\nout, complacent, gazes heavenward, earthward (for even pismires can look\ndown), heaven and earth meanwhile looking downward, upward; there seen\nof men, world-seen, deed-delivered, vanishes into all-grasping night.\nAnd is he doomed ever to run the same course? Can he not, wriggling,\nscrewing, self-exhorting, self-constraining, wriggle or screw out\nsomething that shall live,\u2014respected, intact, intangible, not to be\nsneezed at?[31]\n\n\n_March 6._ How can a man sit down and quietly pare his nails, while the\nearth goes gyrating ahead amid such a din of sphere music, whirling him\nalong about her axis some twenty-four thousand miles between sun and\nsun, but mainly in a circle some two millions of miles actual progress?\nAnd then such a hurly-burly on the surface\u2014wind always blowing\u2014now a\nzephyr, now a hurricane\u2014tides never idle, ever fluctuating\u2014no rest for\nNiagara, but perpetual ran-tan on those limestone rocks\u2014and then that\nsummer simmering which our ears are used to, which would otherwise be\nchristened confusion worse confounded, but is now ironically called\n\"silence audible,\" and above all the incessant tinkering named \"hum of\nindustry,\" the hurrying to and fro and confused jabbering of men. Can\nman do less than get up and shake himself?\n\n\nCOMPOSITION\n\n_March 7._ We should not endeavor coolly to analyze our thoughts, but,\nkeeping the pen even and parallel with the current, make an accurate\ntranscript of them. Impulse is, after all, the best linguist, and for\nhis logic, if not conformable to Aristotle, it cannot fail to be most\nconvincing. The nearer we approach to a complete but simple transcript\nof our thought the more tolerable will be the piece, for we can endure\nto consider ourselves in a state of passivity or in involuntary action,\nbut rarely our efforts, and least of all our rare efforts.\n\n\nSCRAPS FROM A LECTURE ON \"SOCIETY\" WRITTEN MARCH 14TH, 1838, DELIVERED\nBEFORE OUR LYCEUM, APRIL 11TH\n\nEvery proverb in the newspapers originally stood for a truth. Thus the\nproverb that man was made for society, so long as it was not allowed to\nconflict with another important truth, deceived no one; but, now that\nthe same words have come to stand for another thing, it may be for a\nlie, we are obliged, in order to preserve its significance, to write it\nanew, so that properly it will read, Society was made for man.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMan is not at once born into society,\u2014hardly into the world. The world\nthat he is hides for a time the world that he inhabits.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat which properly constitutes the life of every man is a profound\nsecret. Yet this is what every one would give most to know, but is\nhimself most backward to impart.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHardly a rood of land but can show its fresh wound or indelible scar,\nin proof that earlier or later man has been there.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the\ncontrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest. As the reformers\nsay, it is a levelling down, not up. Hence the mass is only another\nname for the mob. The inhabitants of the earth assembled in one place\nwould constitute the greatest mob. The mob is spoken of as an insane\nand blinded animal; magistrates say it must be humored; they apprehend\nit may incline this way or that, as villagers dread an inundation, not\nknowing whose land may be flooded, nor how many bridges carried away.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne goes to a cattle-show expecting to find many men and women\nassembled, and beholds only working oxen and neat cattle. He goes to\na commencement thinking that there at least he may find the men of the\ncountry; but such, if there were any, are completely merged in the day,\nand have become so many walking commencements, so that he is fain to\ntake himself out of sight and hearing of the orator, lest he lose his\nown identity in the nonentities around him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut you are getting all the while further and further from true society.\nYour silence was an approach to it, but your conversation is only a\nrefuge from the encounter of men; as though men were to be satisfied\nwith a meeting of heels, and not heads.\n\nNor is it better with private assemblies, or meetings together, with a\nsociable design, of acquaintances so called,\u2014that is to say of men and\nwomen who are familiar with the lineaments of each other's countenances,\nwho eat, drink, sleep, and transact the business of living within the\ncircuit of a mile.\n\nWith a beating heart he fares him forth, by the light of the stars, to\nthis meeting of gods. But the illusion speedily vanishes; what at first\nseemed to him nectar and ambrosia, is discovered to be plain bohea and\nshort gingerbread.\n\nThen with what speed does he throw off his strait-jacket of a godship,\nand play the one-eared, two-mouthed mortal, thus proving his title\nto the epithet applied to him of old by Homer of \u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c8 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2, or\nthat possesses an articulating voice. But unfortunately we have as yet\ninvented no rule by which the stranger may know when he has culminated.\nWe read that among the Finlanders when one \"has succeeded in rendering\nhimself agreeable, it is a custom at an assemblage for all the women\npresent to give him on the back a sudden slap, when it is least\nexpected; and the compliment is in proportion to the weight of the\nblow.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is provoking, when one sits waiting the assembling together of his\nneighbors around his hearth, to behold merely their clay houses, for the\nmost part newly shingled and clapboarded, and not unfrequently with a\nfresh coat of paint, trundled to his door. He has but to knock slightly\nat the outer gate of one of these shingle palaces, to be assured that\nthe master or mistress is not at home.\n\nAfter all, the field of battle possesses many advantages over the\ndrawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive\nceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one\ndoubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least\nexhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe utmost nearness to which men approach each other amounts barely to\na mechanical contact. As when you rub two stones together, though they\nemit an audible sound, yet do they not actually touch each other.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn obedience to an instinct of their nature men have pitched their\ncabins and planted corn and potatoes within speaking distance of one\nanother, and so formed towns and villages, but they have not associated,\nthey have only assembled, and society has signified only a _convention_\nof men.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I think of a playhouse, it is as if we had not time to appreciate\nthe follies of the day in detail as they occur, and so devoted an hour\nof our evening to laughing or crying at them in the lump. Despairing\nof a more perfect intercourse, or perhaps never dreaming that such is\ndesirable, or at least possible, we are contented to act our part in\nwhat deserves to be called the great farce, not drama, of life, like\npitiful and mercenary stock actors whose business it is to keep up the\nsemblance of a stage.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur least deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the\nsea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to\neternity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet ours be like the meeting of two planets, not hastening to confound\ntheir jarring spheres, but drawn together by the influence of a subtile\nattraction, soon to roll diverse in their respective orbits, from this\ntheir perigee, or point of nearest approach.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf thy neighbor hail thee to inquire how goes the world, feel thyself\nput to thy trumps to return a true and explicit answer. Plant the\nfeet firmly, and, will he nill he, dole out to him with strict and\nconscientious impartiality his modicum of a response.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet not society be the element in which you swim, or are tossed about at\nthe mercy of the waves, but be rather a strip of firm land running out\ninto the sea, whose base is daily washed by the tide, but whose summit\nonly the spring tide can reach.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut after all, such a morsel of society as this will not satisfy a\nman. But like those women of Malamocco and Pelestrina, who when their\nhusbands are fishing at sea, repair to the shore and sing their shrill\nsongs at evening, till they hear the voices of their husbands in reply\nborne to them over the water, so go we about indefatigably, chanting\nour stanza of the lay, and awaiting the response of a kindred soul out\nof the distance.\n\n\nTHE INDIAN AXE\n\n_April 1._ The Indian must have possessed no small share of vital energy\nto have rubbed industriously stone upon stone for long months till at\nlength he had rubbed out an axe or pestle,\u2014as though he had said in the\nface of the constant flux of things, I at least will live an enduring\nlife.\n\n\nFRIENDSHIP\n\n_April 8._\n\n     I think awhile of Love, and, while I think,\n             Love is to me a world,\n                     Sole meat and sweetest drink,\n             And close connecting link\n               'Tween heaven and earth.\n\n     I only know it is, not how or why,\n             My greatest happiness;\n             However hard I try,\n             Not if I were to die,\n               Can I explain.\n\n     I fain would ask my friend how it can be,\n             But, when the time arrives,\n             Then Love is more lovely\n             Than anything to me,\n               And so I'm dumb.\n\n     For, if the truth were known, Love cannot speak,\n             But only thinks and does;\n             Though surely out 't will leak\n             Without the help of Greek,\n               Or any tongue.\n\n     A man may love the truth and practice it,\n             Beauty he may admire,\n             And goodness not omit,\n             As much as may befit\n               To reverence.\n\n     But only when these three together meet,\n             As they always incline,\n             And make one soul the seat\n                     And favorite retreat\n               Of loveliness;\n\n     When under kindred shape, like loves and hates\n             And a kindred nature,\n             Proclaim us to be mates,\n             Exposed to equal fates\n               Eternally;\n\n     And each may other help, and service do,\n             Drawing Love's bands more tight,\n             Service he ne'er shall rue\n             While one and one make two,\n               And two are one;\n\n     In such case only doth man fully prove,\n             Fully as man can do,\n             What power there is in Love\n             His inmost soul to move\n               Resistlessly.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side\n             Withstand the winter's storm,\n             And, spite of wind and tide,\n             Grow up the meadow's pride,\n               For both are strong.\n\n     Above they barely touch, but, undermined\n             Down to their deepest source,\n             Admiring you shall find\n                     Their roots are intertwined\n               Insep'rably.\n\n\nCONVERSATION\n\n_April 15._ Thomas Fuller relates that \"in Merionethshire, in Wales,\nthere are high mountains, whose hanging tops come so close together\nthat shepherds on the tops of several hills may audibly talk together,\nyet will it be a day's journey for their bodies to meet, so vast is\nthe hollowness of the valleys betwixt them.\" As much may be said in a\nmoral sense of our intercourse in the plains, for, though we may audibly\nconverse together, yet is there so vast a gulf of hollowness between\nthat we are actually many days' journey from a veritable communication.\n\n\nSTEAMSHIPS\n\n_April 24._ Men have been contriving new means and modes of motion.\nSteamships have been westering during these late days and nights on\nthe Atlantic waves,\u2014the fuglers of a new evolution to this generation.\nMeanwhile plants spring silently by the brooksides, and the grim woods\nwave indifferent; the earth emits no howl, pot on fire simmers and\nseethes, and men go about their business.\n\n\nTHE BLUEBIRDS\n\n_April 26._\n\n     In the midst of the poplar that stands by our door\n     We planted a bluebird box,\n     And we hoped before the summer was o'er\n     A transient pair to coax.\n\n\n     One warm summer's day the bluebirds came\n     And lighted on our tree,\n     But at first the wand'rers were not so tame\n     But they were afraid of me.\n\n     They seemed to come from the distant south,\n     Just over the Walden wood,\n     And they skimmed it along with open mouth\n     Close by where the bellows stood.\n\n     Warbling they swept round the distant cliff,\n     And they warbled it over the lea,\n     And over the blacksmith's shop in a jiff\n     Did they come warbling to me.\n\n     They came and sat on the box's top\n     Without looking into the hole,\n     And only from this side to that did they hop,\n     As 'twere a common well-pole.\n\n     Methinks I had never seen them before,\n     Nor indeed had they seen me,\n     Till I chanced to stand by our back door,\n     And they came to the poplar tree.\n\n     In course of time they built their nest\n     And reared a happy brood,\n     And every morn they piped their best\n     As they flew away to the wood.\n\n     Thus wore the summer hours away\n     To the bluebirds and to me,\n     And every hour was a summer's day,\n     So pleasantly lived we.\n\n     They were a world within themselves,\n     And I a world in me,\n     Up in the tree\u2014the little elves\u2014\n     With their callow family.\n\n     One morn the wind blowed cold and strong,\n     And the leaves went whirling away;\n     The birds prepared for their journey long\n     That raw and gusty day.\n\n     Boreas came blust'ring down from the north,\n     And ruffled their azure smocks,\n     So they launched them forth, though somewhat loth,\n     By way of the old Cliff rocks.\n\n     Meanwhile the earth jogged steadily on\n     In her mantle of purest white,\n     And anon another spring was born\n     When winter was vanished quite.\n\n     And I wandered forth o'er the steamy earth,\n     And gazed at the mellow sky,\n     But never before from the hour of my birth\n     Had I wandered so thoughtfully.\n\n     For never before was the earth so still,\n     And never so mild was the sky,\n     The river, the fields, the woods, and the hill\n     Seemed to heave an audible sigh.\n\n\n     I felt that the heavens were all around,\n     And the earth was all below,\n     As when in the ears there rushes a sound\n     Which thrills you from top to toe.\n\n     I dreamed that I was a waking thought,\n     A something I hardly knew,\n     Not a solid piece, nor an empty nought,\n     But a drop of morning dew.\n\n     'Twas the world and I at a game of bo-peep,\n     As a man would dodge his shadow,\n     An idea becalmed in eternity's deep,\n     'Tween Lima and Segraddo.\n\n     Anon a faintly warbled note\n     From out the azure deep\n     Into my ears did gently float\n     As is the approach of sleep.\n\n     It thrilled but startled not my soul;\n     Across my mind strange mem'ries gleamed,\n     As often distant scenes unroll\n     When we have lately dreamed.\n\n     The bluebird had come from the distant South\n     To his box in the poplar tree,\n     And he opened wide his slender mouth\n     On purpose to sing to me.\n\n\nJOURNEY TO MAINE\n\n_May 3-4._ Boston to Portland.\n\nWhat, indeed, is this earth to us of New England but a field for Yankee\nspeculation? The Nantucket whaler goes a-fishing round it, and so knows\nit,\u2014what it is, how long, how broad, and that no tortoise sustains\nit. He who has visited the confines of his real estate, looking out on\nall sides into space, will feel a new inducement to _be_ the lord of\ncreation.\n\nWe must all pay a small tribute to Neptune; the chief engineer must once\nhave been seasick.\n\nMidnight\u2014head over the boat's side\u2014between sleeping and waking\u2014with\nglimpses of one or more lights in the vicinity of Cape Ann. Bright\nmoonlight\u2014the effect heightened by seasickness. Beyond that light yonder\nhave my lines hitherto been cast, but now I know that there lies not\nthe whole world, for I can say it is there and not here.\n\n_May 4._ Portland. There is a proper and only right way to enter a city,\nas well as to make advances to a strange person; neither will allow of\nthe least forwardness nor bustle. A sensitive person can hardly elbow\nhis way boldly, laughing and talking, into a strange town, without\nexperiencing some twinges of conscience, as when he has treated a\nstranger with too much familiarity.\n\n_May 5._ Portland to Bath _via_ Brunswick; Bath to Brunswick.\n\nEach one's world is but a clearing in the forest, so much open and\ninclosed ground. When the mail coach rumbles into one of these, the\nvillagers gaze after you with a compassionate look, as much as to say:\n\"Where have you been all this time, that you make your d\u00e9but in the\nworld at this late hour? Nevertheless, here we are; come and study us,\nthat you may learn men and manners.\"\n\n_May 6._ Brunswick to Augusta _via_ Gardiner and Hallowell.\n\n_May 7._ We occasionally meet an individual of a character and\ndisposition so entirely the reverse of our own that we wonder if he\ncan indeed be another man like ourselves. We doubt if we ever could\ndraw any nearer to him, and understand him. Such was the old English\ngentleman whom I met with to-day in H. Though I peered in at his eyes\nI could not discern myself reflected therein. The chief wonder was how\nwe could ever arrive at so fair-seeming an intercourse upon so small\nground of sympathy. He walked and fluttered like a strange bird at my\nside, prying into and making a handle of the least circumstance. The\nbustle and rapidity of our communication were astonishing; we skated\nin our conversation. All at once he would stop short in the path, and,\nin an abstracted air, query whether the steamboat had reached Bath or\nPortland, addressing me from time to time as his familiar genius, who\ncould understand what was passing in his mind without the necessity of\nuninterrupted oral communication.\n\n_May 8._ Augusta to Bangor _via_ China.\n\n_May 10._ Bangor to Oldtown.\n\nThe railroad from Bangor to Oldtown is civilization shooting off in\na tangent into the forest. I had much conversation with an old Indian\nat the latter place, who sat dreaming upon a scow at the waterside and\nstriking his deer-skin moccasins against the planks, while his arms hung\nlistlessly by his side. He was the most communicative man I had met.\nTalked of hunting and fishing, old times and new times. Pointing up the\nPenobscot, he observed, \"Two or three mile up the river one beautiful\ncountry!\" and then, as if he would come as far to meet me as I had\ngone to meet him, he exclaimed, \"Ugh! one very hard time!\" But he had\nmistaken his man.\n\n_May 11._ Bangor to Belfast _via_ Saturday Cove.\n\n_May 12._ Belfast.\n\n_May 13._ To Castine by sailboat \"Cinderilla [_sic_].\"\n\n_May 14._ Castine to Belfast by packet, Captain Skinner. Found the Poems\nof Burns and an odd volume of the \"Spectator\" in the cabin.\n\n_May 15._ Belfast to Bath _via_ Thomaston.\n\n_May 16._ To Portland.\n\n_May 17._ To Boston and Concord.\n\n\nMAY MORNING\n\n_May 21._\n\n     The school-boy loitered on his way to school,\n     Scorning to live so rare a day by rule.\n     So mild the air a pleasure 'twas to breathe,\n     For what seems heaven above was earth beneath.\n\n     Soured neighbors chatted by the garden pale,\n     Nor quarrelled who should drive the needed nail;\n     The most unsocial made new friends that day,\n     As when the sun shines husbandmen make hay.\n\n     How long I slept I know not, but at last\n     I felt my consciousness returning fast,\n     For Zephyr rustled past with leafy tread,\n     And heedlessly with one heel grazed my head.\n\n     My eyelids opened on a field of blue,\n     For close above a nodding violet grew;\n     A part of heaven it seemed, which one could scent,\n     Its blue commingling with the firmament.\n\n\nWALDEN\n\n_June 3._\n\n     True, our converse a stranger is to speech;\n     Only the practiced ear can catch the surging words\n     That break and die upon thy pebbled lips.\n     Thy flow of thought is noiseless as the lapse of thy own waters,\n     Wafted as is the morning mist up from thy surface,\n     So that the passive Soul doth breathe it in,\n     And is infected with the truth thou wouldst express.\n\n     E'en the remotest stars have come in troops\n     And stooped low to catch the benediction\n     Of thy countenance. Oft as the day came round,\n     Impartial has the sun exhibited himself\n     Before thy narrow skylight; nor has the moon\n     For cycles failed to roll this way\n     As oft as elsewhither, and tell thee of the night.\n     No cloud so rare but hitherward it stalked,\n     And in thy face looked doubly beautiful.\n     O! tell me what the winds have writ for the last thousand years\n     On the blue vault that spans thy flood,\n     Or sun transferred and delicately reprinted\n     For thy own private reading. Somewhat\n     Within these latter days I've read,\n     But surely there was much that would have thrilled the Soul,\n     Which human eye saw not.\n     I would give much to read that first bright page,\n     Wet from a virgin press, when Eurus, Boreas,\n     And the host of airy quill-drivers\n     First dipped their pens in mist.\n\n\n_June 14._\n\n     Truth, Goodness, Beauty,\u2014those celestial thrins,[32]\n     Continually are born; e'en now the Universe,\n     With thousand throats, and eke with greener smiles,\n     Its joy confesses at their recent birth.\n\n     Strange that so many fickle gods, as fickle as the weather,\n     Throughout Dame Nature's provinces should always pull together.\n\n\n_June 16._\n\n     In the busy streets, domains of trade,\n     Man is a surly porter, or a vain and hectoring bully,\n     Who can claim no nearer kindredship with me\n     Than brotherhood by law.\n\n\nCLIFFS\n\n_July 8._\n\n     The loudest sound that burdens here the breeze\n     Is the wood's whisper; 'tis, when we choose to list,\n     Audible sound, and when we list not,\n     It is calm profound. Tongues were provided\n     But to vex the ear with superficial thoughts.\n     When deeper thoughts upswell, the jarring discord\n     Of harsh speech is hushed, and senses seem\n     As little as may be to share the ecstasy.\n\n\nHEROISM\n\n_July 13._ What a hero one can be without moving a finger! The world\nis not a field worthy of us, nor can we be satisfied with the plains of\nTroy. A glorious strife seems waging within us, yet so noiselessly that\nwe but just catch the sound of the clarion ringing of victory, borne\nto us on the breeze. There are in each the seeds of a heroic ardor,\nwhich need only to be stirred in with the _soil where they lie_, by an\ninspired voice or pen, to bear fruit of a divine flavor.[33]\n\n\nSUSPICION\n\n_July 15._ What though friends misinterpret your conduct, if it is right\nin sight of God and Nature. The wrong, if there be any, pertains only to\nthe wrongdoer, nor is the integrity of your relations to the universe\naffected, but you may gather encouragement from their mistrust. If the\nfriend withhold his favor, yet does greater float gratuitous on the\nzephyr.\n\n\nTRUTH\n\n_Aug. 4._ Whatever of past or present wisdom has published itself to the\nworld, is palpable falsehood till it come and utter itself by my side.\n\n\n\nSPHERE MUSIC\n\n_Aug. 5._ Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then\nsettle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon.\nBut such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and\nhilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of\nthe former, are the true sphere music,\u2014pure, unmixed music,\u2014in which no\nwail mingles.\n\n\nDIVINE SERVICE IN THE ACADEMY HALL\n\nIn dark places and dungeons these words might perhaps strike root and\ngrow, but utter them in the daylight and their dusky hues are apparent.\nFrom this window I can compare the written with the preached word:\nwithin is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; without, grain\nfields and grasshoppers, which give those the lie direct.\n\n\nTHE TIME OF THE UNIVERSE\n\n_Aug. 10._ Nor can all the vanities that so vex the world alter one\nwhit the measure that night has chosen, but ever it must be short\nparticular metre. The human soul is a silent harp in God's quire,\nwhose strings need only to be swept by the divine breath to chime in\nwith the harmonies of creation. Every pulse-beat is in exact time with\nthe cricket's chant, and the tickings of the death-watch in the wall.\nAlternate with these if you can.[34]\n\n\nCONSCIOUSNESS\n\n_Aug. 13._ If with closed ears and eyes I consult consciousness for a\nmoment, immediately are all walls and barriers dissipated, earth rolls\nfrom under me, and I float, by the impetus derived from the earth and\nthe system, a subjective, heavily laden thought, in the midst of an\nunknown and infinite sea, or else heave and swell like a vast ocean\nof thought, without rock or headland, where are all riddles solved,\nall straight lines making there their two ends to meet, eternity and\nspace gambolling familiarly through my depths. I am from the beginning,\nknowing no end, no aim. No sun illumines me, for I dissolve all lesser\nlights in my own intenser and steadier light. I am a restful kernel in\nthe magazine of the universe.\n\n\nRESOURCE\n\nMen are constantly dinging in my ears their fair theories and plausible\nsolutions of the universe, but ever there is no help, and I return again\nto my shoreless, islandless ocean, and fathom unceasingly for a bottom\nthat will hold an anchor, that it may not drag.\n\n\nSABBATH BELL\n\n_Aug. 19._ The sound of the sabbath bell, whose farthest waves are\nat this instant breaking on these cliffs, does not awaken pleasing\nassociations alone. Its muse is wonderfully condescending and\nphilanthropic. One involuntarily leans on his staff to humor the\nunusually meditative mood. It is as the sound of many catechisms and\nreligious books twanging a canting peal round the world, and seems\nto issue from some Egyptian temple, and echo along the shore of the\nNile, right opposite to Pharaoh's palace and Moses in the bulrushes,\nstartling a multitude of storks and alligators basking in the sun. Not\nso these larks and pewees of Musketaquid. One is sick at heart of this\npagoda worship. It is like the beating of gongs in a Hindoo subterranean\ntemple.[35]\n\n\nHOLY WAR\n\n_Aug. 21._ Passion and appetite are always an unholy land in which\none may wage most holy war. Let him steadfastly follow the banner of\nhis faith till it is planted on the enemy's citadel. Nor shall he lack\nfields to display his valor in, nor straits worthy of him. For when he\nhas blown his blast, and smote those within reach, invisible enemies\nwill not cease to torment him, who yet may be starved out in the\ngarrisons where they lie.\n\n\nSCRIPTURE\n\n_Aug. 22._ How thrilling a noble sentiment in the oldest books,\u2014in\nHomer, the Zendavesta, or Confucius! It is a strain of music wafted down\nto us on the breeze of time, through the aisles of innumerable ages. By\nits very nobleness it is made near and audible to us.\n\n\nEVENING SOUNDS\n\n_Aug. 26._ How strangely sounds of revelry strike the ear from over\ncultivated fields by the woodside, while the sun is declining in the\nwest. It is a world we had not known before. We listen and are capable\nof no mean act or thought. We tread on Olympus and participate in the\ncouncils of the gods.\n\n\nHOMER\n\nIt does one's heart good if Homer but say the sun sets,\u2014or, \"As when\nbeautiful stars accompany the bright moon through the serene heavens;\nand the woody hills and cliffs are discerned through the mild light,\nand each star is visible, and the shepherd rejoices in his heart.\"[36]\n\n\nTHE LOSS OF A TOOTH\n\n_Aug. 27._ Verily I am the creature of circumstances. Here I have\nswallowed an indispensable tooth, and so am no whole man, but a lame\nand halting piece of manhood. I am conscious of no gap in my soul, but\nit would seem that, now the entrance to the oracle has been enlarged,\nthe more rare and commonplace the responses that issue from it. I\nhave felt cheap, and hardly dared hold up my head among men, ever\nsince this accident happened. Nothing can I do as well and freely as\nbefore; nothing do I undertake but I am hindered and balked by this\ncircumstance. What a great matter a little spark kindleth! I believe if\nI were called at this moment to rush into the thickest of the fight, I\nshould halt for lack of so insignificant a piece of armor as a tooth.\nVirtue and Truth go undefended, and Falsehood and Affectation are thrown\nin my teeth,\u2014though I am toothless. One does not need that the earth\nquake for the sake of excitement, when so slight a crack proves such an\nimpassable moat. But let the lame man shake his leg, and match himself\nwith the fleetest in the race. So shall he do what is in him to do. But\nlet him who has lost a tooth open his mouth wide and gabble, lisp, and\nsputter never so resolutely.\n\n\nDEFORMITY\n\n_Aug. 29._ Here at the top of Nawshawtuct, this mild August afternoon,\nI can discern no deformed thing. The prophane hay-makers in yonder\nmeadow are yet the hay-makers of poetry,\u2014forsooth Faustus and Amyntas.\nYonder schoolhouse of brick, than which, near at hand, nothing can be\nmore mote-like to my eye, serves even to heighten the picturesqueness\nof the scene. Barns and outbuildings, which in the nearness mar by their\npresence the loveliness of nature, are not only endurable, but, observed\nwhere they lie by some waving field of grain or patch of woodland, prove\na very cynosure to the pensive eye. Let man after infinite hammering\nand din of crows uprear a deformity in the plain, yet will Nature have\nher revenge on the hilltop. Retire a stone's throw and she will have\nchanged his base metal into gold.\n\n\nCRICKETS\n\nThe crackling flight of grasshoppers is a luxury; and pleasant is it\nwhen summer has once more followed in the steps of winter to hear scald\ncricket piping a Nibelungenlied in the grass. It is the most infinite\nof singers. Wiselier had the Greeks chosen a golden cricket, and let\nthe grasshopper eat grass. One opens both his ears to the invisible,\nincessant quire, and doubts if it be not earth herself chanting for all\ntime.\n\n\nGENII\n\nIn the vulgar daylight of our self-conceit, good genii are still\noverlooking and conducting us; as the stars look down on us by day as\nby night\u2014and we observe them not.\n\n\nSPHERE MUSIC\n\n_Sept. 2._ The cocks chant a strain of which we never tire. Some\nthere are who find pleasure in the melody of birds and chirping of\ncrickets,\u2014aye, even the peeping of frogs. Such faint sounds as these are\nfor the most part heard above the weeping and wailing and gnashing of\nteeth which so unhallow the Sabbath among us. The moan the earth makes\nis after all a very faint sound, infinitely inferior in volume to its\ncreakings of joy and gleeful murmurs; so that we may expect the next\nballoonist will rise above the utmost range of discordant sounds into\nthe region of pure melody. Never so loud was the wail but it seemed to\ntaper off into a piercing melody and note of joy, which lingered not\namid the clods of the valley.\n\n\nCREEDS\n\n_Sept. 3._ The only faith that men recognize is a creed. But the true\ncreed which we unconsciously live by, and which rather adopts us than we\nit, is quite different from the written or preached one. Men anxiously\nhold fast to their creed, as to a straw, thinking this does them good\nservice because their sheet anchor does not drag.[37]\n\n\nRIVERS\n\n_Sept. 5._ For the first time it occurred to me this afternoon what a\npiece of wonder a river is,\u2014a huge volume of matter ceaselessly rolling\nthrough the fields and meadows of this substantial earth, making\nhaste from the high places, by stable dwellings of men and Egyptian\nPyramids, to its restless reservoir. One would think that, by a very\nnatural impulse, the dwellers upon the headwaters of the Mississippi\nand Amazon would follow in the trail of their waters to see the end of\nthe matter.[38]\n\n\nHOMER\n\n_Sept. 7._ When Homer's messengers repair to the tent of Achilles, we do\nnot have to wonder how they get there, but step by step accompany them\nalong the shore of the resounding sea.[39]\n\n\nFLOW OF SPIRITS IN YOUTH\n\n_Sept. 15._ How unaccountable the flow of spirits in youth. You may\nthrow sticks and dirt into the current, and it will only rise the\nhigher. Dam it up you may, but dry it up you may not, for you cannot\nreach its source. If you stop up this avenue or that, anon it will come\ngurgling out where you least expected and wash away all fixtures. Youth\ngrasps at happiness as an inalienable right. The tear does no sooner\ngush than glisten. Who shall say when the tear that sprung of sorrow\nfirst sparkled with joy?\n\n\nALMA NATURA\n\n_Sept. 20._ It is a luxury to muse by a wall-side in the sunshine of\na September afternoon,\u2014to cuddle down under a gray stone, and hearken\nto the siren song of the cricket. Day and night seem henceforth but\naccidents, and the time is always a still eventide, and as the close of\na happy day. Parched fields and mulleins gilded with the slanting rays\nare my diet. I know of no word so fit to express this disposition of\nNature as Alma Natura.\n\n\nCOMPENSATION\n\n_Sept. 23._ If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find\ncompensation in every disappointment. If a shower drives us for shelter\nto the maple grove or the trailing branches of the pine, yet in their\nrecesses with microscopic eye we discover some new wonder in the bark,\nor the leaves, or the fungi at our feet. We are interested by some\nnew resource of insect economy, or the chickadee is more than usually\nfamiliar. We can study Nature's nooks and corners then.[40]\n\n\nMY BOOTS\n\n_Oct. 16._\n\n     Anon with gaping fearlessness they quaff\n     The dewy nectar with a natural thirst,\n     Or wet their leathern lungs where cranberries lurk,\n     With sweeter wine than Chian, Lesbian, or Falernian far.\n     Theirs was the inward lustre that bespeaks\n     An open sole\u2014unknowing to exclude\n     The cheerful day\u2014a worthier glory far\n     Than that which gilds the outmost rind with darkness visible\u2014\n     Virtues that fast abide through lapse of years,\n     Rather rubbed in than off.\n\n\nHOMER\n\n_Oct. 21._ Hector hurrying from rank to rank is likened to the moon\nwading in majesty from cloud to cloud. We are reminded of the hour of\nthe day by the fact that the woodcutter spreads now his morning meal in\nthe recesses of the mountains, having already laid his axe at the root\nof many lofty trees.[41]\n\n\n_Oct. 23._ Nestor's simple repast after the rescue of Machaon is a fit\nsubject for poetry. The woodcutter may sit down to his cold victuals,\nthe hero to soldier's fare, and the wild Arab to his dried dates and\nfigs, without offense; but not so a modern gentleman to his dinner.\n\n\n_Oct. 24._ It matters not whether these strains originate there in the\ngrass or float thitherward like atoms of light from the minstrel days\nof Greece.\n\n\"The snowflakes fall thick and fast on a winter's day. The winds\nare lulled, and the snow falls incessant, covering the tops of the\nmountains, and the hills, and the plains where the lotus tree grows, and\nthe cultivated fields. And they are falling by the inlets and shores of\nthe foaming sea, but are silently dissolved by the waves.\"[42]\n\n\nSPECULATION\n\n_Dec. 7._ We may believe it, but never do we live a quiet, free\nlife, such as Adam's, but are enveloped in an invisible network of\nspeculations. Our progress is only from one such speculation to another,\nand only at rare intervals do we perceive that it is no progress. Could\nwe for a moment drop this by-play, and simply wonder, without reference\nor inference!\n\n\nBYRON\n\n_Dec. 8._ Nothing in nature is sneaking or chapfallen, as somewhat\nmaltreated and slighted, but each is satisfied with its being, and so\nis as lavender and balm. If skunk-cabbage is offensive to the nostrils\nof men, still has it not drooped in consequence, but trustfully\nunfolded its leaf of two hands' breadth. What was it to Lord Byron\nwhether England owned or disowned him, whether he smelled sour and was\nskunk-cabbage to the English nostril or violet-like, the pride of the\nland and ornament of every lady's boudoir? Let not the oyster grieve\nthat he has lost the race; he has gained as an oyster.\n\n\nFAIR HAVEN[43]\n\n_Dec. 15._\n\n     When winter fringes every bough\n     With his fantastic wreath,\n     And puts the seal of silence now\n     Upon the leaves beneath;\n\n     When every stream in its penthouse\n     Goes gurgling on its way,\n     And in his gallery the mouse\n     Nibbleth the meadow hay;\n\n     Methinks the summer still is nigh,\n     And lurketh there below,\n     As that same meadow mouse doth lie\n     Snug underneath the snow.\n\n\n     And if perchance the chickadee\n     Lisp a faint note anon,\n     The snow is summer's canopy,\n     Which she herself put on.\n\n     Rare blossoms deck the cheerful trees,\n     And dazzling fruits depend,\n     The north wind sighs a summer breeze,\n     The nipping frosts to fend,\n\n     Bringing glad tidings unto me,\n     While that I stand all ear,\n     Of a serene eternity,\n     That need not winter fear.\n\n     Out on the silent pond straightway\n     The restless ice doth crack,\n     And pond sprites merry gambols play\n     Amid the deaf'ning rack.\n\n     Eager I press me to the vale\n     As I had heard brave news,\n     How nature held high festival,\n     Which it were hard to lose.\n\n     I crack me with my neighbor ice,\n     And sympathizing quake,\n     As each new rent darts in a trice\n     Across the gladsome lake.\n\n     One with the cricket in the ground,\n     And fuel on the hearth,\n     Resounds the rare domestic sound\n     Along the forest path.\n\n     Fair Haven is my huge tea-urn\n     That seethes and sings to me,\n     And eke the crackling fagots burn,\u2014\n     A homebred minstrelsy.\n\n\nSOME SCRAPS FROM AN ESSAY ON \"SOUND AND SILENCE\" WRITTEN IN THE LATTER\nHALF OF THIS MONTH,\u2014DECEMBER, 1838[44]\n\nAs the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the\nmost excellent speech finally falls into silence. We go about to find\nSolitude and Silence, as though they dwelt only in distant glens and the\ndepths of the forest, venturing out from these fastnesses at midnight.\nSilence _was_, say we, before ever the world was, as if creation had\ndisplaced her, and were not her visible framework and foil. It is only\nfavorite dells that she deigns to frequent, and we dream not that she is\nthen imported into them when we wend thither, as Selden's butcher busied\nhimself with looking after his knife, when he had it in his mouth. For\nwhere man is, there is Silence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself. If the soul\nattend for a moment to its own infinity, then and there is silence. She\nis audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will we\nmay always hearken to her admonitions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilence is ever less strange than noise, lurking amid the boughs of\nthe hemlock or pine just in proportion as we find ourselves there. The\nnuthatch, tapping the upright trunks by our side, is only a partial\nspokesman for the solemn stillness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nShe is always at hand with her wisdom, by roadsides and street corners;\nlurking in belfries, the cannon's mouth, and the wake of the earthquake;\ngathering up and fondling their puny din in her ample bosom.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThose divine sounds which are uttered to our inward ear\u2014which are\nbreathed in with the zephyr or reflected from the lake\u2014come to us\nnoiselessly, bathing the temples of the soul, as we stand motionless\namid the rocks.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe halloo is the creature of walls and mason work; the whisper is\nfittest in the depths of the wood, or by the shore of the lake; but\nsilence is best adapted to the acoustics of space.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll sounds are her servants and purveyors, proclaiming not only that\ntheir mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought\nafter. Behind the most distinct and significant hovers always a more\nsignificant silence which floats it. The thunder is only our signal gun,\nthat we may know what communion awaits us. Not its dull sound, but the\ninfinite expansion of our being which ensues, we praise and unanimously\nname sublime.\n\nAll sound is nearly akin to Silence; it is a bubble on her surface\nwhich straightway bursts, an emblem of the strength and prolificness\nof the undercurrent. It is a faint utterance of Silence, and then\nonly agreeable to our auditory nerves when it contrasts itself with\nthe former. In proportion as it does this, and is a heightener and\nintensifier of the Silence, it is harmony and purest melody.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery melodious sound is the ally of Silence,\u2014a help and not a hindrance\nto abstraction.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCertain sounds more than others have found favor with the poets only as\nfoils to silence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nANACREON'S ODE TO THE CICADA[45]\n\n     We pronounce thee happy, cicada,\n     For on the tops of the trees,\n     Sipping a little dew,\n     Like any king thou singest,\n     For thine are they all,\n     Whatever thou seest in the fields,\n     And whatever the woods bear.\n     Thou art the friend of the husbandmen,\n     In no respect injuring any one;\n     And thou art honored among men,\n     Sweet prophet of summer.\n     The Muses love thee,\n     And Ph\u0153bus himself loves thee,\n     And has given thee a shrill song;\n     Age does not wrack thee,\n     Thou skillful, earth-born, song-loving,\n     Unsuffering, bloodless one;\n     Almost thou art like the gods.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilence is the universal refuge, the sequel of all dry discourses and\nall foolish acts, as balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety\nas [after] disappointment; that background which the painter may not\ndaub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure he\nmay have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith what equanimity does the silent consider how his world goes,\nsettles the awards of virtue and justice, is slandered and buffeted\nnever so much and views it all as a phenomenon. He is one with Truth,\nGoodness, Beauty. No indignity can assail him, no personality disturb\nhim.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when\nmost silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his\naudience.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho has not hearkened to her infinite din? She is Truth's speaking\ntrumpet, which every man carries slung over his shoulder, and when he\nwill may apply to his ear. She is the sole oracle, the true Delphi and\nDodona, which kings and courtiers would do well to consult, nor will\nthey be balked by an ambiguous answer. Through her have all revelations\nbeen made. Just as far as men have consulted her oracle, they have\nobtained a clear insight, and their age been marked for an enlightened\none. But as often as they have gone gadding abroad to a strange Delphi\nand her mad priestess, they have been benighted, and their age Dark or\nLeaden.\u2014These are garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any\nsound; but the Grecian, or _silent_ and melodious, Era is ever sounding\non the ears of men.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA good book is the plectrum with which our silent lyres are struck. In\nall epics, when, after breathless attention, we come to the significant\nwords \"He said,\" then especially our inmost man is addressed. We not\nunfrequently refer the interest which belongs to our own unwritten\nsequel to the written and comparatively lifeless page. Of all valuable\nbooks this same sequel makes an indispensable part. It is the author's\naim to say once and emphatically, \"He said.\" This is the most the\nbookmaker can attain to. If he make his volume a foil whereon the\nwaves of silence may break, it is well. It is not so much the sighing\nof the blast as that pause, as Gray expresses it, \"when the gust is\nrecollecting itself,\" that thrills us, and is infinitely grander than\nthe importunate howlings of the storm.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt evening Silence sends many emissaries to me, some navigating the\nsubsiding waves which the village murmur has agitated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt were vain for me to interpret the Silence. She cannot be done into\nEnglish. For six thousand years have men translated her, with what\nfidelity belonged to each; still is she little better than a sealed\nbook. A man may run on confidently for a time, thinking he has her under\nhis thumb, and shall one day exhaust her, but he too must at last be\nsilent, and men remark only how brave a beginning he made; for, when\nhe at length dives into her, so vast is the disproportion of the told\nto the untold that the former will seem but the bubble on the surface\nwhere he disappeared.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNevertheless will we go on, like those Chinese cliff swallows,\nfeathering our nests with the froth, so they may one day be bread of\nlife to such as dwell by the seashore.\n\n\nANACREONTICS\n\nRETURN OF SPRING[46]\n\n_Dec. 23._\n\n     Behold, how, spring appearing,\n     The Graces send forth roses;\n     Behold, how the wave of the sea\n     Is made smooth by the calm;\n     Behold, how the duck dives;\n     Behold, how the crane travels;\n     And Titan shines constantly bright.\n     The shadows of the clouds are moving;\n     The works of man shine;\n     The earth puts forth fruits;\n     The fruit of the olive puts forth.\n     The cup of Bacchus is crowned.\n     Along the leaves, along the branches,\n     The fruit, bending them down, flourishes.\n\n\nCUPID WOUNDED[47]\n\n     Love once among roses\n     A sleeping bee\n     Did not see, but was stung;\n     And, being wounded in the finger\n     Of his hand, cried for pain.\n     Running as well as flying\n     To the beautiful Venus,\n     I am killed, mother, said he,\n     I am killed, and I die.\n     A little serpent has stung me,\n     Winged, which they call\n     A bee,\u2014the husbandmen.\n     And she said, If the sting\n     Of a bee afflicts you,\n     How, think you, are they afflicted,\n     Love, whom you smite?\n\n[_Dated only 1838._] Sometimes I hear the veery's silver clarion, or the\nbrazen note of the impatient jay, or in secluded woods the chickadee\ndoles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise of heroes, and set\nforth the loveliness of virtue evermore.\u2014_Phe-be._[48]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n1839\n\n(\u00c6T. 21-22)\n\n\nTHE THAW[49]\n\n_Jan. 11._\n\n     I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears,\n     Her tears of joy, that only faster flowed.\n\n     Fain would I stretch me by the highway-side,\n     To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,\n     That, mingled soul and body with the tide,\n     I too may through the pores of nature flow.\n\n     But I, alas, nor trickle can nor fume,\n     One jot to forward the great work of Time,\n     'Tis mine to hearken while these ply the loom,\n     So shall my silence with their music chime.\n\n\nTHE DREAM VALLEY\n\n_Jan. 20._ The prospect of our river valley from Tahatawan Cliff\nappeared to me again in my dreams.\n\n     Last night, as I lay gazing with shut eyes\n         Into the golden land of dreams,\n     I thought I gazed adown a quiet reach\n       Of land and water prospect,\n         Whose low beach\n     Was peopled with the now subsiding hum\n     Of happy industry, whose work is done.\n\n     And as I turned me on my pillow o'er,\n     I heard the lapse of waves upon the shore,\n     Distinct as it had been at broad noonday,\n     And I were wandering at Rockaway.\n\n\nLOVE\n\n     We two that planets erst had been\n     Are now a double star,\n     And in the heavens may be seen,\n     Where that we fix\u00e8d are.\n\n     Yet, whirled with subtle power along,\n     Into new space we enter,\n     And evermore with spheral song\n     Revolve about one centre.\n\n\n_Feb. 3._\n\n     The deeds of king and meanest hedger\n     Stand side by side in heaven's ledger.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     'Twill soon appear if we but look\n     At evening into earth's day-book,\n     Which way the great account doth stand\n     Between the heavens and the land.\n\n\nTHE EVENING WIND\n\n     The eastern mail comes lumbering in,\n     With outmost waves of Europe's din;\n     The western sighs adown the slope,\n     Or 'mid the rustling leaves doth grope,\n     Laden with news from Californ',\n     Whate'er transpired hath since morn,\n     How wags the world by brier and brake,\n     From hence to Athabasca lake.[50]\n\n\nPOETIZING\n\n_Feb. 8._ When the poetic frenzy seizes us, we run and scratch with our\npen, delighting, like the cock, in the dust we make, but do not detect\nwhere the jewel lies, which perhaps we have in the meantime cast to a\ndistance, or quite covered up again.[51]\n\n\n_Feb. 9._ It takes a man to make a room silent.\n\n\nTHE PEAL OF THE BELLS[52]\n\n_Feb. 10._\n\n     When the world grows old by the chimney-side,\n     Then forth to the youngling rocks I glide,\n     Where over the water, and over the land,\n     The bells are booming on either hand.\n\n     Now up they go ding, then down again dong,\n     And awhile they swing to the same old song,\n     And the metal goes round at a single bound,\n     A-lulling the fields with its measured sound,\n     Till the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom\n     As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.\n\n\n     Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone,\n     And seldom it is that one sound comes alone,\n     For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng,\n     And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along.\n\n     When the echo has reached me in this lone vale,\n     I am straightway a hero in coat of mail,\n     I tug at my belt and I march on my post,\n     And feel myself more than a match for a host.\n\n     I am on the alert for some wonderful Thing\n     Which somewhere 's a-taking place;\n     'Tis perchance the salute which our planet doth ring\n     When it meeteth another in space.\n\n\nTHE SHRIKE\n\n_Feb. 25._\n\n     Hark! hark! from out the thickest fog\n     Warbles with might and main\n     The fearless shrike, as all agog\n     To find in fog his gain.\n\n     His steady sails he never furls\n     At any time o' year,\n     And, perched now on Winter's curls,\n     He whistles in his ear.[53]\n\n\nTHE POET\n\n_March 3._ He must be something more than natural,\u2014even supernatural.\nNature will not speak through but along with him. His voice will\nnot proceed from her midst, but, breathing on her, will make her the\nexpression of his thought. He then poetizes when he takes a fact out\nof nature into spirit. He speaks without reference to time or place.\nHis thought is one world, hers another. He is another Nature,\u2014Nature's\nbrother. Kindly offices do they perform for one another. Each publishes\nthe other's truth.\n\n\nMORNING\n\n_April 4._ The atmosphere of morning gives a healthy hue to our\nprospects. Disease is a sluggard that overtakes, never encounters,\nus. We have the start each day, and may fairly distance him before the\ndew is off; but if we recline in the bowers of noon, he will come up\nwith us after all. The morning dew breeds no cold. We enjoy a diurnal\nreprieve in the beginning of each day's creation. In the morning we do\nnot believe in expediency; we will start afresh, and have no patching,\nno temporary fixtures. The afternoon man has an interest in the past;\nhis eye is divided, and he sees indifferently well either way.\n\n\nDRIFTING\n\nDrifting in a sultry day on the sluggish waters of the pond, I almost\ncease to live and begin to be. A boatman stretched on the deck of his\ncraft and dallying with the noon would be as apt an emblem of eternity\nfor me as the serpent with his tail in his mouth. I am never so prone\nto lose my identity. I am dissolved in the haze.\n\n\nDISAPPOINTMENT\n\n_April 7. Sunday._ The tediousness and detail of execution never occur\nto the genius projecting; it always antedates the completion of its\nwork. It condescends to give time a few hours to do its bidding in.\n\n\nRESOLVE\n\nMost have sufficient contempt for what is mean to resolve that they will\nabstain from it, and a few virtue enough to abide by their resolution,\nbut not often does one attain to such lofty contempt as to require no\nresolution to be made.\n\n\nTHE TEAMSTER\n\n_April 8._ There goes a six-horse team, and a man by its side. He\nhas rolled out of his cradle into a Tom-and-Jerry, and goes about his\nbusiness while Nature goes about hers, without standing agape at his\ncondition. As though sixty years were not enough for these things! What\nhave death, and the cholera, and the immortal destiny of man, to do\nwith the shipping interests? There is an unexplained bravery in this.\nWhat with bare astonishment one would think that man had his hands\nfull for so short a term. But this is no drawback on the lace-working\nand cap-making interests. Some attain to such a degree of sang-froid\nand nonchalance as to be weavers of toilet cushions and manufacturers\nof pinheads, without once flinching or the slightest affection of the\nnerves, for the period of a natural life.[54]\n\n\nFAT PINE FOR SPEARING\n\n_April 9._ Fat roots of pine lying in rich veins as of gold or silver,\neven in old pastures where you would least expect it, make you realize\nthat you live in the youth of the world, and you begin to know the\nwealth of the planet. Human nature is still in its prime, then. Bring\naxe, pickaxe, and shovel, and tap the earth here where there is most\nsap. The marrowy store gleams like some vigorous sinew, and you feel a\nnew suppleness in your own limbs. These are the traits that conciliate\nman's moroseness, and make him civil to his fellows; every such pine\nroot is a pledge of suavity. If he can discover absolute barrenness in\nany direction there will be some excuse for peevishness.\n\n\nSOCIETY\n\n_April 14._ There is a _terra firma_ in society as well as in geography,\nsome whose ports you may make by dead reckoning in all weather. All the\nrest are but floating and fabulous Atlantides which sometimes skirt the\nwestern horizon of our intercourse. They impose only on seasick mariners\nwho have put into some Canary Island on the frontiers of society.\n\n\nCIRCUMSTANCES\n\n_April 24._ Why should we concern ourselves with what has happened to\nus, and the unaccountable fickleness of events, and not rather [with]\nhow we have happened to the universe, and it has demeaned itself in\nconsequence? Let us record in each case the judgment we have awarded to\ncircumstances.\n\n\nACQUAINTANCE\n\nCheap persons will stand upon ceremony, because there is no other\nground; but to the great of the earth we need no introduction, nor do\nthey need any to us.\n\n\nTHE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH\n\n_April 25._ If we see the reality in things, of what moment is the\nsuperficial and apparent? Take the earth and all the interests it\nhas known,\u2014what are they beside one deep surmise that pierces and\nscatters them? The independent beggar disposes of all with one hearty,\nsignificant curse by the roadside. 'Tis true they are not worth a\n\"tinker's damn.\"\n\n\nPICTURE\n\n_April 30._ Of some illuminated pictures which I saw last evening, one\nrepresenting the plain of Babylon, with only a heap of brick-dust in\nthe centre, and an uninterrupted horizon bounding the desert, struck\nme most. I would see painted a boundless expanse of desert, prairie,\nor sea, without other object than the horizon. The heavens and the\nearth,\u2014the first and last painting,\u2014where is the artist who shall\nundertake it?\n\n\n_May 11._ The farmer keeps pace with his crops and the revolutions of\nthe seasons, but the merchant with the fluctuations of trade. Observe\nhow differently they walk in the streets.\n\n\nVICE AND VIRTUE\n\n_May 16._ Virtue is the very heart and lungs of vice: it cannot stand\nup but it lean on virtue.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho has not admired the twelve labors? And yet nobody thinks if Hercules\nhad sufficient motive for racking his bones to that degree. Men are not\nso much virtuous as patrons of virtue, and every one knows that it is\neasier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than the temporary\nguardian of it.\n\n\nTHE FORM OF STRENGTH\n\n_May 17._ We say justly that the weak person is flat; for, like all flat\nsubstances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is\non his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides\nall the way through life. Most things are strong in one direction,\u2014a\nstraw longitudinally, a board in the direction of its edge, a knee\ntransversely to its grain,\u2014but the brave man is a perfect sphere, which\ncannot fall on its flat side, and is equally strong every way. The\ncoward is wretchedly spheroidal at best, too much educated or drawn out\non one side commonly and depressed on the other; or he may be likened to\na hollow sphere, whose disposition of matter is best when the greatest\nbulk is intended.[55]\n\n\nSELF-CULTURE\n\n_May 21._ Who knows how incessant a surveillance a strong man may\nmaintain over himself,\u2014how far subject passion and appetite to reason,\nand lead the life his imagination paints? Well has the poet said,\u2014\n\n     \"By manly mind Not e'en in sleep is will resigned.\"\n\nBy a strong effort may he not command even his brute body in unconscious\nmoments?\n\n\nMY ATTIC\n\n_June 4._ I sit here this fourth of June, looking out on men and nature\nfrom this that I call my perspective window, through which all things\nare seen in their true relations. This is my upper empire, bounded by\nfour walls, viz., three of boards yellow-washed, facing the north,\nwest, and south, respectively, and the fourth of plaster, likewise\nyellow-washed, fronting the sunrise,\u2014to say nothing of the purlieus and\noutlying provinces, unexplored as yet but by rats.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like\nburs.\n\n\nRENCOUNTER\n\n_June 22. Saturday._ I have within the last few days come into contact\nwith a pure, uncompromising spirit, that is somewhere wandering in the\natmosphere, but settles not positively anywhere. Some persons carry\nabout them the air and conviction of virtue, though they themselves are\nunconscious of it, and are even backward to appreciate it in others.\nSuch it is impossible not to love; still is their loveliness, as it\nwere, independent of them, so that you seem not to lose it when they are\nabsent, for when they are near it is like an invisible presence which\nattends you.\n\nThat virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another's. We see so much\nonly as we possess.\n\n\nSYMPATHY[56]\n\n_June 24._\n\n     Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy,\n     Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mould,\n     As one she had designed for Beauty's toy,\n     But after manned him for her own stronghold.\n\n     On every side he open was as day,\n     That you might see no lack of strength within,\n     For walls and ports do only serve alway\n     For a pretense to feebleness and sin.\n\n     Say not that C\u00e6sar was victorious,\n     With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame;\n     In other sense this youth was glorious,\n     Himself a kingdom wheresoe'er he came.\n\n     No strength went out to get him victory,\n     When all was income of its own accord;\n     For where he went none other was to see,\n     But all were parcel of their noble lord.\n\n     He forayed like the subtle haze of summer,\n     That stilly shows fresh landscapes to our eyes,\n     And revolutions works without a murmur,\n     Or rustling of a leaf beneath the skies.\n\n     So was I taken unawares by this,\n     I quite forgot my homage to confess;\n     Yet now am forced to know, though hard it is,\n     I might have loved him, had I loved him less.\n\n     Each moment, as we nearer drew to each,\n     A stern respect withheld us farther yet,\n     So that we seemed beyond each other's reach,\n     And less acquainted than when first we met.\n\n\n     We two were one while we did sympathize,\n     So could we not the simplest bargain drive;\n     And what avails it now that we are wise,\n     If absence doth this doubleness contrive?\n\n     Eternity may not the chance repeat,\n     But I must tread my single way alone,\n     In sad remembrance that we once did meet,\n     And know that bliss irrevocably gone.\n\n     The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing,\n     For elegy has other subject none;\n     Each strain of music in my ears shall ring\n     Knell of departure from that other one.\n\n     Make haste and celebrate my tragedy;\n     With fitting strain resound, ye woods and fields;\n     Sorrow is dearer in such case to me\n     Than all the joys other occasion yields.\n\n     Is't then too late the damage to repair?\n     Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath reft\n     The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare,\n     But in my hands the wheat and kernel left.\n\n     If I but love that virtue which he is,\n     Though it be scented in the morning air,\n     Still shall we be truest acquaintances,\n     Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare.\n\n\nTHE \"BOOK OF GEMS\"\n\n_July 4._\n\n     With cunning plates the polished leaves were decked,\n     Each one a window to the poet's world,\n     So rich a prospect that you might suspect\n     In that small space all paradise unfurled.\n\n     It was a right delightful road to go,\n     Marching through pastures of such fair herbage,\n     O'er hill and dale it led, and to and fro,\n     From bard to bard, making an easy stage;\n\n     Where ever and anon I slaked my thirst\n     Like a tired traveller at some poet's well,\n     Which from the teeming ground did bubbling burst,\n     And tinkling thence adown the page it fell.\n     Still through the leaves its music you might hear,\n     Till other springs fell faintly on the ear.\n\n\nANNURSNACK\n\n_July 11._ At length we leave the river and take to the road which leads\nto the hilltop, if by any means we may spy out what manner of earth\nwe inhabit. East, west, north, and south, it is farm and parish, this\nworld of ours. One may see how at convenient, eternal intervals men\nhave settled themselves, without thought for the universe. How little\nmatters it all they have built and delved there in the valley! It is\nafter all but a feature in the landscape. Still the vast impulse of\nnature breathes over all. The eternal winds sweep across the interval\n_to-day_, bringing mist and haze to shut out their works. Still the crow\ncaws from Nawshawtuct to Annursnack, as no feeble tradesman nor smith\nmay do. And in all swamps the hum of mosquitoes drowns this modern hum\nof industry.\n\n  [Illustration: _View from Annursnack Hill_]\n\n\nEVERY MAN IS A ROMAN FORUM\n\nAll things are up and down, east and west, to _me_. In me is the forum\nout of which go the Appian and Sacred ways, and a thousand beside, to\nthe ends of the world. If I forget my centralness, and say a bean winds\nwith or against the _sun_, and not right or left, it will not be true\nsouth of the equator.\n\n\nTHE ASSABET\n\n_July 18._\n\n     Up this pleasant stream let's row\n       For the livelong summer's day,\n     Sprinkling foam where'er we go\n     In wreaths as white as driven snow.\n       Ply the oars! away! away![57]\n\n     Now we glide along the shore,\n       Chucking lilies as we go,\n     While the yellow-sanded floor\n     Doggedly resists the oar,\n       Like some turtle dull and slow.\n\n     Now we stem the middle tide,\n       Plowing through the deepest soil;\n     Ridges pile on either side,\n     While we through the furrow glide,\n       Reaping bubbles for our toil.\n\n     Dew before and drought behind,\n       Onward all doth seem to fly;\n     Naught contents the eager mind,\n     Only rapids now are kind,\n       Forward are the earth and sky.\n\n\n     Sudden music strikes the ear,\n       Leaking out from yonder bank,\n     Fit such voyagers to cheer.\n     Sure there must be Naiads here,\n       Who have kindly played this prank.\n\n     There I know the cunning pack\n       Where yon self-sufficient rill\n     All its telltale hath kept back,\n     Through the meadows held its clack,\n       And now bubbleth its fill.\n\n     Silent flows the parent stream,\n       And if rocks do lie below\n     Smothers with her waves the din,\n     As it were a youthful sin,\n       Just as still and just as slow.\n\n     But this gleeful little rill,\n       Purling round its storied pebble,\n     Tinkles to the selfsame tune\n     From December until June,\n       Nor doth any drought enfeeble.\n\n     See the sun behind the willows,\n       Rising through the golden haze,\n     How he gleams along the billows,\n     Their white crests the easy pillows\n       Of his dew-besprinkled rays.\n\n     Forward press we to the dawning,\n       For Aurora leads the way,\n     Sultry noon and twilight scorning;\n     In each dewdrop of the morning\n       Lies the promise of a day.\n\n     Rivers from the sun do flow,\n       Springing with the dewy morn;\n     Voyageurs 'gainst time do row,\n     Idle noon nor sunset know,\n       Ever even with the dawn.[58]\n\n     Since that first \"Away! away!\"\n       Many a lengthy league we've rowed,\n     Still the sparrow on the spray\n     Hastes to usher in the day\n       With her simple stanza'd ode.[59]\n\n\nTHE BREEZE'S INVITATION\n\n_July 20._\n\n     Come let's roam the breezy pastures,\n       Where the freest zephyrs blow,\n     Batten on the oak tree's rustle,\n     And the pleasant insect bustle,\n       Dripping with the streamlet's flow.\n\n     What if I no wings do wear,\n       Thro' this solid-seeming air\n     I can skim like any swallow;\n     Whoso dareth let her follow,\n       And we'll be a jovial pair.\n\n     Like two careless swifts let's sail,\n       Zephyrus shall think for me;\n     Over hill and over dale,\n     Riding on the easy gale,\n       We will scan the earth and sea.\n\n     Yonder see that willow tree\n       Winnowing the buxom air;\n     You a gnat and I a bee,\n     With our merry minstrelsy\n       We will make a concert there.\n\n     One green leaf shall be our screen,\n       Till the sun doth go to bed,\n     I the king and you the queen\n     Of that peaceful little green,\n       Without any subject's aid.\n\n     To our music Time will linger,\n       And earth open wide her ear,\n     Nor shall any need to tarry\n     To immortal verse to marry\n       Such sweet music as he'll hear.\n\n\n_July 24._\n\n     Nature doth have her dawn each day,\n     But mine are far between;\n     Content, I cry, for, sooth to say,\n     Mine brightest are, I ween.\n\n     For when my sun doth deign to rise,\n     Though it be her noontide,\n     Her fairest field in shadow lies,\n     Nor can my light abide.\n\n\n     Sometimes I bask me in her day,\n     Conversing with my mate;\n     But if we interchange one ray,\n     Forthwith her heats abate.\n\n     Through his discourse I climb and see,\n     As from some eastern hill,\n     A brighter morrow rise to me\n     Than lieth in her skill.\n\n     As't were two summer days in one,\n     Two Sundays come together,\n     Our rays united make one sun,\n     With fairest summer weather.[60]\n\n\n_July 25._ There is no remedy for love but to love more.\n\n\n_Aug. 31._ Made seven miles, and moored our boat on the west side of a\nlittle rising ground which in the spring forms an island in the river,\nthe sun going down on one hand, and our eminence contributing its shadow\nto the night on the other.[61] In the twilight so elastic is the air\nthat the sky seems to tinkle [_sic_] over farmhouse and wood. Scrambling\nup the bank of our _terra incognita_ we fall on huckleberries, which\nhave slowly ripened here, husbanding the juices which the months have\ndistilled, for our peculiar use this night.[62] If they had been rank\npoison, the entire simplicity and confidence with which we plucked them\nwould have insured their wholesomeness. The devout attitude of the hour\nasked a blessing on that repast. It was fit for the setting sun to rest\non.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom our tent here on the hillside, through that isosceles door, I see\nour lonely mast on the shore, it may be as an eternity fixture, to be\nseen in landscapes henceforth, or as the most temporary standstill of\ntime, the boat just come to anchor, and the mast still rocking to find\nits balance.[63]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo human life is in night,\u2014the woods, the boat, the shore,\u2014yet is it\nlifelike.[64] The warm pulse of a young life beats steadily underneath\nall. This slight wind is where one artery approaches the surface and is\nskin deep.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhile I write here, I hear the foxes trotting about me over the dead\nleaves, and now gently over the grass, as if not to disturb the dew\nwhich is falling. Why should we not cultivate neighborly relations with\nthe foxes? As if to improve upon our seeming advances, comes one to\ngreet us nosewise under our tent-curtain. Nor do we rudely repulse him.\nIs man powder and the fox flint and steel? Has not the time come when\nmen and foxes shall lie down together?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHist! there, the musquash by the boat is taking toll of potatoes and\nmelons. Is not this the age of a community of goods? His presumption\nkindles in me a brotherly feeling. Nevertheless. I get up to\nreconnoitre, and tread stealthily along the shore to make acquaintance\nwith him. But on the riverside I can see only the stars reflected in the\nwater, and now, by some ripple ruffling the disk of a star, I discover\nhim.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the silence of the night the sound of a distant alarm bell is borne\nto these woods. Even now men have fires and extinguish them, and, with\ndistant horizon blazings and barking of dogs, enact the manifold drama\nof life.[65]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe begin to have an interest in sun, moon, and stars. What time\nriseth Orion? Which side the pole gropeth the bear? East, West,\nNorth, and South,\u2014where are they? What clock shall tell the hours for\nus?\u2014Billerica, midnight.\n\n\n_Sept. 1. Sunday._ Under an oak on the bank of the canal in Chelmsford.\n\nFrom Ball's Hill to Billerica meeting-house the river is a noble stream\nof water, flowing between gentle hills and occasional cliffs, and well\nwooded all the way. It can hardly be said to flow at all, but rests\nin the lap of the hills like a quiet lake. The boatmen call it a dead\nstream. For many long reaches you can see nothing to indicate that men\ninhabit its banks.[66] Nature seems to hold a sabbath herself to-day,\u2014a\nstill warm sun on river and wood, and not breeze enough to ruffle the\nwater. Cattle stand up to their bellies in the river, and you think\nRembrandt should be here.\n\nCamped under some oaks in Tyngsboro, on the east bank of the Merrimack,\njust below the ferry.[67]\n\n\n_Sept. 2._ Camped in Merrimack, on the west bank, by a deep ravine.[68]\n\n\n_Sept. 3._ In Bedford, on the west bank, opposite a large rock, above\nCoos Falls.[69]\n\n\n_Sept. 4. Wednesday._ Hooksett, east bank, two or three miles below the\nvillage, opposite Mr. Mitchel's.[70]\n\n\n_Sept. 5._ Walked to Concord [N. H.], 10 miles.[71]\n\n\n_Sept. 6._ By stage to Plymouth, 40 miles, and on foot to Tilton's inn,\nThornton. The scenery commences on Sanbornton Square, whence the White\nMountains are first visible. In Campton it is decidedly mountainous.\n\n\n_Sept. 7._ Walked from Thornton through Peeling[72] and Lincoln to\nFranconia. In Lincoln visited Stone Flume and Basin, and in Franconia\nthe Notch, and saw the Old Man of the Mountain.\n\n\n_Sept. 8._ Walked from Franconia to Thomas J. Crawford's.\n\n\n_Sept. 9._ At Crawford's.\n\n\n_Sept. 10._ Ascended the mountain and rode to Conway.\n\n\n_Sept. 11._ Rode to Concord.\n\n\n_Sept. 12._ Rode to Hooksett and rowed to Bedford, N. H., or rather to\nthe northern part of Merrimack, near the ferry, by a large island, near\nwhich we camped.[73]\n\n\n_Sept 13._ Rowed and sailed to Concord, about 50 miles.[74]\n\n\nTHE WISE REST\n\n_Sept 17._ Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even\npace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as\nthough the short spring days were an eternity.[75] All her operations\nseem separately, for the time, the single object for which all things\ntarry. Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity\nwere allotted for the least deed? Let him consume never so many \u00e6ons,\nso that he go about the meanest task well, though it be but the paring\nof his nails.[76] If the setting sun seems to hurry him to improve the\nday while it lasts, the chant of the crickets fails not to reassure him,\neven-measured as of old, teaching him to take his own time henceforth\nforever. The wise man is restful, never restless or impatient. He each\nmoment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole\nbody at each step, while others never relax the muscles of the leg till\nthe accumulated fatigue obliges them to stop short.\n\nAs the wise is not anxious that time wait for him, neither does he wait\nfor it.\n\n\n_Oct 22._ Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to\nlay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of\nits plain.[77]\n\n\n\u00c6SCHYLUS\n\n_Nov. 5._ There was one man lived his own healthy Attic life in those\ndays. The words that have come down to us evidence that their speaker\nwas a seer in his day and generation. At this day they owe nothing to\ntheir dramatic form, nothing to stage machinery, and the fact that they\nwere spoken under these or those circumstances. All display of art for\nthe gratification of a factitious taste is silently passed by to come\nat the least particle of absolute and genuine thought they contain. The\nreader will be disappointed, however, who looks for traits of a rare\nwisdom or eloquence, and will have to solace himself, for the most part,\nwith the poet's humanity and what it was in him to say. He will discover\nthat, like every genius, he was a solitary liver and worker in his day.\n\nWe are accustomed to say that the common sense of this age belonged to\nthe seer of the last,\u2014as if time gave him any vantage ground. But not\nso: I see not but Genius must ever take an equal start, and all the\ngenerations of men are virtually at a standstill for it to come and\nconsider of them. Common sense is not so familiar with any truth but\nGenius will represent it in a strange light to it. Let the seer bring\ndown his broad eye to the most stale and trivial fact, and he will make\nyou believe it a new planet in the sky.\n\nAs to criticism, man has never to make allowance to man; there is naught\nto excuse, naught to bear in mind.\n\nAll the past is here present to be tried; let it approve itself if it\ncan.\n\n\nGROWTH\n\nWe are not apt to remember that we grow. It is curious to reflect how\nthe maiden waiteth patiently, confiding as the unripe houstonia of the\nmeadow, for the slow moving years to work their will with her,\u2014perfect\nand ripen her,\u2014like it to be fanned by the wind, watered by the rain,\nand receive her education at the hands of nature.\n\nThese young buds of manhood in the streets are like buttercups in the\nmeadows,\u2014surrendered to nature as they.\n\n\n_Nov. 7._ I was not aware till to-day of a rising and risen generation.\nChildren appear to me as raw as the fresh fungi on a fence rail. By\nwhat degrees of consanguinity is this succulent and rank-growing slip\nof manhood related to me? What is it but another herb, ranging all the\nkingdoms of nature, drawing in sustenance by a thousand roots and fibres\nfrom all soils.\n\n\nLACONICISM\n\n_Nov. 8._ Prometheus' answer to Io's question, who has bound him to the\nrock, is a good instance:\u2014\n\n     \u0392\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f29\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03c1.\n\n     (The will indeed of Zeus, of Vulcan the hand.)\n\nAlso:\u2014\n\n     \u03a0\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u1ff7\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1ff7, \u03bc\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9,\n     \u1f4d\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03cc, \u03c4\u1fbd \u1f04\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03b4\u03af\u03c7\u03b1.\n\nSuch naked speech is the standing aside of words to make room for\nthoughts.\n\n\nREGRET\n\n_Nov. 13._ Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow,\nbut tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral\ninterest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. By so doing you will be\nastonished to find yourself restored once more to all your emoluments.\n\n\nDESPONDENCY\n\n_Nov. 14._ There is nowhere any apology for despondency. Always there is\nlife which, rightly lived, implies a divine satisfaction. I am soothed\nby the rain-drops on the door-sill; every globule that pitches thus\nconfidently from the eaves to the ground is my life insurance. Disease\nand a rain-drop cannot coexist. The east wind is not itself consumptive,\nbut has enjoyed a rare health from of old. If a fork or brand stand\nerect, good is portended by it. They are the warrant of universal\ninnocence.\n\n\nFAREWELL\n\n_Nov. 19._\n\n     Light-hearted, thoughtless, shall I take my way,\n     When I to thee this being have resigned,\n     Well knowing where, upon a future day,\n     With us'rer's craft more than myself to find.\n\n\nLINN\u00c6US\n\n_Nov. 22._ Linn\u00e6us, setting out for Lapland, surveys his \"comb\" and\n\"spare shirt,\" \"leather breeches,\" and \"gauze cap to keep off gnats,\"\nwith as much complacency as Buonaparte would a park of artillery to be\nused in the Russian Campaign. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and\nbird, quadruped and biped. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.\nThese facts have even a _novel_ interest.[78]\n\n\n_Nov. 29._ Many brave men have there been, thank Fortune, but I shall\nnever grow brave by comparison. When I remember myself I shall forget\nthem.\n\n\nBRAVERY\n\n_Dec. 2._ A rare landscape immediately suggests a suitable inhabitant,\nwhose breath shall be its wind, whose moods its seasons, and to whom\nit will always be fair. To be chafed and worried, and not as serene as\nNature, does not become one whose nature is as steadfast as she. We do\nall stand in the front ranks of the battle every moment of our lives;\nwhere there is a brave man there is the thickest of the fight, there\nthe post of honor. Not he who procures a substitute to go to Florida is\nexempt from service; he gathers his laurels in another field. Waterloo\nis not the only battle-ground: as many and fatal guns are pointed at my\nbreast now as are contained in the English arsenals.\n\n\nNOON\n\n[_Undated._][79]\n\n                               Straightway dissolved,\n     Like to the morning mists\u2014or rather like the subtler mists of noon\u2014\n     Stretched I far up the neighboring mountain's sides,\n     Adown the valleys, through the nether air,\n     Bathing, with fond expansiveness of soul,\n     The tiniest blade as the sublimest cloud.\n\n     What time the bittern, solitary bird,\n     Hides now her head amid the whispering fern,\n     And not a paddock vexes all the shore,\n     Nor feather ruffles the incumbent air,\n     Save where the wagtail interrupts the noon.\n\n\nFROM A CHAPTER ON BRAVERY.\u2014_Script_\n\n_Dec._ Bravery deals not so much in resolute action, as in healthy\nand assured rest. Its palmy state is a staying at home, and compelling\nalliance in all directions.[80]\n\nThe brave man never heareth the din of war; he is trustful and\nunsuspecting, so observant of the least trait of good or beautiful that,\nif you turn toward him the dark side of anything, he will still see only\nthe bright.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne moment of serene and confident life is more glorious than a whole\ncampaign of daring. We should be ready for all issues, not daring to\ndie but daring to live. To the brave even danger is an ally.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn their unconscious daily life all are braver than they know. Man\nslumbers and wakes in his twilight with the confidence of noonday; he is\nnot palsied nor struck dumb by the inexplicable riddle of the universe.\nA mere surveyor's report or clause in a pre\u00ebmption bill contains matter\nof quite extraneous interest, of a subdued but confident tone, evincing\nsuch a steadiness in the writer as would have done wonders at Bunker's\nHill or Marathon. Where there is the collected eye, there will not fail\nthe effective hand; \u03c7\u03b5\u1f76\u03c1 \u03b4\u1fbd \u1f41\u03c1\u1fb7 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nScience is always brave, for to know is to know good; doubt and danger\nquail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly\nscrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts in\nher train. Cowardice is unscientific, for there cannot be a science\nof ignorance. There may be a science of war, for that advances, but\na retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is, then is it an orderly\nadvance in the face of circumstances.[81]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf his fortune deserts him, the brave man in pity still abides by her.\nSamuel Johnson and his friend Savage, compelled by poverty to pass the\nnight in the streets, resolve that they will stand by their country.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe state of complete manhood is virtue, and virtue and bravery are\none. This truth has long been in the languages. All the relations of\nthe subject are hinted at in the derivation and analogies of the Latin\nwords _vir_ and _virtus_, and the Greek \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2 and \u1f04\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. Language\nin its settled form is the record of men's second thoughts, a more\nfaithful utterance than they can momentarily give. What men say is so\nsifted and obliged to approve itself as answering to a common want,\nthat nothing absolutely frivolous obtains currency in the language. The\nanalogies of words are never whimsical and meaningless, but stand for\nreal likenesses. Only the ethics of mankind, and not of any particular\nman, give point and vigor to our speech.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe coward was born one day too late, for he has never overtaken the\npresent hour. He is the younger son of creation, who now waiteth till\nthe elder decease.[82] He does not dwell on the earth as though he had\na deed of the land in his pocket,\u2014not as another lump of nature, as\nimperturbable an occupant as the stones in the field. He has only rented\na few acres of time and space, and thinks that every accident portends\nthe expiration of his lease. He is a non-proprietor, a serf, in his\nmoral economy nomadic, having no fixed abode. When danger appears, he\ngoes abroad and clings to straws.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBravery and Cowardice are kindred correlatives with Knowledge and\nIgnorance, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf you let a single ray of light through the shutter, it will go on\ndiffusing itself without limit till it enlighten the world, but the\nshadow that was never so wide at first as rapidly contracts till it\ncomes to naught. The shadow of the moon when it passes nearest the sun\nis lost in space ere it can reach our earth to eclipse it. Always the\n_system_ shines with uninterrupted light, for, as the sun is so much\nlarger than any planet, no shadow can travel far into space. We may\nbask always in the light of the system, always may step back out of\nthe shade. No man's shadow is as large as his body, if the rays make a\nright angle with the reflecting surface. Let our lives be passed under\nthe equator, with the sun in the meridian.\n\nThere is no ill which may not be dissipated like the dark, if you let\nin a stronger light upon it. Overcome evil with good. Practice no such\nnarrow economy as they whose bravery amounts to no more light than a\nfarthing candle, before which most objects cast a shadow wider than\nthemselves.[83]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was a conceit of Plutarch, accounting for the preferences given\nto signs observed on the left hand, that men may have thought \"things\nterrestrial and mortal directly over against heavenly and divine things,\nand do conjecture that the things which to us are on the left hand,\nthe gods send down from their right hand.\"[84] If we are not blind, we\nshall see how a right hand is stretched over all, as well the unlucky\nas lucky, and that the ordering soul is only right-handed, distributing\nwith one palm all our fates.[85]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen have made war from a deeper instinct than peace. War is but the\ncompelling of peace.[86]\n\nWhen the world is declared under martial law, every Esau retakes his\nbirthright, and what there is in him does not fail to appear. He wipes\noff all old scores and commences a new account. The world is interested\nto know how any soul will demean itself in so novel a position. But when\nwar too, like commerce and husbandry, gets to be a routine, and men go\nabout it as indented apprentices, the hero degenerates into a marine,\nand the standing army into a standing jest.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo pains are spared to do honor to the brave soldier. All guilds and\ncorporations are taxed to provide him with fit harness and equipment.\nHis coat must be red as the sunset, or blue as the heavens. Gold\nor silver, pinchbeck or copper, solid or superficial, mark him for\nfortune's favorite. The skill of a city enchases and tempers his\nsword-blade; the Tyrian dye confounds him with emperors and kings.\nWherever he goes, music precedes and prepares the way for him. His life\nis a holiday, and the contagion of his example unhinges the universe.\nThe world puts by work and comes out to stare. He is the one only man.\nHe recognizes no time-honored casts and conventions, no fixtures but\ntransfixtures, no governments at length settled on a permanent basis.\nOne tap of the drum sets the political and moral harmonies all ajar.\nHis ethics may well bear comparison with the priest's. He may rally,\ncharge, retreat in an orderly manner, but never flee nor flinch.[87]\n\n     Each more melodious note I hear\n     Brings sad reproach to me,\n     That I alone afford the ear,\n     Who would the music be.[88]\n\nThe brave man is the sole patron of music;[89] he recognizes it for his\nmother-tongue,\u2014a more mellifluous and articulate language than words,\nin comparison with which speech is recent and temporary. It is his\nvoice. His language must have the same majestic movement and cadence\nthat philosophy assigns to the heavenly bodies. The steady flux of his\nthought constitutes time in music. The universe falls in and keeps pace\nwith it, which before proceeded singly and discordant. Hence are poetry\nand song. When Bravery first grew afraid and went to war, it took music\nalong with it. The soul delighted still to hear the echo of its own\nvoice. Especially the soldier insists on agreement and harmony always.\nIndeed, it is that friendship there is in war that makes it chivalrous\nand heroic. It was the dim sentiment of a noble friendship for the\npurest soul the world has seen, that gave to Europe a crusading era.[90]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe day of tilts and tournaments has gone by, but no herald summons us\nto the tournament of love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe brave warrior must have harmony if not melody at any sacrifice.\nConsider what shifts he makes. There are the bagpipe, the gong, the\ntrumpet, the drum,\u2014either the primitive central African or Indian, or\nthe brass European. Ever since Jericho fell down before a blast of rams'\nhorns, the martial and musical have gone hand in hand. If the soldier\nmarches to the sack of a town, he must be preceded by drum and trumpet,\nwhich shall as it were identify his cause with the accordant universe.\nAll woods and walls echo back his own spirit, and the hostile territory\nis then preoccupied for him. He is no longer insulated, but infinitely\nrelated and familiar. The roll-call musters for him all the forces of\nnature.[91]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll sounds, and more than all, silence, do fife and drum for us.[92] The\nleast creaking doth whet all our senses and emit a tremulous light, like\nthe aurora borealis, over things. As polishing expresses the vein in\nmarble and the grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks\nanywhere.[93]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo the sensitive soul, the universe has its own fixed measure, which is\nits measure also, and, as a regular pulse is inseparable from a healthy\nbody, so is its healthiness dependent on the regularity of its rhythm.\nIn all sounds the soul recognizes its own rhythm, and seeks to express\nits sympathy by a correspondent movement of the limbs. When the body\nmarches to the measure of the soul, then is true courage and invincible\nstrength.[94]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe coward would reduce this thrilling sphere music to a universal\nwail, this melodious chant to a nasal cant. He thinks to conciliate all\nhostile influences by compelling his neighborhood into a partial concord\nwith himself, but his music is no better than a jingle which is akin to\na jar,\u2014jars regularly recurring.[95]\n\nHe blows a feeble blast of slender melody, because nature can have no\nmore sympathy with such a soul than it has of cheerful melody in itself.\nHence hears he no accordant note in the universe, and is a coward, or\nconsciously outcast and deserted man. But the brave man, without drum or\ntrumpet, compels concord everywhere by the universality and tunefulness\nof his soul.[96]\n\n\"Take a metallic plate,\" says Coleridge, \"and strew sand on it; sound\na harmonic chord over the sand, and the grains will whirl about in\ncircles, and other geometrical figures, all, as it were, depending on\nsome point relatively at rest. Sound a discord, and every grain will\nwhisk about without any order at all, in no figures, and with no points\nof rest.\" The brave man is such a point of relative rest, over which\nthe soul sounds ever a harmonic chord.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMusic is either a sedative or a tonic to the soul.[97] I read that\n\"Plato thinks the gods never gave men music, the science of melody\nand harmony, for mere delectation or to tickle the ear; but that the\ndiscordant parts of the circulations and beauteous fabric of the soul,\nand that of it that roves about the body, and many times, for want of\ntune and air, breaks forth into many extravagances and excesses, might\nbe sweetly recalled and artfully wound up to their former consent and\nagreement.\"[98]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBy dint of wind and stringed instruments the coward endeavors to put\nthe best face on the matter,\u2014whistles to keep his courage up.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are some brave traits related by Plutarch; e. g.: \"Homer acquaints\nus how Ajax, being to engage in a single combat with Hector, bade\nthe Grecians pray to the gods for him; and while they were at their\ndevotions, he was putting on his armor.\"\n\nOn another occasion, a storm arises, \"which as soon as the pilot sees,\nhe falls to his prayers, and invokes his tutelar d\u00e6mons, but neglects\nnot in the meantime to hold to the rudder and let down the main yard.\"\n\n\"Homer directs his husbandman, before he either plow or sow, to pray\nto the terrestrial Jove and the venerable Ceres, but with his hand upon\nthe plow-tail.\"\n\n\u1f08\u03c1\u03c7\u1f74 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u1fb7\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b8\u03b1\u1fe4\u1fe5\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd. (Verily, to be brave is the\nbeginning of victory.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Romans \"made Fortune surname to Fortitude,\" for fortitude is that\nalchemy that turns all things to good fortune. The man of fortitude,\nwhom the Latins called fortis, is no other than that lucky person\nwhom _fors_ favors, or _vir summae fortis_. If we will, every bark may\n\"carry C\u00e6sar and C\u00e6sar's fortune.\" The brave man stays at home. For an\nimpenetrable shield, stand inside yourself; he was an arrant coward who\nfirst made shields of brass. For armor of proof, mea virtute me involvo\n(I wrap myself in my virtue);\n\n     \"Tumble me down, and I will sit\n     Upon my ruins, smiling yet.\"[99]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe bravest deed, which for the most part is left quite out of history,\nwhich alone wants the staleness of a deed done and the uncertainty\nof a deed doing, is the life of a great man. To perform exploits is\nto be temporarily bold, as becomes a courage that ebbs and flows, the\nsoul quite vanquished by its own deed subsiding into indifference and\ncowardice; but the exploit of a brave life consists in its momentary\ncompleteness.[100]\n\n\nFRIENDSHIP [101]\n\n_Fall of_ 1839. Then first I conceive of a true friendship, when some\nrare specimen of manhood presents itself. It seems the mission of such\nto commend virtue to mankind, not by any imperfect preaching of her\nword, but by their own carriage and conduct. We may then worship moral\nbeauty without the formality of a religion.\n\nThey are some fresher wind that blows, some new fragrance that breathes.\nThey make the landscape and the sky for us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe rules of other intercourse are all inapplicable to this.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe are one virtue, one truth, one beauty. All nature is our satellite,\nwhose light is dull and reflected. She is subaltern to us,\u2014an episode to\nour poem; but we are primary, and radiate light and heat to the system.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am only introduced once again to myself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nConversation, contact, familiarity are the steps to it and instruments\nof it, but it is most perfect when these are done, and distance and time\noppose no barrier.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI need not ask any man to be my friend, more than the sun the earth\nto be attracted by him. It is not his to give, nor mine to receive. I\ncannot pardon my enemy; let him pardon himself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCommonly we degrade Love and Friendship by presenting them under the\naspect of a trivial dualism.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat matter a few words more or less with my friend,\u2014with all\nmankind;\u2014they will still be my friends in spite of themselves. Let them\nstand aloof if they can! As though the most formidable distance could\nrob me of any real sympathy or advantage! No, when such interests are\nat stake, time, and distance, and difference fall into their own places.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut alas! to be actually separated from that parcel of heaven we call\nour friend, with the suspicion that we shall no more meet in nature, is\nsource enough for all the elegies that ever were written. But the true\nremedy will be to recover our friend again piecemeal, wherever we can\nfind a feature, as \u00c6etes gathered up the members of his son, which Medea\nhad strewn in her path.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe more complete our sympathy, the more our senses are struck dumb,\nand we are repressed by a delicate respect, so that to indifferent eyes\nwe are least his friend, because no vulgar symbols pass between us. On\nafter thought, perhaps, we come to fear that we have been the losers by\nsuch seeming indifference, but in truth that which withholds us is the\nbond between us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy friend will be as much better than myself as my aspiration is above\nmy performance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis is most serene autumn weather. The chirp of crickets may be\nheard at noon over all the land. As in summer they are heard only at\nnightfall, so now by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of\nthe year.[102] The lively decay of autumn promises as infinite duration\nand freshness as the green leaves of spring.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n1840\n\n(\u00c6T. 22-23)\n\n\nTHE FISHER'S SON[103]\n\n_Jan. 10._\n\n     I know the world where land and water meet,\n     By yonder hill abutting on the main;\n     One while I hear the waves incessant beat,\n     Then, turning round, survey the land again.\n\n     Within a humble cot that looks to sea,\n     Daily I breathe this curious warm life;\n     Beneath a friendly haven's sheltering lee\n     My noiseless day with myst'ry still is rife.\n\n     'Tis here, they say, my simple life began;\n     And easy credit to the tale I lend,\n     For well I know 'tis here I am a man.\n     But who will simply tell me of the end?\n\n     These eyes, fresh opened, spied the far-off Sea,\n     Which like a silent godfather did stand,\n     Nor uttered one explaining word to me,\n     But introduced straight Godmother Land.\n\n     And yonder still stretches that silent main,\n     With many glancing ships besprinkled o'er;\n     And earnest still I gaze and gaze again\n     Upon the selfsame waves and friendly shore,\n\n     Till like a watery humor on the eye\n     It still appears whichever way I turn,\n     Its silent waste and mute o'erarching sky\n     With close-shut eyes I clearly still discern.\n\n     And yet with lingering doubt I haste each morn\n     To see if ocean still my gaze will greet,\n     And with each day once more to life am born,\n     And tread once more the earth with infant feet.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     My years are like a stroll upon the beach,\n     As near the ocean's edge as I can go;\n     My tardy steps its waves do oft o'erreach,\n     Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.\n\n     Infinite work my hands find there to do,\n     Gathering the relics which the waves upcast;\n     Each storm doth scour the deep for something new,\n     And every time the strangest is the last.\n\n     My sole employment 'tis, and scrupulous care,\n     To place my gains beyond the reach of tides,\n     Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,\n     Which ocean kindly to my hand confides.\n\n     I have no fellow-laborer on the shore;\n     They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea;\n     Sometimes I think the ocean they've sailed o'er\n     Is deeper known upon the strand to me.\n\n\n     The middle sea can show no crimson dulse,\n     Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view,\n     Along the shore my hand is on its pulse,\n     Whose feeble beat is elsewhere felt by few.\n\n     My neighbors come sometimes with lumb'ring carts.\n     As it would seem my pleasant toil to share,\n     But straightway take their loads to distant marts,\n     For only weeds and ballast are their care.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     'Tis by some strange coincidence, if I\n     Make common cause with ocean when he storms,\n     Who can so well support a separate sky,\n     And people it with multitude of forms.\n\n     Oft in the stillness of the night I hear\n     Some restless bird presage the coming din,\n     And distant murmurs faintly strike my ear\n     From some bold bluff projecting far within.\n\n     My stillest depths straightway do inly heave\n     More genially than rests the summer's calm;\n     The howling winds through my soul's cordage grieve,\n     Till every shelf and ledge gives the alarm.\n\n     Far from the shore the swelling billows rise,\n     And gathering strength come rolling to the land,\n     And, as each wave retires, and murmur dies,\n     I straight pursue upon the streaming sand,\n\n     Till the returning surge with gathered strength\n     Compels once more the backward way to take,\n     And, creeping up the beach a cable's length,\n     In many a thirsty hollow leaves a lake.\n\n     Oft as some ruling star my tide has swelled\n     The sea can scarcely brag more wrecks than I;\n     Ere other influence my waves has quelled,\n     The stanchest bark that floats is high and dry.\n\n\n_Jan. 19._\n\n     By a strong liking we prevail\n     Against the stoutest fort;\n     At length the fiercest heart will quail,\n     And our alliance court.\n\n\nFRIENDS\n\n_Jan. 26._ They are like air bubbles on water, hastening to flow\ntogether.\n\nHistory tells of Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, but why should\nnot we put to shame those old reserved worthies by a community of such?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nConstantly, as it were through a remote skylight, I have glimpses of\na serene friendship-land, and know the better why brooks murmur and\nviolets grow.\n\nThis conjunction of souls, like waves which meet and break, subsides\nalso backward over things, and gives all a fresh aspect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI would live henceforth with some gentle soul such a life as may be\nconceived, double for variety, single for harmony,\u2014two, only that we\nmight admire at our oneness,\u2014one, because indivisible. Such community to\nbe a pledge of holy living. How could aught unworthy be admitted into\nour society? To listen with one ear to each summer sound, to behold\nwith one eye each summer scene, our visual rays so to meet and mingle\nwith the object as to be one bent and doubled; with two tongues to be\nwearied, and thought to spring ceaselessly from a double fountain.\n\n\nPOETRY\n\n_Jan._ No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.\nThe most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient,\nand the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its\nrequisitions.[104] It is indeed all that we do not know.\n\nThe poet does not need to see how meadows are something else than earth,\ngrass, and water, but how they are thus much. He does not need discover\nthat potato blows are as beautiful as violets, as the farmer thinks,\nbut only how good potato blows are.\n\nThe poem is drawn out from under the feet of the poet, his whole weight\nhas rested on this ground.\n\nIt has a logic more severe than the logician's.\n\nYou might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it\non the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought. The\nbest book is only an advertisement of it, such as is sometimes sewed in\nwith its cover.[105]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIts eccentric and unexplored orbit embraces the system.\n\n\n_Jan. 27._ What a tame life we are living! How little heroic it is!\nLet us devise never so perfect a system of living, and straightway the\nsoul leaves it to shuffle along its own way alone. It is easy enough\nto establish a durable and harmonious routine; immediately all parts of\nnature consent to it.[106] The sun-dial still points to the noon mark,\nand the sun rises and sets for it. The neighbors are never fatally\nobstinate when such a scheme is to be instituted; but forthwith all\nlend a hand, and ring the bell, and bring fuel and lights, and put\nby work and don their best garments, with an earnest conformity which\nmatches the operations of nature. There is always a present and extant\nlife which all combine to uphold, though its insufficiency is manifest\nenough.[107] Still the sing-song goes on.\n\n\n_Jan. 29._ A friend in history looks like some premature soul. The\nnearest approach to a community of love in these days is like the\ndistant breaking of waves on the seashore. An ocean there must be, for\nit washes our beach.\n\nThis alone do all men sail for, trade for, plow for, preach for, fight\nfor.\n\n\n\u00c6SCHYLUS\n\nThe Greeks, as the Southerns generally, expressed themselves with more\nfacility than we in distinct and lively images, and as to the grace and\ncompleteness with which they treated the subjects suited to their genius\nthey must be allowed to retain their ancient supremacy. But a rugged\nand uncouth array of thought, though never so modern, may rout them at\nany moment. It remains for other than Greeks to write the literature of\nthe next century.\n\n\u00c6schylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only\nan enlarged common sense. He adverts with chaste severity to all natural\nfacts. His sublimity is Greek sincerity and simpleness, naked wonder\nwhich mythology had not helped to explain.\n\nTydeus' shield had for device\n\n     \"An artificial heaven blazing with stars;\n     A bright full moon in the midst of the shield,\n     Eldest of stars, eye of night, is prominent.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Greeks were stern but simple children in their literature. We have\ngained nothing by the few ages which we have the start of them. This\nuniversal wondering at those old men is as if a matured grown person\nshould discover that the aspirations of his youth argued a diviner life\nthan the contented wisdom of his manhood.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe is competent to express any of the common manly feelings. If his\nhero is to make a boast, it does not lack fullness, it is as boastful\nas could be desired; he has a flexible mouth, and can fill it readily\nwith strong, round words, so that you will say the man's speech wants\nnothing, he has left nothing unsaid, but he has actually wiped his lips\nof it.\n\nWhatever the common eye sees at all and expresses as best it may, he\nsees uncommonly and describes with rare completeness. The multitude that\nthronged the theatre could no doubt go along with him to the end. The\nGreeks had no transcendent geniuses like Milton and Shakespeare, whose\nmerit only posterity could fully appreciate.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe social condition of genius is the same in all ages. \u00c6schylus was\nundoubtedly alone and without sympathy in his simple reverence for the\nmystery of the universe.\n\n\n_Feb. 10._ CRITICISM ON AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS[108]\n\n\n_Feb. 11._ \"Truth,\" says Lord Bacon, \"may perhaps come to the price of\na pearl, that sheweth best by day; but it will not rise to the price\nof a diamond or carbuncle, which sheweth best in varied lights.\" Like\nthe pearl, truth shines with a steady but pale light which invites\nto introspection; it is intrinsically bright, not accidentally as the\ndiamond. We seem to behold its rear always, as though it were not coming\ntoward us but retiring from us. Its light is not reflected this way, but\nwe see the sombre and wrong side of its rays. As the dust in his beams\nmakes known that the sun shines.\n\nFalsehoods that glare and dazzle are sloped toward us, reflecting full\nin our faces even the light of the sun. Wait till sunset, or go round\nthem, and the falsity will be apparent.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is never enough that our life is an easy one. We must live on the\nstretch; not be satisfied with a tame and undisturbed round of weeks\nand days, but retire to our rest like soldiers on the eve of a battle,\nlooking forward with ardor to the strenuous sortie of the morrow.[109]\n\"Sit not down in the popular seats and common level of virtues, but\nendeavor to make them heroical. Offer not only peace offerings but\nholocausts unto God.\" To the brave soldier the rust and leisure of\npeace are harder than the fatigues of war. As our bodies court physical\nencounters, and languish in the mild and even climate of the tropics,\nso our souls thrive best on unrest and discontent.[110]\n\nHe enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.\n\n\n_Feb. 12._ Opposition is often so strong a likeness as to remind us of\nthe difference.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTruth has properly no opponent, for nothing gets so far up on the other\nside as to be opposite. She looks broadcast over the field and sees no\nopponent.\n\nThe ring-leader of the mob will soonest be admitted into the councils\nof state.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nKnavery is more foolish than folly, for that, half knowing its own\nfoolishness, it still persists. The knave has reduced folly to a system,\nis the prudent, common-sense fool. The witling has the simplicity and\ndirectness of genius, is the inspired fool. His incomprehensible ravings\nbecome the creed of the dishonest of a succeeding era.\n\n\n_Feb. 13._ An act of integrity is to an act of duty what the French verb\n_\u00eatre_ is to _devoir_. Duty is _ce que devrait \u00eatre_.\n\nDuty belongs to the understanding, but genius is not dutiful, the\nhighest talent is dutiful. Goodness results from the wisest use of\ntalent.\n\nThe perfect man has both genius and talent. The one is his head, the\nother his foot; by one he is, by the other he lives.\n\nThe unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God, the end of the\nworld.[111]\n\nThe very thrills of genius are disorganizing. The body is never quite\nacclimated to _its_ atmosphere, but how often succumbs and goes into a\ndecline!\n\n\n_Feb. 14._ Beauty lives by rhymes. Double a deformity is a beauty. Draw\nthis blunt quill over the paper, and fold it once transversely to the\nline, pressing it suddenly before the ink dries, and a delicately shaded\nand regular figure is the result, which art cannot surpass.[112]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA very meagre natural history suffices to make me a child. Only their\nnames and genealogy make me love fishes. I would know even the number of\ntheir fin-rays, and how many scales compose the lateral line. I fancy I\nam amphibious and swim in all the brooks and pools in the neighborhood,\nwith the perch and bream, or doze under the pads of our river amid the\nwinding aisles and corridors formed by their stems, with the stately\npickerel. I am the wiser in respect to all knowledges, and the better\nqualified for all fortunes, for knowing that there is a minnow in the\nbrook. Methinks I have need even of his sympathy, and to be his fellow\nin a degree. I do like him sometimes when he balances himself for an\nhour over the yellow floor of his basin.[113]\n\n\n_Feb. 15._ The good seem to inhale a more generous atmosphere and be\nbathed in a more precious light than other men. Accordingly Virgil\ndescribes the _sedes beatas_ thus:\u2014\n\n     \"Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit\n     Purpureo: Solemque suum, sua sidera n\u00f4runt.\"[114]\n\n\n_Feb. 16._ Divination is prospective memory.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a kindred principle at the bottom of all affinities. The\nmagnet cultivates a steady friendship with the pole, all bodies with all\nothers. The friendliness of nature is that goddess Ceres who presides\nover every sowing and harvest, and we bless the same in sun and rain.\nThe seed in the ground tarries for a season with its genial friends\nthere; all the earths and grasses and minerals are its hosts, who\nentertain it hospitably, and plenteous crops and teeming wagons are the\nresult.\n\n\n_Feb. 18._ All romance is grounded on friendship. What is this rural,\nthis pastoral, this poetical life but its invention? Does not the moon\nshine for Endymion? Smooth pastures and mild airs are for some Corydon\nand Phyllis. Paradise belongs to Adam and Eve. Plato's republic is\ngoverned by Platonic love.\n\n\n_Feb. 20._ The coward's hope is suspicion, the hero's doubt a sort of\nhope. The gods neither hope nor doubt.\n\n\n_Feb. 22._ The river is unusually high, owing to the melting of the\nsnow. Men go in boats over their gardens and potato-fields, and all the\nchildren of the village are on tiptoe to see whose fence will be carried\naway next. Great numbers of muskrats, which have been driven out of\ntheir holes by the water, are killed by the sportsmen.\n\nThey are to us instead of the beaver. The wind from over the meadows is\nladen with a strong scent of musk, and by its racy freshness advertises\nus of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far off. I am\naffected by the sight of their cabins of mud and grass, raised four\nor five feet, along the river, as when I read of the Pyramids, or the\nbarrows of Asia.[115]\n\nPeople step brisker in the street for this unusual movement of the\nwaters. You seem to hear the roar of a waterfall and the din of\nfactories where the river breaks over the road.\n\nWho would have thought that a few feet might not have been spared\nfrom the trunks of most trees? Such as grow in the meadows, and are\nnow surrounded by that depth of water, have a dwarfish appearance. No\nmatter whether they are longer or shorter, they are now equally out of\nproportion.\n\n\nTHE FRESHET\n\n_Feb. 24._\n\n     A stir is on the Worcester hills,\n     And Nobscot too the valley fills;\n     Where scarce you'd fill an acorn cup\n     In summer when the sun was up,\n     No more you'll find a cup at all,\n     But in its place a waterfall.\n\n     O that the moon were in conjunction\n     To the dry land's extremest unction,\n     Till every dike and pier were flooded,\n     And all the land with islands studded,\n     For once to teach all human kind,\n     Both those that plow and those that grind,\n     There is no fixture in the land,\n     But all unstable is as sand.\n\n     The river swelleth more and more,\n     Like some sweet influence stealing o'er\n     The passive town; and for a while\n     Each tussock makes a tiny isle,\n     Where, on some friendly Ararat,\n     Resteth the weary water-rat.\n\n     No ripple shows Musketaquid,\n     Her very current e'en is hid,\n     As deepest souls do calmest rest\n     When thoughts are swelling in the breast;\n     And she, that in the summer's drought\n     Doth make a rippling and a rout,\n     Sleeps from Nawshawtuct to the Cliff,\n     Unruffled by a single skiff;\n     So like a deep and placid mind\n     Whose currents underneath it wind,\n     For by a thousand distant hills\n     The louder roar a thousand rills,\n     And many a spring which now is dumb,\n     And many a stream with smothered hum,\n     Doth faster well and swifter glide,\n     Though buried deep beneath the tide.\n\n     Our village shows a rural Venice,\n     Its broad lagunes where yonder fen is,\n     Far lovelier than the Bay of Naples\n     Yon placid cove amid the maples,\n     And in my neighbor's field of corn\n     I recognize the Golden Horn.\n\n     Here Nature taught from year to year,\n     When only red men came to hear,\n     Methinks 'twas in this school of art\n     Venice and Naples learned their part,\n     But still their mistress, to my mind,\n     Her young disciples leaves behind.[116]\n\n\n_Feb. 26._ The most important events make no stir on their first\ntaking place, nor indeed in their effects directly. They seem hedged\nabout by secrecy. It is concussion, or the rushing together of air\nto fill a vacuum, which makes a noise. The great events to which all\nthings consent, and for which they have prepared the way, produce no\nexplosion, for they are gradual, and create no vacuum which requires to\nbe suddenly filled; as a birth takes place in silence, and is whispered\nabout the neighborhood, but an assassination, which is at war with the\nconstitution of things, creates a tumult immediately.\n\nCorn grows in the night.[117]\n\n\n_Feb. 27._ Some geniuses seem to hover in the horizon, like heat\nlightning, which is not accompanied with fertilizing rain to us, but we\nare obliged to rest contented with the belief that it is purifying the\nair somewhere. Others make known their presence by their effects, like\nthat vivid lightning which is accompanied by copious rain and thunder\nand, though it clears our atmosphere, sometimes destroys our lives.\nOthers still impart a steady and harmless light at once to large tracts,\nas the aurora borealis; and this phenomenon is hardest to be accounted\nfor, some thinking it to be a reflection of the polar splendor, others a\nsubtle fluid which pervades all things and tends always to the zenith.\nAll are agreed that these are equally electrical phenomena, as some\nclever persons have shown by drawing a spark with their knuckles. Modern\nphilosophy thinks it has drawn down lightning from the clouds.\n\n\n_Feb. 28._ On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates\nthrough confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that\nwe have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in\nour own, to the world.\n\n\n_Feb. 29._ A friend advises by his whole behavior,[118] and never\ncondescends to particulars; another chides away a fault, he loves it\naway. While he sees the other's error, he is silently conscious of it,\nand only the more loves truth himself, and assists his friend in loving\nit, till the fault is expelled and gently extinguished.\n\n\n_March 2._ Love is the burden of all Nature's odes. The song of the\nbirds is an epithalamium, a hymeneal. The marriage of the flowers spots\nthe meadows and fringes the hedges with pearls and diamonds. In the deep\nwater, in the high air, in woods and pastures, and the bowels of the\nearth, this is the employment and condition of all things.\n\n\n_March 4._ I learned to-day that my ornithology had done me no service.\nThe birds I heard, which fortunately did not come within the scope\nof my science, sung as freshly as if it had been the first morning of\ncreation, and had for background to their song an untrodden wilderness,\nstretching through many a Carolina and Mexico of the soul.[119]\n\n\n_March 6._ There is no delay in answering great questions; for them all\nthings have an answer ready. The Pythian priestess gave her answers\ninstantly, and ofttimes before the questions were fairly propounded.\nGreat topics do not wait for past or future to be determined, but the\nstate of the crops or Brighton market no bird concerns itself about.\n\n\n_March 8._ The wind shifts from northeast and east to northwest and\nsouth, and every icicle which has tinkled on the meadow grass so\nlong trickles down its stem and seeks its water level unerringly\nwith a million comrades. In the ponds the ice cracks with a busy and\ninspiriting din and down the larger streams is whirled, grating hoarsely\nand crashing its way along, which was so lately a firm field for the\nwoodman's team and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the skaters\nstill fresh upon it, and the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees\ninspect the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye-force to intercede\nwith the ice and save the treasury.\n\nIn the brooks the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice, floating\nwith various speed, is full of content and promise, and where the water\ngurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts hold\nconversation in an undertone. Every rill is a channel for the juices of\nthe meadow.[120] Last year's grasses and flower-stalks have been steeped\nin rain and snow, and now the brooks flow with meadow tea,\u2014thoroughwort,\nmint, flagroot, and pennyroyal, all at one draught.\n\nIn the ponds the sun makes incroachments around the edges first, as ice\nmelts in a kettle on the fire, darting his rays through this crevice,\nand preparing the deep water to act simultaneously on the under side.\n\n     Two years and twenty now have flown;\n     Their meanness time away has flung;\n     These limbs to man's estate have grown,\n     But cannot claim a manly tongue.\n\n     Amidst such boundless wealth without\n     I only still am poor within;\n     The birds have sung their summer out,\n     But still my spring does not begin.\n\n     In vain I see the morning rise,\n     In vain observe the western blaze,\n     Who idly look to other skies,\n     Expecting life by other ways.\n\n     The sparrow sings at earliest dawn,\n     Building her nest without delay;\n     All things are ripe to hear her song,\n     And now arrives the perfect day.\n\n\n     Shall I then wait the autumn wind,\n     Compelled to seek a milder ray,\n     And leave no empty nest behind,\n     No wood still echoing to my lay?[121]\n\n\n_March 16._ The cabins of the settlers are the points whence radiate\nthese rays of green and yellow and russet over the landscape; out of\nthese go the axes and spades with which the landscape is painted. How\nmuch is the Indian summer and the budding of spring related to the\ncottage? Have not the flight of the crow and the gyrations of the hawk\na reference to that roof?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe ducks alight at this season on the windward side of the river, in\nthe smooth water, and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves\nand diving to peck at the root of the lily and the cranberries which\nthe frost has not loosened. It is impossible to approach them within\ngunshot when they are accompanied by the gull, which rises sooner and\nmakes them restless. They fly to windward first, in order to get under\nweigh, and are more easily reached by the shot if approached on that\nside. When preparing to fly, they swim about with their heads erect,\nand then, gliding along a few feet with their bodies just touching the\nsurface, rise heavily with much splashing and fly low at first, if not\nsuddenly aroused, but otherwise rise directly to survey the danger.\nThe cunning sportsman is not in haste to desert his position, but waits\nto ascertain if, having got themselves into flying trim, they will not\nreturn over the ground in their course to a new resting-place.\n\n\n_March 20._ In society all the inspiration of my lonely hours seems to\nflow back on me, and then first have expression.\n\nLove never degrades its votaries, but lifts them up to higher walks of\nbeing. They _over-look_ one another. All other charities are swallowed\nup in this; it is gift and reward both.\n\nWe will have no vulgar Cupid for a go-between, to make us the playthings\nof each other, but rather cultivate an irreconcilable hatred instead of\nthis.\n\n\n_March 21._ The world is a fit theatre to-day in which any part may be\nacted. There is this moment proposed to me every kind of life that men\nlead anywhere, or that imagination can paint. By another spring I may\nbe a mail-carrier in Peru, or a South African planter, or a Siberian\nexile, or a Greenland whaler, or a settler on the Columbia River, or a\nCanton merchant, or a soldier in Florida, or a mackerel-fisher off Cape\nSable, or a Robinson Crusoe in the Pacific, or a silent navigator of any\nsea. So wide is the choice of parts, what a pity if the part of Hamlet\nbe left out!\n\nI am freer than any planet; no complaint reaches round the world. I can\nmove away from public opinion, from government, from religion, from\neducation, from society. Shall I be reckoned a ratable poll in the\ncounty of Middlesex, or be rated at one spear under the palm trees of\nGuinea? Shall I raise corn and potatoes in Massachusetts, or figs and\nolives in Asia Minor? sit out the day in my office in State Street, or\nride it out on the steppes of Tartary? For my Brobdingnag I may sail to\nPatagonia; for my Lilliput, to Lapland. In Arabia and Persia, my day's\nadventures may surpass the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. I may be\na logger on the head waters of the Penobscot, to be recorded in fable\nhereafter as an amphibious river-god, by as sounding a name as Triton or\nProteus; carry furs from Nootka to China, and so be more renowned than\nJason and his golden fleece; or go on a South Sea exploring expedition,\nto be hereafter recounted along with the periplus of Hanno. I may repeat\nthe adventures of Marco Polo or Mandeville.\n\nThese are but few of my chances, and how many more things may I do with\nwhich there are none to be compared!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThank Fortune, we are not rooted to the soil, and here is not all the\nworld. The buckeye does not grow in New England; the mockingbird is\nrarely heard here. Why not keep pace with the day, and not allow of a\nsunset nor fall behind the summer and the migration of birds? Shall we\nnot compete with the buffalo, who keeps pace with the seasons, cropping\nthe pastures of the Colorado till a greener and sweeter grass awaits\nhim by the Yellowstone? The wild goose is more a cosmopolite than we;\nhe breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Susquehanna, and\nplumes himself for the night in a Louisiana bayou. The pigeon carries\nan acorn in his crop from the King of Holland's to Mason and Dixon's\nline. Yet we think if rail fences are pulled down and stone walls set\nup on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates\ndecided. If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you can't go to Tierra\ndel Fuego this summer.[122]\n\nBut what of all this? A man may gather his limbs snugly within the shell\nof a mammoth squash, with his back to the northeastern boundary, and not\nbe unusually straitened after all. Our limbs, indeed, have room enough,\nbut it is our souls that rust in a corner. Let us migrate interiorly\nwithout intermission, and pitch our tent each day nearer the western\nhorizon. The really fertile soils and luxuriant prairies lie on this\nside the Alleghanies. There has been no Hanno of the affections. Their\ndomain is untravelled ground, to the Mogul's dominions.\n\n\n_March 22._ While I bask in the sun on the shores of Walden Pond, by\nthis heat and this rustle I am absolved from all obligation to the past.\nThe council of nations may reconsider their votes; the grating of a\npebble annuls them.[123]\n\n\n_March 27._ How many are now standing on the European coast whom another\nspring will find located on the Red River, or Wisconsin! To-day we\nlive an antediluvian life on our quiet homesteads, and to-morrow are\ntransported to the turmoil and bustle of a crusading era.\n\nThink how finite after all the known world is. Money coined at\nPhiladelphia is a legal tender over how much of it! You may carry\nship biscuit, beef, and pork quite round to the place you set out\nfrom. England sends her felons to the other side for safe keeping and\nconvenience.\n\n\n_March 30._ Pray, what things interest me at present? A long, soaking\nrain, the drops trickling down the stubble, while I lay drenched on a\nlast year's bed of wild oats, by the side of some bare hill, ruminating.\nThese things are of moment. To watch this crystal globe just sent\nfrom heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this sombre\ndrizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.\nThe gathering in of the clouds with the last rush and dying breath of\nthe wind, and then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the country\no'er, the impression of inward comfort and sociableness, the drenched\nstubble and trees that drop beads on you as you pass, their dim outline\nseen through the rain on all sides drooping in sympathy with yourself.\nThese are my undisputed territory. This is Nature's English comfort.\nThe birds draw closer and are more familiar under the thick foliage,\ncomposing new strains on their roosts against the sunshine.\n\n\n_April 4._ We look to windward for fair weather.\n\n\n_April 8._ How shall I help myself? By withdrawing into the garret, and\nassociating with spiders and mice, determining to meet myself face to\nface sooner or later. Completely silent and attentive I will be this\nhour, and the next, and forever. The most positive life that history\nnotices has been a constant retiring out of life, a wiping one's hands\nof it, seeing how mean it is, and having nothing to do with it.\n\n\n_April 9._ I read in Cudworth how \"Origen determines that the stars do\nnot make but signify; and that the heavens are a kind of divine volume,\nin whose characters they that are skilled may read or spell out human\nevents.\" Nothing can be truer, and yet astrology is possible. Men seem\nto be just on the point of discerning a truth when the imposition is\ngreatest.\n\n\n_April 17._ Farewell, etiquette! My neighbor inhabits a hollow sycamore,\nand I a beech tree. What then becomes of morning calls with cards, and\ndeference paid to door-knockers and front entries, and presiding at\none's own table?\n\n\n_April 19._ The infinite bustle of Nature of a summer's noon, or her\ninfinite silence of a summer's night, gives utterance to no dogma. They\ndo not say to us even with a seer's assurance, that this or that law is\nimmutable and so ever and only can the universe exist. But they are the\nindifferent occasion for all things and the annulment of all laws.\n\n\n_April 20._ The universe will not wait to be explained. Whoever\nseriously attempts a theory of it is already behind his age. His yea\nhas reserved no nay for the morrow.\n\nThe wisest solution is no better than dissolution. Already the seer\n_whispers_ his _convictions_ to bare walls; no audience in the land can\nattend to them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAn early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. To my neighbors\nwho have risen in mist and rain I tell of a clear sunrise and the\nsinging of birds as some traditionary mythus. I look back to those\nfresh but now remote hours as to the old dawn of time, when a solid and\nblooming health reigned and every deed was simple and heroic.\n\n\n_April 22._ Thales was the first of the Greeks who taught that souls are\nimmortal, and it takes equal wisdom to discern this old fact to-day.\nWhat the first philosopher taught, the last will have to repeat. The\n_world_ makes no progress.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI cannot turn on my heel in a carpeted room. What a gap in the morning\nis a breakfast! A supper supersedes the sunset.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMethinks I hear the _ranz des vaches_ and shall soon be tempted to\ndesert.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWill not one thick garment suffice for three thin ones? Then I shall be\nless compound, and can lay my hand on myself in the dark.\n\n\n_May 14._ A kind act or gift lays us under obligation not so much to the\ngiver as to Truth and Love. We must then be truer and kinder ourselves.\nJust in proportion to our sense of the kindness, and pleasure at it, is\nthe debt paid. What is it to be _grateful_ but to be _gratified_,\u2014to\nbe _pleased_? The nobly poor will dissolve all obligations by nobly\naccepting a kindness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf we are not sensible of kindness, then indeed we incur a debt. Not\nto be pleased by generous deeds at any time, though done to another,\nbut to sit crabbedly silent in a corner, what is it but a voluntary\nimprisonment for debt? It is to see the world through a grating. Not\nto let the light of virtuous actions shine on us at all times, through\nevery crevice, is to live in a dungeon.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWar is the sympathy of concussion. We would fain rub one against\nanother. Its rub may be friction merely, but it would rather be\ntitillation. We discover in the quietest scenes how faithfully war has\ncopied the moods of peace. Men do not peep into heaven but they see\nembattled hosts there. Milton's heaven was a camp. When the sun bursts\nthrough the morning fog I seem to hear the din of war louder than when\nhis chariot thundered on the plains of Troy. Every man is a warrior\nwhen he aspires. He marches on his post. The soldier is the practical\nidealist; he has no sympathy with matter, he revels in the annihilation\nof it. So do we all at times. When a freshet destroys the works of\nman, or a fire consumes them, or a Lisbon earthquake shakes them down,\nour sympathy with persons is swallowed up in a wider sympathy with the\nuniverse. A crash is apt to grate agreeably on our ears.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet not the faithful sorrow that he has no ear for the more fickle\nharmonies of creation, if he is awake to the slower measure of virtue\nand truth. If his pulse does not beat in unison with the musician's\nquips and turns, it accords with the pulse-beat of the ages.[124]\n\n\n_June 11._ We had appointed Saturday, August 31st, 1839, for the\ncommencement of our White Mountain expedition. We awake to a warm,\ndrizzling rain which threatens delay to our plans, but at length the\nleaves and grass are dried, and it comes out a mild afternoon, of such\na sober serenity and freshness that Nature herself seems maturing some\ngreater scheme of her own. All things wear the aspect of a fertile\nidleness. It is the eventide of the soul. After this long dripping and\noozing from every pore Nature begins to respire again more healthily\nthan ever. So with a vigorous shove we launch our boat from the bank,\nwhile the flags and bulrushes curtsy a God-speed, and drop silently down\nthe stream.[125] As if we had launched our bark in the sluggish current\nof our thoughts, and were bound nowhither.\n\nGradually the village murmur subsides, as when one falls into a placid\ndream and on its Lethe tide is floated from the past into the future,\nor as silently as fresh thoughts awaken us to new morning or evening\nlight.[126]\n\nOur boat[127] was built like a fisherman's dory, with thole-pins for\nfour oars. Below it was green with a border of blue, as if out of\ncourtesy [to] the green sea and the blue heavens. It was well calculated\nfor service, but of consequence difficult to be dragged over shoal\nplaces or carried round falls.\n\nA boat should have a sort of life and independence of its own. It is a\nsort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, a fish to swim\nand a bird to fly, related by one half of its structure to some swift\nand shapely fish and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful\nbird. The fins of the fish will tell where to set the oars, and the tail\ngive some hint for the form and position of the rudder. And so may we\nlearn where there should be the greatest breadth of beam and depth in\nthe hold. The bird will show how to rig and trim the sails, and what\nform to give to the prow, that it may balance the boat and divide the\nair and water best.\n\nThe boat took to the water; from of old there had been a tacit league\nstruck between these two, and now it gladly availed itself of the old\nlaw that the heavier shall float the lighter.\n\nTwo masts we had provided, one to serve for a tent-pole at night, and\nlikewise other slender poles, that we might exchange the tedium of\nrowing for poling in shallow reaches. At night we lay on a buffalo-skin\nunder a tent of drilled cotton eight feet high and as many in\ndiameter, which effectually defended from dampness, so short a step\nis it from tiled roofs to drilled cotton, from carpeted floors to a\nbuffalo-skin.[128]\n\nThere were a few berries left still on the hills, hanging with brave\ncontent by the slenderest threads.[129]\n\nAs the night stole over, such a freshness stole across the meadow that\nevery blade of cut-grass seemed to teem with life.[130]\n\nWe stole noiselessly down the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel\nfrom the covert of the pads, or a bream from her nest, and the small\ngreen bittern would now and then sail away on sluggish wings from\nsome recess of the shore.[131] With its patient study by rocks and\nsandy capes, has it wrested the whole of her secret from Nature yet?\nIt has looked out from its dull eye for so long, standing on one leg,\non moon and stars sparkling through silence and dark, and now what a\nrich experience is its! What says it of stagnant pools, and reeds, and\ndamp night fogs? It would be worth while to look in the eye which has\nbeen open and seeing at such hours and in such solitudes. When I behold\nthat dull yellowish green, I wonder if my own soul is not a bright,\ninvisible green. I would fain lay my eye side by side with its and learn\nof it.[132]\n\n\n_End of my Journal of 546 pages._[133]\n\n\n_June 14._\n\n\u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5 \u1f55\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2.\u2014_Aristotle's definition of art._[134]\n\n\u1f4d \u03c7\u03c1\u03ae \u03c3\u03b5 \u03bd\u03bf\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9.\u2014_Chaldaic Oracles._\n\n\u1f18\u03b3\u03ce \u03b5\u1f30\u03bc\u03b9 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b3\u03b5\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u1f78\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f42\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c3\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f10\u03bc\u1f78\u03bd \u03c0\u03ad\u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\n\u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c9 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03c5\u03c8\u03b5\u03bd.\u2014_Inscription upon the temple at Sais._\n\nPlotinus aimed at \u1f10\u03c0\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae\u03bd, and \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1, and \u03c4\u1f78\n\u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03bf\u1f37\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u1ff3 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd.\n\n\u039c\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u0398\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4' \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9.\u2014EURIPIDES in _Orestes_.\n\n\"The right Reason is in part divine, in part human; the second can be\nexpressed, but no language can translate the first.\"\u2014EMPEDOCLES.\n\n                     \"In glory and in joy,\n     Behind his plough, upon the mountain-side!\"[135]\n\nI seemed to see the woods wave on a hundred mountains, as I read these\nlines, and the distant rustling of their leaves reached my ear.\n\n\n_June 15._ I stood by the river to-day considering the forms of the elms\nreflected in the water. For every oak and birch, too, growing on the\nhilltop, as well as for elms and willows, there is a graceful ethereal\ntree making down from the roots, as it were the original idea of the\ntree, and sometimes Nature in high tides brings her mirror to its foot\nand makes it visible.[136] Anxious Nature sometimes reflects from pools\nand puddles the objects which our grovelling senses may fail to see\nrelieved against the sky with the pure ether for background.\n\nIt would be well if we saw ourselves as in perspective always, impressed\nwith distinct outline on the sky, side by side with the shrubs on the\nriver's brim. So let our life stand to heaven as some fair, sunlit tree\nagainst the western horizon, and by sunrise be planted on some eastern\nhill to glisten in the first rays of the dawn.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy always insist that men incline to the moral side of their being?\nOur life is not all moral. Surely, its actual phenomena deserve to\nbe studied impartially. The science of Human Nature has never been\nattempted, as the science of Nature has. The dry light has never shone\non it. Neither physics nor metaphysics have touched it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have not yet met with a sonnet, genial and affectionate, to prophane\nswearing, breaking on the still night air, perhaps, like the hoarse\ncroak of some bird. Noxious weeds and stagnant waters have their lovers,\nand the utterer of oaths must have honeyed lips, and be another Attic\nbee after a fashion, for only prevalent and essential harmony and beauty\ncan employ the laws of sound and of light.\n\n  [Illustration: _Trees Reflected in the River_]\n\n\n_June 16._ The river down which we glided for that long afternoon was\nlike a clear drop of dew with the heavens and the landscape reflected in\nit. And as evening drew on, faint purple clouds began to be reflected in\nits water, and the cow-bells tinkled louder and more incessantly on the\nbanks, and like shy water-rats we stole along near the shore, looking\nout for a place to pitch our camp.[137]\n\nIt seems insensibly to grow lighter as night shuts in; the furthest\nhamlet begins to be revealed, which before lurked in the shade of the\nnoon.[138] It twinkles now through the trees like some fair evening star\ndarting its ray across valley and wood.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWould it not be a luxury to stand up to one's chin in some retired swamp\nfor a whole summer's day, scenting the sweet-fern and bilberry blows,\nand lulled by the minstrelsy of gnats and mosquitoes? A day passed in\nthe society of those Greek sages, such as described in the \"Banquet\" of\nXenophon, would not be comparable with the dry wit of decayed cranberry\nvines, and the fresh Attic salt of the moss beds. Say twelve hours of\ngenial and familiar converse with the leopard frog. The sun to rise\nbehind alder and dogwood, and climb buoyantly to his meridian of three\nhands' breadth, and finally sink to rest behind some bold western\nhummock. To hear the evening chant of the mosquito from a thousand green\nchapels, and the bittern begin to boom from his concealed fort like\na sunset gun! Surely, one may as profitably be soaked in the juices\nof a marsh for one day, as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and\ndamp,\u2014are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness?[139]\n\nSo is not shade as good as sunshine, night as day? Why be eagles and\nthrushes always, and owls and whip-poor-wills never?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am pleased to see the landscape through the bottom of a tumbler, it is\nclothed in such a mild, quiet light, and the barns and fences checker\nand partition it with new regularity. These rough and uneven fields\nstretch away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon. The clouds are\nfinely distinct and picturesque, the light-blue sky contrasting with\ntheir feathery whiteness. They are fit drapery to hang over Persia.[140]\nThe smith's shop, resting in such a Grecian light, is worthy to stand\nbeside the Parthenon. The potato and grain fields are such gardens as\nhe imagines who has schemes of ornamental husbandry.\n\nIf I were to write of the dignity of the farmer's life, I would behold\nhis farms and crops through a tumbler. All the occupations of men are\nennobled so.\n\nOur eyes, too, are convex lenses, but we do not learn with the eyes;\nthey introduce us, and we learn after by converse with things.\n\n\n_June 17._ Our lives will not attain to be spherical by lying on one\nor the other side forever; but only by resigning ourselves to the law\nof gravity in us, will our axis become coincident with the celestial\naxis, and [only] by revolving incessantly through all circles, shall we\nacquire a perfect sphericity.[141]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen are inclined to lay the chief stress on likeness and not on\ndifference. We seek to know how a thing is related to us, and not if it\nis strange. We call those bodies warm whose temperature is many degrees\nbelow our own, and never those cold which are warmer than we. There are\nmany degrees of warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it.[142]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEven the motto \"Business before friends\" admits of a high\ninterpretation. No interval of time can avail to defer friendship. The\nconcerns of time must be attended to in time. I need not make haste to\nexplore the whole secret of a star; if it were vanished quite out of\nthe firmament, so that no telescope could longer discover it, I should\nnot despair of knowing it entirely one day.\n\nWe meet our friend with a certain awe, as if he had just lighted on the\nearth, and yet as if we had some title to be acquainted with him by our\nold familiarity with sun and moon.\n\n\n_June 18._ I should be pleased to meet man in the woods. I wish he were\nto be encountered like wild caribous and moose.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am startled when I consider how little I am _actually_ concerned about\nthe things I write in my journal.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThink of the Universal History, and then tell me,\u2014when did burdock and\nplantain sprout first?[143]\n\nA fair land, indeed, do books spread open to us, from the Genesis down;\nbut alas! men do not take them up kindly into their own being, and\nbreathe into them a fresh beauty, knowing that the grimmest of them\nbelongs to such warm sunshine and still moonlight as the present.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf what consequence whether I stand on London bridge for the next\ncentury, or look into the depths of this bubbling spring which I have\nlaid open with my hoe?\n\n\n_June 19._ The other day I rowed in my boat a free, even lovely young\nlady, and, as I plied the oars, she sat in the stern, and there was\nnothing but she between me and the sky.[144] So might all our lives be\npicturesque if they were free enough, but mean relations and prejudices\nintervene to shut out the sky, and we never see a man as simple and\ndistinct as the man-weathercock on a steeple.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe faint bugle notes which I hear in the west seem to flash on the\nhorizon like heat lightning.[145] Cows low in the street more friendly\nthan ever, and the note of the whip-poor-will, borne over the fields,\nis the voice with which the woods and moonlight woo me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI shall not soon forget the sounds which lulled me when falling asleep\non the banks of the Merrimack. Far into night I hear some tyro beating\na drum incessantly with a view to some country muster, and am thrilled\nby an infinite sweetness as of a music which the breeze drew from the\nsinews of war. I think of the line,\u2014\n\n     \"When the drum beat at dead of night.\"\n\nHow I wish it would wake the whole world to march to its melody, but\nstill it drums on alone in the silence and the dark. Cease not, thou\ndrummer of the night, thou too shalt have thy reward. The stars and the\nfirmament hear thee, and their aisles shall echo thy beat till its call\nis answered, and the forces are mustered. The universe is attentive as\na little child to thy sound, and trembles as if each stroke bounded\nagainst an elastic vibrating firmament. I should be contented if the\nnight never ended, for in the darkness heroism will not be deferred,\nand I see fields where no hero has couched his lance.[146]\n\n\n_June 20._ Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of\nbeauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds. A spring is a cynosure in\nthe fields. All Muscovy glitters in the minute particles of mica on its\nbottom, and the ripples cast their shadows flickeringly on the white\nsand, as the clouds which flit across the landscape.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSomething like the woodland sounds will be heard to echo through the\nleaves of a good book. Sometimes I hear the fresh emphatic note of the\noven-bird, and am tempted to turn many pages; sometimes the hurried\nchuckling sound of the squirrel when he dives into the wall.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf we only see clearly enough how mean our lives are, they will be\nsplendid enough. Let us remember not to strive upwards too long, but\nsometimes drop plumb down the other way, and wallow in meanness. From\nthe deepest pit we may see the stars, if not the sun. Let us have\npresence of mind enough to sink when we can't swim. At any rate, a\ncarcass had better lie on the bottom than float an offense to all\nnostrils. It will not be falling, for we shall ride wide of the earth's\ngravity as a star, and always be drawn upward still,\u2014_semper cadendo\nnunquam cadit_,\u2014and so, by yielding to universal gravity, at length\nbecome fixed stars.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPraise begins when things are seen partially. We begin to praise when\nwe begin to see that a thing needs our assistance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the heavens are obscured to us, and nothing noble or heroic\nappears, but we are oppressed by imperfection and shortcoming on all\nhands, we are apt to suck our thumbs and decry our fates. As if nothing\nwere to be done in cloudy weather, or, if heaven were not accessible\nby the upper road, men would not find out a lower. Sometimes I feel\nso cheap that I am inspired, and could write a poem about it,\u2014but\nstraightway I cannot, for I am no longer mean. Let me know that I am\nailing, and I am well. We should not always beat off the impression of\ntrivialness, but make haste to welcome and cherish it. Water the weed\ntill it blossoms; with cultivation it will bear fruit. There are two\nways to victory,\u2014to strive bravely, or to yield. How much pain the last\nwill save we have not yet learned.\n\n\n_June 21._ I shall not soon forget my first night in a tent,\u2014how the\ndistant barking of dogs for so many still hours revealed to me the\nriches of the night. Who would not be a dog and bay the moon?[147]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI never feel that I am inspired unless my body is also. It too spurns a\ntame and commonplace life. They are fatally mistaken who think, while\nthey strive with their minds, that they may suffer their bodies to\nstagnate in luxury or sloth. The body is the first proselyte the Soul\nmakes. Our life is but the Soul made known by its fruits, the body.\nThe whole duty of man may be expressed in one line,\u2014Make to yourself a\nperfect body.\n\n\n_June 22._ What a man knows, that he does.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is odd that people will wonder how Shakespeare could write as he\ndid without knowing Latin, or Greek, or geography, as if these were of\nmore consequence than to know how to whistle. They are not backward to\nrecognize Genius,\u2014how it dispenses with those furtherances which others\nrequire, leaps where they crawl,\u2014and yet they never cease to marvel that\nso it was,\u2014that it was Genius, and helped itself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing can shock a truly brave man but dullness. One can tolerate many\nthings. What mean these sly, suspicious looks, as if you were an odd\nfish, a piece of crockery-ware to be tenderly handled? Surely people\nforget how many rebuffs every man has experienced in his day,\u2014perhaps\nhas fallen into a horsepond, eaten freshwater clams, or worn one shirt\nfor a week without washing. Cannot a man be as calmly tolerant as a\npotato field in the sun, whose equanimity is not disturbed by Scotch\nthistles over the wall, but there it smiles and waxes till the harvest,\nlet thistles mount never so high? You cannot receive a shock, unless you\nhave an electric affinity for that which shocks you. Have no affinity\nfor what is shocking.[148]\n\nDo not present a gleaming edge to ward off harm, for that will oftenest\nattract the lightning, but rather be the all-pervading ether which\nthe lightning does not strike but purify. Then will the rudeness or\nprofanity of your companion be like a flash across the face of your sky,\nlighting up and revealing its serene depths.[149] Earth cannot shock\nthe heavens; but its dull vapor and foul smoke make a bright cloud spot\nin the ether, and anon the sun, like a cunning artificer, will cut and\npaint it, and set it for a jewel in the breast of the sky.[150]\n\nWhen we are shocked at vice we express a lingering sympathy with it.\nDry rot, rust, and mildew shock no man, for none is subject to them.\n\n\n_June 23._ We Yankees are not so far from right, who answer one question\nby asking another. Yes and No are lies. A true answer will not aim to\nestablish anything, but rather to set all well afloat. All answers are\nin the future, and day answereth to day. Do we think we can anticipate\nthem?\n\nIn Latin, to respond is to pledge one's self before the gods to do\nfaithfully and honorably, as a man should, in any case. This is good.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMusic soothes the din of philosophy and lightens incessantly over the\nheads of sages.[151]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow can the language of the poet be more expressive than nature? He\nis content that what he has already read in simple characters, or\nindifferently in all, be translated into the same again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe is the true artist whose life is his material; every stroke of\nthe chisel must enter his own flesh and bone and not grate dully on\nmarble.[152]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Springs.\u2014What is any man's discourse to me if I am not sensible of\nsomething in it as steady and cheery as the creak of the crickets? In\nit the woods must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am\nnot constantly greeted and cheered in their discourse, as it were by\nthe flux of sparkling streams.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI cannot see the bottom of the sky, because I cannot see to the bottom\nof myself. It is the symbol of my own infinity. My eye penetrates as\nfar into the ether as that depth is inward from which my contemporary\nthought springs.\n\nNot by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but\nby abandonment, and childlike mirthfulness. If you would know aught, be\ngay before it.\n\n\n_June 24._ When I read Cudworth I find I can tolerate all,\u2014atomists,\npneumatologists, atheists, and theists,\u2014Plato, Aristotle, Leucippus,\nDemocritus, and Pythagoras. It is the attitude of these men, more than\nany communication, which charms me. It is so rare to find a man musing.\nBut between them and their commentators there is an endless dispute. But\nif it come to that, that you compare notes, then you are all wrong. As\nit is, each takes me up into the serene heavens, and paints earth and\nsky. Any sincere thought is irresistible; it lifts us to the zenith,\nwhither the smallest bubble rises as surely as the largest.\n\nDr. Cudworth does not consider that the belief in a deity is as great a\nheresy as exists. Epicurus held that the gods were \"of human form, yet\nwere so thin and subtile, as that, comparatively with our terrestrial\nbodies, they might be called incorporeal; they having not so much\n_carnem_ as _quasi-carnem_, nor _sanguinem_ as _quasi-sanguinem_,\na certain kind of aerial or ethereal flesh and blood.\" This, which\nCudworth pronounces \"romantical,\" is plainly as good doctrine as his\nown. As if any sincere thought were not the best sort of truth!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is no doubt but the highest morality in the books is rhymed\nor measured,\u2014is, in form as well as substance, poetry. Such is the\nscripture of all nations. If I were to compile a volume to contain the\ncondensed wisdom of mankind, I should quote no rhythmless line.[153]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot all the wit of a college can avail to make one harmonious line. It\nnever _happens_. It may get so as to jingle, but a jingle is akin to a\njar,\u2014jars regularly recurring.[154]\n\nSo delicious is plain speech to my ears, as if I were to be more\ndelighted by the whistling of the shot than frightened by the flying of\nthe splinters, I am content, I fear, to be quite battered down and made\na ruin of. I outgeneral myself when I direct the enemy to my vulnerable\npoints.\n\nThe loftiest utterance of Love is, perhaps, sublimely satirical.\nSympathy with what is sound makes sport of what is unsound.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCliffs. Evening.\u2014Though the sun set a quarter of an hour ago, his rays\nare still visible, darting half-way to the zenith. That glowing morrow\nin the west flashes on me like a faint presentiment of morning when I\nam falling asleep. A dull mist comes rolling from the west, as if it\nwere the dust which day has raised. A column of smoke is rising from\nthe woods yonder, to uphold heaven's roof till the light comes again.\nThe landscape, by its patient resting there, teaches me that all good\nremains with him that waiteth, and that I shall sooner overtake the dawn\nby remaining here, than by hurrying over the hills of the west.\n\nMorning and evening are as like as brother and sister. The sparrow and\nthrush sing and the frogs peep for both.\n\nThe woods breathe louder and louder behind me. With what hurry-skurry\nnight takes place! The wagon rattling over yonder bridge is the\nmessenger which day sends back to night; but the dispatches are sealed.\nIn its rattle the village seems to say, This one sound, and I have done.\n\nRed, then, is Day's color; at least it is the color of his heel. He is\n'stepping westward.' We only notice him when he comes and when he goes.\n\nWith noble perseverance the dog bays the stars yonder. I too, like\nthee, walk alone in this strange, familiar night, my voice, like thine,\nbeating against its friendly concave; and barking I hear only my own\nvoice. 10 o'clock.\n\n\n_June 25._ Let me see no other conflict but with prosperity. If my path\nrun on before me level and smooth, it is all a mirage; in reality it is\nsteep and arduous as a chamois pass. I will not let the years roll over\nme like a Juggernaut car.\n\nWe will warm us at each other's fire. Friendship is not such a cold\nrefining process as a double sieve, but a glowing furnace in which all\nimpurities are consumed.\n\nMen have learned to touch before they scrutinize,\u2014to shake hands, and\nnot to stare.\n\n\n_June 26._ The best poetry has never been written, for when it might\nhave been, the poet forgot it, and when it was too late remembered it;\nor when it might have been, the poet remembered it, and when it was too\nlate forgot it.\n\nThe highest condition of art is artlessness.\n\nTruth is always paradoxical.\n\nHe will get to the goal first who stands stillest.\n\nThere is one let better than any help, and that is,\u2014_Let-alone_.\n\nBy sufferance you may escape suffering.\n\nHe who resists not at all will never surrender.\n\nWhen a dog runs at you, whistle for him.\n\nSay, Not so, and you will outcircle the philosophers.\n\nStand outside the wall, and no harm can reach you. The danger is that\nyou be walled in with it.\n\n_June 27._ I am living this 27th of June, 1840, a dull, cloudy day and\nno sun shining. The clink of the smith's hammer sounds feebly over the\nroofs, and the wind is sighing gently, as if dreaming of cheerfuller\ndays. The farmer is plowing in yonder field, craftsmen are busy in the\nshops, the trader stands behind the counter, and all works go steadily\nforward. But I will have nothing to do; I will tell fortune that I\nplay no game with her, and she may reach me in my Asia of serenity and\nindolence if she can.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself.[155]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe was no artist, but an artisan, who first made shields of brass.[156]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nUnless we meet religiously, we prophane one another. What was the\nconsecrated ground round the temple, we have used as no better than a\ndomestic court.\n\nOur friend's is as holy a shrine as any God's, to be approached with\nsacred love and awe. Veneration is the measure of Love. Our friend\nanswers ambiguously, and sometimes before the question is propounded,\nlike the oracle of Delphi. He forbears to ask explanation, but doubts\nand surmises darkly with full faith, as we silently ponder our fates.\n\nIn no presence are we so susceptible to shame. Our hour is a sabbath,\nour abode a temple, our gifts peace offerings, our conversation a\ncommunion, our silence a prayer. In prophanity we are absent, in\nholiness near, in sin estranged, in innocence reconciled.\n\n\n_June 28._ The prophane never hear music; the holy ever hear it. It is\nGod's voice, the divine breath audible. Where it is heard, there is a\nsabbath. It is omnipotent; all things obey it as they obey virtue. It\nis the herald of virtue.[157] It passes by sorrow, for grief hangs its\nharp on the willows.\n\n\n_June 29._ Of all phenomena, my own race are the most mysterious and\nundiscoverable. For how many years have I striven to meet one, even on\ncommon manly ground, and have not succeeded!\n\n\n_June 30._ I sailed from Fair Haven last evening as gently and steadily\nas the clouds sail through the atmosphere. The wind came blowing\nblithely from the southwest fields, and stepped into the folds of our\nsail like a winged horse, pulling with a strong and steady impulse.\nThe sail bends gently to the breeze, as swells some generous impulse of\nthe heart, and anon flutters and flaps with a kind of human suspense.\nI could watch the motions of a sail forever, they are so rich and\nfull of meaning. I watch the play of its pulse, as if it were my own\nblood beating there. The varying temperature of distant atmospheres\nis graduated on its scale. It is a free, buoyant creature, the bauble\nof the heavens and the earth. A gay pastime the air plays with it. If\nit swells and tugs, it is because the sun lays his windy finger on it.\nThe breeze it plays with has been outdoors so long. So thin is it, and\nyet so full of life; so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and\nimpatient when least serviceable.[158] So am I blown on by God's breath,\nso flutter and flap, and fill gently out with the breeze.\n\nIn this fresh evening each blade and leaf looks as if it had been dipped\nin an icy liquid greenness. Let eyes that ache come here and look,\u2014the\nsight will be a sovereign eyewater,\u2014or else wait and bathe them in the\ndark.\n\nWe go forth into the fields, and there the wind blows freshly onward,\nand still on, and we must make new efforts not to be left behind. What\ndoes the dogged wind intend, that, like a willful cur, it will not let\nme turn aside to rest or content? Must it always reprove and provoke\nme, and never welcome me as an equal?\n\nThe truth shall prevail and falsehood discover itself, as long as the\nwind blows on the hills.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA man's life should be a stately march to a sweet but unheard music, and\nwhen to his fellows it shall seem irregular and inharmonious, he will\nonly be stepping to a livelier measure, or his nicer ear hurry him into\na thousand symphonies and concordant variations. There will be no halt\never, but at most a marching on his post, or such a pause as is richer\nthan any sound, when the melody runs into such depth and wildness as to\nbe no longer heard, but implicitly consented to with the whole life and\nbeing. He will take a false step never, even in the most arduous times,\nfor then the music will not fail to swell into greater sweetness and\nvolume, and itself rule the movement it inspired.[159]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the\nsoul.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nValue and effort are as much coincident as weight and a tendency to\nfall. In a very wide but true sense, effort is the deed itself, and\nit is only when these sensible stuffs intervene, that our attention\nis distracted from the deed to the accident. It is never the deed men\npraise, but some marble or canvas which are only a staging to the real\nwork.[160]\n\n\n_July 1._ To be a man is to do a man's work; always our resource is\nto endeavor. We may well say, Success to our endeavors. Effort is the\nprerogative of virtue.[161]\n\nThe true laborer is recompensed by his labor, not by his employer.\nIndustry is its own wages. Let us not suffer our hands to lose one jot\nof their handiness by looking behind to a mean recompense, knowing that\nour true endeavor cannot be thwarted, nor we be cheated of our earnings\nunless by not earning them.[162]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem\nnot printed on paper, coincident with the production of this, which is\nstereotyped in the poet's life, is what he has become through his work.\nSome symbol of value may shape itself to the senses in wood, or marble,\nor verse, but this is fluctuating as the laborer's hire, which may or\nmay not be withheld. His very material is not material but supernatural.\nPerhaps the hugest and most effective deed may have no sensible result\nat all on earth, but paint itself in the heavens in new stars and\nconstellations. Its very material lies out of nature. When, in rare\nmoments, we strive wholly with one consent, which we call a yearning,\nwe may not hope that our work will stand in any artist's gallery.[163]\nLet not the artist expect that his true work will stand in any prince's\ngallery.\n\n\n_July 2._ I am not taken up, like Moses, upon a mountain to learn the\nlaw, but lifted up in my seat here, in the warm sunshine and genial\nlight.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey who are ready to go are already invited.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNeither men nor things have any true mode of invitation but to be\ninviting.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCan that be a task which all things abet, and to postpone which is to\nstrive against nature?[164]\n\n\n_July 3._ When Alexander appears, the Hercynian and Dodonean woods seem\nto wave a welcome to him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo not thoughts and men's lives enrich the earth and change the aspect\nof things as much as a new growth of wood?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat are Godfrey and Gonsalvo unless we breathe a life into them, and\nre\u00ebnact their exploits as a prelude to our own? The past is only so\nheroic as we see it; it is the canvas on which our conception of heroism\nis painted, the dim prospectus of our future field. We are dreaming of\nwhat we are to do.[165]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe last sunrise I witnessed seemed to outshine the splendor of all\npreceding ones, and I was convinced that it behooved man to dawn as\nfreshly, and with equal promise and steadiness advance into the career\nof life, with as lofty and serene a countenance to move onward through\nhis midday to a yet fairer and more promising setting. Has the day\ngrown old when it sets? and shall man wear out sooner than the sun? In\nthe crimson colors of the west I discern the budding hues of dawn. To\nmy western brother it is rising pure and bright as it did to me, but\nthe evening exhibits in the still rear of day the beauty which through\nmorning and noon escaped me.[166] When we are oppressed by the heat and\nturmoil of the noon, let us remember that the sun which scorches us with\nbrazen beams is gilding the hills of morning and awaking the woodland\nquires for other men.\n\nWe will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves.\n\nWhat we call the gross atmosphere of evening is the accumulated deed\nof the day, which absorbs the rays of beauty, and shows more richly\nthan the naked promise of the dawn. By earnest toil in the heat of the\nnoon, let us get ready a rich western blaze against the evening of our\nlives.[167]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLow-thoughted, plodding men have come and camped in my neighbor's field\nto-night, with camp music and bustle. Their bugle instantly finds a\nsounding board in the heavens, though mean lips blow it. The sky is\ndelighted with strains which the connoisseur rejects. It seems to say,\nNow is this my own earth.[168]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn music are the centripetal and centrifugal forces. The universe needed\nonly to hear a divine harmony that every star might fall into its proper\nplace and assume a true sphericity.[169]\n\n\n_July 4._ 4 o'clock, A. M. The Townsend Light Infantry encamped last\nnight in my neighbor's inclosure.\n\nThe night still breathes slumberously over field and wood, when a few\nsoldiers gather about one tent in the twilight, and their band plays an\nold Scotch air, with bugle and drum and fife attempered to the season.\nIt seems like the morning hymn of creation. The first sounds of the\nawakening camp, mingled with the chastened strains which so sweetly\nsalute the dawn, impress me as the morning prayer of an army.[170]\n\nAnd now the morning gun fires. The soldier awakening to creation and\nawakening it. I am sure none are cowards now. These strains are the\nroving dreams which steal from tent to tent, and break forth into\ndistinct melody. They are the soldier's morning thought. Each man awakes\nhimself with lofty emotions, and would do some heroic deed. You need\npreach no homily to him; he is the stuff they are made of.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe whole course of our lives should be analogous to one day of the\nsoldier's. His Genius seems to whisper in his ear what demeanor is\nbefitting, and in his bravery and his march he yields a blind and\npartial obedience.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe fresher breeze which accompanies the dawn rustles the oaks and\nbirches, and the earth respires calmly with the creaking of crickets.\nSome hazel leaf stirs gently, as if anxious not to awake the day too\nabruptly, while the time is hastening to the distinct line between\ndarkness and light. And soldiers issue from their dewy tents, and as if\nin answer to expectant nature, sing a sweet and far-echoing hymn.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe may well neglect many things, provided we overlook them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen to-day I saw the \"Great Ball\" rolled majestically along, it seemed\na shame that man could not move like it. All dignity and grandeur has\nsomething of the undulatoriness of the sphere. It is the secret of\nmajesty in the rolling gait of the elephant, and of all grace in action\nand in art. The line of beauty is a curve. Each man seems striving to\nimitate its gait, and keep pace with it, but it moves on regardless\nand conquers the multitude with its majesty. What shame that our lives,\nwhich should be the source of planetary motion and sanction the order of\nthe spheres, are full of abruptness and angularity, so as not to roll,\nnor move majestically.[171]\n\n\n_July 5._ Go where we will, we discover infinite change in particulars\nonly, not in generals.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou cannot rob a man of anything which he will miss.\n\n\n_July 6._ All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some\nwise man.[172]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI observe a truly wise practice on every hand, in education, in\nreligion, and the morals of society,\u2014enough embodied wisdom to have set\nup many an ancient philosopher.[173]\n\nThis society, if it were a person to be met face to face, would not\nonly be tolerated but courted, with its so impressive experience and\nadmirable acquaintance with things.\n\nConsider society at any epoch, and who does not see that heresy has\nalready _prevailed_ in it?[174]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHave no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it\nbrings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable. No day\nwill have been wholly misspent, if one sincere, thoughtful page has been\nwritten.\n\nLet the daily tide leave some deposit on these pages, as it leaves sand\nand shells on the shore. So much increase of _terra firma_. This may be\na calendar of the ebbs and flows of the soul; and on these sheets as a\nbeach, the waves may cast up pearls and seaweed.\n\n\n_July 7._ I have experienced such simple joy in the trivial matters of\nfishing and sporting, formerly, as might inspire the muse of Homer and\nShakespeare. And now, when I turn over the pages and ponder the plates\nof the \"Angler's Souvenir,\" I exclaim with the poet,\u2014\n\n                       \"Can such things be,\n     And overcome us like a summer's cloud?\"[175]\n\nWhen I hear a sudden burst from a horn, I am startled, as if one had\nprovoked such wildness as he could not rule nor tame. He dares to wake\nthe echoes which he cannot put to rest.[176]\n\n\n_July 8._ Doubt and falsehood are yet good preachers. They affirm\nroundly, while they deny partially.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am pleased to learn that Thales was up and stirring by night not\nunfrequently, as his astronomical discoveries prove.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was a saying of Solon that \"it is necessary to observe a medium in\nall things.\"\n\nThe golden mean, in ethics as in physics, is the centre of the system,\nand that about which all revolve; and though, to a distant and plodding\nplanet, it is the uttermost extreme, yet, when that planet's year is\ncomplete, it will be found central.[177] They who are alarmed lest\nvirtue run into extreme good, have not yet wholly embraced her, but\ndescribed only a slight arc about her, and from so small a curvature\nyou can calculate no centre whatever; but their mean is no better than\nmeanness, nor their medium than mediocrity.\n\nThe brave man, while he observes strictly this golden mean, seems to run\nthrough all extremes with impunity; like the sun, which now appears in\nthe zenith, now in the horizon, and again is faintly reflected from the\nmoon's disk, and has the credit of describing an entire great circle,\ncrossing the equinoctial and solstitial colures, without detriment to\nhis steadfastness or mediocrity.[178]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery planet asserts its own to be the centre of the system.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnly _meanness_ is mediocre, _moderate_; but the true _medium_ is not\ncontained within any _bounds_, but is as wide as the ends it connects.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Solon endeavored to prove that Salamis had formerly belonged to the\nAthenians and not to the Megarians, he caused the tombs to be opened,\nand showed that the inhabitants of Salamis turned the faces of their\ndead to the same side with the Athenians, but the Megarians to the\nopposite side.[179]\n\nSo does each part bear witness to all, and the history of all the past\nmay be read in a single grain of its ashes.\n\n\n_July 9._ In most men's religion the ligature which should be its muscle\nand sinew is rather like that thread which the accomplices of Cylon held\nin their hands, when they went abroad from the temple of Minerva, the\nother end being attached to the statue of the goddess. But frequently,\nas in their case, the thread breaks, being stretched, and they are left\nwithout an asylum.[180]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe value of many traits in Grecian history depends not so much on their\nimportance as history, as [on] the readiness with which they accept a\nwide interpretation, and illustrate the poetry and ethics of mankind.\nWhen they announce no particular truth, they are yet central to all\ntruth. They are like those examples by which we improve, but of which\nwe never formally extract the moral. Even the isolated and unexplained\nfacts are like the ruins of the temples which in imagination we restore,\nand ascribe to some Phidias, or other master.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Greeks were boys in the sunshine, the Romans were men in the field,\nthe Persians women in the house, the Egyptians old men in the dark.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe who receives an injury is an accomplice of the wrong-doer.\n\n\n_July 10._ To myself I am as pliant as osier, and my courses seem not so\neasy to be calculated as Encke's comet; but I am powerless to bend the\ncharacter of another; he is like iron in my hands. I could tame a hyena\nmore easily than my friend. I contemplate him as a granite boulder. He\nis material which no tool of mine will work. A naked savage will fell an\noak with a firebrand, and wear a hatchet out of the rock, but I cannot\nhew the smallest chip out of my fellow. There is a character in every\none which no art can reach to beautify or deform.[181]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing was ever so unfamiliar and startling to me as my own thoughts.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe know men through their eyes. You might say that the eye was always\noriginal and unlike another. It is the feature of the individual, and\nnot of the family,\u2014in twins still different. All a man's privacy is in\nhis eye, and its expression he cannot alter more than he can alter his\ncharacter. So long as we look a man in the eye, it seems to rule the\nother features, and make them, too, original. When I have mistaken one\nperson for another, observing only his form, and carriage, and inferior\nfeatures, the unlikeness seemed of the least consequence; but when I\ncaught his eye, and my doubts were removed, it seemed to pervade every\nfeature.\n\nThe eye revolves on an independent pivot which we can no more control\nthan our own will. Its axle is the axle of the soul, as the axis of the\nearth is coincident with the axis of the heavens.\n\n\n_July 11._ The true art is not merely a sublime consolation and holiday\nlabor which the gods have given to sickly mortals, to be wrought at in\nparlors, and not in stithies amid soot and smoke, but such a masterpiece\nas you may imagine a dweller on the table-lands of Central Asia might\nproduce, with threescore and ten years for canvas, and the faculties of\na man for tools,\u2014a human life, wherein you might hope to discover more\nthan the freshness of Guido's Aurora, or the mild light of Titian's\nlandscapes; not a bald imitation or rival of Nature, but the restored\noriginal of which she is the reflection. For such a work as this,\nwhole galleries of Greece and Italy are a mere mixing of colors and\npreparatory quarrying of marble.[182]\n\nNot how is the idea expressed in stone or on canvas, is the question,\nbut how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the\nartist.\n\nThere is much covert truth in the old mythology which makes Vulcan\na brawny and deformed smith, who sweat more than the other gods. His\nstithy was not like a modern studio.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us not wait any longer, but step down from the mountains on to the\nplain of earth. Let our delay be like the sun's, when he lingers on the\ndividing line of day and night a brief space when the world is grateful\nfor his light. We will make such haste as the morning and such delay as\nthe evening.[183]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt concerns us rather to be something here present than to leave\nsomething behind us.[184]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is the man determines what is said, not the words. If a mean person\nuses a wise maxim, I bethink me how it can be interpreted so as to\ncommend itself to his meanness; but if a wise man makes a commonplace\nremark, I consider what wider construction it will admit. When Pittacus\nsays, \"It is necessary to accommodate one's self to the time and take\nadvantage of the occasion,\" I assent. He might have considered that\nto accommodate one's self to all times, and take advantage of all\noccasions, was really to be independent, and make our own opportunity.\n\n\n_July 12._ What first suggested that necessity was grim, and made fate\nso fatal? The strongest is always the least violent. Necessity is a\nsort of Eastern cushion on which I recline. I contemplate its mild,\ninflexible countenance, as the haze in October days. When I am vexed I\nonly ask to be left alone with it. Leave me to my fate. It is the bosom\nof time and the lap of eternity; since to be necessary is to be needful,\nit is only another name for inflexibility of good. How I welcome my grim\nfellow and aspire to be such a necessity as he! He is so flexible, and\nyields to me as the air to my body! I leap and dance in his midst, and\nplay with his beard till he smiles. I greet thee, my elder brother, who\nwith thy touch ennoblest all things. Must it be so, then is it good.\nThou commendest even petty ills by thy countenance.\n\nOver Greece hangs the divine necessity, ever a mellower heaven of\nitself, whose light too gilds the Acropolis and a thousand fanes and\ngroves.[185]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPittacus said there was no better course than to endeavor to do well\nwhat you are doing at any moment.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGo where he will, the wise man is proprietor of all things. Everything\nbears a similar inscription, if we could but read it, to that on the\nvase found in the stomach of a fish in old times,\u2014\"To the most wise.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen his impious fellow-passengers invoked the gods in a storm, Bias\ncried, \"Hist! hist! lest the gods perceive that you are here, for we\nshould all be lost.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA wise man will always have his duds picked up, and be ready for\nwhatever may happen, as the prudent merchant, notwithstanding the lavish\ndisplay of his wares, will yet have them packed or easy to be removed in\nemergencies. In this sense there is something sluttish in all finery.\nWhen I see a fine lady or gentleman dressed to the top of the fashion,\nI wonder what they would do if an earthquake should happen, or a fire\nsuddenly break out, for they seem to have counted only on fair weather,\nand that things will go on smoothly and without jostling. Those curls\nand jewels, so nicely adjusted, expect an unusual deference from the\nelements.\n\nOur dress should be such as will hang conveniently about us, and fit\nequally well in good and in bad fortune; such as will approve itself\nof the right fashion and fabric, whether for the cotillion or the\nearthquake. In the sack of Priene, when the inhabitants with much hurry\nand bustle were carrying their effects to a place of safety, some one\nasked Bias, who remained tranquil amid the confusion, why he was not\nthinking how he should save something, as the others were. \"I do so,\"\nsaid Bias, \"for I carry all my effects with me.\"\n\n\n_July 14._ Our discourse should be _ex tempore_, but not _pro tempore_.\n\n\n_July 16._ We are as much refreshed by sounds as by sights, or scents,\nor flavors,\u2014as the barking of a dog heard in the woods at midnight, or\nthe tinklings which attend the dawn.\n\nAs I picked blackberries this morning, by starlight, the distant yelping\nof a dog fell on my inward ear, as the cool breeze on my cheek.\n\n\n_July 19._ These two days that I have not written in my Journal, set\ndown in the calendar as the 17th and 18th of July, have been really an\n\u00e6on in which a Syrian empire might rise and fall. How many Persias have\nbeen lost and won in the interim? Night is spangled with fresh stars.\n\n\n_July 26._ When I consider how, after sunset, the stars come out\ngradually in troops from behind the hills and woods, I confess that I\ncould not have contrived a more curious and inspiring night.\n\n\n_July 27._ Some men, like some buildings, are bulky but not great. The\nPyramids any traveller may measure with his line, but the dimensions\nof the Parthenon in feet and inches will seem to dangle from its\nentablature like an elastic drapery.[186]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMuch credit is due to a brave man's eye. It is the focus in which all\nrays are collected. It sees from within, or from the centre, just as we\nscan the whole concave of the heavens at a glance, but can compass only\none side of the pebble at our feet.[187]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe grandeur of these stupendous masses of clouds, tossed into such\nirregular greatness across the sky, seems thrown away on the meanness\nof my employment. The drapery seems altogether too rich for such poor\nacting.[188]\n\nIn vain the sun challenges man to equal greatness in his career. We\nlook in vain over earth for a Roman greatness to answer the eternal\nprovocation.[189]\n\nWe look up to the gilded battlements of the eternal city, and are\ncontented to be suburban dwellers outside the walls.[190]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBy the last breath of the May air I inhale I am reminded that the ages\nnever got so far down as this before. The wood thrush is a more modern\nphilosopher than Plato and Aristotle. They are now a dogma, but he\npreaches the doctrine of this hour.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis systole-diastole of the heart, the circulation of the blood from\nthe centre to the extremities, the chylification which is constantly\ngoing on in our bodies are a sort of military evolution, a struggle to\noutgeneral the decay of time by the skillfulest tactics.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen bravery is worsted, it joins the peace society.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA word is wiser than any man, than any series of words. In its present\nreceived sense it may be false, but in its inner sense by descent and\nanalogy it approves itself. Language is the most perfect work of art in\nthe world. The chisel of a thousand years retouches it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNature refuses to sympathize with our sorrow. She seems not to have\nprovided for, but by a thousand contrivances against it. She has\nbevelled the margins of the eyelids that the tears may not overflow on\nthe cheek.[191]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe can conceive of a Bravery so wide that nothing can meet to befall it,\nso omnipresent that nothing can lie in wait for it, so permanent that\nno obstinacy can reduce it. The stars are its silent sentries by night,\nand the sun its pioneer by day. From its abundant cheerfulness spring\nflowers and the rainbow, and its infinite humor and wantonness produce\ncorn and vines.[192]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n1841\n\n(\u00c6T. 23-24)\n\n\n_Jan. 23._ A day is lapsing. I hear cockerels crowing in the yard,\nand see them stalking among the chips in the sun. I hear busy feet on\nthe floors, and the whole house jars with industry. Surely the day is\nwell spent, and the time is full to overflowing. Mankind is as busy\nas the flowers in summer, which make haste to unfold themselves in the\nforenoon, and close their petals in the afternoon.\n\nThe momentous topics of human life are always of secondary importance\nto the business in hand, just as carpenters discuss politics between\nthe strokes of the hammer while they are shingling a roof.[193]\n\nThe squeaking of the pump sounds as necessary as the music of the\nspheres.\n\nThe solidity and apparent necessity of this routine insensibly recommend\nit to me. It is like a cane or a cushion for the infirm, and in view of\nit all are infirm. If there were but one erect and solid-standing tree\nin the woods, all creatures would go to rub against it and make sure of\ntheir footing. Routine is a ground to stand on, a wall to retreat to;\nwe cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it.[194]\nIt is the fence over which neighbors lean when they talk. All this\ncockcrowing, and hawing and geeing, and business in the streets, is like\nthe spring-board on which tumblers perform and develop their elasticity.\nOur health requires that we should recline on it from time to time. When\nwe are in it, the hand stands still on the face of the clock, and we\ngrow like corn in the genial dankness and silence of the night.[195] Our\nweakness wants it, but our strength uses it. Good for the body is the\nwork of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for\neither the work of the other. Let them not call hard names, nor know a\ndivided interest.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am\nreminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to\nbe contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life,\u2014how silent\nand unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses will have to be\nconsidered from the holiest, quietest nook.[196]\n\nThe gods delight in stillness; they say, 'St\u2014'st. My truest, serenest\nmoments are too still for emotion; they have woollen feet. In all our\nlives we live under the hill, and if we are not gone we live there\nstill.\n\n\n_Jan. 24. Sunday._ I almost shrink from the arduousness of meeting men\nerectly day by day.\n\nBe resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to\nbe. Be sure you give men the best of your wares, though they be poor\nenough, and the gods will help you to lay up a better store for the\nfuture. Man's noblest gift to man is his sincerity, for it embraces his\nintegrity also. Let him not dole out of himself anxiously, to suit their\nweaker or stronger stomachs, but make a clean gift of himself, and empty\nhis coffers at once. I would be in society as in the landscape; in the\npresence of nature there is no reserve, nor effrontery.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nColeridge says of the \"_ideas_ spoken out everywhere in the Old and New\nTestament,\" that they \"resemble the fixed stars, which appear of the\nsame size to the naked as to the armed eye; the magnitude of which the\ntelescope may rather seem to diminish than to increase.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is more proper for a spiritual fact to have suggested an analogous\nnatural one, than for the natural fact to have preceded the spiritual\nin our minds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBy spells seriousness will be forced to cut capers, and drink a deep and\nrefreshing draught of silliness; to turn this sedate day of Lucifer's\nand Apollo's, into an all fools' day for Harlequin and Cornwallis. The\nsun does not grudge his rays to either, but they are alike patronized\nby the gods. Like overtasked schoolboys, all my members and nerves\nand sinews petition Thought for a recess, and my very thigh-bones\nitch to slip away from under me, and run and join the m\u00eal\u00e9e. I exult\nin stark inanity, leering on nature and the soul. We think the gods\nreveal themselves only to sedate and musing gentlemen. But not so; the\nbuffoon in the midst of his antics catches unobserved glimpses, which\nhe treasures for the lonely hour. When I have been playing tomfool, I\nhave been driven to exchange the old for a more liberal and catholic\nphilosophy.\n\n\n_Jan. 25. Monday._ To-day I feel the migratory instinct strong in me,\nand all my members and humors anticipate the breaking up of winter. If\nI yielded to this impulse, it would surely guide me to summer haunts.\nThis indefinite restlessness and fluttering on the perch do, no doubt,\nprophesy the final migration of souls out of nature to a serene summer,\nin long harrows and waving lines[197] in the spring weather, over what\nfair uplands and fertile Elysian meadows winging their way at evening\nand seeking a resting-place with loud cackling and uproar!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWealth, no less than knowledge, is power. Among the Bedouins the richest\nman is the sheik, among savages he who has most iron and wampum is\nchief, and in England and America he is the merchant prince.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe should strengthen, and beautify, and industriously mould our bodies\nto be fit companions of the soul,\u2014assist them to grow up like trees, and\nbe agreeable and wholesome objects in nature. I think if I had had the\ndisposal of this soul of man, I should have bestowed it sooner on some\nantelope of the plains than upon this sickly and sluggish body.\n\n\n_Jan. 26. Tuesday._ I have as much property as I can command and use.\nIf by a fault in my character I do not derive my just revenues, there is\nvirtually a mortgage on my inheritance. A man's wealth is never entered\nin the registrar's office. Wealth does not come in along the great\nthoroughfares, it does not float on the Erie or Pennsylvania canal, but\nis imported by a solitary track without bustle or competition, from a\nbrave industry to a quiet mind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI had a dream last night which had reference to an act in my life in\nwhich I had been most disinterested and true to my highest instinct but\ncompletely failed in realizing my hopes; and now, after so many months,\nin the stillness of sleep, complete justice was rendered me. It was a\ndivine remuneration. In my waking hours I could not have conceived of\nsuch retribution; the presumption of desert would have damned the whole.\nBut now I was permitted to be not so much a subject as a partner to that\nretribution. It was the award of divine justice, which will at length\nbe and is even now accomplished.[198]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGood writing as well as good acting will be obedience to conscience.\nThere must not be a particle of will or whim mixed with it. If we can\nlisten, we shall hear. By reverently listening to the inner voice, we\nmay reinstate ourselves on the pinnacle of humanity.\n\n\n_Jan. 27. Wednesday._ In the compensation of the dream, there was no\nimplied loss to any, but immeasurable advantage to all.[199]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe punishment of sin is not positive, as is the reward of virtue.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor a flower, I like the name pansy, or _pens\u00e9e_, best of any.\n\n\n_Jan. 28._ No innocence can quite stand up under suspicion, if it is\nconscious of being suspected. In the company of one who puts a wrong\nconstruction upon your actions, they are apt really to deserve a\nmean construction. While in that society I can never retrieve myself.\nAttribute to me a great motive, and I shall not fail to have one; but a\nmean one, and the fountain of virtue will be poisoned by the suspicion.\nShow men unlimited faith as the coin with which you will deal with them,\nand they will invariably exhibit the best wares they have. I would meet\nmen as the friends of all their virtue, and the foes of all their vice,\nfor no man is the partner of his guilt. If you suspect me you will never\nsee me, but all our intercourse will be the politest leave-taking;\nI shall constantly defer and apologize, and postpone myself in your\npresence. The self-defender is accursed in the sight of gods and men; he\nis a superfluous knight, who serves no lady in the land. He will find\nin the end that he has been fighting windmills, and battered his mace\nto no purpose. The injured man with querulous tone resisting his fate\nis like a tree struck by lightning, which rustles its sere leaves the\nwinter through, not having vigor enough [to] cast them off.\n\nAs for apologies, I must be off with the dew and the frost, and leave\nmankind to repair the damage with their gauze screens and straw.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nResistance is a very wholesome and delicious morsel at times. When Venus\nadvanced against the Greeks with resistless valor, it was by far the\nmost natural attitude into which the poet could throw his hero to make\nhim resist heroically. To a devil one might yield gracefully, but a god\nwould be a worthy foe, and would pardon the affront.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt would be worth while, once for all, fairly and cleanly to tell how\nwe are to be used, as vendors of lucifer matches send directions in the\nenvelope, both how light may be readily procured and no accident happen\nto the user.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet your mood determine the form of salutation, and approach the\ncreature with a natural nonchalance, as though he were anything but what\nhe is, and you were anything but what you are,\u2014as though he were he,\nand you were you; in short, as though he were so insignificant that it\ndid not signify, and so important that it did not import. Depend upon\nit, the timber is well seasoned and tough, and will bear rough usage;\nand if it should crack, there is plenty more where it came from. I am no\npiece of china-ware that cannot be jostled against my neighbor, without\ndanger of rupture from the collision, and must needs ring a scrannel\nstrain to the end of my days when once I am cracked; but rather one of\nthe old-fashioned wooden trenchers, which one while stands at the head\nof the table, and at another is a milking-stool, and at another a seat\nfor children, and finally goes down to its grave not unadorned with\nhonorable scars, and does not die till it is _worn_ out. Use me, for I\nam useful in my way. I stand as one of many petitioners, from toadstool\nand henbane up to dahlia and violet, supplicating to be put to my use,\nif by any means ye may find me serviceable; whether for a medicated\ndrink or bath, as balm and lavender; or for fragrance, as verbena and\ngeranium; or for sight, as cactus; or for thoughts, as pansy.[200]\n\n\n_Jan. 29._ There is something proudly thrilling in the thought that this\nobedience to conscience and trust in God, which is so solemnly preached\nin extremities and arduous circumstances, is only to retreat to one's\nself, and rely on our own strength. In trivial circumstances I find\nmyself sufficient to myself, and in the most momentous I have no ally\nbut myself, and must silently put by their harm by my own strength, as I\ndid the former. As my own hand bent aside the willow in my path, so must\nmy single arm put to flight the devil and his angels. God is not our\nally when we shrink, and neuter when we are bold. If by trusting in God\nyou lose any particle of your vigor, trust in Him no longer. When you\ntrust, do not lay aside your armor, but put it on and buckle it tighter.\nIf by reliance on the gods I have disbanded one of my forces, then was\nit poor policy. I had better have retained the most inexperienced tyro\nwho had straggled into the camp, and let go the heavenly alliance. I\ncannot afford to relax discipline because God is on my side, for He\nis on the side of discipline. And if the gods were only the heavens I\nfought under, I would not care if they stormed or were calm. I do not\nwant a countenance, but a help. And there is more of God and divine help\nin a man's little finger than in idle prayer and trust.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe best and bravest deed is that which the whole man\u2014heart, lungs,\nhands, fingers, and toes\u2014at any time prompts. Each hanger-on in the\npurlieus of the camp, must strike his standard at the signal from the\nPr\u00e6torian tent, and fall into the line of march; but if a single sutler\ndelay to make up his pack, then suspect the fates and consult the omens\nagain. This is the meaning of integrity; this is to be an integer, and\nnot a fraction. Be even for all virtuous ends, but odd for all vice. Be\na perfect power, so that any of your roots multiplied into itself may\ngive the whole again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBeauty is compared, not measured, for it is the creature of proportions,\nnot of size. Size must be subdued to it. It is hard for a tall or a\nshort person to be beautiful.\n\nTo graft the Persian lilac on the ash, is as if you were to splice the\nthigh-bones of the Venus de Medici.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFriends will have to be introduced each time they meet. They will\nbe eternally strange to one another, and when they have mutually\nappropriated their value for the last hour, they will go and gather\na new measure of strangeness for the next. They are like two boughs\ncrossed in the wood, which play backwards and forwards upon one another\nin the wind, and only wear into each other, but never the sap of the\none flows into the pores of the other, for then the wind would no more\ndraw from them those strains which enchanted the wood. They are not two\nunited, but rather one divided.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf all strange and unaccountable things this journalizing is the\nstrangest. It will allow nothing to be predicated of it; its good is not\ngood, nor its bad bad. If I make a huge effort to expose my innermost\nand richest wares to light, my counter seems cluttered with the meanest\nhomemade stuffs; but after months or years I may discover the wealth\nof India, and whatever rarity is brought overland from Cathay, in\nthat confused heap, and what perhaps seemed a festoon of dried apple\nor pumpkin will prove a string of Brazilian diamonds, or pearls from\nCoromandel.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen lie behind the barrier of a relation as effectually concealed as the\nlandscape by a mist; and when at length some unforeseen accident throws\nme into a new attitude to them, I am astounded, as if for the first time\nI saw the sun on the hillside. They lie out before me like a new order\nof things. As, when the master meets his pupil as a man, then first do\nwe stand under the same heavens, and master and pupil alike go down the\nresistless ocean stream together.\n\n\n_Jan. 30. Saturday._ Far over the fields, between the tops of yonder\nwood, I see a slight cloud not larger than the vapor from a kettle,\ndrifting by its own inward purpose in a direction contrary to the\nplanet. As it flits across the dells and defiles of the tree-tops, now\nseen, then lost beyond a pine, I am curious to know wherein its will\nresides, for to my eye it has no heart, nor lungs, nor brain, nor any\ninterior and private chamber which it may inhabit.\n\nIts motion reminds me of those lines of Milton:\u2014\n\n     \"As when far off at sea a fleet descried\n     Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds\n     Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles\n     Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring\n     Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood,\n     Ply stemming nightly toward the pole.\"\n\nThe snow collects upon the plumes of the pitch pine in the form of\na pineapple, which if you divide in the middle will expose three red\nkernels like the tamarind-stone. So does winter with his mock harvest\njeer at the sincerity of summer. The tropical fruits, which will not\nbear the rawness of our summer, are imitated in a thousand fantastic\nshapes by the whimsical genius of winter.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn winter the warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated\nfrom the earth. In summer I forget to bless the sun for his heat; but\nwhen I feel his beams on my back as I thread some snowy dale, I am\ngrateful as for a special kindness which would not be weary of well\ndoing but had pursued me even into that by-place.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the wind blows, the fine snow comes filtering down through all the\naisles of the wood in a golden cloud.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe trees covered with snow admit a very plain and clean light, but\nnot brilliant, as if through windows of ground glass; a sort of white\ndarkness it is, all of the sun's splendor that can be retained.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe fashions of the wood are more fluctuating than those of Paris; snow,\nrime, ice, green and dry leaves incessantly make new patterns. There are\nall the shapes and hues of the kaleidoscope and the designs and ciphers\nof books of heraldry in the outlines of the trees. Every time I see a\nnodding pine-top, it seems as if a new fashion of wearing plumes had\ncome into vogue.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI saw a team come out of a path in the woods, as though it had never\ngone in, but belonged there, and only came out like Elisha's bears. It\nwas wholly of the village, and not at all of the wood.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese particles of snow which the early wind shakes down are what is\nstirring, or the morning news of the wood. Sometimes it is blown up\nabove the trees, like the sand of the desert.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou glance up these paths, closely imbowered by bent trees, as through\nthe side aisles of a cathedral, and expect to hear a choir chanting from\ntheir depths. You are never so far in them as they are far before you.\nTheir secret is where you are not and where your feet can never carry\nyou.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI tread in the tracks of the fox which has gone before me by some hours,\nor which perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of expectation as if\nI were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in these woods,\nand expected soon to catch it in its lair.[201]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe snow falls on no two trees alike, but the forms it assumes are as\nvarious as those of the twigs and leaves which receive it. They are,\nas it were, predetermined by the genius of the tree. So one divine\nspirit descends alike on all, but bears a peculiar fruit in each. The\ndivinity subsides on all men, as the snowflakes settle on the fields and\nledges and takes the form of the various clefts and surfaces on which\nit lodges.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere is the distinct trail of a fox stretching [a] quarter of a mile\nacross the pond. Now I am curious to know what has determined its\ngraceful curvatures, its greater or less spaces and distinctness, and\nhow surely they were coincident with the fluctuations of some mind,\nwhy they now lead me two steps to the right, and then three to the\nleft. If these things are not to be called up and accounted for in the\nLamb's Book of Life, I shall set them down for careless accountants.\nHere was one expression of the divine mind this morning. The pond was\nhis journal, and last night's snow made a _tabula rasa_ for him. I know\nwhich way a mind wended this morning, what horizon it faced, by the\nsetting of these tracks; whether it moved slowly or rapidly, by the\ngreater or less intervals and distinctness, for the swiftest step leaves\nyet a lasting trace.[202]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSometimes I come out suddenly upon a high plain, which seems to be the\nupper level and true surface of the earth, and by its very baldness\naspires and lies up nearer to the stars,\u2014a place where a decalogue might\nbe let down or a saint translated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI take a horse and oxen, standing among the wood-piles in the forest,\nfor one of them, and when at length the horse pricks his ears, and I\ngive him another name, where's the difference? I am startled by the\npossibility of such errors, and the indifference with [which] they are\nallowed to occur.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFair Haven Pond is _scored_ with the trails of foxes, and you may see\nwhere they have gambolled and gone through a hundred evolutions, which\ntestify to a singular listlessness and leisure in nature.\n\nSuddenly, looking down the river, I saw a fox some sixty rods off,\nmaking across to the hills on my left. As the snow lay five inches deep,\nhe made but slow progress, but it was no impediment to me. So, yielding\nto the instinct of the chase, I tossed my head aloft and bounded away,\nsnuffing the air like a fox-hound, and spurning the world and the Humane\nSociety at each bound. It seemed the woods rang with the hunter's\nhorn, and Diana and all the satyrs joined in the chase and cheered\nme on. Olympian and Elean youths were waving palms on the hills. In\nthe meanwhile I gained rapidly on the fox; but he showed a remarkable\npresence of mind, for, instead of keeping up the face of the hill, which\nwas steep and unwooded in that part, he kept along the slope in the\ndirection of the forest, though he lost ground by it. Notwithstanding\nhis fright, he took no step which was not beautiful. The course on his\npart was a series of most graceful curves. It was a sort of leopard\ncanter, I should say, as if he were nowise impeded by the snow, but\nwere husbanding his strength all the while. When he doubled I wheeled\nand cut him off, bounding with fresh vigor, and Ant\u00e6us-like, recovering\nmy strength each time I touched the snow. Having got near enough for a\nfair view, just as he was slipping into the wood, I gracefully yielded\nhim the palm. He ran as though there were not a bone in his back,\noccasionally dropping his muzzle to the snow for a rod or two, and then\ntossing his head aloft when satisfied of his course. When he came to a\ndeclivity he put his fore feet together and slid down it like a cat. He\ntrod so softly that you could not have heard it from any nearness, and\nyet with such expression that it would not have been quite inaudible at\nany distance. So, hoping this experience would prove a useful lesson to\nhim, I returned to the village by the highway of the river.[203]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is all the romance of my youthfulest moment in music. Heaven lies\nabout us, as in our infancy. There is nothing so wild and extravagant\nthat it does not make true. It makes a dream my only real experience,\nand prompts faith to such elasticity that only the incredible can\nsatisfy it. It tells me again to trust the remotest and finest, as the\ndivinest, instinct. All that I have imagined of heroism, it reminds\nand reassures me of. It is a life unlived, a life beyond life, where at\nlength my years will pass. I look under the lids of Time.\n\n\n_Jan. 31. Sunday._ At each step man measures himself against the system.\nIf he cannot actually belay the sun and make it fast to this planet,\nyet the British man alone spins a yarn in one year which will reach\nfifty-one times the distance from the earth to the sun. So, having his\ncable ready twisted and coiled, the fixed stars are virtually within\nhis grasp. He carries his lasso coiled at his saddle bow, but is never\nforced to cast it.\n\nAll things are subdued to me by virtue of that coiled lasso I carry,\nand I lead them without the trouble of a cast. It is the rope that lies\ncoiled on the deck, which moors my ship, and I have never to bend a\ncable.\n\nIn God's hall hang cables of infinite length, and in His entries stand\nbars of infinite strength; but those cables were never bent, nor those\nbars ever poised, for all things have been subdued to the divinity from\nthe first, and these are the seals of His power.\n\nThe guilty never escape, for a steed stands ever ready saddled and\nbridled at God's door, and the sinner surrenders at last.\n\n\n_End of my Journal of 396 pages._\n\n\n_Feb. 2. Tuesday._ It is easy to repeat, but hard to originate. Nature\nis readily made to repeat herself in a thousand forms, and in the\ndaguerreotype her own light is amanuensis, and the picture too has more\nthan a surface significance,\u2014a depth equal to the prospect,\u2014so that the\nmicroscope may be applied to the one as the spy-glass to the other. Thus\nwe may easily multiply the forms of the outward; but to give the within\noutwardness, that is not easy.\n\nThat an impression may be taken, perfect stillness, though but for an\ninstant, is necessary. There is something analogous in the birth of all\nrhymes.\n\nOur sympathy is a gift whose value we can never know, nor when we impart\nit. The instant of communion is when, for the least point of time, we\ncease to oscillate, and coincide in rest by as fine a point as a star\npierces the firmament.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe stars are the mountain peaks of celestial countries.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA child asked its father what became of the old moon, and he said it\nwas cut up into stars.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is always a single ear in the audience, to which we address\nourselves.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow much does it concern you, the good opinion of your friend? Therein\nis the measure of fame. For the herd of men multiplied many times will\nnever come up to the value of one friend. In this society there is no\nfame but love; for as our name may be on the lips of men, so are we in\neach other's hearts. There is no ambition but virtue; for why should we\ngo round about, who may go direct?\n\nAll those contingencies which the philanthropist, statesman, and\nhousekeeper write so many books to meet are simply and quietly settled\nin the intercourse of friends.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor our aspirations there is no expression as yet, but if we obey\nsteadily, by another year we shall have learned the language of last\nyear's aspirations.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I read the other day the weight of some of the generals of the\nRevolution, it seemed no unimportant fact in their biography. It is at\nleast one other means of comparing ourselves with them. Tell me how much\nMilton or Shakespeare weighed, and I will get weighed myself, that I\nmay know better what they are to me.\n\nWeight has something very imposing in it, for we cannot get rid of it.\nOnce in the scales we must weigh. And are we not always in the scales,\nand weighing just our due, though we kick the beam, and do all we can\nto heavy or lighten ourselves?\n\n\n_Feb. 3. Wednesday._ The present seems never to get its due; it is the\nleast obvious,\u2014neither before, nor behind, but within us. All the past\nplays into this moment, and we are what we are. My aspiration is one\nthing, my reflection another, but, over all, myself and condition is\nand does. To men and nature I am each moment a finished tool,\u2014a spade,\na barrow, or a pickaxe. This immense promise is no _efficient_ quality.\nFor all practical purposes I am done.\n\nWhen we do a service to our neighbor, we serve our next neighbor.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe are constantly invited to be what we are; as to something worthy and\nnoble. I never waited but for myself to come round; none ever detained\nme, but I lagged or tagged after myself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt steads us to be as true to children and boors as to God himself. It\nis the only attitude which will suit all occasions; it only will make\nthe earth yield her increase, and by it do we effectually expostulate\nwith the wind. If I run against a post, this is the remedy. I would\nmeet the morning and evening on very sincere ground. When the sun\nintroduces me to a new day, I silently say to myself, \"Let us be\nfaithful all round; we will do justice and receive it.\" Something\nlike this is the secret charm of Nature's demeanor toward us, strict\nconscientiousness [?] and disregard of us when we have ceased to have\nregard for ourselves. So she can never offend us. How true she is!\u2014and\nnever swerves. In her most genial moment her laws are as steadfastly\nand relentlessly fulfilled\u2014though the decalogue is rhymed and set to\nsweetest music\u2014as in her sternest.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAny exhibition of affection\u2014as an inadvertent word, or act, or\nlook\u2014seems premature, as if the time were not ripe for it; like the buds\nwhich the warm days near the end of winter cause to push out and unfold\nbefore the frosts are yet gone.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy life must seem as if it were passing at a higher level than that\nwhich I occupy. It must possess a dignity which will not allow me to be\nfamiliar.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe unpretending truth of a simile implies sometimes such distinctness\nin the conception as only experience could have supplied. Homer could\nnot improve the simile of a soldier who was careful enough to tell the\ntruth. If he knows what it was, he will know what it was like.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs the ancient Britons were exhibited in Rome in their native costume,\nand the Dacian came to display his swordsmanship in the arena, so\nTyrolese peasants have come farther yet, even from the neighborhood of\nRome to Concord, for our entertainment this night.\n\n\n_Feb. 4. Thursday._ When you are once comfortably seated at a public\nmeeting, there is something unmanly in the sitting on tiptoe and _qui\nvive_ attitude,\u2014the involuntarily rising into your throat, as if gravity\nhad ceased to operate,\u2014when a lady approaches, with quite godlike\npresumption, to elicit the miracle of a seat where none is.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMusic will make the most nervous chord vibrate healthily.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch a state of unrest becomes only a fluttered virtue. When once I have\nlearned my place in the sphere, I will fill it once for all, rather\nlike a fixed star than a planet. I will rest as the mountains do, so\nthat your ladies might as well walk into the midst of the Tyrol, and\nlook for Nature to spread them a green lawn for their disport in the\nmidst of those solemn fastnesses, as that I should fly out of my orbit\nat their approach and go about eccentric, like a comet, to endanger\nother systems. No, be true to your instincts, and sit; wait till you can\nbe genuinely polite, if it be till doomsday, and not lose your chance\neverlastingly by a cowardly yielding to young etiquette. By your look\nsay unto them, The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places, and I\nwill fill that station God has assigned me. As well Miss Cassiopeia up\nthere might ask the brazen-fronted Taurus to draw in his horns, that\nshe might shine in his stead. No, no! not till my cycle is completed.\n\nHow is it that motion will always find space to move in, and rest a\nseat? Men hate antagonism, and the weaker will always yield to the\nstronger. If a stranger enter with sufficient determination into a\ncrowded assembly, as if commissioned by the gods to find a seat there,\nas the falling stone by a divine impulse seeks a resting-place, each\none will rise without thinking to offer his place. Now we have only to\nbe commissioned to sit, and depend upon it the gods will not balk their\nown work. Ye came one day too late, as did the poet after the world\nhad been divided, and so returned to dwell with the god that sent him.\nWhen presumptuous womanhood demands to surrender my position, I bide my\ntime,\u2014though it be with misgiving,\u2014and yield to no mortal shove, but\nexpect a divine impulse. Produce your warrant, and I will retire; for\nnot now can I give you a clear seat, but must leave part of my manhood\nbehind and wander a diminished man, who at length will not have length\nand breadth enough to fill any seat at all. It was very kind in the gods\nwho gave us a now condition, or condition of rest, in which we might\nunhurriedly deliberate before taking a step. When I give up my now and\nhere without having secured my then and there, I am the prodigal son of\na kind father and deserve no better than the husks which the swine eat,\nnor that the fatted calf be killed for me.\n\nRest forever. When instinct comes to the rescue of your politeness, it\nwill seat you securely still, though it be to hang by a rail or poise\nyourself on a stick. To do otherwise is to be polite only as the soldier\nwho runs away when the enemy demands his post. Politeness is rather\nwhen the generals interchange civilities before the fight, not when one\nreturns a sword after the victory.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot only in his cunning hand and brain, but when he speaks, too, does\nman assert his superiority. He conquers the spaces with his voice, as\nwell as the lion. The voice of a strong man modulated to the cadence\nof some tune is more imposing than any natural sound. The keeper's is\nthe most commanding, and is heard over all the din of the menagerie. A\nstrong, musical voice imposes a new order and harmony upon nature; from\nit as a centre the law is promulgated to the universe. What it lacks\nin volume and loudness may always be made up in musical expression and\ndistinctness. The brute growls to secure obedience; he threatens. The\nman speaks as though obedience were already secured.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBrave speaking is the most entire and richest sacrifice to the gods.\n\n\n_Feb. 5. Friday._ Only on rare occasions am I reminded that man too has\na voice, as well as birds and quadrupeds, which breaks on the stillness\nof nature with its peculiar accent. The least sound pervades and\nsubdues all space to it as long as it fills my ear. Contrasted single\nwith the silence, it is as wide as it. Music is the crystallization of\nsound. There is something in the effect of a harmonious voice upon the\ndisposition of its neighborhood analogous to the law of crystals; it\ncentralizes itself and sounds like the published law of things. If the\nlaw of the universe were to be audibly promulgated, no mortal lawgiver\nwould suspect it, for it would be a finer melody than his ears ever\nattended to. It would be sphere music.[204]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen by tutoring their voices singers enhance one another's performance,\nthe harmony is more complete and essential than is heard. The quire is\none family held together by a very close bond. Hence the romance we\nassociate with Gypsies and circus companies and strolling musicians.\nThe idea of brotherhood is so strong in them. Their society is ideal\nfor that one end.\n\nThere is something in this brotherhood\u2014this feeling of kind, or\nkindness\u2014which insensibly elevates the subjects of it in our eyes.\nHowever poor or mean, they have something which counterbalances our\ncontempt. This is that in the strolling pauper _family_ which does\nnot court our charity but can even bless and smile on us and make the\nkindness reciprocal. It sanctifies the place and the hour.\n\nThese Rainers, if they are not brothers and sisters, must be uncles and\ncousins at least. These Swiss who have come to sing to us, we have no\ndoubt are the flower of the Tyrol.[205] Such is the instinctive kindness\nwith which the foreigner is always received, that he is ever presumed\nto be the fairest and noblest of his race. The traveller finds that it\nis not easy to move away from his friends, after all, but all people\nwhom he visits are anxious to supply the place to him of his parents\nand brothers and sisters. To these Swiss I find that I have attributed\nall Tell's patriotism and the devotion of Arnold Winkelried and whatever\ngoodness or greatness belongs to the nation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll costume off a man, when not simply doffed, is grotesque. There\nmust be a heart inside it. When these Swiss appear before me in gaiters\nand high-crowned hats with feathers, I am disposed to laugh, but soon\nI see that their serious eye becomes these and they it. It is the\nsincere life passed within it which consecrates the costume of any\npeople. A sufficiently sober eye will retrieve itself and subordinate\nany grotesqueness. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic in\nthe midst of his buffoonery, and his trappings and finery will serve\nthat mood too and with their drooping sympathy enhance the sincerity of\nhis misfortune. When the soldier is hit by a cannon-ball, rags are as\nbecoming as purple.[206] So soon as a man engages to eat, drink, sleep,\nwalk, and sit, and meet all the contingencies of life therein, his\ncostume is hallowed and a theme for poetry, whether it be a bear's skin\nor ermine, a beaver hat or a Turkish turban. He will not wear anything\nbecause it is blue, or black, or round, or square, but from a necessity\nwhich cannot be superseded.\n\nI look into the face and manners for something familiar and homely even,\nto be assured that the costume of the foreigner is not whimsical or\nfinical.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn all emergencies there is always one step which you may take on firm\nground where gravity will assure you footing. So you hold a draft on\nFate payable at sight.\n\n\n_Feb. 6. Saturday._ One may discover a new side to his most intimate\nfriend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will\nbe stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest\nintimacy could not foretell how he would behave then. When I observe my\nfriend's conduct toward others, then chiefly I learn the traits in his\ncharacter, and in each case I am unprepared for the issue.\n\nWhen one gets up to address briefly a strange audience, in that little\nhe may have opportunity to say he will not quite do himself injustice.\nFor he will instantly and instinctively average himself to his audience,\nand while he is true to his own character still, he will in a few\nmoments make that impression which a series of months and years would\nbut expand. Before he answers, his thought like lightning runs round the\nwhole compass of his experiences, and he is scrupulous to speak from\nthat which he is and with a more entire truthfulness than usual. How\nlittle do we know each other then! Who can tell how his friend would\nbehave on any occasion?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs for those Swiss, I think of the fields their hands have plowed and\nreaped, and respect their costume as the memorial or rather cotemporary\nand witness of this. What is there in a toga but a Roman? What but a\nQuaker in a broad-brimmed hat? He who describes the dress of a Janizary\ngoing to war does me a similar service as when he paints the scenery of\nthe battle-field. It helps make his exploit picturesque.\n\nCostume is not determined by whim, not even the tattooing and paint\nof the savage. Sun, wind, rain, and the form of our bodies shape our\nhats and coats for us, more even than taste. Good taste secures the\nutmost gratification without sacrificing any conveniences. If all\nnations derived their fashions from Paris or London, the world would\nseem like a Vanity Fair or all fools' day, and the Tartar and Bedouin\nride in it like jesters in a circus, and the Pawnee and Esquimau\nhunt in masquerade. What I am must make you forget what I wear. The\nfashionable world is content to be eclipsed by its dress, and never will\nbear the contrast. Only industry will reform _their_ dress. They are\nidle,\u2014_exo_strious, building without.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe value of the recess in any public entertainment consists in the\nopportunity for self-recovery which it offers. We who have been swayed\nas one heart, expanding and contracting with the common pulse, find\nourselves in the interim, and set us up again, and feel our own hearts\nbeating in our breasts. We are always a little astonished to see a man\nwalking across the room, through an attentive audience, with any degree\nof self-possession. He makes himself strange to us. He is a little\nstubborn withal, and seems to say, \"I am self-sustained and independent\nas well as the performer, and am not to be swallowed up in the common\nenthusiasm. No, no, there are two of us, and John's as good as Thomas.\"\nIn the recess the audience is cut up into a hundred little coteries,\nand as soon as each individual life has recovered its tone and the\npurposes of health have been answered, it is time for the performances\nto commence again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn a public performer, the simplest actions, which at other times are\nleft to unconscious nature, as the ascending a few steps in front of an\naudience, acquire a fatal importance and become arduous deeds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I select one here and another there, and strive to join sundered\nthoughts, I make but a partial heap after all. Nature strews her nuts\nand flowers broadcast, and never collects them into heaps. A man does\nnot tell us all he has thought upon truth or beauty at a sitting, but,\nfrom his last thought on the subject, wanders through a varied scenery\nof upland, meadow, and woodland to his next. Sometimes a single and\ncasual thought rises naturally and inevitably with a queenly majesty and\nescort, like the stars in the east. Fate has surely enshrined it in this\nhour and circumstances for some purpose. What she has joined together,\nlet not man put asunder. Shall I transplant the primrose by the river's\nbrim, to set it beside its sister on the mountain? _This_ was the soil\nit grew in, _this_ the hour it bloomed in. If sun, wind, and rain came\n_here_ to cherish and expand it, shall not we come here to pluck it?\nShall we require it to grow in a conservatory for our convenience?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI feel slightly complimented when Nature condescends to make use of me\nwithout my knowledge, as when I help scatter her seeds in my walk, or\ncarry burs and cockles on my clothes from field to field.[207] I feel\nas though I had done something for the commonweal, and were entitled\nto board and lodging. I take such airs upon me as the boy who holds a\nhorse for the circus company, whom all the spectators envy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Lu ral lu ral lu\" may be more impressively sung than very respectable\nwisdom talked. It is well-timed, as wisdom is not always.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll things prophesy but the prophet. In augury and divination nature\nis put to the torture. In Ben Jonson's tragedy of \"Catiline,\" Lentulus\nmakes answer to Catiline, who has bribed the augurs to say that he is\nthat third Cornelius who is to be king of Rome, \"All prophecies, you\nknow, suffer the torture.\" He who inspects the entrails is _always_\nbribed, but they are unbribable. He who seeks to know the future by\nunlawful means has unavoidably subjected the oracle to the torture of\n_private_ and _partial_ interests. The oracles of God serve the public\ninterest without fee. To the just and benevolent mind nature _declares_,\nas the sun lights the world.\n\n\n_Feb. 7. Sunday._ Without greatcoat or drawers I have advanced thus\nfar into the snow-banks of the winter, without thought and with\nimpunity.[208] When I meet my neighbors in muffs and furs and tippets,\nthey look as if they had retreated into the interior fastnesses from\nsome foe invisible to me. They remind me that this is the season of\nwinter, in which it becomes a man to be cold. For feeling, I am a piece\nof clean wood of this shape, which will do service till it rots, and\nthough the cold has its physical effect on me, it is a kindly one, for\nit \"finds its acquaintance there.\" My diet is so little stimulating,\nand my body in consequence so little heated, as to excite no antagonism\nin nature, but flourishes like a tree, which finds even the winter\ngenial to its expansion and the secretion of sap. May not the body\ndefend itself against cold by its very nakedness, and its elements be\nso simple and single that they cannot congeal? Frost does not affect\none but several. My body now affords no more pasture for cold than a\nleafless twig.[209] I call it a protestant warmth. My limbs do not tire\nas formerly, but I use myself as any other piece of nature, and from\nmere indifference and thoughtlessness may break the timber.\n\nIt is the vice of the last season which compels us to arm ourselves for\nthe next. If man always conformed to Nature, he would not have to defend\nhimself against her, but find her his constant nurse and friend, as do\nplants and quadrupeds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the sunshine and the crowing of cocks I feel an illimitable holiness,\nwhich makes me bless God and myself. The warm sun casts his incessant\ngift at my feet as I walk along, unfolding his yellow worlds. Yonder\nsexton with a few cheap sounds makes me richer than these who mind his\nsummons. The true gift is as wide as my gratitude, and as frequent, and\nthe donor is as grateful as the recipient. There would be a New Year's\ngift indeed, if we would bestow on each other our sincerity. We should\ncommunicate our wealth, and not purchase that which does not belong to\nus for a sign. Why give each other a sign to keep? If we gave the thing\nitself, there would be no need of a sign.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am not sure I should find out a really great person soon. He would be\nsimple Thomas or Oliver for some centuries first. The lesser eminences\nwould hide the higher, and I should at last reach his top by a gentle\nacclivity. I felt it would be necessary to remain some weeks at the\nNotch to be impressed by the grandeur of the scenery. We do not expect\nthat Alexander will conquer Asia the first time we are introduced to\nhim. A great man accepts the occasion the fates offer him. Let us not\nbe disappointed. We stand at first upon the pampas which surround him.\nIt is these mountains round about which make the valleys here below. He\nis not a dead level, so many feet above low-water mark. Greatness is in\nthe ascent. But there is no accounting for the little men.\n\n                 \"They must sweat no less\n     To fit their properties, than t' express their parts.\"\n\nOr the line before this:\u2014\n\n             \"Would you have\n     Such an Herculean actor in the scene,\n     And not his hydra?\"\u2014JONSON.\n\nThe eaves are running on the south side of the house; the titmouse\nlisps in the poplar; the bells are ringing for church; while the sun\npresides over all and makes his simple warmth more obvious than all\nelse.[210] What shall I do with this hour, so like time and yet so\nfit for eternity? Where in me are these russet patches of ground, and\nscattered logs and chips in the yard? I do not feel cluttered. I have\nsome notion what the John's-wort and life-everlasting may be thinking\nabout when the sun shines on me as on them and turns my prompt thought\ninto just such a seething shimmer. I lie out indistinct as a heath at\nnoonday. I am evaporating and ascending into the sun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing stands in the way to success, but to failure. To victory is\nall the way up hill; to defeat the simplest wight that weighs may soon\nslide down. Cowards would not have victory but the fruits of victory;\nbut she it is that sweetens all the spoil. Thus, by a just fate, the\nbooty cannot fall to him who did not win it. There is victory in every\neffort. In the least swing of the arm, in indignant thought, in stern\ncontent, we conquer our foes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGreat thoughts make great men. Without these no heraldry nor blood will\navail.\n\nThe blood circulates to the feet and hands, but the thought never\ndescends from the head.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no\nwealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he\nwill want no other reward. Is not Friendship divine in this?\n\nI have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend\nis my amiableness personified.\n\nAnd yet we walk the stage indifferent actors, not thinking what a\nsublime drama we might enact if we would be joint workers and a mutual\nmaterial. Why go to the woods to cut timber to display our art upon,\nwhen here are men as trees walking? The world has never learned what men\ncan build each other up to be, when both master and pupil work in love.\n\nHe that comes as a stranger to my house will have to stay as a stranger.\nHe has made his own reception. But persevering love was never yet\nrefused.\n\n     \"The vicious count their years, virtuous their acts.\"\n\n                                                   JONSON.\n\nThe former consider the length of their service, the latter its quality.\n\n     Wait not till I invite thee, but observe\n     I'm glad to see thee when thou com'st.[211]\n\nThe most ardent lover holds yet a private court, and his love can never\nbe so strong or ethereal that there will not be danger that judgment\nmay be rendered against the beloved.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI would have men make a _greater_ use of me.[212] Now I must belittle\nmyself to have dealings with them. My friend will show such a noble\nconfidence that I shall aspire to the society of his good opinion. Never\npresume men less that you may make them more. So far as we respond to\nour ideal estimate of each other do we have profitable intercourse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA brave man always knows the way, no matter how intricate the roads.\n\n\n_Feb. 8._ All we have experienced is so much gone within us, and there\nlies. It is the company we keep. One day, in health or sickness, it will\ncome out and be remembered. Neither body nor soul forgets anything. The\ntwig always remembers the wind that shook it, and the stone the cuff it\nreceived. Ask the old tree and the sand.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo be of most service to my brother I must meet him on the most equal\nand even ground, the platform on which our lives are passing. But how\noften does politeness permit this?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI seek a man who will appeal to me when I am in fault. We will treat as\ngods settling the affairs of men. In his intercourse I shall be always a\ngod to-day, who was a man yesterday. He will never confound me with my\nguilt, but let me be immaculate and hold up my skirts. Differences he\nwill make haste to clear up, but leave agreements unsettled the while.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs time is measured by the lapse of ideas, we may grow of our own force,\nas the mussel adds new circles to its shell. My thoughts secrete the\nlime. We may grow old with the vigor of youth. Are we not always in\nyouth so long as we face heaven? We may always live in the morning of\nour days. To him who seeks early, the sun never gets over the edge of\nthe hill, but his rays fall slanting forever. His wise sayings are like\nthe chopping of wood and crowing of cocks in the dawn.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy Journal is that of me which would else spill over and run to waste,\ngleanings from the field which in action I reap. I must not live for\nit, but in it for the gods. They are my correspondent, to whom daily I\nsend off this sheet postpaid. I am clerk in their counting-room, and\nat evening transfer the account from day-book to ledger. It is as a\nleaf which hangs over my head in the path. I bend the twig and write\nmy prayers on it; then letting it go, the bough springs up and shows\nthe scrawl to heaven. As if it were not kept shut in my desk, but were\nas public a leaf as any in nature. It is papyrus by the riverside;\nit is vellum in the pastures; it is parchment on the hills. I find it\neverywhere as free as the leaves which troop along the lanes in autumn.\nThe crow, the goose, the eagle carry my quill, and the wind blows the\nleaves as far as I go. Or, if my imagination does not soar, but gropes\nin slime and mud, then I write with a reed.\n\nIt is always a chance scrawl, and commemorates some accident,\u2014as great\nas earthquake or eclipse. Like the sere leaves in yonder vase, these\nhave been gathered far and wide. Upland and lowland, forest and field\nhave been ransacked.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn our holiest moment our devil with a leer stands close at hand. He\nis a very busy devil. It gains vice some respect, I must confess, thus\nto be reminded how indefatigable it is. It has at least the merit of\nindustriousness. When I go forth with zeal to some good work, my devil\nis sure to get his robe tucked up the first and arrives there as soon\nas I, with a look of sincere earnestness which puts to shame my best\nintent. He is as forward as I to a good work, and as disinterested. He\nhas a winning way of recommending himself by making himself useful. How\nreadily he comes into my best project, and does his work with a quiet\nand steady cheerfulness which even virtue may take pattern from.\n\nI never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me. It always\ncame in by a hand, and never panting, but with a curried coolness\nhalted, as if halting were the beginning not the end of the course.\nIt only runs the swifter because it has no rider. It never was behind\nme but when I turned to look and so fell behind myself. I never did a\ncharitable thing but there he stood, scarce in the rear, with hat in\nhand, partner on the same errand, ready to share the smile of gratitude.\nThough I shut the door never so quick and tell it to stay at home like\na good dog, it will out with me, for I shut in my own legs so, and it\nescapes in the meanwhile and is ready to back and reinforce me in most\nvirtuous deeds. And if I turn and say, \"Get thee behind me,\" he then\nindeed turns too and takes the lead, though he seems to retire with a\npensive and compassionate look, as much as to say, \"Ye know not what ye\ndo.\"\n\nJust as active as I become to virtue, just so active is my remaining\nvice. Every time we teach our virtue a new nobleness, we teach our vice\na new cunning. When we sharpen the blade it will stab better as well\nas whittle. The scythe that cuts will cut our legs. We are double-edged\nblades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our\nvice. And when we cut a clear descending blow, our vice on t'other edge\nrips up the work. Where is the skillful swordsman that can draw his\nblade straight back out of the wound?[213]\n\nEvery man proposes fairly, and does not willfully take the devil for his\nguide; as our shadows never fall between us and the sun. Go towards the\nsun and your shadow will fall behind you.\n\n\n_Feb. 9. Tuesday._\n\n     \"_Cato._ Good Marcus Tullius (which is more than great),\n              Thou hadst thy education with the gods.\"\n\n                                                      JONSON.\n\nBetter be defamed than overpraised. Thou canst then justly praise\nthyself. What notoriety art thou that can be defamed? Who can be praised\nfor what they are not deserve rather to be damned for what they are. It\nis hard to wear a dress that is too long and loose without stumbling.\n\n                             \"Whoe'er is raised,\n     For wealth he has not, he is tax'd, not prais'd,\"\n\nsays Jonson. If you mind the flatterer, you rob yourself and still cheat\nhim. The fates never exaggerate; men pass for what they are. The state\nnever fails to get a revenue out of you without a direct tax. Flattery\nwould lay a direct tax. What I am praised for what I am not I put to\nthe account of the gods. It needs a skillful eye to distinguish between\ntheir coin and my own. But however there can be no loss either way, for\nwhat meed I have earned is equally theirs. Let neither fame nor infamy\nhit you, but the one go as far beyond as the other falls behind. Let\nthe one glance past you to the gods, and the other wallow where it was\nengendered. The home thrusts are at helmets upon blocks, and my worst\nfoes but stab an armor through.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy life at this moment is like a summer morning when birds are singing.\nYet that is false, for nature's is an idle pleasure in comparison: my\nhour has a more solid serenity. I have been breaking silence these\ntwenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it. Silence has\nno end; speech is but the beginning of it. My friend thinks I _keep_\nsilence, who am only choked with letting it out so fast. Does he forget\nthat new mines of secrecy are constantly opening in me?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf any scorn your love, let them see plainly that you serve not them\nbut another. If these bars are up, go your way to other of God's\npastures, and browse there the while. When your host shuts his door on\nyou he incloses you in the dwelling of nature. He thrusts you over the\nthreshold of the world. My foes restore me to my friends.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI might say friendship had no ears as love has no eyes, for no word\nis evidence in its court. The least act fulfills more than all words\nprofess. The most gracious speech is but partial kindness, but the least\ngenuine deed takes the whole man. If we had waited till doomsday it\ncould never have been uttered.\n\n\n_Feb. 10. Wednesday._ That was fine praise which Ben Jonson gave to\nThomas, Lord Chancellor:\u2014\n\n     \"Whilst thou art certain to thy words, once gone,\n     As is thy conscience, which is always one.\"\n\nWords do not lose their truth by time or misinterpretation, but stand\nunscathed longer than he who spoke them.\n\nLet our words be such as we may unblushingly behold sculptured in\ngranite on the walls to the least syllable. Our thoughts and actions\nmay be very private for a long time, for they demand a more catholic\npublicity to be displayed in than the world can afford. Our best deeds\nshun the narrow walks of men, and are not ambitious of the faint light\nthe world can shed on them, but delight to unfold themselves in that\npublic ground between God and conscience.\n\nTruth has for audience and spectator all the world. Within, where I\nresolve and deal with principles, there is more space and room than\nanywhere without, where my hands execute. Men should hear of your virtue\nonly as they hear the creaking of the earth's axle and the music of\nthe spheres. It will fall into the course of nature and be effectually\nconcealed by publicness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI asked a man to-day if he would rent me some land, and he said he had\nfour acres as good soil \"as any outdoors.\" It was a true poet's account\nof it. He and I, and all the world, went outdoors to breathe the free\nair and stretch ourselves. For the world is but outdoors,\u2014and we duck\nbehind a panel.\n\n\n_Feb. 11._ True help, for the most part, implies a greatness in him who\nis to be helped as well as in the helper. It takes a god to be helped\neven. A great person, though unconsciously, will constantly give you\ngreat opportunities to serve him, but a mean one will quite preclude\nall active benevolence. It needs but simply and _greatly_ to want it for\nonce, that all true men may contend who shall be foremost to render aid.\nMy neighbor's state must pray to heaven so devoutly yet disinterestedly\nas he never prayed in words, before my ears can hear. It must ask\ndivinely. But men so cobble and botch their request, that you must stoop\nas low as they to give them aid. Their meanness would drag down your\ndeed to be a compromise with conscience, and not leave it to be done on\nthe high table-land of the benevolent soul. They would have you doff\nyour bright and knightly armor and drudge for them,\u2014serve _them_ and\nnot God. But if I am to serve them I must not serve the devil.\n\nWhat is called charity is no charity, but the interference of a\nthird person. Shall I interfere with fate? Shall I defraud man of the\nopportunities which God gave him, and so take away his life? Beggars\nand silent poor cry\u2014how often!\u2014\"Get between me and my god.\" I will not\nstay to cobble and patch God's rents, but do clean, new work when he\nhas given me my hands full. This almshouse charity is like putting new\nwine into old bottles, when so many tuns in God's cellars stand empty.\nWe go about mending the times, when we should be building the eternity.\n\nI must serve a strong master, not a weak one. Help implies a sympathy\nof energy and effort, else no alleviation will avail.\n\n\n_Feb. 12. Friday._ Those great men who are unknown to their own\ngeneration are already famous in the society of the great who have gone\nbefore them. All worldly fame but subsides from their high estimate\nbeyond the stars. We may still keep pace with those who have gone out\nof nature, for we run on as smooth ground as they.\n\nThe early and the latter saints are separated by no eternal interval.\n\nThe child may soon stand face to face with the best father.\n\n\n_Feb. 13._ By the truthfulness of our story to-day we help explain\nourselves for all our life henceforth. How we hamper and belay ourselves\nby the least exaggeration! The truth is God's concern; He will sustain\nit; but who can afford to maintain a lie? We have taken away one of the\nPillars of Hercules, and must support the world on our shoulders, who\nmight have walked freely upon it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy neighbor says that his hill-farm is poor stuff and \"only fit to hold\nthe world together.\"[214] He deserves that God should give him better\nfor so brave a treating of his gifts, instead of humbly putting up\ntherewith. It is a sort of stay, or gore, or gusset, and he will not\nbe blinded by modesty or gratitude, but sees it for what it is; knowing\nhis neighbor's fertile land, he calls his by its right name. But perhaps\nmy farmer forgets that his lean soil has sharpened his wits. This is a\ncrop it was good for. And beside, you see the heavens at a lesser angle\nfrom the hill than from the vale.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have nothing to fear from our foes; God keeps a standing army for\nthat service; but we have no ally against our friends, those ruthless\nvandals whose kind intent is a subtler poison than the Colchian, a more\nfatal shaft than the Lydian.[215]\n\n\n_Feb. 14. Sunday._ I am confined to the house by bronchitis, and so\nseek to content myself with that quiet and serene life there is in a\nwarm corner by the fireside, and see the sky through the chimney-top.\nSickness should not be allowed to extend further than the body. We\nneed only to retreat further within us to preserve uninterrupted the\ncontinuity of serene hours to the end of our lives.\n\nAs soon as I find my chest is not of tempered steel, and heart of\nadamant, I bid good-by to these and look out a new nature. I will be\nliable to no accidents.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI shall never be poor while I can command a still hour in which to take\nleave of my sin.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe jingling team which is creaking past reminds me of that verse in\nthe Bible which speaks of God being heard in the bells of the horses.\n\n\n_Feb. 15._ There is elevation in every hour. No part of the earth is so\nlow and withdrawn that the heavens cannot be seen from it, but every\npart supports the sky. We have only to stand on the eminence of the\nhour, and look out thence into the empyrean, allowing no pinnacle above\nus, to command an uninterrupted horizon. The moments will lie outspread\naround us like a blue expanse of mountain and valley, while we stand\non the summit of our hour as if we had descended on eagle's wings. For\nthe eagle has stooped to his perch on the highest cliff and has never\nclimbed the rock; he stands by his wings more than by his feet. We shall\nnot want a foothold, but wings will sprout from our shoulders, and we\nshall walk securely, self-sustained.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor how slight an accident shall two noble souls wait to bring them\ntogether!\n\n\n_Feb. 17._ Our work should be fitted to and lead on the time, as bud,\nflower, and fruit lead the circle of the seasons.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe mechanic works no longer than his labor will pay for lights, fuel,\nand shop rent. Would it not be well for us to consider if our deed will\nwarrant the expense of nature? Will it maintain the sun's light?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur actions do not use time independently, as the bud does. They should\nconstitute its lapse. It is their room. But they shuffle after and serve\nthe hour.\n\n\n_Feb. 18. Thursday._ I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their\ngreatest deed is the impression they make on me. Some serene, inactive\nmen can do everything. Talent only indicates a depth of character in\nsome direction. We do not acquire the ability to do new deeds, but a new\ncapacity for all deeds. My recent growth does not appear in any visible\nnew talent, but its deed will enter into my gaze when I look into the\nsky, or vacancy. It will help me to consider ferns and everlasting. Man\nis like a tree which is limited to no age, but grows as long as it has\nits root in the ground. We have only to live in the alburnum and not in\nthe old wood. The gnarled stump has as tender a bud as the sapling.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSometimes I find that I have frequented a higher society during sleep,\nand my thoughts and actions proceed on a higher level in the morning.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA man is the hydrostatic paradox, the counterpoise of the system. You\nhave studied flowers and birds cheaply enough, but you must lay yourself\nout to buy him.\n\n\n_Feb. 19._ A truly good book attracts very little favor to itself. It\nis so true that it teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay\nit down and commence living on its hint. I do not see how any can be\nwritten more, but this is the last effusion of genius. When I read an\nindifferent book, it seems the best thing I can do, but the inspiring\nvolume hardly leaves me leisure to finish its latter pages. It is\nslipping out of my fingers while I read. It creates no atmosphere\nin which it may be perused, but one in which its teachings may be\npracticed. It confers on me such wealth that I lay it down with the\nleast regret. What I began by reading I must finish by acting. So I\ncannot stay to hear a _good_ sermon and applaud at the conclusion, but\nshall be half-way to Thermopyl\u00e6 before that.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen any joke or hoax traverses the Union in the newspapers it apprises\nme of a fact which no geography or guide-book contains, of a certain\nleisure and nonchalance pervading society. It is a piece of information\nfrom over the Alleghanies, which I know how to prize, though I did\nnot expect it. And it is just so in Nature. I sometimes observe in\nher a strange trifling, almost listlessness, which conducts to beauty\nand grace,\u2014the fantastic and whimsical forms of snow and ice, the\nunaccountable freaks which the tracks of rabbits exhibit. I know now\nwhy all those busy speculators do not die of fever and ague.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nColeridge observed the \"landscapes made by damp on a whitewashed wall,\"\nand so have I.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood,\nand they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.[216]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is the unexplored grandeur of the storm which keeps up the spirits\nof the traveller.[217] When I contemplate a hard and bare life in the\nwoods, I find my last consolation in its untrivialness. Shipwreck is\nless distressing because the breakers do not trifle with us. We are\nresigned as long as we recognize the sober and solemn mystery of nature.\nThe dripping mariner finds consolation and sympathy in the infinite\nsublimity of the storm. It is a moral force as well as he. With courage\nhe can lay down his life on the strand, for it never turned a deaf ear\nto him, nor has he ever exhausted its sympathy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages, but in vain; I\nfind no sea-room. But in great souls I sail before the wind without a\nwatch, and never reach the shore.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou demand that I be less your friend that you may know it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing will reconcile friends but love. They make a fatal mistake when\nthey go about like foes to explain and treat with one another. It is a\nmutual mistake. None are so unmanageable.\n\n\n_Feb. 20. Saturday._ I suspect the moral discrimination of the oldest\nand best authors. I doubt if Milton distinguished greatly between his\nSatan and his Raphael. In Homer and \u00c6schylus and Dante I miss a nice\ndiscrimination of the _important_ shades of character.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I am going out for an evening I arrange the fire in my stove so\nthat I do not fail to find a good one when I return, though it would\nhave engaged my frequent attention present. So that, when I know I am to\nbe at home, I sometimes make believe that I may go out, to save trouble.\nAnd this is the art of living, too,\u2014to leave our life in a condition to\ngo alone, and not to require a constant supervision. We will then sit\ndown serenely to live, as by the side of a stove.\n\nWhen I sit in earnest, nothing must stand, all must be sedentary with me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI hear the faint sound of a viol and voices from the neighboring\ncottage, and think to myself, \"I will believe the Muse only for\nevermore.\" It assures me that no gleam which comes over the serene soul\nis deceptive. It warns me of a reality and substance, of which the best\nthat I see is but the phantom and shadow. O music, thou tellest me of\nthings of which memory takes no heed; thy strains are whispered aside\nfrom memory's ear.\n\nThis is the noblest plain of earth, over which these sounds are borne,\nthe plain of Troy or Eleusis.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThou openest all my senses to catch thy least hint, and givest me no\nthought. It would be good to sit at my door of summer evenings forever\nand hear thy strains. Thou makest me to toy with speech, or walk content\nwithout it, not regretting its absence. I am pleased to think how\nignorant and shiftless the wisest are. My imperfect sympathies with my\nfriend are cheerful, glimmering light in the valley.\n\n\n_Feb. 21. Sunday._ It is hard to preserve equanimity and greatness\non that debatable ground between love and esteem. There is nothing so\nstable and unfluctuating as love. The waves beat steadfast on its shore\nforever, and its tide has no ebb. It is a resource in all extremities,\nand a refuge even from itself. And yet love will not be leaned on.\n\n\n_Feb. 22._ Love is the tenderest mood of that which is tough\u2014and the\ntoughest mood of that which is tender. It may be roughly handled as the\nnettle, or gently as the violet. It has its holidays, but is not made\nfor them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe whole of the day should not be daytime, nor of the night night-time,\nbut some portion be rescued from time to oversee time in. All our hours\nmust not be current; all our time must not lapse. There must be one hour\nat least which the day did not bring forth,\u2014of ancient parentage and\nlong-established nobility,\u2014which will be a serene and lofty platform\noverlooking the rest. We should make our notch every day on our\ncharacters, as Robinson Crusoe on his stick. We must be at the helm at\nleast once a day; we must feel the tiller-rope in our hands, and know\nthat if we sail, we steer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFriends will be much apart; they will respect more each other's privacy\nthan their communion, for therein is the fulfillment of our high aims\nand the conclusion of our arguments. That we know and would associate\nwith not only has high intents, but goes on high errands, and has much\nprivate business. The hours he devotes to me were snatched from higher\nsociety. He is hardly a gift level to me, but I have to reach up to take\nit. My imagination always assigns him a nobler employment in my absence\nthan ever I find him engaged in.[218]\n\nWe have to go into retirement religiously, and enhance our meeting by\nrarity and a degree of unfamiliarity. Would you know why I see thee so\nseldom, my friend? In solitude I have been making up a packet for thee.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe actions which grow out of some common but natural relations affect\nme strangely, as sometimes the behavior of a mother to her children.\nSo quiet and noiseless an action often moves me more than many sounding\nexploits.\n\n\n_Feb. 23. Tuesday._ Let all our stores and munitions be provided for\nthe lone state.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe care of the body is the highest exercise of prudence. If I\nhave brought this weakness on my lungs, I will consider calmly and\ndisinterestedly how the thing came about, that I may find out the truth\nand render justice. Then, after patience, I shall be a wiser man than\nbefore.\n\nLet us apply all our wit to the repair of our bodies, as we would mend a\nharrow, for the body will be dealt plainly and implicitly with. We want\nno moonshine nor surmises about it. This matter of health and sickness\nhas no fatality in it, but is a subject for the merest prudence.\nIf I know not what ails me, I may resort to amulets and charms and,\nmoonstruck, die of dysentery.\n\nWe do wrong to slight our sickness and feel so ready to desert our\nposts when we are harassed. So much the more should we rise above our\ncondition, and make the most of it, for the fruit of disease may be as\ngood as that of health.[219]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a subtle elixir in society which makes it a fountain of\nhealth to the sick. We want no consolation which is not the overflow\nof our friend's health. We will have no condolence who are not dolent\nourselves. We would have our friend come and respire healthily before\nus, with the fragrance of many meadows and heaths in his breath, and we\nwill inhabit his body while our own recruits.\n\nNothing is so good medicine in sickness as to witness some nobleness in\nanother which will advertise us of health. In sickness it is our faith\nthat ails, and noble deeds reassure us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat anybody has thought of you on some indifferent occasion frequently\nimplies more good will than you had reason to expect. You have\nhenceforth a higher motive for conduct. We do not know how many amiable\nthoughts are current.\n\n\n_Feb. 26. Friday._ My prickles or smoothness are as much a quality of\nyour hand as of myself. I cannot tell you what I am, more than a ray\nof the summer's sun. What I am I am, and say not. Being is the great\nexplainer. In the attempt to explain, shall I plane away all the spines,\ntill it is no thistle, but a cornstalk?\n\nIf my world is not sufficient without thee, my friend, I will wait\ntill it is and then call thee. You shall come to a palace, not to an\nalmshouse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy homeliest thought, like the diamond brought from farthest within the\nmine, will shine with the purest lustre.\n\nThough I write every day, yet when I say a good thing it seems as if I\nwrote but rarely.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo be great, we do as if we would be tall merely, be longer than we\nare broad, stretch ourselves and stand on tiptoe. But greatness is well\nproportioned, unstrained, and stands on the soles of the feet.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow many are waiting for health and warm weather! But they wait for none.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn composition I miss the hue of the mind. As if we could be satisfied\nwith the dews of the morning and evening without their colors, or the\nheavens without their azure.[220]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis good book helps the sun shine in my chamber. The rays fall on its\npage as if to explain and illustrate it.[221]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI who have been sick hear cattle low in the street, with such a healthy\near as prophesies my cure. These sounds lay a finger on my pulse to\nsome purpose. A fragrance comes in at all my senses which proclaims\nthat I am still of Nature the child. The threshing in yonder barn and\nthe tinkling of the anvil come from the same side of Styx with me. If\nI were a physician I would try my patients thus. I would wheel them to\na window and let Nature feel their pulse. It will soon appear if their\nsensuous existence is sound. These sounds are but the throbbing of some\npulse in me.[222]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNature seems to have given me these hours to pry into her private\ndrawers. I watch the shadow of the insensible perspiration rising from\nmy coat or hand on the wall. I go and feel my pulse in all the recesses\nof the house and see if I am of force to carry a homely life and comfort\ninto them.\n\n\n_Feb. 27. Saturday._ Life looks as fair at this moment as a summer's\nsea, or a blond dress in a saffron light, with its sun and grass and\nwalled towns so bright and chaste, as fair as my own virtue which\nwould adventure therein. Like a Persian city or hanging gardens in the\ndistance, so washed in light, so untried, only to be thridded by clean\nthoughts. All its flags are flowing, and tassels streaming, and drapery\nflapping, like some gay pavilion. The heavens hang over it like some\nlow screen, and seem to undulate in the breeze.\n\nThrough this pure, unwiped hour, as through a crystal glass, I look out\nupon the future, as a smooth lawn for my virtue to disport in. It shows\nfrom afar as unrepulsive as the sunshine upon walls and cities, over\nwhich the passing life moves as gently as a shadow. I see the course\nof my life, like some retired road, wind on without obstruction into a\ncountry maze.[223]\n\nI am attired for the future so, as the sun setting presumes all men\nat leisure and in contemplative mood,\u2014and am thankful that it is\nthus presented blank and indistinct. It still o'ertops my hope. My\nfuture deeds bestir themselves within me and move grandly towards a\nconsummation, as ships go down the Thames. A steady onward motion I feel\nin me, as still as that, or like some vast, snowy cloud, whose shadow\nfirst is seen across the fields. It is the material of all things loose\nand set afloat that makes my sea.\n\nThese various words are not without various meanings. The combined\nvoice of the race makes nicer distinctions than any individual. There\nare the words \"diversion\" and \"amusement.\" It takes more to amuse than\nto divert. We must be surrendered to our amusements, but only turned\naside to our diversions. We have no will in the former, but oversee\nthe latter. We are oftenest diverted in the street, but amused in our\nchambers. We are diverted from our engagements, but amused when we\nare listless. We may be diverted from an amusement, and amused by a\ndiversion. It often happens that a diversion becomes our amusement, and\nour amusement our employment.\n\n\n_Feb. 28._ Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks.\nThe best you can write will be the best you are. Every sentence is\nthe result of a long probation. The author's character is read from\ntitle-page to end. Of this he never corrects the proofs. We read it\nas the essential character of a handwriting without regard to the\nflourishes. And so of the rest of our actions; it runs as straight as\na ruled line through them all, no matter how many curvets about it. Our\nwhole life is taxed for the least thing well done; it is its net result.\nHow we eat, drink, sleep, and use our desultory hours, now in these\nindifferent days, with no eye to observe and no occasion [to] excite\nus, determines our authority and capacity for the time to come.\n\n\n_March 3._ I hear a man blowing a horn this still evening, and it sounds\nlike the plaint of nature in these times. In this, which I refer to\nsome man, there is something greater than any man. It is as if the earth\nspoke. It adds a great remoteness to the horizon, and its very distance\nis grand, as when one draws back the head to speak. That which I now\nhear in the west seems like an invitation to the east. It runs round the\nearth as a whisper gallery. It is the spirit of the West calling to the\nspirit of the East, or else it is the rattling of some team lagging in\nDay's train. Coming to me through the darkness and silence, all things\ngreat seem transpiring there. It is friendly as a distant hermit's\ntaper. When it is trilled, or undulates, the heavens are crumpled into\ntime, and successive waves flow across them.\n\nIt is a strangely healthy sound for these disjointed times. It is a\nrare soundness when cow-bells and horns are heard from over the fields.\nAnd now I see the beauty and full meaning of that word \"sound.\" Nature\nalways possesses a certain sonorousness, as in the hum of insects, the\nbooming of ice, the crowing of cocks in the morning, and the barking of\ndogs in the night, which indicates her sound state.[224] God's voice\nis but a clear bell sound. I drink in a wonderful health, a cordial,\nin sound. The effect of the slightest tinkling in the horizon measures\nmy own soundness. I thank God for sound; it always mounts, and makes\nme mount. I think I will not trouble myself for any wealth, when I can\nbe so cheaply enriched. Here I contemplate to drudge that I may own a\nfarm\u2014and may have such a limitless estate for the listening. All good\nthings are cheap: all bad are very dear.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs for these communities, I think I had rather keep bachelor's hall\nin hell than go to board in heaven. Do you think your virtue will be\nboarded with you? It will never live on the interest of your money,\ndepend upon it. The boarder has no home. In heaven I hope to bake my\nown bread and clean my own linen. The tomb is the only boarding-house\nin which a hundred are served at once. In the catacomb we may dwell\ntogether and prop one another without loss.\n\n\n_March 4._ Ben Jonson says in his epigrams,\u2014\n\n     \"He makes himself a thorough-fare of Vice.\"\n\nThis is true, for by vice the substance of a man is not changed, but\nall his pores, and cavities, and avenues are prophaned by being made\nthe thoroughfares of vice. He is the highway of his vice. The searching\ndevil courses through and through him. His flesh and blood and bones\nare cheapened. He is all trivial, a place where three highways of sin\nmeet. So is another the thoroughfare of virtue, and virtue circulates\nthrough all his aisles like a wind, and he is hallowed.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe reprove each other unconsciously by our own behavior. Our very\ncarriage and demeanor in the streets should be a reprimand that will go\nto the conscience of every beholder. An infusion of love from a great\nsoul gives a color to our faults, which will discover them, as lunar\ncaustic detects impurities in water.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe best will not seem to go contrary to others, but, as if _they_ could\nafford to travel the same way, they go a parallel but higher course, a\nsort of upper road. Jonson says,\u2014\n\n     \"That to the vulgar canst thyself apply,\n     Treading a better path not contrary.\"\n\nTheir way is a mountain slope, a river valley's course, a tide which\nmingles a myriad lesser currents.\n\n\n_March 5. Friday._ How can our love increase, unless our loveliness\nincrease also? We must securely love each other as we love God, with no\nmore danger that our love be unrequited or ill-bestowed. There is that\nin my friend before which I must first decay and prove untrue. Love is\nthe least moral and the most. Are the best good in their love? or the\nworst, bad?\n\n\n_March 6._ An honest misunderstanding is often the ground of future\nintercourse.\n\n\n\"THE SPHINX\"[225]\n\n_March 7, 8, 9, 10._ The Sphinx is man's insatiable and questioning\nspirit, which still, as of old, stands by the roadside in us and\nproposes the riddle of life to every passer. The ancients represented\nthis by a monster who was a riddle of herself, having a body composed of\nvarious creatures, as if to hint that she had no individual existence,\nbut was nearly allied to and brooded over all. They made her devour\nthose who were unable to explain her enigmas, as we are devoured by\ndoubt, and struggle towards the light, as if to be assured of our lives.\nFor we live by confidence, and our bravery is in some moment when we are\ncertain to that degree that our certainty cannot be increased; as, when\na ray bursts through a gap in a cloud, it darts as far, and reaches the\nearth as surely, as the whole sun would have done.\n\n1. In the first four lines is described the mood in which the Sphinx\nbestirs herself in us. We must look on the world with a drowsy and\nhalf-shut eye, that it may not be too much in our eye, and rather stand\naloof from than within it. When we are awake to the real world, we are\nasleep to the actual. The sinful drowse to eternity, the virtuous to\ntime. Menu says that the \"supreme omnipresent intelligence\" is \"a spirit\nwhich can only be conceived by a mind _slumbering_.\" Wisdom and holiness\nalways slumber; they are never active in the ways of the world. As in\nour night-dreams we are nearest to awakening, so in our day-dreams\nwe are nearest to a supernatural awakening, and the plain and flat\nsatisfactoriness of life becomes so significant as to be questioned.\n\nThe Sphinx hints that in the ages her secret is kept, but in the\nannihilation of ages alone is it revealed. So far from solving the\nproblem of life, Time only serves to propose and keep it in. Time\nwaits but for its solution to become eternity. Its lapse is measured\nby the successive failures to answer the incessant question, and the\ngenerations of men are the unskillful passengers devoured.\n\n2. She hints generally at man's mystery. He knows only that he is, not\nwhat, nor whence. Not only is he curiously and wonderfully wrought, but\nwith D\u00e6dalian intricacy. He is lost in himself as a labyrinth and has\nno clue to get out by. If he could get out of his humanity, he would\nhave got out of nature. \"D\u00e6dalian\" expresses both the skill and the\ninscrutable design of the builder.\n\nThe insolubleness of the riddle is only more forcibly expressed by the\nlines,\u2014\n\n     \"Out of sleeping a waking,\n       Out of waking a sleep.\"\n\nThey express the complete uncertainty and renunciation of knowledge of\nthe propounder.\n\n3, 4, 5, 6. In these verses is described the integrity of all animate\nand inanimate things but man,\u2014how each is a problem of itself and\nnot the solution of one and presides over and uses the mystery of the\nuniverse as unhesitatingly as if it were the partner of God; how, by a\nsort of _essential and practical faith_, each understands all, for to\nsee that we understand is to know that we misunderstand. Each natural\nobject is an end to itself. A brave, undoubting life do they all live,\nand are content to be a part of the mystery which is God, and throw the\nresponsibility on man of explaining them and himself too.\n\n3. The outlines of the trees are as correct as if ruled by God on the\nsky. The motions of quadrupeds and birds Nature never thinks to mend,\nbut they are a last copy and the flourishes of His hand.\n\n4. The waves lapse with such a melody on the shore as shows that they\nhave long been at one with Nature. Theirs is as perfect play as if\nthe heavens and earth were not. They meet with a sweet difference\nand independently, as old playfellows. Nothing do they lack more than\nthe world. The ripple is proud to be a ripple and balances the sea.\nThe atoms, which are in such a continual flux, notwithstanding their\nminuteness, have a certain essential valor and independence. They have\nthe integrity of worlds, and attract and repel firmly as such. The least\nhas more manhood than Democritus.\n\n5. So also in Nature the perfection of the whole is the perfection of\nthe parts, and what is itself perfect serves to adorn and set off all\nthe rest. Her distinctions are but reliefs. Night veileth the morning\nfor the morning's sake, and the vapor adds a new attraction to the hill.\nNature looks like a conspiracy for the advantage of all her parts;\nwhen one feature shines, all the rest seem suborned to heighten its\ncharm. In her circle each gladly gives precedence to the other. Day\ngladly alternates with night. Behind these the vapor atones to the hill\nfor its interference, and this harmonious scene is the effect of that\nat-one-ment.\n\n6. In a sense the babe takes its departure from Nature as the grown man\nhis departure out of her, and so during its nonage is at one with her,\nand as a part of herself. It is indeed the very flower and blossom of\nNature.\n\n     \"Shines the peace of all being\n       Without cloud, in its eyes;\n     And the _sum_ of the world\n       In soft _miniature_ lies.\"[226]\n\nTo the charming consistency of the palm and thrush, this universal and\nserene beauty is added, as all the leaves of the tree flower in the\nblossom.\n\n7. But alas, the fruit to be matured in these petals is fated to break\nthe stem which holds it to universal consistency. It passes _through\nNature_ to manhood, and becomes unnatural, without being as yet quite\nsupernatural. Man's most approved life is but conformity, not a simple\nand independent consistency, which would make all things conform to it.\nHis actions do not adorn Nature nor one another, nor does she exist in\nharmony but in contrast with them. She is not their willing scenery.\nWe conceive that if a true action were to be performed it would be\nassisted by Nature, and perhaps be fondled and reflected many times as\nthe rainbow. The sun is a true light for the trees in a picture, but\nnot for the actions of men. They will not bear so strong a light as\nthe stubble; the universe has little sympathy with them, and sooner or\nlater they rebound hollowly on the memory. The April shower should be\nas reviving to our life as to the garden and the grove, and the scenery\nin which we live reflect our own beauty, as the dewdrop the flower. It\nis the actual man, not the actual Nature, that hurts the romance of the\nlandscape. \"He poisons the ground.\" The haymakers must be lost in the\ngrass of the meadow. They may be Faustus and Amyntas here, but near at\nhand they are Reuben and Jonas. The woodcutter must not be better than\nthe wood, lest he be _worse_. Neither will bear to be considered as a\ndistinct feature. Man's works must lie in the bosom of Nature, cottages\nbe buried in trees, or under vines and moss, like rocks, that they\nmay not outrage the landscape. The hunter must be dressed in Lincoln\ngreen, with a plume of eagle's feathers, to imbosom him in Nature.\nSo the skillful painter secures the distinctness of the whole by the\nindistinctness of the parts. We can endure best to consider our repose\nand silence. Only when the city, the hamlet, or the cottage is viewed\nfrom a distance does man's life seem in harmony with the universe; but\nseen closely his actions have no eagle's feathers or Lincoln green to\nredeem them. The sunlight on cities at a distance is a deceptive beauty,\nbut foretells the final harmony of man with Nature.\n\nMan as he is, is not the subject of any art, strictly speaking. The\nnaturalist pursues his study with love, but the moralist persecutes\nhis with hate. In man is the material of a picture, with a design\npartly sketched, but Nature is such a picture drawn and colored. He is\na studio, Nature a gallery. If men were not idealists, no sonnets to\nbeautiful persons nor eulogies on worthy ones would ever be written.\nWe wait for the preacher to express _such_ love for his congregation as\nthe botanist for his herbarium.\n\n8. Man, however, detects something in the lingering ineradicable\nsympathy of Nature which seems to side with him against the stern\ndecrees of the soul. Her essential friendliness is only the more\napparent to his waywardness, for disease and sorrow are but a rupture\nwith her. In proportion as he renounces his will, she repairs his hurts,\nand, if she burns, does oftener warm, if she freezes, oftener refreshes.\nThis is the motherliness which the poet personifies, and the Sphinx, or\nwisely inquiring man, makes express a real concern for him. Nature shows\nus a stern kindness, and only we are unkind. She endures long with us,\nand though the severity of her law is unrelaxed, yet its evenness and\nimpartiality look relenting, and almost sympathize with our fault.\n\n9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. But to the poet there are no riddles. They are\n\"pleasant songs\" to him; his faith solves the enigmas which recurring\nwisdom does not fail to repeat. Poetry is the only solution time can\noffer. But the poet is soonest a pilgrim from his own faith. Our brave\nmoments may still be distinguished from our wise. Though the problem\nis always solved for the soul, still does it remain to be solved by the\nintellect. Almost faith puts the question, for only in her light can it\nbe answered. However true the answer, it does not prevent the question;\nfor the best answer is but plausible, and man can only tell his relation\nto truth, but render no account of truth to herself.\n\n9. Believe, and ask not, says the poet.\n\n     \"Deep love lieth under\n       These pictures of time;\n     They fade in the light of\n       Their meaning sublime.\"\n\nNothing is plain but love.\n\n10, 11, 12, 13. Man comes short, because he seeks perfection. He adorns\nno world, while he is seeking to adorn a better. His best actions have\nno reference to their actual scenery. For when our actions become of\nthat worth that they might confer a grace on Nature, they pass out of\nher into a higher arena, where they are still mean and awkward. So that\nthe world beholds only the rear of great deeds, and mistakes them often\nfor inconsistencies, not knowing with what higher they consist. Nature\nis beautiful as in repose, not promising a higher beauty to-morrow.\nHer actions are level to one another, and so are never unfit or\ninconsistent. Shame and remorse, which are so unsightly to her, have\na prospective beauty and fitness which redeem them. We would have our\nlover to be nobler than we, and do not fear to sacrifice our love to\nhis greater nobleness. Better the disagreement of noble lovers than\nthe agreement of base ones. In friendship each will be nobler than the\nother, and so avoid the cheapness of a level and idle harmony. Love will\nhave its chromatic strains,\u2014discordant yearnings for higher chords,\u2014as\nwell as symphonies. Let us expect no finite satisfaction.\n\n13. Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see\nno shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the\nsame, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.\n\n14. The poet concludes with the same trust he began with, and jeers at\nthe blindness which could inquire. But our sphinx is so wise as to put\nno riddle that can be answered. It is a great presumption to answer\nconclusively a question which any sincerity has put. The wise answer\nno questions,\u2014nor do they ask them. She silences his jeers with the\nconviction that she is the eye-beam of his eye. Our proper eye never\nquails before an answer. To rest in a reply, as a response of the\noracle, that is error; but to suspect time's reply, because we would not\ndegrade one of God's meanings to be intelligible to us, that is wisdom.\nWe shall never arrive at his meaning, but it will ceaselessly arrive to\nus. The truth we seek with ardor and devotion will not reward us with a\ncheap acquisition. We run unhesitatingly in our career, not fearing to\npass any goal of truth in our haste. We career toward her eternally. A\ntruth rested in stands for all the vice of an age, and revolution comes\nkindly to restore health.\n\n16. The cunning Sphinx, who had been hushed into stony silence and\nrepose in us, arouses herself and detects a mystery in all things,\u2014in\ninfancy, the moon, fire, flowers, sea, mountain,\u2014and,\n\n(17) in the spirit of the old fable, declares proudly,\u2014\n\n     \"Who telleth one of my meanings\n       Is master of all I am.\"\n\nWhen some \u0152dipus has solved one of her enigmas, she will go dash her\nhead against a rock.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou may find this as enigmatical as the Sphinx's riddle. Indeed, I doubt\nif she could solve it herself.\n\n\n_March 11. Thursday._ Every man understands why a fool sings.\n\n\n_March 13. Saturday._ There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in\nsome books, which is very rare to find, and yet looks quite cheap. There\nmay be nothing lofty in the sentiment, or polished in the expression,\nbut it is careless, countrified talk. The scholar rarely writes as\nwell as the farmer talks. Homeliness is a great merit in a book; it is\nnext to beauty and a high art. Some have this merit only. A few homely\nexpressions redeem them. Rusticity is pastoral, but affectation merely\ncivil. The scholar does not make his most familiar experience come\ngracefully to the aid of his expression, and hence, though he live in\nit, his books contain no tolerable pictures of the country and simple\nlife. Very few men can speak of Nature with any truth. They confer no\nfavor; they do not speak a good word for her. Most cry better than\nthey speak. You can get more nature out of them by pinching than by\naddressing them. It is naturalness, and not simply good nature, that\ninterests. I like better the surliness with which the woodchopper\nspeaks of his woods, handling them as indifferently as his axe, than\nthe mealy-mouthed enthusiasm of the lover of nature. Better that the\nprimrose by the river's brim be a yellow primrose and nothing more, than\nthe victim of his bouquet or herbarium, to shine with the flickering\ndull light of his imagination, and not the golden gleam of a star.\n\nAubrey relates of Thomas Fuller that his was \"a very working head, in so\nmuch, that walking and meditating before dinner, he would eat up a penny\nloaf, not knowing that he did it. His natural memory was very great, to\nwhich he added the art of memory. He would repeat to you forwards and\nbackwards all the signs from Ludgate to Charing-cross.\" These are very\ngood and wholesome facts to know of a man, as copious as some modern\nvolumes.\n\nHe also says of Mr. John Hales, that, \"he loved Canarie\" and was buried\n\"under an altar monument of black marble ... with a too long epitaph;\"\nof Edmund Halley, that he \"at sixteen could make a dial, and then he\nsaid he thought himself a brave fellow;\" of William Holder, who wrote\na book upon his curing one Popham, who was deaf and dumb, \"He was\nbeholding to no author; did only consult with nature.\" For the most\npart an author but consults with all who have written before upon any\nsubject, and his book is but the advice of so many. But a true book will\nnever have been forestalled, but the topic itself will be new, and, by\nconsulting with nature, it will consult not only with those who have\ngone before, but with those who may come after. There is always room\nand occasion enough for a true book on any subject, as there is room for\nmore light the brightest day, and more rays will not interfere with the\nfirst.[227]\n\nHow alone must our life be lived! We dwell on the seashore, and none\nbetween us and the sea. Men are my merry companions, my fellow-pilgrims,\nwho beguile the way but leave me at the first turn in the road, for none\nare travelling _one_ road so far as myself.\n\nEach one marches in the van. The weakest child is exposed to the fates\nhenceforth as barely as its parents. Parents and relations but entertain\nthe youth; they cannot stand between him and his destiny. This is the\none bare side of every man. There is no fence; it is clear before him\nto the bounds of space.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat is fame to a living man? If he live aright, the sound of no man's\nvoice will resound through the aisles of his secluded life. His life is\na hallowed silence, a fane. The loudest sounds have to thank my little\near that they are heard.\n\n\n_March 15._ When I have access to a man's barrel of sermons, which were\nwritten from week to week, as his life lapsed, though I now know him\nto live cheerfully and bravely enough, still I cannot conceive what\ninterval there was for laughter and smiles in the midst of so much\nsadness. Almost in proportion to the sincerity and earnestness of the\nlife will be the sadness of the record. When I reflect that twice a week\nfor so many years he pondered and preached such a sermon, I think he\nmust have been a splenetic and melancholy man, and wonder if his food\ndigested well. It seems as if the fruit of virtue was never a careless\nhappiness.\n\nA great cheerfulness have all great wits possessed, almost a prophane\nlevity to such as understood them not, but their religion had the\nbroader basis in proportion as it was less prominent. The religion I\nlove is very laic. The clergy are as diseased, and as much possessed\nwith a devil, as the reformers. They make their topic as offensive as\nthe politician, for our religion is as unpublic and incommunicable\nas our poetical vein, and to be approached with as much love and\ntenderness.\n\n\n_March 17. Wednesday._ The stars go up and down before my only eye.\nSeasons come round to me alone. I cannot lean so hard on any arm as on\na sunbeam. So solid men are not to my sincerity as is the shimmer of\nthe fields.\n\n\n_March 19. Friday._ No true and brave person will be content to live\non such a footing with his fellow and himself as the laws of every\nhousehold now require. The house is the very haunt and lair of our vice.\nI am impatient to withdraw myself from under its roof as an unclean\nspot. There is no circulation there; it is full of stagnant and mephitic\nvapors.\n\n\n_March 20._ Even the wisest and best are apt to use their lives as the\noccasion to do something else in than to live greatly. But we should\nhang as fondly over this work as the finishing and embellishment of a\npoem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a great relief when for a few moments in the day we can retire\nto our chamber and be completely true to ourselves. It leavens the rest\nof our hours. In that moment I will be nakedly as vicious as I am; this\nfalse life of mine shall have a being at length.\n\n\n_March 21. Sunday._ To be associated with others by my friend's\ngenerosity when he bestows a gift is an additional favor to be grateful\nfor.\n\n\n_March 27. Saturday._ Magnanimity, though it look expensive for a short\ncourse, is always economy in the long run. Be generous in your poverty,\nif you would be rich. To make up a great action there are no subordinate\nmean ones. We can never afford to postpone a true life to-day to any\nfuture and anticipated nobleness. We think if by tight economy we\ncan manage to arrive at independence, then indeed we will begin to be\ngenerous without stay. We sacrifice all nobleness to a little present\nmeanness. If a man charges you eight hundred pay him eight hundred\nand fifty, and it will leave a clean edge to the sum. It will be like\nnature, overflowing and rounded like the bank of a river, not close and\nprecise like a drain or ditch.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is always a short step to peace\u2014of mind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nUnder this line there is or has been life; as, when I see the mole's\nraised gallery in the meadow, I know that he has passed underneath.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI must not lose any of my freedom by being a farmer and landholder. Most\nwho enter on any profession are doomed men. The world might as well sing\na dirge over them forthwith. The farmer's muscles are rigid. He can do\none thing long, not many well. His pace seems determined henceforth;\nhe never quickens it. A very rigid Nemesis is his fate. When the right\nwind blows or a star calls, I can leave this arable and grass ground,\nwithout making a will or settling my estate. I would buy a farm as\nfreely as a silken streamer. Let me not think my front windows must face\neast henceforth because a particular hill slopes that way. My life must\nundulate still. I will not feel that my wings are clipped when once I\nhave settled on ground which the law calls my own, but find new pinions\ngrown to the old, and talaria to my feet beside.\n\n\n_March 30. Tuesday._ I find my life growing slovenly when it does not\nexercise a constant supervision over itself. Its duds accumulate. Next\nto having lived a day well is a clear and calm overlooking of all our\ndays.\n\n\nFRIENDSHIP\n\n     Now we are partners in such legal trade,\n     We'll look to the beginnings, not the ends,\n     Nor to pay-day, knowing true wealth is made\n     For current stock and not for dividends.\n\nI am amused when I read how Ben Jonson engaged that the ridiculous masks\nwith which the royal family and nobility were to be entertained should\nbe \"grounded upon antiquity and solid learning.\"[228]\n\n\nON THE SUN COMING OUT IN THE AFTERNOON\n\n_April 1._\n\n     Methinks all things have travelled since you shined,\n     But only Time, and clouds, Time's team, have moved;\n     Again foul weather shall not change my mind,\n     But in the shade I will believe what in the sun I loved.\n\nIn reading a work on agriculture, I skip the author's moral reflections,\nand the words \"Providence\" and \"He\" scattered along the page, to come at\nthe profitable level of what he has to say. There is no science in men's\nreligion; it does not teach me so much as the report of the committee on\nswine. My author shows he has dealt in corn and turnips and can worship\nGod with the hoe and spade, but spare me his morality.[229]\n\n\n_April 3._ Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody.[230]\n\n\n_April 4. Sunday._ The rattling of the tea-kettle below stairs reminds\nme of the cow-bells I used to hear when berrying in the Great Fields\nmany years ago, sounding distant and deep amid the birches. That cheap\npiece of tinkling brass which the farmer hangs about his cow's neck has\nbeen more to me than the tons of metal which are swung in the belfry.\n\n     They who prepare my evening meal below\n     Carelessly hit the kettle as they go,\n     With tongs or shovel,\n     And, ringing round and round,\n     Out of this hovel\n     It makes an Eastern temple by the sound.\n\n     At first I thought a cow-bell, right at hand\n     'Mid birches, sounded o'er the open land,\n     Where I plucked flowers\n     Many years ago,\n     Speeding midsummer hours\n     With such secure delight they hardly seemed to flow.\n\n\n_April 5._ This long series of desultory mornings does not tarnish the\nbrightness of the prospective days. Surely faith is not dead. Wood,\nwater, earth, air are essentially what they were; only society has\ndegenerated. This lament for a golden age is only a lament for golden\nmen.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI only ask a clean seat. I will build my lodge on the southern slope\nof some hill, and take there the life the gods send me. Will it not be\nemployment enough to accept gratefully all that is yielded me between\nsun and sun?[231] Even the fox digs his own burrow. If my jacket and\ntrousers, my boots and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do.\nWon't they, Deacon Spaulding?[232]\n\n\n_April 7. Wednesday._ My life will wait for nobody, but is being matured\nstill irresistibly while I go about the streets and chaffer with this\nman and that to secure it a living. It will cut its own channel, like\nthe mountain stream, which by the longest ridges and by level prairies\nis not kept from the sea finally. So flows a man's life, and will\nreach the sea water, if not by an earthy channel, yet in dew and rain,\noverleaping all barriers, with rainbows to announce its victory. It\ncan wind as cunningly and unerringly as water that seeks its level; and\nshall I complain if the gods make it meander? This staying to buy me a\nfarm is as if the Mississippi should stop to chaffer with a clamshell.\n\nWhat have I to do with plows? I cut another furrow than you see. Where\nthe off ox treads, there is it not, it is farther off; where the nigh\nox walks, it will not be, it is nigher still. If corn fails, my crop\nfails not. What of drought? What of rain? Is not my sand well clayed,\nmy peat well sanded? Is it not underdrained and watered?[233]\n\n     My ground is high,\n     But 'tis not dry,\n     What you call dew\n     Comes filtering through;\n     Though in the sky,\n     It still is nigh;\n     Its soil is blue\n     And virgin too.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     If from your price ye will not swerve,\n     Why, then I'll think the gods reserve\n     A greater bargain there above,\n     Out of their sup'rabundant love\n     Have meantime better for me cared,\n     And so will get my stock prepared,\n     Plows of new pattern, hoes the same,\n     Designed a different soil to tame,\n     And sow my seed broadcast in air,\n     Certain to reap my harvest there.\n\n\n_April 8._ Friends are the ancient and honorable of the earth. The\noldest men did not begin friendship. It is older than Hindostan and the\nChinese Empire. How long has it been cultivated, and is still the staple\narticle! It is a divine league struck forever. Warm, serene days only\nbring it out to the surface. There is a friendliness between the sun\nand the earth in pleasant weather; the gray content of the land is its\ncolor.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou can tell what another's suspicions are by what you feel forced to\nbecome. You will wear a new character, like a strange habit, in their\npresence.\n\n\n_April 9. Friday._ It would not be hard for some quiet brave man to leap\ninto the saddle to-day and eclipse Napoleon's career by a grander,\u2014show\nmen at length the meaning of war. One reproaches himself with\nsupineness, that he too has sat quiet in his chamber, and not treated\nthe world to the sound of the trumpet; that the indignation which has\nso long rankled in his breast does not take to horse and to the field.\nThe bravest warrior will have to fight his battles in his dreams, and\nno earthly war note can arouse him. There are who would not run with\nLeonidas. Only the third-rate Napoleons and Alexanders does history tell\nof. The brave man does not mind the call of the trumpet nor hear the\nidle clashing of swords without, for the infinite din within. War is but\na training, compared with the active service of his peace. Is he not at\nwar? Does he not resist the ocean swell within him, and walk as gently\nas the summer's sea? Would you have him parade in uniform, and man\u0153uvre\nmen, whose equanimity is his uniform and who is himself man\u0153uvred?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe times have no heart. The true reform can be undertaken any morning\nbefore unbarring our doors. It calls no convention. I can do two thirds\nthe reform of the world myself. When two neighbors begin to eat corn\nbread, who before ate wheat, then the gods smile from ear to ear, for\nit is very pleasant to them. When an individual takes a sincere step,\nthen all the gods attend, and his single deed is sweet.[234]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_April 10. Saturday._ I don't know but we should make life all too tame\nif we had our own way, and should miss these impulses in a happier time.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow much virtue there is in simply seeing! We may almost say that the\nhero has striven in vain for his pre-eminency, if the student oversees\nhim. The woman who sits in the house and _sees_ is a match for a\nstirring captain. Those still, piercing eyes, as faithfully exercised\non their talent, will keep her even with Alexander or Shakespeare. They\nmay go to Asia with parade, or to fairyland, but not beyond her ray.\nWe are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only\nserve the eyes. The farthest blue streak in the horizon I can see, I\nmay reach before many sunsets. What I saw alters not; in my night, when\nI wander, it is still steadfast as the star which the sailor steers by.\n\nWhoever has had one thought quite lonely, and could contentedly digest\nthat in solitude, knowing that none could accept it, may rise to the\nheight of humanity, and overlook all living men as from a pinnacle.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSpeech never made man master of men, but the eloquently refraining from\nit.\n\n\n_April 11. Sunday._ A greater baldness my life seeks, as the crest of\nsome bare hill, which towns and cities do not afford. I want a directer\nrelation with the sun.\n\n\nFRIENDSHIP'S STEADFASTNESS\n\n     True friendship is so firm a league\n     That's maintenance falls into the even tenor\n     Of our lives, and is no tie,\n     But the continuance of our life's thread.\n\n     If I would safely keep this new-got pelf,\n     I have no care henceforth but watch myself,\n     For lo! it goes untended from my sight,\n     Waxes and wanes secure with the safe star of night.\n\n     See with what liberal step it makes its way,\n     As we could well afford to let it stray\n     Throughout the universe, with the sun and moon,\n     Which would dissolve allegiance as soon.\n\n     Shall I concern myself for fickleness,\n     And undertake to make my friends more sure,\n     When the great gods out of sheer kindliness,\n     Gave me this office for a sinecure?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     Death cannot come too soon\n     Where it can come at all,\n     But always is too late\n     Unless the fates it call.\n\n\n_April 15. Thursday._ The gods are of no sect; they side with no man.\nWhen I imagine that Nature inclined rather to some few earnest and\nfaithful souls, and specially existed for them, I go to see an obscure\nindividual who lives under the hill, letting both gods and men alone,\nand find that strawberries and tomatoes grow for him too in his garden\nthere, and the sun lodges kindly under his hillside, and am compelled\nto acknowledge the unbribable charity of the gods.\n\nAny simple, unquestioned mode of life is alluring to men. The man who\npicks peas steadily for a living is more than respectable. He is to be\nenvied by his neighbors.\n\n\n_April 16._ I have been inspecting my neighbors' farms to-day and\nchaffering with the landholders, and I must confess I am startled to\nfind everywhere the old system of things so grim and assured. Wherever I\ngo the farms are run out, and there they lie, and the youth must buy old\nland and bring it to. Everywhere the relentless opponents of reform are\na few old maids and bachelors, who sit round the kitchen fire, listening\nto the singing of the tea-kettle and munching cheese-rinds.[235]\n\n\n_April 18. Sunday._ We need pine for no office for the sake of a certain\nculture, for all valuable experience lies in the way of a man's duty.\nMy necessities of late have compelled me to study Nature as she is\nrelated to the farmer,\u2014as she simply satisfies a want of the body.\nSome interests have got a footing on the earth which I have not made\nsufficient allowance for. That which built these barns and cleared the\nland thus had some valor.[236]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe take little steps, and venture small stakes, as if our actions were\nvery fatal and irretrievable. There is no swing to our deeds. But our\nlife is only a retired valley where we rest on our packs awhile. Between\nus and our end there is room for any delay. It is not a short and easy\nsouthern way, but we must go over snow-capped mountains to reach the\nsun.\n\n\n_April 20._ You can't beat down your virtue; so much goodness it must\nhave.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen a room is furnished, comfort is not furnished.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGreat thoughts hallow any labor. To-day I earned seventy-five cents\nheaving manure out of a pen, and made a good bargain of it. If the\nditcher muses the while how he may live uprightly, the ditching spade\nand turf knife may be engraved on the coat-of-arms of his posterity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are certain current expressions and blasphemous moods of viewing\nthings, as when we say \"he is doing a good business,\" more prophane than\ncursing and swearing. There is death and sin in such words. Let not the\nchildren hear them.\n\n\n_April 22. Thursday._ There are two classes of authors: the one write\nthe history of their times, the other their biography.\n\n\n_April 23. Friday._ Any greatness is not to be mistaken. Who shall cavil\nat it? It stands once for all on a level with the heroes of history. It\nis not to be patronized. It goes alone.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I hear music, I flutter, and am the scene of life, as a fleet of\nmerchantmen when the wind rises.\n\n\n_April 24._ Music is the sound of the circulation in nature's veins.\nIt is the flux which melts nature. Men dance to it, glasses ring and\nvibrate, and the fields seem to undulate. The healthy ear always hears\nit, nearer or more remote.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt has been a cloudy, drizzling day, with occasional brightenings in\nthe mist, when the trill of the tree sparrow seemed to be ushering in\nsunny hours.[237]\n\n\n_April 25._ A momentous silence reigns always in the woods, and their\nmeaning seems just ripening into expression. But alas! they make no\nhaste. The rush sparrow,[238] Nature's minstrel of serene hours, sings\nof an immense leisure and duration.\n\nWhen I hear a robin sing at sunset, I cannot help contrasting the\nequanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. We return\nfrom the lyceum and caucus with such stir and excitement, as if a crisis\nwere at hand; but no natural scene or sound sympathizes with us, for\nNature is always silent and unpretending as at the break of day. She\nbut rubs her eyelids.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am struck with the pleasing friendships and unanimities of nature in\nthe woods, as when the moss on the trees takes the form of their leaves.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is all of civilized life in the woods. Their wildest scenes have\nan air of domesticity and homeliness, and when the flicker's cackle is\nheard in the clearings, the musing hunter is reminded that civilization\nhas imported nothing into them.[239] The ball-room is represented by\nthe catkins of the alder at this season, which hang gracefully like a\nlady's ear-drops.\n\nAll the discoveries of science are equally true in their deepest\nrecesses; nature there, too, obeys the same laws. Fair weather and foul\nconcern the little red bug upon a pine stump; for him the wind goes\nround the right way and the sun breaks through the clouds.[240]\n\n\n_April 26. Monday._ At R. W. E.'s.\n\nThe charm of the Indian to me is that he stands free and unconstrained\nin Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily\nand gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His\nhouse is a prison, in which he finds himself oppressed and confined,\nnot sheltered and protected. He walks as if he sustained the roof; he\ncarries his arms as if the walls would fall in and crush him, and his\nfeet remember the cellar beneath. His muscles are never relaxed. It is\nrare that he overcomes the house, and learns to sit at home in it, and\nroof and floor and walls support themselves, as the sky and trees and\nearth.\n\nIt is a great art to saunter.\n\n\n_April 27._ It is only by a sort of voluntary blindness, and omitting\nto see, that we know ourselves, as when we see stars with the side of\nthe eye. The nearest approach to discovering what we are is in dreams.\nIt is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning\nround. And foolish are they that look in glasses with that intent.\n\nThe porters have a hard time, but not so hard as he that carries his\nown shoulders. That beats the Smyrna Turks. Some men's broad shoulders\nare load enough. Even a light frame can stand under a great burden,\nif it does not have to support itself. Virtue is buoyant and elastic;\nit stands without effort and does not feel gravity; but sin plods and\nshuffles. Newton needed not to wait for an apple to fall to discover\nthe attraction of gravitation; it was implied in the fall of man.\n\n\n_April 28. Wednesday._ We falsely attribute to men a determined\ncharacter; putting together all their yesterdays and averaging them,\nwe presume we know them. Pity the man who has a character to support.\nIt is worse than a large family. He is silent poor indeed. But in\nfact character is never explored, nor does it get developed in time,\nbut eternity is its development, time its envelope. In view of this\ndistinction, a sort of divine politeness and heavenly good breeding\nsuggests itself, to address always the enveloped character of a man. I\napproach a great nature with infinite expectation and uncertainty, not\nknowing what I may meet. It lies as broad and unexplored before me as\na scraggy hillside or pasture. I may hear a fox bark, or a partridge\ndrum, or some bird new to these localities may fly up. It lies out there\nas old, and yet as new. The aspect of the woods varies every day, what\nwith their growth and the changes of the seasons and the influence of\nthe elements, so that the eye of the forester never twice rests upon\nthe same prospect. Much more does a character show newly and variedly,\nif directly seen. It is the highest compliment to suppose that in the\nintervals of conversation your companion has expanded and grown. It\nmay be a deference which he will not understand, but the nature which\nunderlies him will understand it, and your influence will be shed as\nfinely on him as the dust in the sun settles on our clothes. By such\npoliteness we may educate one another to some purpose. So have I felt\nmyself educated sometimes; I am expanded and enlarged.\n\n\n_April 29._ Birds and quadrupeds pass freely through nature, without\nprop or stilt. But man very naturally carries a stick in his hand,\nseeking to ally himself by many points to nature, as a warrior stands by\nhis horse's side with his hand on his mane. We walk the gracefuler for\na cane, as the juggler uses a leaded pole to balance him when he dances\non a slack wire.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBetter a monosyllabic life than a ragged and muttered one; let its\nreport be short and round like a rifle, so that it may hear its own echo\nin the surrounding silence.\n\n\n_April 30._ Where shall we look for standard English but to the words\nof any man who has a depth of feeling in him? Not in any smooth and\nleisurely essay. From the gentlemanly windows of the country-seat no\nsincere eyes are directed upon nature, but from the peasant's horn\nwindows a true glance and greeting occasionally. \"For summer being\nended, all things,\" said the Pilgrim, \"stood in appearance with a\nweather-beaten face, and the whole country full of woods and thickets\nrepresented a wild and savage hue.\" Compare this with the agricultural\nreport.\n\n\n_May 1. Saturday._ Life in gardens and parlors is unpalatable to me. It\nwants rudeness and necessity to give it relish. I would at least strike\nmy spade into the earth with as good will as the woodpecker his bill\ninto a tree.[241]\n\n\nWACHUSETT[242]\n\n_May 2._\n\n     Especial I remember thee,\n     Wachusett, who like me\n     Standest alone without society.\n     Thy far blue eye,\n     A remnant of the sky,\n     Seen through the clearing or the gorge,\n     Or from the windows of the forge,\n     Doth leaven all it passes by.\n     Nothing is true\n     But stands 'tween me and you,\n     Thou western pioneer,\n     Who know'st not shame nor fear,\n     By venturous spirit driven\n     Under the eaves of heaven;\n     And canst expand thee there,\n     And breathe enough of air?\n     Upholding heaven, holding down earth,\n     Thy pastime from thy birth,\n     Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other;\n     May I approve myself thy worthy brother!\n\n\n_May 3. Monday._ We are all pilots of the most intricate Bahama\nchannels. Beauty may be the sky overhead, but Duty is the water\nunderneath. When I see a man with serene countenance in the sunshine of\nsummer, drinking in peace in the garden or parlor, it looks like a great\ninward leisure that he enjoys; but in reality he sails on no summer's\nsea, but this steady sailing comes of a heavy hand on the tiller. We\ndo not attend to larks and bluebirds so leisurely but that conscience\nis as erect as the attitude of the listener. The man of principle gets\nnever a holiday. Our true character silently underlies all our words and\nactions, as the granite underlies the other strata. Its steady pulse\ndoes not cease for any deed of ours, as the sap is still ascending in\nthe stalk of the fairest flower.\n\n\n_May 6. Thursday._ The fickle person is he that does not know what is\ntrue or right absolutely,\u2014who has not an ancient wisdom for a lifetime,\nbut a new prudence for every hour. We must sail by a sort of dead\nreckoning on this course of life, not speak any vessel nor spy any\nheadland, but, in spite of all phenomena, come steadily to port at last.\nIn general we must have a catholic and universal wisdom, wiser than\nany particular, and be prudent enough to defer to it always. We are\nliterally wiser than we know. Men do not fail for want of knowledge,\nbut for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.[243] These low\nweathercocks on barns and fences show not which way the general and\nsteady current of the wind sets,\u2014which brings fair weather or foul,\u2014but\nthe vane on the steeple, high up in another stratum of atmosphere, tells\nthat. What we need to know in any case is very simple.[244] I shall not\nmistake the direction of my life; if I but know the high land and the\nmain,\u2014on this side the Cordilleras, on that the Pacific,\u2014I shall know\nhow to run. If a ridge intervene, I have but to seek, or make, a gap to\nthe sea.\n\n\n_May 9. Sunday._ The pine stands in the woods like an Indian,\u2014untamed,\nwith a fantastic wildness about it, even in the clearings. If an Indian\nwarrior were well painted, with pines in the background, he would seem\nto blend with the trees, and make a harmonious expression. The pitch\npines are the ghosts of Philip and Massasoit. The white pine has the\nsmoother features of the squaw.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe poet speaks only those thoughts that come unbidden, like the wind\nthat stirs the trees, and men cannot help but listen. He is not listened\nto, but heard. The weathercock might as well dally with the wind as a\nman pretend to resist eloquence. The breath that inspires the poet has\ntraversed a whole Campagna, and this new climate here indicates that\nother latitudes are chilled or heated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSpeak to men as to gods and you will not be insincere.\n\n\nWESTWARD, HO!\n\n     The needles of the pine\n     All to the west incline.[245]\n\n\nTHE ECHO OF THE SABBATH BELL HEARD IN THE WOODS[246]\n\n     Dong, sounds the brass in the east,\n     As if for a civic feast,\n     But I like that sound the best\n     Out of the fluttering west.\n\n     The steeple rings a knell,\n     But the fairies' silvery bell\n     Is the voice of that gentle folk,\n     Or else the horizon that spoke.\n\n     Its metal is not of brass,\n     But air, and water, and glass,\n     And under a cloud it is swung,\n     And by the wind is rung,\n     With a slim silver tongue.\n\n     When the steeple tolls the noon,\n     It soundeth not so soon,\n     Yet it rings an earlier hour,\n     And the sun has not reached its tower.\n\n\n_May 10. Monday._ A good warning to the restless tourists of these days\nis contained in the last verses of Claudian's \"Old Man of Verona.\"\n\n     \"Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos.\n     Plus habet hic vitae, plus habet ille viae.\"[247]\n\n\n_May 23. Sunday._ Barn.\u2014The distant woods are but the tassels of my eye.\n\nBooks are to be attended to as new sounds merely. Most would be put to\na sore trial if the reader should assume the attitude of a listener.\nThey are but a new note in the forest. To our lonely, sober thought the\nearth is a wild unexplored. Wildness as of the jay and muskrat reigns\nover the great part of nature. The oven-bird and plover are heard in the\nhorizon. Here is a new book of heroes, come to me like the note of the\nchewink from over the fen, only over a deeper and wider fen. The pines\nare unrelenting sifters of thought; nothing petty leaks through them.\nLet me put my ear close, and hear the sough of this book, that I may\nknow if any inspiration yet haunts it. There is always a later edition\nof every book than the printer wots of, no matter how recently it was\npublished. All nature is a new impression every instant.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe aspects of the most simple object are as various as the aspects\nof the most compound. Observe the same sheet of water from different\neminences. When I have travelled a few miles I do not recognize the\nprofile of the hills of my native village.\n\n\n_May 27. Thursday._ I sit in my boat on Walden, playing the flute this\nevening, and see the perch, which I seem to have charmed, hovering\naround me, and the moon travelling over the bottom, which is strewn\nwith the wrecks of the forest, and feel that nothing but the wildest\nimagination can conceive of the manner of life we are living. Nature is\na wizard. The Concord nights are stranger than the Arabian nights.\n\nWe not only want elbow-room, but eye-room in this gray air which shrouds\nall the fields. Sometimes my eyes see over the county road by daylight\nto the tops of yonder birches on the hill, as at others by moonlight.\n\nHeaven lies above, because the air is deep.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn all my life hitherto I have left nothing behind.\n\n\n_May 31. Monday._ That title, \"The Laws of Menu[248] with the Gloss of\nCulluca,\" comes to me with such a volume of sound as if it had swept\nunobstructed over the plains of Hindostan; and when my eye rests on\nyonder birches, or the sun in the water, or the shadows of the trees, it\nseems to signify the laws of them all. They are the laws of you and me,\na fragrance wafted down from those old times, and no more to be refuted\nthan the wind.\n\nWhen my imagination travels eastward and backward to those remote years\nof the gods, I seem to draw near to the habitation of the morning, and\nthe dawn at length has a place. I remember the book as an hour before\nsunrise.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe are height and depth both, a calm sea at the foot of a promontory.\nDo we not overlook our own depths?\n\n\n_June 1._ To have seen a man out of the East or West is sufficient to\nestablish their reality and locality. I have seen a Mr. Wattles to-day,\nfrom Vermont, and now know where that is and that it is; a reformer,\nwith two soldier's eyes and shoulders, who began to belabor the world\nat ten years, a ragged mountain boy, as fifer of a company, with set\npurpose to remould it from those first years.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe great person never wants an opportunity to be great, but makes\noccasion for all about him.\n\n\n_June 2. Wednesday._ I am brought into the near neighborhood and am\nbecome a silent observer of the moon's paces to-night, by means of a\nglass, while the frogs are peeping all around me on the earth, and the\nsound of the accordion seems to come from some bright saloon yonder. I\nam sure the moon floats in a human atmosphere. It is but a distant scene\nof the world's drama. It is a wide theatre the gods have given us, and\nour actions must befit it. More sea and land, mountain and valley, here\nis,\u2014a further West, a freshness and wildness in reserve when all the\nland shall be cleared.\n\nI see three little lakes between the hills near its edge, reflecting the\nsun's rays. The light glimmers as on the water in a tumbler. So far off\ndo the laws of reflection hold. I seem to see the ribs of the creature.\nThis is the aspect of their day, its outside,\u2014their heaven above their\nheads, towards which they breathe their prayers. So much is between me\nand them. It is noon there, perchance, and ships are at anchor in the\nhavens or sailing on the seas, and there is a din in the streets, and\nin this light or that shade some leisurely soul contemplates.\n\nBut now dor-bugs fly over its disk and bring me back to earth and night.\n\n\n_June 7. Monday._ The inhabitants of those Eastern plains seem to\npossess a natural and hereditary right to be conservative and magnify\nforms and traditions. \"Immemorial custom is transcendent law,\" says\nMenu. That is, it was the custom of gods before men used it. The fault\nof our New England custom is that it is memorial. What is morality but\nimmemorial custom? It is not manner but character, and the conservative\nconscience sustains it.[249]\n\nWe are accustomed to exaggerate the immobility and stagnation of those\neras, as of the waters which levelled the steppes; but those slow\nrevolving \"years of the gods\" were as rapid to all the needs of virtue\nas these bustling and hasty seasons. Man stands to revere, he kneels\nto pray. Methinks history will have to be tried by new tests to show\nwhat centuries were rapid and what slow. Corn grows in the night.[250]\nWill this bustling era detain the future reader longer? Will the earth\nseem to have conversed more with the heavens during these times? Who\nis writing better Vedas? How science and art spread and flourished,\nhow trivial conveniences were multiplied, that which is the gossip\nof the world is not recorded in them; and if they are left out of our\nscripture, too, what will remain?\n\nSince the Battle of Bunker Hill we think the world has _not_ been at a\nstandstill.\n\nWhen I remember the treachery of memory and the manifold accidents\nto which tradition is liable, how soon the vista of the past closes\nbehind,\u2014as near as night's crescent to the setting day,\u2014and the dazzling\nbrightness of noon is reduced to the faint glimmer of the evening star,\nI feel as if it were by a rare indulgence of the fates that any traces\nof the past are left us,\u2014that my ears which do not hear across the\ninterval over which a crow caws should chance to hear this far-travelled\nsound. With how little co\u00f6peration of the societies, after all, is the\npast remembered!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI know of no book which comes to us with grander pretensions than\nthe \"Laws of Menu;\" and this immense presumption is so impersonal and\nsincere that it is never offensive or ridiculous. Observe the modes in\nwhich modern literature is advertised, and then consider this Hindoo\nprospectus. Think what a reading public it addresses, what criticism it\nexpects. What wonder if the times were not ripe for it?[251]\n\n\n_June 8._ Having but one chair, I am obliged to receive my visitors\nstanding, and, now I think of it, those old sages and heroes must always\nhave met erectly.\n\n\n_July 10 to 12._ This town, too, lies out under the sky, a port of entry\nand departure for souls to and from heaven.[252]\n\nA slight sound at evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life seem\ninexpressibly serene and grand. It may be in Uranus, or it may be in\nthe shutter. It is the original sound of which all literature is but\nthe echo. It makes all fear superfluous. Bravery comes from further than\nthe sources of fear.\n\n\n_Aug. 1. Sunday._ I never met a man who cast a free and healthy glance\nover life, but the best live in a sort of Sabbath light, a Jewish\ngloom. The best thought is not only without sombreness, but even without\nmorality. The universe lies outspread in floods of white light to it.\nThe moral aspect of nature is a jaundice reflected from man. To the\ninnocent there are no cherubim nor angels. Occasionally we rise above\nthe necessity of virtue into an unchangeable morning light, in which we\nhave not to choose in a dilemma between right and wrong, but simply to\nlive right on and breathe the circumambient air.[253] There is no name\nfor this life unless it be the very vitality of _vita_. Silent is the\npreacher about this, and silent must ever be, for he who knows it will\nnot preach.\n\n\n_Aug. 4. Wednesday._ My pen is a lever which, in proportion as the near\nend stirs me further within, the further end reaches to a greater depth\nin the reader.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNawshawtuct.\u2014Far in the east I read _Nature's Corn Law Rhymes_. Here,\nin sight of Wachusett and these rivers and woods, my mind goes singing\nto itself of other themes than taxation. The rush sparrow sings still\nunintelligible, as from beyond a depth in me which I have not fathomed,\nwhere my future lies folded up. I hear several faint notes, quite\noutside me, which populate the waste.\n\nThis is such fresh and flowing weather, as if the waves of the morning\nhad subsided over the day.\n\n\n_Aug. 6._ If I am well, then I see well. The bulletins of health are\ntwirled along my visual rays, like pasteboards on a kite string.\n\nI cannot read a sentence in the book of the Hindoos without being\nelevated as upon the table-land of the Ghauts. It has such a rhythm\nas the winds of the desert, such a tide as the Ganges, and seems as\nsuperior to criticism as the Himmaleh Mounts. Even at this late hour,\nunworn by time, with a native and inherent dignity it wears the English\ndress as indifferently as the Sanscrit. The great tone of the book is\nof such fibre and such severe tension that no time nor accident can\nrelax it.[254] The great thought is never found in a mean dress, but\nis of virtue to ennoble any language. Let it issue from the lips of\nthe Wolofs, or from the forum of Rome, the nine Muses will seem to\nhave been purveyors for it. Its education is always liberal; it has\nall the graces of oratory and of poetry. The lofty tone which is its\nindispensable breath is grace to the eye and music to the ear. It can\nendow a college.[255]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo supremely religious a book imposes with authority on the latest\nage. The very simplicity of style of the ancient lawgiver, implying\nall in the omission of all, proves an habitual elevation of thought,\nwhich the multiplied glosses of later days strive in vain to slope up\nto. The whole book by noble gestures and inclinations seems to render\nwords unnecessary. The abbreviated sentence points to the thing for\nexplanation. As the sublimest thought is most faithfully printed in the\nface, and needs the fewest interpreting words. The page nods toward the\nfact and is silent.\n\nAs I walk across the yard from the barn to the house through the fog,\nwith a lamp in my hand, I am reminded of the Merrimack nights, and seem\nto see the sod between tent-ropes. The trees, seen dimly through the\nmist, suggest things which do not at all belong to the past, but are\npeculiar to my fresh New England life. It is as novel as green peas.\nThe dew hangs everywhere upon the grass, and I breathe the rich, damp\nair in slices.\n\n\n_Aug. 7. Saturday._ The impression which those sublime sentences made on\nme last night has awakened me before any cockcrowing. Their influence\nlingers around me like a fragrance, or as the fog hangs over the earth\nlate into the day.\n\nThe very locusts and crickets of a summer day are but later or older\nglosses on the Dherma S\u00e1stra of the Hindoos, a continuation of the\nsacred code.[256]\n\n\n_Aug. 9._ It is vain to try to write unless you feel strong in the\nknees.\n\nAny book of great authority and genius seems to our imagination to\npermeate and pervade all space. Its spirit, like a more subtle ether,\nsweeps along with the prevailing winds of the country. Its influence\nconveys a new gloss to the meadows and the depths of the wood, and\nbathes the huckleberries on the hills, as sometimes a new influence\nin the sky washes in waves over the fields and seems to break on\nsome invisible beach in the air. All things confirm it. It spends the\nmornings and the evenings.[257]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEverywhere the speech of Menu demands the widest apprehension and\nproceeds from the loftiest plateau of the soul. It is spoken unbendingly\nto its own level, and does not imply any contemporaneous speaker.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI read history as little critically as I consider the landscape, and\nam more interested in the atmospheric tints and various lights and\nshades which the intervening spaces create than in its groundwork\nand composition. It is the morning now turned evening and seen in the\nwest,\u2014the same sun, but a new light and atmosphere. Its beauty is like\nthe sunset; not a fresco painting on a wall, flat and bounded, but\natmospheric and roving, or free. But, in reality, history fluctuates as\nthe face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment\nin it is its hue and color. Time hides no treasures; we want not its\n_then_, but its _now_. We do not complain that the mountains in the\nhorizon are blue and indistinct; they are the more like the heavens.\n\nOf what moment are facts that can be lost,\u2014which need to be\ncommemorated? The monument of death will outlast the memory of the dead.\nThe Pyramids do not tell the tale confided to them. The living fact\ncommemorates itself. Why look in the dark for light? Look in the light\nrather. Strictly speaking, the Societies have not recovered one fact\nfrom oblivion, but they themselves are instead of the fact that is lost.\nThe researcher is more memorable than the researched. The crowd stood\nadmiring the mist and the dim outline of the trees seen through it, and\nwhen one of their number advanced to explore the phenomenon, with fresh\nadmiration all eyes were turned on his dimly retreating figure. Critical\nacumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the _past_ cannot be\n_presented_; we cannot know what we are not. But one veil hangs over\npast, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to\nfind out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought,\nyou will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts; where a battle\nis being fought, there are hearts beating. We will sit on a mound and\nmuse, and not try to make these skeletons stand on their legs again.\nDoes Nature remember, think you, that they _were_ men, or not rather\nthat they _are_ bones?\n\nAncient history has an air of antiquity. It should be more modern. It\nis written as if the spectator should be thinking of the back side of\nthe picture on the wall, as if the author expected the dead would be\nhis readers, and wished to detail to them their own experience. Men\nseem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries,\nearnestly rebuilding the works behind, as they are battered down by the\nincroachments of time; but while they loiter, they and their works both\nfall a prey to the enemy.\n\nBiography is liable to the same objection; it should be autobiography.\nLet us not leave ourselves empty that, so vexing our bowels, we may go\nabroad and be somebody else to explain him. If I am not I, who will be?\nAs if it were to dispense justice to all. But the time has not come for\nthat.[258]\n\n\n_Aug. 12._ We take pleasure in beholding the form of a mountain in the\nhorizon, as if by retiring to this distance we had then first conquered\nit by our vision, and were made privy to the design of the architect;\nso when we behold the shadow of our earth on the moon's disk. When\nwe climb a mountain and observe the lesser irregularities, we do not\ngive credit to the comprehensive and general intelligence which shaped\nthem; but when we see the outline in the horizon, we confess that the\nhand which moulded those opposite slopes, making one balance the other,\nworked round a deep centre, and was privy to the plan of the universe.\nThe smallest of nature's works fits the farthest and widest view, as if\nit had been referred in its bearings to every point in space.[259] It\nharmonizes with the horizon line and the orbits of the planets.\n\n\n_Aug. 13. Friday._ I have been in the swamp by Charles Miles's this\nafternoon, and found it so bosky and sylvan that Art would never have\nfreedom or courage to imitate it. It can never match the luxury and\nsuperfluity of Nature. In Art all is seen; she cannot afford concealed\nwealth, and in consequence is niggardly; but Nature, even when she\nis scant and thin outwardly, contents us still by the assurance of a\ncertain generosity at the roots. Surely no stinted hand has been at work\nhere for these centuries to produce these particular tints this summer.\nThe double spruce attracts me here, which I had hardly noticed in the\ngardens, and now I understand why men try to make them grow about their\nhouses.[260]\n\nNature has her luxurious and florid style as well as Art. Having a\npilgrim's cup to make, she gives to the whole\u2014stem, bowl, handle, and\nnose\u2014some fantastic shape, as if it were to be the car of a fabulous\nmarine deity,\u2014a Nereus or Triton. She is mythical and mystical always,\nand spends her whole genius upon the least work.[261]\n\n\n_Aug. 16._ There is a double virtue in the sound that can wake an echo,\nas in the lowing of the cows this morning. Far out in the horizon that\nsound travels quite round the town, and invades each recess of the wood,\nadvancing at a grand pace and with a sounding Eastern pomp.\n\n\n_Aug. 18._ I sailed on the North River last night with my flute, and\nmy music was a tinkling stream which meandered with the river, and\nfell from note to note as a brook from rock to rock. I did not hear\nthe strains after they had issued from the flute, but before they were\nbreathed into it, for the original strain precedes the sound by as much\nas the echo follows after, and the rest is the perquisite of the rocks\nand trees and beasts.[262] Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which\nmeasures the current of our thoughts, the very undertow of our life's\nstream.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf all the duties of life it is hardest to be in earnest; it implies a\ngood deal both before and behind. I sit here in the barn this flowing\nafternoon weather, while the school bell is ringing in the village, and\nfind that all the things immediate to be done are very trivial. I could\npostpone them to hear this locust sing. The cockerels crow and the hens\ncluck in the yard as if time were dog-cheap. It seems something worth\ndetaining time,\u2014the laying of an egg. Cannot man do something to comfort\nthe gods, and not let the world prove such a piddling concern? No doubt\nthey would be glad to sell their shares at a large discount by this\ntime. Eastern Railroad stock promises a better dividend.\n\nThe best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature.\nThey have not seen the west side of any mountain.\n\nDay and night, mountain and wood, are visible from the wilderness as\nwell as the village. They have their primeval aspects, sterner, savager\nthan any poet has sung. It is only the white man's poetry. We want the\nIndian's report. Wordsworth is too tame for the Chippeway.[263]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe landscape contains a thousand dials which indicate the natural\ndivisions of time; the shadows of a thousand styles point to the hour.\nThe afternoon is now far advanced, and a fresh and leisurely wind is\nblowing on the river, causing long reaches of serene ripples. It has\ndone its stent, and seems not to flow but lie at its length reflecting\nthe light. The haze over the woods seems like the breath of all nature,\nrising from a myriad pores into the attenuated atmosphere.[264] It is\nsun smoke, the woof he has woven, his day's toil displayed.[265]\n\nIf I were awaked from a deep sleep, I should know which side the\nmeridian the sun might be by the chirping of the crickets. Night has\nalready insidiously set her foot in the valley in many places, where the\nshadows of the shrubs and fences begin to darken the landscape. There\nis a deeper shading in the colors of the afternoon landscape. Perhaps\nthe forenoon is brighter than the afternoon, not only because of the\ngreater transparency of the atmosphere then, but because we naturally\nlook most into the west,\u2014as we look forward into the day,\u2014and so in the\nforenoon see the sunny side of things, but in the afternoon the shadow\nof every tree.\n\nWhat a drama of light and shadow from morning to night! Soon as the sun\nis over the meridian, in deep ravines under the east side of the cliffs\nnight forwardly plants her foot, and, as day retreats, steps into his\ntrenches, till at length she sits in his citadel. For long time she\nskulks behind the needles of the pine, before she dares draw out her\nforces into the plain. Sun, moon, wind, and stars are the allies of one\nside or the other.[266]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow much will some officious men give to preserve an old book, of which\nperchance only a single [copy] exists, while a wise God is already\ngiving, and will still give, infinitely more to get it destroyed!\n\n\n_Aug. 20. Friday._ It seems as if no cock lived so far in the horizon\nbut a faint vibration reached me here, spread the wider over earth as\nthe more distant.\n\nIn the morning the crickets snore, in the afternoon they chirp, at\nmidnight they dream.\n\n\n_Aug. 24._ Let us wander where we will, the universe is built round\nabout us, and we are central still. By reason of this, if we look into\nthe heavens, they are concave, and if we were to look into a gulf as\nbottomless, it would be concave also. The sky is curved downward to\nthe earth in the horizon, because I stand in the plain. I draw down its\nskirts. The stars so low there seem loth to go away from me, but by a\ncircuitous path to be remembering and returning to me.[267]\n\n\n_Aug. 28. Saturday._ A great poet will write for his peers alone, and\nindite no line to an inferior. He will remember only that he saw truth\nand beauty from his position, and calmly expect the time when a vision\nas broad shall overlook the same field as freely.[268]\n\nJohnson can no more criticise Milton than the naked eye can criticise\nHerschel's map of the sun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe art which only gilds the surface and demands merely a superficial\npolish, without reaching to the core, is but varnish and filigree. But\nthe work of genius is rough-hewn from the first, because it anticipates\nthe lapse of time and has an ingrained polish, which still appears when\nfragments are broken off, an essential quality of its substance. Its\nbeauty is its strength. It breaks with a lustre, and splits in cubes\nand diamonds. Like the diamond, it has only to be cut to be polished,\nand its surface is a window to its interior splendors.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTrue verses are not counted on the poet's fingers, but on his\nheart-strings.\n\n     My life hath been the poem I would have writ,\n     But I could not both live and live to utter it.[269]\n\nIn the Hindoo scripture the idea of man is quite illimitable and\nsublime. There is nowhere a loftier conception of his destiny. He\nis at length lost in Brahma himself, \"the divine male.\" Indeed, the\ndistinction of races in this life is only the commencement of a series\nof degrees which ends in Brahma.\n\nThe veneration in which the Vedas are held is itself a remarkable fact.\nTheir code embraced the whole moral life of the Hindoo, and in such a\ncase there is no other truth than sincerity. Truth is such by reference\nto the heart of man within, not to any standard without. There is no\ncreed so false but faith can make it true.\n\nIn inquiring into the origin and genuineness of this scripture it is\nimpossible to tell when the divine agency in its composition ceased, and\nthe human began. \"From fire, from air, and from the sun\" was it \"milked\nout.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is no grander conception of creation anywhere. It is peaceful\nas a dream,[270] and so is the annihilation of the world. It is such a\nbeginning and ending as the morning and evening, for they had learned\nthat God's methods are not violent. It was such an awakening as might\nhave been heralded by the faint dreaming chirp of the crickets before\nthe dawn.\n\nThe very indistinctness of its theogony implies a sublime truth. It does\nnot allow the reader to rest in any supreme first cause, but directly\nhints of a supremer still which created the last. The creator is still\nbehind, increate.[271] The divinity is so fleeting that its attributes\nare never expressed.\n\n\n_Aug. 30._ What is a day, if the day's work be not done? What are the\ndivisions of time to them who have nothing to do? What is the present\nor the future to him who has no occasion for them, who does not create\nthem by his industry?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is now easy to apply to this ancient scripture such a catholic\ncriticism as it will become the part of some future age to apply to the\nChristian,\u2014wherein the design and idea which underlies it is considered,\nand not the narrow and partial fulfillment.\n\nThese verses are so eminently textual, that it seems as if those old\nsages had concentrated all their wisdom in little fascicles, of which\nfuture times were to be the commentary; as the light of this lower world\nis only the dissipated rays of the sun and stars.[272] They seem to have\nbeen uttered with a sober morning prescience, in the dawn of time.[273]\nThere is a sort of holding back, or withdrawal of the full meaning,\nthat the ages may follow after and explore the whole. The sentence opens\nunexpensively and almost unmeaningly, as the petals of a flower.[274]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo our nearsightedness this mere outward life seems a constituent part\nof us, and we do not realize that as our soul expands it will cast off\nthe shell of routine and convention, which afterward will only be an\nobject for the cabinets of the curious. But of this people the temples\nare now crumbled away, and we are introduced to the very hearth of\nHindoo life and to the primeval conventicle where how to eat and to\ndrink and to sleep were the questions to be decided.[275]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe simple life herein described confers on us a degree of freedom even\nin the perusal. We throw down our packs and go on our way unencumbered.\nWants so easily and gracefully satisfied that they seem like a more\nrefined pleasure and repleteness.[276]\n\n\n_Sept. 1. Wednesday._ When I observe the effeminate taste of some of\nmy contemporaries in this matter of poetry, and how hardly they bear\nwith certain incongruities, I think if this age were consulted it would\nnot choose granite to be the backbone of the world, but Bristol spar or\nBrazilian diamonds. But the verses which have consulted the refinements\neven of a golden age will be found weak and nerveless for an iron one.\nThe poet is always such a Cincinnatus in literature as with republican\nsimplicity to raise all to the chiefest honors of the state.\n\nEach generation thinks to inhabit only a west end of the world, and\nhave intercourse with a refined and civilized Nature, not conceiving\nof her broad equality and republicanism. They think her aristocratic\nand exclusive because their own estates are narrow. But the sun\nindifferently selects his rhymes, and with a liberal taste weaves into\nhis verse the planet and the stubble.[277]\n\nLet us know and conform only to the fashions of eternity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe very austerity of these Hindoos is tempting to the devotional\nas a more refined and nobler luxury.[278] They seem to have indulged\nthemselves with a certain moderation and temperance in the severities\nwhich their code requires, as divine exercises not to be excessively\nused as yet. One may discover the root of a Hindoo religion in his own\nprivate history, when, in the silent intervals of the day or the night,\nhe does sometimes inflict on himself like austerities with a stern\nsatisfaction.\n\nThe \"Laws of Menu\" are a manual of private devotion, so private and\ndomestic and yet so public and universal a word as is not spoken in\nthe parlor or pulpit in these days.[279] It is so impersonal that it\nexercises our sincerity more than any other. It goes with us into the\nyard and into the chamber, and is yet later spoken than the advice of\nour mother and sisters.[280]\n\n\n_Sept. 2. Thursday._ There is but one obligation, and that is the\nobligation to obey the highest dictate. None can lay me under another\nwhich will supersede this. The gods have given me these years without\nany incumbrance; society has no mortgage on them. If any man assist\nme in the way of the world, let him derive satisfaction from the deed\nitself, for I think I never shall have dissolved my prior obligations\nto God. Kindness repaid is thereby annulled. I would let his deed lie\nas fair and generous as it was intended. The truly beneficent never\nrelapses into a creditor; his great kindness is still extended to\nme and is never done. Of those noble deeds which have me for their\nobject I am only the most fortunate spectator, and would rather be the\nabettor of their nobleness than stay their tide with the obstructions\nof impatient gratitude. As true as action and reaction are equal, that\nnobleness which was as wide as the universe will rebound not on him the\nindividual, but on the world. If any have been kind to me, what more do\nthey want? I cannot make them richer than they are. If they have not\nbeen kind, they cannot take from me the privilege which they have not\nimproved. My obligations will be my lightest load, for that gratitude\nwhich is of kindred stuff in me, expanding every pore, will easily\nsustain the pressure. We walk the freest through the air we breathe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe sublime sentences of Menu carry us back to a time when purification\nand sacrifice and self-devotion had a place in the faith of men, and\nwere not as now a superstition. They contain a subtle and refined\nphilosophy also, such as in these times is not accompanied with so lofty\nand pure a devotion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI saw a green meadow in the midst of the woods to-day which looked as if\nDame Nature had set her foot there, and it had bloomed in consequence.\nIt was the print of her moccasin.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSometimes my thought rustles in midsummer as if ripe for the fall.[281]\nI anticipate the russet hues and the dry scent of autumn, as the\nfeverish man dreams of balm and sage.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI was informed to-day that no Hindoo tyranny presided at the framing\nof the world,\u2014that I am a freeman of the universe, and not sentenced to\nany caste.[282]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I write verses I serve my thoughts as I do tumblers; I rap them to\nsee if they will ring.\n\n\n_Sept. 3. Friday._ Next to Nature, it seems as if man's actions were the\nmost natural, they so gently accord with her. The small seines of flax\nor hemp stretched across the shallow and transparent parts of the river\nare no more intrusion than the cobweb in the sun. It is very slight and\nrefined outrage at most. I stay my boat in mid-current and look down in\nthe running water to see the civil meshes of his nets, and wonder how\nthe blustering people of the town could have done this elvish work. The\ntwine looks like a new river-weed and is to the river like a beautiful\nmemento of man, man's presence in nature discovered as silently and\ndelicately as Robinson discovered that there [were] savages on his\nisland by a footprint in the sand.[283]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMoonlight is the best restorer of antiquity. The houses in the village\nhave a classical elegance as of the best days of Greece, and this\nhalf-finished church reminds me of the Parthenon, or whatever is most\nfamous and excellent in art.[284] So serene it stands, reflecting\nthe moon, and intercepting the stars with its rafters, as if it were\nrefreshed by the dews of the night equally with me. By day Mr. Hosmer,\nbut by night Vitruvius rather. If it were always to stand in this mild\nand sombre light it would be finished already. It is in progress by day\nbut completed by night, and already its designer is an old master. The\nprojecting rafter so carelessly left on the tower, holding its single\nway through the sky, is quite architectural, and in the unnecessary\nlength of the joists and flooring of the staging around the walls there\nis an artistic superfluity and grace. In these fantastic lines described\nupon the sky there is no trifling or conceit. Indeed, the staging for\nthe most part is the only genuine native architecture and deserves to\nstand longer than the building it surrounds. In this obscurity there are\nno fresh colors to offend, and the light and shade of evening adorn the\nnew equally with the old.\n\n\n_Sept. 4. Saturday._ I think I could write a poem to be called\n\"Concord.\" For argument I should have the River, the Woods, the\nPonds, the Hills, the Fields, the Swamps and Meadows, the Streets and\nBuildings, and the Villagers. Then Morning, Noon, and Evening, Spring,\nSummer, Autumn, and Winter, Night, Indian Summer, and the Mountains in\nthe Horizon.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA book should be so true as to be intimate and familiar to all men,\nas the sun to their faces,\u2014such a word as is occasionally uttered to a\ncompanion in the woods in summer, and both are silent.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs I pass along the streets of the village on the day of our annual\nfair, when the leaves strew the ground, I see how the trees keep just\nsuch a holiday all the year. The lively spirits of their sap mount\nhigher than any plowboy's let loose that day. A walk in the autumn\nwoods, when, with serene courage, they are preparing for their winter\ncampaign, if you have an ear for the rustling of their camp or an eye\nfor the glancing of their armor, is more inspiring than the Greek or\nPeninsular war.[285] Any grandeur may find society as great as itself\nin the forest.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPond Hill.\u2014I see yonder some men in a boat, which floats buoyantly amid\nthe reflections of the trees, like a feather poised in mid-air, or a\nleaf wafted gently from its twig to the water without turning over. They\nseem very delicately to have availed themselves of the natural laws, and\ntheir floating there looks like a beautiful and successful experiment\nin philosophy. It reminds me how much more refined and noble the life\nof man might be made, how its whole economy might be as beautiful as a\nTuscan villa,[286]\u2014a new and more catholic art, the art of life, which\nshould have its impassioned devotees and make the schools of Greece and\nRome to be deserted.\n\n\n_Sept. 5. Saturday._ Barn.\n\n     Greater is the depth of sadness\n     Than is any height of gladness.\n\nI cannot read much of the best poetry in prose or verse without feeling\nthat it is a partial and exaggerated plaint, rarely a carol as free\nas Nature's. That content which the sun shines for between morning and\nevening is unsung. The Muse solaces herself; she is not delighted but\nconsoled.[287] But there are times when we feel a vigor in our limbs,\nand our thoughts are like a flowing morning light, and the stream\nof our life without reflection shows long reaches of serene ripples.\nAnd if we were to sing at such an hour, there would be no catastrophe\ncontemplated in our verse, no tragic element in it,[288] nor yet a\ncomic. For the life of the gods is not in any sense dramatic, nor can\nbe the subject of the drama; it is epic without beginning or end, an\neternal interlude without plot,\u2014not subordinate one part to another,\nbut supreme as a whole, at once leaf and flower and fruit. At present\nthe highest strain is Hebraic. The church bell is the tone of all\nreligious thought, the most musical that men consent to sing. In the\nyouth of poetry, men love to praise the lark and the morning, but they\nsoon forsake the dews and skies for the nightingale and evening shades.\nWithout instituting a wider comparison I might say that in Homer there\nis more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern\nand moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men\ncling to this old song, because they have still moments of unbaptized\nand uncommitted life which give them an appetite for more. There is no\ncant in him, as there is no religion. We read him with a rare sense of\nfreedom and irresponsibleness, as though we trod on native ground, and\nwere autochthones of the soil.[289]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThrough the fogs of this distant vale we look back and upward to the\nsource of song, whose crystal stream still ripples and gleams in the\nclear atmosphere of the mountain's side.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSome hours seem not to be occasion for anything, unless for great\nresolves to draw breath and repose in, so religiously do we postpone\nall action therein. We do not straight go about to execute our thrilling\npurpose, but shut our doors behind us, and saunter with prepared mind,\nas if the half were already done.[290]\n\nSometimes a day serves only to hold time together.[291]\n\n\n_Sept. 12. Sunday._\n\n     Where I have been\n     There was none seen.\n\n\n_Sept. 14._ No bravery is to be named with that which can face its own\ndeeds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn religion there is no society.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo not dissect a man till he is dead.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLove does not analyze its object.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe do not know the number of muscles in a caterpillar dead; much less\nthe faculties of a man living.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou must believe that I know before you can tell me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo the highest communication I can make no reply; I lend only a silent\near.\n\n\n_Sept. 18. Saturday._ Barn.\u2014It is a great event, the hearing of a bell\nring in one of the neighboring towns, particularly in the night. It\nexcites in me an unusual hilarity, and I feel that I am in season wholly\nand enjoy a prime and leisure hour.\n\n\n_Sept. 20. Monday._ Visited Sampson Wilder of Boston. His method of\nsetting out peach trees is as follows:\u2014\n\nDig a hole six feet square and two deep, and remove the earth; cover\nthe bottom to the depth of six inches with lime and ashes in equal\nproportions, and upon this spread another layer of equal thickness, of\nhorn parings, tips of horns, bones, and the like, then fill up with a\ncompost of sod and strong animal manure, say four bushels of hog manure\nto a cartload of sod. Cover the tree\u2014which should be budded at two years\nold\u2014but slightly, and at the end of two years dig a trench round it\nthree feet from the tree and six inches deep, and fill it with lime and\nashes.\n\nFor grapes:\u2014\n\nLet your trench be twelve feet wide and four deep, cover the bottom\nwith paving-stones six inches, then old bricks with mortar attached or\nloose six inches more, then beef-bones, horns, etc., six more (Captain\nBobadil), then a compost similar to the preceding. Set your roots one\nfoot from the north side, the trench running east and west, and bury\neight feet of the vine crosswise the trench, not more than eight inches\nbelow the surface. Cut it down for three or four years, that root may\naccumulate, and then train it from the sun up an inclined plane.\n\n\n_Sept. 28. Tuesday._ I anticipate the coming in of spring as a child\ndoes the approach of some pomp through a gate of the city.\n\n\n_Sept. 30._\n\n     Better wait\n     Than be too late.[292]\n\n\n_Nov. 29. Cambridge._\u2014One must fight his way, after a fashion, even in\nthe most civil and polite society. The most truly kind and gracious have\nto be won by a sort of valor, for the seeds of suspicion seem to lurk in\nevery spadeful of earth, as well as those of confidence. The president\nand librarian turn the cold shoulder to your application, though they\nare known for benevolent persons. They wonder if you can be anything but\na thief, contemplating frauds on the library. It is the instinctive and\nsalutary principle of self-defense; that which makes the cat show her\ntalons when you take her by the paw.[293]\n\nCertainly that valor which can open the hearts of men is superior to\nthat which can only open the gates of cities.[294]\n\nYou must always let people see that they serve themselves more than\nyou,\u2014not by your ingratitude, but by sympathy and congratulation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe twenty-first volume of Chalmers's English Poets contains Hoole's\nand Mickle's Translations. In the shape of a note to the Seventh Book\nof the Lusiad, Mickle has written a long \"Inquiry into the Religious\nTenets and Philosophy of the Bramins.\"\n\n\n_Nov. 30. Tuesday._ Cambridge.\u2014When looking over the dry and dusty\nvolumes of the English poets, I cannot believe that those fresh and\nfair creations I had imagined are contained in them. English poetry\nfrom Gower down, collected into one alcove, and so from the library\nwindow compared with the commonest nature, seems very mean. Poetry\ncannot breathe in the scholar's atmosphere. The Aubreys and Hickeses,\nwith all their learning, prophane it yet indirectly by their zeal. You\nneed not envy his feelings who for the first time has cornered up poetry\nin an alcove. I can hardly be serious with myself when I remember that\nI have come to Cambridge after poetry; and while I am running over\nthe catalogue and collating and selecting, I think if it would not be\na shorter way to a complete volume to step at once into the field or\nwood, with a very low reverence to students and librarians. Milton did\nnot foresee what company he was to fall into.[295] On running over the\ntitles of these books, looking from time to time at their first pages\nor farther, I am oppressed by an inevitable sadness. One must have come\ninto a library by an oriel window, as softly and undisturbed as the\nlight which falls on the books through a stained window, and not by the\nlibrarian's door, else all his dreams will vanish. Can the Valhalla be\nwarmed by steam and go by clock and bell?\n\nGood poetry seems so simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we\nwonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy\nspeech. Though the speech of the poet goes to the heart of things,\nyet he is that one especially who speaks civilly to Nature as a second\nperson and in some sense is the patron of the world. Though more than\nany he stands in the midst of Nature, yet more than any he can stand\naloof from her. The best lines, perhaps, only suggest to me that that\nman simply saw or heard or felt what seems the commonest fact in my\nexperience.\n\nOne will know how to appreciate Chaucer best who has come down to\nhim the natural way through the very meagre pastures of Saxon and\nante-Chaucerian poetry. So human and wise he seems after such diet that\nwe are as liable to misjudge him so as usually.[296]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Saxon poetry extant seems of a more serious and philosophical cast\nthan the very earliest that can be called English. It has more thought,\nbut less music. It translates Bo\u00ebthius, it paraphrases the Hebrew Bible,\nit solemnly sings of war, of life and death, and chronicles events.\nThe earliest English poetry is tinctured with romance through the\ninfluence of the Normans, as the Saxon was not. The ballad and metrical\nromance belong to this period. Those old singers were for the most part\nimitators or translators.[297] Or will it not appear, when viewed at\na sufficient distance, that our brave new poets are also secondary as\nthey, and refer the eye that reads them and their poetry, too, back and\nbackward without end?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing is so attractive and unceasingly curious as character. There\nis no plant that needs such tender treatment, there is none that will\nendure so rough. It is the violet and the oak. It is the thing we mean,\nlet us say what we will. We mean our own character, or we mean yours.\nIt is divine and related to the heavens, as the earth is by the flashes\nof the Aurora. It has no acquaintance nor companion. It goes silent\nand unobserved longer than any planet in space, but when at length it\ndoes show itself, it seems like the flowering of all the world, and\nits before unseen orbit is lit up like the trail of a meteor. I hear\nno good news ever but some trait of a noble character. It reproaches me\nplaintively. I am mean in contrast, but again am thrilled and elevated\nthat I can see my own meanness, and again still, that my own aspiration\nis realized in that other. You reach me, my friend, not by your kind or\nwise words to me here or there; but as you retreat, perhaps after years\nof vain familiarity, some gesture or unconscious action in the distance\nspeaks to me with more emphasis than all those years. I am not concerned\nto know what eighth planet is wandering in space up there, or when Venus\nor Orion rises, but if, in any cot to east or west and set behind the\nwoods, there is any planetary character illuminating the earth.\n\n     Packed in my mind lie all the clothes\n     Which outward nature wears,\n     For, as its hourly fashions change,\n     It all things else repairs.\n\n     My eyes look inward, not without,\n     And I but hear myself,\n     And this new wealth which I have got\n     Is part of my own pelf.\n\n     For while I look for change abroad,\n     I can no difference find,\n     Till some new ray of peace uncalled\n     Lumines my inmost mind,\n\n     As, when the sun streams through the wood,\n     Upon a winter's morn,\n     Where'er his silent beams may stray\n     The murky night is gone.\n\n     How could the patient pine have known\n     The morning breeze would come,\n     Or simple flowers anticipate\n     The insect's noonday hum,\n\n     Till that new light with morning cheer\n     From far streamed through the aisles,\n     And nimbly told the forest trees\n     For many stretching miles?[298]\n\n\n_[Dec.] 12. Sunday._ All music is only a sweet striving to express\ncharacter. Now that lately I have heard of some traits in the character\nof a fair and earnest maiden whom I had only known superficially, but\nwho has gone hence to make herself more known by distance, they sound\nlike strains of a wild harp music. They make all persons and places\nwho had thus forgotten her to seem late and behindhand. Every maiden\nconceals a fairer flower and more luscious fruit than any calyx in the\nfield, and if she go with averted face, confiding in her own purity and\nhigh resolves, she will make the heavens retrospective, and all nature\nwill humbly confess its queen.[299]\n\nThere is apology enough for all the deficiency and shortcoming in the\nworld in the patient waiting of any bud of character to unfold itself.\n\nOnly character can command our reverent love. It is all mysteries in\nitself.\n\n     What is it gilds the trees and clouds\n     And paints the heavens so gay,\n     But yonder fast-abiding light\n     With its unchanging ray?\n\n\n     I've felt within my inmost soul\n     Such cheerful morning news,\n     In the horizon of my mind\n     I've seen such morning hues,\n\n     As in the twilight of the dawn,\n     When the first birds awake,\n     Is heard within some silent wood\n     Where they the small twigs break;\n\n     Or in the eastern skies is seen\n     Before the sun appears,\n     Foretelling of the summer heats\n     Which far away he bears.\n\nP. M. Walden.\u2014I seem to discern the very form of the wind when, blowing\nover the hills, it falls in broad flakes upon the surface of the pond,\nthis subtle element obeying the same law with the least subtle. As it\nfalls it spreads itself like a mass of lead dropped upon an anvil. I\ncannot help being encouraged by this blithe activity in the elements in\nthese degenerate days of men. Who hears the rippling of the rivers will\nnot utterly despair of anything. The wind in the wood yonder sounds like\nan incessant waterfall, the water dashing and roaring among rocks.\n\n\n_[Dec.] 13. Monday._ We constantly anticipate repose. Yet it surely\ncan only be the repose that is in entire and healthy activity. It must\nbe a repose without rust. What is leisure but opportunity for more\ncomplete and entire action? Our energies pine for exercise. That time\nwe spend in our duties is so much leisure, so that there is no man but\nhas sufficient of it.\n\nI make my own time, I make my own terms. I cannot see how God or Nature\ncan ever get the start of me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis ancient Scotch poetry, at which its contemporaries so marvelled,\nsounds like the uncertain lisping of a child. When man's speech\nflows freest it but stutters and stammers. There is never a free and\nclear deliverance; but, read now when the illusion of smooth verse\nis destroyed by the antique spelling, the sense is seen to stammer\nand stumble all the plainer. To how few thoughts do all these sincere\nefforts give utterance! An hour's conversation with these men would have\ndone more. I am astonished to find how meagre that diet is which has fed\nso many men. The music of sound, which is all-sufficient at first, is\nspeedily lost, and then the fame of the poet must rest on the music of\nthe sense. A great philosophical and moral poet would give permanence\nto the language by making the best sound convey the best sense.\n\n\n_[Dec.] 14. Tuesday._ To hear the sunset described by the old Scotch\npoet Douglas, as I have seen it, repays me for many weary pages of\nantiquated Scotch. Nothing so restores and humanizes antiquity and makes\nit blithe as the discovery of some natural sympathy between it and the\npresent. Why is it that there is something melancholy in antiquity? We\nforget that it had any other future than our present. As if it were not\nas near to _the_ future as ourselves! No, thank heavens, these ranks of\nmen to right and left, posterity and ancestry, are not to be thridded by\nany earnest mortal. The heavens stood over the heads of our ancestors as\nnear as to us. Any living word in their books abolishes the difference\nof time. It need only be considered from the present standpoint.\n\n\n_[Dec.] 15. Wednesday._ A mild summer sun shines over forest and lake.\nThe earth looks as fair this morning as the Valhalla of the gods.\nIndeed our spirits never go beyond nature. In the woods there is an\ninexpressible happiness. Their mirth is but just repressed. In winter,\nwhen there is but one green leaf for many rods, what warm content is in\nthem! They are not rude, but tender, even in the severest cold. Their\nnakedness is their defense. All their sounds and sights are elixir to my\nspirit. They possess a divine health. God is not more well. Every sound\nis inspiriting and fraught with the same mysterious assurance, from the\ncreaking of the boughs in January to the soft sough of the wind in July.\n\nHow much of my well-being, think you, depends on the condition of my\nlungs and stomach,\u2014such cheap pieces of Nature as they, which, indeed,\nshe is every day reproducing with prodigality. Is the arrow indeed fatal\nwhich rankles in the breast of the bird on the bough, in whose eye all\nthis fair landscape is reflected, and whose voice still echoes through\nthe wood?\n\nThe trees have come down to the bank to see the river go by. This\nold, familiar river is renewed each instant; only the channel is the\nsame.[300] The water which so calmly reflects the fleeting clouds and\nthe primeval trees I have never seen before. It may have washed some\ndistant shore, or framed a glacier or iceberg at the north, when I last\nstood here. Seen through a mild atmosphere, the works of the husbandman,\nhis plowing and reaping, have a beauty to the beholder which the laborer\nnever sees.[301]\n\nI seem to see somewhat more of my own kith and kin in the lichens on\nthe rocks than in any books. It does seem as if mine were a peculiarly\nwild nature, which so yearns toward all wildness. I know of no redeeming\nqualities in me but a sincere love for some things, and when I am\nreproved I have to fall back on to this ground.[302] This is my argument\nin reserve for all cases. My love is invulnerable. Meet me on that\nground, and you will find me strong. When I am condemned, and condemn\nmyself utterly, I think straightway, \"But I rely on my love for some\nthings.\" Therein I am whole and entire. Therein I am God-propped.\n\nWhen I see the smoke curling up through the woods from some farmhouse\ninvisible, it is more suggestive of the poetry of rural and domestic\nlife than a nearer inspection can be. Up goes the smoke as quietly as\nthe dew exhales in vapor from these pine leaves and oaks; as busy,\ndisposing itself in circles and in wreaths, as the housewife on the\nhearth below. It is cotemporary with a piece of human biography, and\nwaves as a feather in some _man's_ cap. Under that rod of sky there is\nsome plot a-brewing, some ingenuity has planted itself, and we shall see\nwhat it will do. It tattles of more things than the boiling of the pot.\nIt is but one of man's breaths. All that is interesting in history or\nfiction is transpiring beneath that cloud. The subject of all life and\ndeath, of happiness and grief, goes thereunder.\n\n  [Illustration: _Winter Landscape from Fair Haven Hill_]\n\nWhen the traveller in the forest, attaining to some eminence, descries a\ncolumn of smoke in the distance, it is a very gentle hint to him of the\npresence of man. It seems as if it would establish friendly relations\nbetween them without more ado.[303]\n\n\n_[Dec.] 18. Saturday._ Some men make their due impression upon their\ngeneration, because a petty occasion is enough to call forth all their\nenergies; but are there not others who would rise to much higher levels,\nwhom the world has never provoked to make the effort? I believe there\nare men now living who have never opened their mouths in a public\nassembly, in whom nevertheless there is such a well of eloquence that\nthe appetite of any age could never exhaust it; who pine for an occasion\nworthy of them, and will pine till they are dead; who can admire, as\nwell as the rest, at the flowing speech of the orator, but do yet miss\nthe thunder and lightning and visible sympathy of the elements which\nwould garnish their own utterance.\n\nIf in any strait I see a man fluttered and his ballast gone, then I\nlose all hope of him, he is undone; but if he reposes still, though he\ndo nothing else worthy of him, if he is still a man in reserve, then is\nthere everything to hope of him. The age may well go pine itself that it\ncannot put to use this gift of the gods. He lives on, still unconcerned,\nnot needing to be used. The greatest occasion will be the slowest to\ncome.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSometimes a particular body of men do unconsciously assert that their\nwill is fate, that the right is decided by their fiat without appeal,\nand when this is the case they can never be mistaken; as when one man is\nquite silenced by the thrilling eloquence of another, and submits to be\nneglected as to his fate, because such is not the willful vote of the\nassembly, but their instinctive decision.\n\n\n_Dec. 23. Thursday._ Concord.\u2014The best man's spirit makes a fearful\nsprite to haunt his tomb. The ghost of a priest is no better than that\nof a highwayman. It is pleasant to hear of one who has blest whole\nregions after his death by having frequented them while alive, who has\nprophaned or tabooed no place by being buried in it.[304] It adds not\na little to the fame of Little John that his grave was long \"celebrous\nfor the yielding of excellent whetstones.\"[305]\n\nA forest is in all mythologies a sacred place, as the oaks among the\nDruids and the grove of Egeria; and even in more familiar and common\nlife a celebrated wood is spoken of with respect, as \"Barnsdale Wood\"\nand \"Sherwood.\" Had Robin Hood no Sherwood to resort [to], it would\nbe difficult to invest his story with the charms it has got. It is\nalways the tale that is untold, the deeds done and the life lived in\nthe unexplored secrecy of the wood, that charm us and make us children\nagain,\u2014to read his ballads, and hear of the greenwood tree.\n\n\n_Dec. 24. Friday._ I want to go soon and live away by the pond, where I\nshall hear only the wind whispering among the reeds. It will be success\nif I shall have left myself behind. But my friends ask what I will do\nwhen I get there. Will it not be employment enough to watch the progress\nof the seasons?[306]\n\n\n_Dec. 25. Saturday._ It does seem as if Nature did for a long time\ngently overlook the prophanity of man. The wood still kindly echoes\nthe strokes of the axe, and when the strokes are few and seldom, they\nadd a new charm to a walk. All the elements strive to _naturalize_ the\nsound.[307]\n\nSuch is our sympathy with the seasons that we experience the same degree\nof heat in the winter as in the summer.\n\nIt is not a true apology for any coarseness to say that it is natural.\nThe grim woods can afford to be very delicate and perfect in the\ndetails.\n\nI don't want to feel as if my life were a sojourn any longer. That\nphilosophy cannot be true which so paints it. It is time now that I\nbegin to live.\n\n\n_Dec. 26. Sunday._ He is the rich man and enjoys the fruits of riches,\nwho, summer and winter forever, can find delight in the contemplation\nof his soul. I could look as unweariedly up to that cope as into the\nheavens of a summer day or a winter night. When I hear this bell ring,\nI am carried back to years and Sabbaths when I was newer and more\ninnocent, I fear, than now, and it seems to me as if there were a world\nwithin a world. Sin, I am sure, is not in overt acts or, indeed, in acts\nof any kind, but is in proportion to the time which has come behind us\nand displaced eternity,\u2014that degree to which our elements are mixed with\nthe elements of the world. The whole duty of life is contained in the\nquestion how to respire and aspire both at once.\n\n\n_Dec. 29. Wednesday._ One does not soon learn the trade of life. That\none may work out a true life requires more art and delicate skill than\nany other work. There is need of the nice fingers of the girl as well\nas the tough hand of the farmer. The daily work is too often toughening\nthe pericarp of the heart as well as the hand. Great familiarity with\nthe world must be nicely managed, lest it win away and bereave us of\nsome susceptibility. Experience bereaves us of our innocence; wisdom\nbereaves us of our ignorance. Let us walk in the world without learning\nits ways. Whole weeks or months of my summer life slide away in thin\nvolumes like mist or smoke, till at length some warm morning, perchance,\nI see a sheet of mist blown down the brook to the swamp, its shadow\nflitting across the fields, which have caught a new significance from\nthat accident; and as that vapor is raised above the earth, so shall\nthe next weeks be elevated above the plane of the actual;[308] or when\nthe setting sun slants across the pastures, and the cows low to my\ninward ear and only enhance the stillness, and the eve is as the dawn,\na beginning hour and not a final one, as if it would never have done,\nwith its clear western amber inciting men to lives of as limpid purity.\nThen do other parts of my day's work shine than I had thought at noon,\nfor I discover the real purport of my toil, as, when the husbandman has\nreached the end of the furrow and looks back, he can best tell where\nthe pressed earth shines most.[309]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll true greatness runs as level a course, and is as unaspiring, as\nthe plow in the furrow. It wears the homeliest dress and speaks the\nhomeliest language. Its theme is gossamer and dew lines, johnswort\nand loosestrife, for it has never stirred from its repose and is most\nignorant of foreign parts. Heaven is the inmost place. The good have\nnot to travel far. What cheer may we not derive from the thought that\nour courses do not diverge, and we wend not asunder, but as the web of\ndestiny is woven it [is] fulled, and we are cast more and more into the\ncentre! And our fates even are social.[310] There is no wisdom which can\ntake [the] place of humanity, and I find that in old Chaucer that love\nrings longest which rhymes best with some saw of Milton's or Edmunds's.\nI wish I could be as still as God is. I can recall to my mind the\nstillest summer hour, in which the grasshopper sings over the mulleins,\nand there is a valor in that time the memory of which is armor that can\nlaugh at any blow of fortune. A man should go out [of] nature with the\nchirp of the cricket or the trill of the veery ringing in his ear. These\nearthly sounds should only die away for a season, as the strains of the\nharp rise and swell. Death is that expressive pause in the music of the\nblast.[311] I would be as clean as ye, O woods. I shall not rest till\nI be as innocent as you. I know that I shall sooner or later attain to\nan unspotted innocence, for when I consider that state even now I am\nthrilled.\n\nIf we were wise enough, we should see to what virtue we were indebted\nfor any happier moment we might have, nor doubt we had earned this at\nsome time.\n\nThese motions everywhere in nature must surely [be] the circulations of\nGod. The flowing sail, the running stream, the waving tree, the roving\nwind,\u2014whence else their infinite health and freedom?[312] I can see\nnothing so proper and holy as unrelaxed play and frolic in this bower\nGod has built for us. The suspicion of sin never comes to this thought.\nOh, if men felt this they would never build temples even of marble\nor diamond, but it would be sacrilege and prophane, but disport them\nforever in this paradise.\n\nIn the coldest day it melts somewhere.\n\nIt seems as if only one trait, one little incident in human biography,\nneed to be said or written in some era, that all readers may go mad\nafter it, and the man who did the miracle is made a demigod henceforth.\nWhat we all do, not one can tell; and when some lucky speaker utters a\ntruth of our experience and not of our speculation, we think he must\nhave had the nine Muses and the three Graces to help him. I can at\nlength stretch me when I come to Chaucer's breadth; and I think, \"Well,\nI could be _that_ man's acquaintance,\"[313] for he walked in that low\nand retired way that I do, and was not too good to live. I am grieved\nwhen they hint of any unmanly submissions he may have made, for that\nsubtracts from his breadth and humanity.\n\n\n_Dec. 30. Thursday._ I admire Chaucer for a sturdy English wit. The easy\nheight he speaks from in his Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is as good\nas anything in it,\u2014as if he were indeed better than any of the company\nthere assembled.[314]\n\nThe poet does not have to go out of himself and cease to tattle of his\ndomestic affairs, to win our confidence, but is so broad that we see no\nlimits to his sympathy.\n\nGreat delicacy and gentleness of character is constantly displayed in\nChaucer's verse. The simplest and humblest words come readily to his\nlips. The natural innocence of the man appears in the simple and pure\nspirit in which \"The Prioresses Tale\" is conceived, in which the child\nsings _O alma redemptoris mater_, and in the account of the departure of\nCustance with her child upon the sea, in \"The Man of Lawes Tale.\"[315]\nThe whole story of Chanticleer and Dame Partlet in \"The Nonnes Preestes\nTale\" is genuine humanity. I know nothing better in its kind. The poets\nseem to be only more frank and plain-spoken than other men. Their verse\nis but confessions. They always confide in the reader, and speak privily\nwith him, keeping nothing back.[316]\n\nI know of no safe rule by which to judge of the purity of a former age\nbut that I see that the impure of the present age are not apt to rise\nto noble sentiments when they speak or write, and suspect, therefore,\nthat there may be more truth than is allowed in the apology that such\nwas the manner of the age.[317]\n\n     Within the circuit of this plodding life,\n     There are moments of an azure hue\n     And as unspotted fair as is the violet\n     Or anemone, when the spring strews them\n     By some south woodside; which make untrue\n     The best philosophy which has so poor an aim\n     But to console man for his grievance here.\n     I have remembered when the winter came,\n     High in my chamber in the frosty nights,\n     How in the summer past some\n     Unrecorded beam slanted across\n     Some upland pasture where the Johnswort grew,\n     Or heard, amidst the verdure of my mind, the bee's\n          long-smothered hum,\n     So by the cheap economy of God made rich to go upon\n          my wintry work again.\n     In the still, cheerful cold of winter nights,\n     When, in the cold light of the moon,\n     On every twig and rail and jutting spout\n     The icy spears are doubling their length\n     Against the glancing arrows of the sun,\n     And the shrunk wheels creak along the way,\n     Some summer accident long past\n     Of lakelet gleaming in the July beams,\n     Or hum of bee under the blue flag,\n     Loitering in the meads, or busy rill\n     which now stands dumb and still,\n     its own memorial, purling at its play along the slopes,\n     and through the meadows next, till that its sound was\n     quenched in the staid current of its parent stream.\n\nIn memory is the more reality. I have seen how the furrows shone but\nlate upturned, and where the fieldfare followed in the rear, when all\nthe fields stood bound and hoar beneath a thick integument of snow.[318]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the snow is falling thick and fast, the flakes nearest you seem\nto be driving straight to the ground, while the more distant seem to\nfloat in the air in a quivering bank, like feathers, or like birds at\nplay, and not as if sent on any errand. So, at a little distance, all\nthe works of Nature proceed with sport and frolic. They are more in the\neye and less in the deed.\n\n\n_Dec. 31. Friday._ Books of natural history make the most cheerful\nwinter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when\nthe snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys,\nand their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree,\nand the migrations of the rice-bird; or of the breaking up of winter\nin Labrador. I seem to hear the melting of the snow on the forks of\nthe Missouri as I read. I imbibe some portion of health from these\nreminiscences of luxuriant nature.\n\nThere is a singular health for me in those words Labrador and East\nMain which no desponding creed recognizes. How much more than federal\nare these States! If there were no other vicissitudes but the seasons,\nwith their attendant and consequent changes, our interest would never\nflag. Much more is a-doing than Congress wots of in the winter season.\nWhat journal do the persimmon and buckeye keep, or the sharp-shinned\nhawk? What is transpiring from summer to winter in the Carolinas,\nand the Great Pine Forest, and the Valley of the Mohawk? The merely\npolitical aspect of the land is never very cheering. Men are degraded\nwhen considered as the members of a political organization. As a nation\nthe people never utter one great and healthy word. From this side all\nnations present only the symptoms of disease. I see but Bunker's Hill\nand Sing Sing, the District of Columbia and Sullivan's Island, with a\nfew avenues connecting them. But paltry are all these beside one blast\nof the east or south wind which blows over them all.\n\nIn society you will not find health, but in nature. You must converse\nmuch with the field and woods, if you would imbibe such health into your\nmind and spirit as you covet for your body. Society is always diseased,\nand the best is the sickest. There is no scent in it so wholesome as\nthat of the pines, nor any fragrance so penetrating and restorative as\nthat of everlasting in high pastures. Without that our feet at least\nstood in the midst of nature, all our faces would be pale and livid.\n\nI should like to keep some book of natural history always by me as\na sort of elixir, the reading of which would restore the tone of my\nsystem and secure me true and cheerful views of life. For to the sick,\nnature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health. To the soul that\ncontemplates some trait of natural beauty no harm nor disappointment\ncan come. The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political servitude,\nno priestcraft nor tyranny, was ever [_sic_] taught by such as drank in\nthe harmony of nature.[319]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n1842\n\n(\u00c6T. 24-25)\n\n\n_Jan. 1._ Virtue is the deed of the bravest. It is that art which\ndemands the greatest confidence and fearlessness. Only some hardy\nsoul ventures upon it. Virtue is a bravery so hardy that it deals in\nwhat it has no experience in. The virtuous soul possesses a fortitude\nand hardihood which not the grenadier nor pioneer can match. It never\nshrunk. It goes singing to its work. Effort is its relaxation. The rude\npioneer work of this world has been done by the most devoted worshippers\nof beauty.[320] Their resolution has possessed a keener edge than the\nsoldier's. In winter is their campaign; they never go into quarters.\nThey are elastic under the heaviest burden, under the extremest physical\nsuffering.\n\nMethinks good courage will not flag here on the Atlantic border as long\nas we are outflanked by the _Fur Countries_. There is enough in that\nsound to cheer one under any circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock,\nand the pine will not countenance despair. Methinks some creeds in\nvestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the\nGreat Slave Lake, or how the Esquimaux sledges are drawn by dogs, and\nin the twilight of the northern night the hunter does not give over\nto follow the seal and walrus over the ice. These men are sick and\nof diseased imaginations who would toll the world's knell so soon.\nCannot these sedentary sects do better than prepare the shrouds and\nwrite the epitaphs of those other busy living men? The practical faith\nof men belies the preacher's consolation. This is the creed of the\nhypochondriac.[321]\n\nThere is no infidelity so great as that which prays, and keeps the\nSabbath, and founds churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches\na truer doctrine. The church is the hospital for men's souls, but the\nreflection that he may one day occupy a ward in it should not discourage\nthe cheerful labors of the able-bodied man. Let him remember the sick\nin their extremities, but not look thither as to his goal.[322]\n\n\n_Jan. 2. Sunday._ The ringing of the church bell is a much more\nmelodious sound than any that is heard within the church. All great\nvalues are thus public, and undulate like sound through the atmosphere.\nWealth cannot purchase any great private solace or convenience. Riches\nare only the means of sociality. I will depend on the extravagance\nof my neighbors for my luxuries, for they will take care to pamper\nme if I will be overfed. The poor man who sacrificed nothing for the\ngratification seems to derive a safer and more natural enjoyment from\nhis neighbor's extravagance than he does himself. It is a new natural\nproduct, from the contemplation of which he derives new vigor and solace\nas from a natural phenomenon.\n\nIn moments of quiet and leisure my thoughts are more apt to revert to\nsome natural than any human relation.\n\nChaucer's sincere sorrow in his latter days for the grossness of\nhis earlier works, and that he \"cannot recall and annul\" what he had\n\"written of the base and filthy love of men towards women; but alas they\nare now continued from man to man,\" says he, \"and I cannot do what I\ndesire,\" is all very creditable to his character.\n\nChaucer is the make-weight of his century,\u2014a worthy representative\nof England while Petrarch and Boccaccio lived in Italy, and Tell and\nTamerlane in Switzerland and Asia, and Bruce and Rienzi in Europe, and\nWickliffe and Gower in his own land. Edward III and John of Gaunt and\nthe Black Prince complete the company. The fame of Roger Bacon came\ndown from the preceding century, and Dante, though just departed, still\nexerted the influence of a living presence.[323]\n\nWith all his grossness he is not undistinguished for the tenderness\nand delicacy of his muse. A simple pathos and feminine gentleness is\npeculiar to him which not even Wordsworth can match.[324] And then his\nbest passages of length are marked by a happy and healthy wit which is\nrather rare in the poetry of any nation. On the whole, he impresses\nme as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and\nShakespeare, for he would have held up his head in their company. Among\nthe earliest English poets he is their landlord and host, and has the\nauthority of such. We read him with affection and without criticism,\nfor he pleads no cause, but speaks for us, his readers, always. He has\nthat greatness of trust and reliance which compels popularity. He is\nfor a whole country and country [_sic_] to know and to be proud of.\nThe affectionate mention which succeeding early poets make of him,\ncoupling him with Homer and Virgil, is also to be taken into the account\nin estimating his character. King James and Dunbar of Scotland speak\nwith more love and reverence of him than any cotemporary poet of his\npredecessors of the last century. That childlike relation, indeed, does\nnot seem to exist now which was then.[325]\n\n\n_Jan. 3. Monday._ It is pleasant when one can relieve the grossness of\nthe kitchen and the table by the simple beauty of his repast, so that\nthere may be anything in it to attract the eye of the artist even. I\nhave been popping corn to-night, which is only a more rapid blossoming\nof the seed under a greater than July heat. The popped corn is a perfect\nwinter flower, hinting of anemones and houstonias. For this little grace\nman has, mixed in with the vulgarness of his repast, he may well thank\nhis stars. The law by which flowers unfold their petals seems only to\nhave operated more suddenly under the intense heat. It looks like a\nsympathy in this seed of the corn with its sisters of the vegetable\nkingdom, as if by preference it assumed the flower form rather than the\ncrystalline. Here has bloomed for my repast such a delicate blossom as\nwill soon spring by the wall-sides. And this is as it should be. Why\nshould not Nature revel sometimes, and genially relax and make herself\nfamiliar at my board? I would have my house a bower fit to entertain\nher. It is a feast of such innocence as might have snowed down. By my\nwarm hearth sprang these cerealious blossoms; here was the bank where\nthey grew.\n\nMethinks some such visible token of approval would always accompany the\nsimple and healthy repast. There would be such a smiling and blessing\nupon it. Our appetite should always be so related to our taste, and the\nboard we spread for its gratification be an epitome of the universal\ntable which Nature sets by hill and wood and stream for her dumb\npensioners.[326]\n\n\n_Jan. 5. Wednesday._ I find that whatever hindrances may occur I write\njust about the same amount of truth in my Journal; for the record\nis more concentrated, and usually it is some very real and earnest\nlife, after all, that interrupts. All flourishes are omitted. If I saw\nwood from morning to night, though I grieve that I could not observe\nthe train of my thoughts during that time, yet, in the evening, the\nfew scrannel lines which describe my day's occupations will make the\ncreaking of the saw more musical than my freest fancies could have been.\nI find incessant labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention\nalso, the best method to remove palaver out of one's style. One will\nnot dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before the night\nfalls in the short days of winter; but every stroke will be husbanded,\nand ring soberly through the wood; and so will his lines ring and tell\non the ear, when at evening he settles the accounts of the day. I have\noften been astonished at the force and precision of style to which\nbusy laboring men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when they\nare required to make the effort. It seems as if their sincerity and\nplainness were the main thing to be taught in schools,\u2014and yet not in\nthe schools, but in the fields, in actual service, I should say. The\nscholar not unfrequently envies the propriety and emphasis with which\nthe farmer calls to his team, and confesses that if that lingo were\nwritten it would surpass his labored sentences.\n\nWho is not tired of the weak and flowing periods of the politician\nand scholar, and resorts not even to the Farmer's Almanac, to read the\nsimple account of the month's labor, to restore his tone again? I want\nto see a sentence run clear through to the end, as deep and fertile\nas a well-drawn furrow which shows that the plow was pressed down to\nthe beam. If our scholars would lead more earnest lives, we should not\nwitness those lame conclusions to their ill-sown discourses, but their\nsentences would pass over the ground like loaded rollers, and not mere\nhollow and wooden ones, to press in the seed and make it germinate.\n\nA well-built sentence, in the rapidity and force with which it works,\nmay be compared to a modern corn-planter, which furrows out, drops the\nseed, and covers it up at one movement.[327]\n\nThe scholar requires hard labor as an impetus to his pen. He will learn\nto grasp it as firmly and wield it as gracefully and effectually as an\naxe or a sword. When I consider the labored periods of some gentleman\nscholar, who perchance in feet and inches comes up to the standard of\nhis race, and is nowise deficient in girth, I am amazed at the immense\nsacrifice of thews and sinews. What! these proportions and these bones,\nand this their work! How these hands hewed this fragile matter, mere\nfilagree or embroidery fit for ladies' fingers! Can this be a stalwart\nman's work, who has marrow in his backbone and a tendon Achilles in his\nheel? They who set up Stonehenge did somewhat,\u2014much in comparison,\u2014if\nit were only their strength was once fairly laid out, and they stretched\nthemselves.[328]\n\nI discover in Raleigh's verses the vices of the courtier. They are\nnot equally sustained, as if his noble genius were warped by the\nfrivolous society of the court. He was capable of rising to a remarkable\nelevation. His poetry has for the most part a heroic tone and vigor\nas of a knight errant. But again there seems to have been somewhat\nunkindly in his education, and as if he had by no means grown up to be\nthe man he promised. He was apparently too genial and loyal a soul, or\nrather he was incapable of resisting temptations from that quarter. If\nto his genius and culture he could have added the temperament of Fox or\nCromwell, the world would have had cause longer to remember him. He was\nthe pattern of nobility. One would have said it was by some lucky fate\nthat he and Shakespeare flourished at the same time in England, and yet\nwhat do we know of their acquaintanceship?\n\n\n_Jan. 7. Friday._ I am singularly refreshed in winter when I hear tell\nof service-berries, pokeweed, juniper. Is not heaven made up of these\ncheap summer glories?[329]\n\nThe great God is very calm withal. How superfluous is any excitement\nin his creatures! He listens equally to the prayers of the believer\nand the unbeliever. The moods of man should unfold and alternate as\ngradually and placidly as those of nature. The sun shines for aye! The\nsudden revolutions of these times and this generation have acquired a\nvery exaggerated importance. They do not interest me much, for they are\nnot in harmony with the longer periods of nature. The present, in any\naspect in which it can be presented to the smallest audience, is always\nmean. God does not sympathize with the popular movements.\n\n\n_Jan. 8. Saturday._ When, as now, in January a south wind melts\nthe snow, and the bare ground appears, covered with sere grass and\noccasionally wilted green leaves which seem in doubt whether to let go\ntheir greenness quite or absorb new juices against the coming year,\u2014in\nsuch a season a perfume seems to exhale from the earth itself and the\nsouth wind melts my integuments also. Then is she my mother earth. I\nderive a real vigor from the scent of the gale wafted over the naked\nground, as from strong meats, and realize again how man is the pensioner\nof Nature. We are always conciliated and cheered when we are fed by\n[such] an influence, and our needs are felt to be part of the domestic\neconomy of Nature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat offends me most in my compositions is the moral element in them.\nThe repentant say never a brave word. Their resolves should be mumbled\nin silence. Strictly speaking, morality is not healthy. Those undeserved\njoys which come uncalled and make us more pleased than grateful are they\nthat sing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne music seems to differ from another chiefly in its more perfect time,\nto use this word in a true sense. In the steadiness and equanimity of\nmusic lies its divinity. It is the only assured tone.[330] When men\nattain to speak with as settled a faith and as firm assurance, their\nvoices will sing and their feet march as do the feet of the soldier.\nThe very dogs howl if time is disregarded. Because of the perfect\ntime of this music-box\u2014its harmony with itself\u2014is its greater dignity\nand stateliness. This music is more nobly related for its more exact\nmeasure. So simple a difference as this more even pace raises it to the\nhigher dignity.\n\nMan's progress through nature should have an accompaniment of music. It\nrelieves the scenery, which is seen through it as a subtler element,\nlike a very clear morning air in autumn. Music wafts me through the\nclear, sultry valleys, with only a slight gray vapor against the hills.\n\nOf what manner of stuff is the web of time wove, when these consecutive\nsounds called a strain of music can be wafted down through the centuries\nfrom Homer to me, and Homer have been conversant with that same\nunfathomable mystery and charm which so newly tingles my ears?[331]\nThese single strains, these melodious cadences which plainly proceed\nout of a very deep meaning and a sustained soul, are the interjections\nof God. They are perhaps the expression of the perfect knowledge which\nthe righteous at length attain to. Am I so like thee, my brother, that\nthe cadence of two notes affects us alike? Shall I not some time have\nan opportunity to thank him who made music? I feel a sad cheer when I\nhear these lofty strains,[332] because there must be something in me as\nlofty that hears. But ah, I hear them but rarely! Does it not rather\nhear me? If my blood were clogged in my veins, I am sure it would run\nmore freely. God must be very rich, who, for the turning of a pivot,\ncan pour out such melody on me. It is a little prophet; it tells me\nthe secrets of futurity. Where are its secrets wound up but in this\nbox?[333] So much hope had slumbered. There are in music such strains\nas far surpass any faith in the loftiness of man's destiny.[334] He must\nbe very sad before he can comprehend them. The clear, liquid notes from\nthe morning fields beyond seem to come through a vale of sadness to man,\nwhich gives all music a plaintive air. It hath caught a higher pace than\nany virtue I know. It is the arch-reformer. It hastens the sun to his\nsetting. It invites him to his rising. It is the sweetest reproach, a\nmeasured satire. I know there is a people somewhere [where] this heroism\nhas place. Or else things are to be learned which it will be sweet\nto learn.[335] This cannot be all rumor. When I hear this, I think of\nthat everlasting and stable something which is not sound, but to be a\nthrilling reality, and can consent to go about the meanest work for as\nmany years of time as it pleases even the Hindoo penance, for a year\nof the gods were as nothing to that which shall come after. What, then,\ncan I do to hasten that other time, or that space where there shall be\nno time, and these things be a more living part of my life,\u2014where there\nwill be no discords in my life?\n\n\n_Jan. 9. Sunday._ One cannot too soon forget his errors and\nmisdemeanors; for [to] dwell long upon them is to add to the offense,\nand repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by somewhat better,\nand which is as free and original as if they had not been. Not to\ngrieve long for any action, but to go immediately and do freshly and\notherwise, subtracts so much from the wrong. Else we may make the delay\nof repentance the punishment of the sin. But a great nature will not\nconsider its sins as its own, but be more absorbed in the prospect of\nthat valor and virtue for the future which is more properly it, than in\nthose improper actions which, by being sins, discover themselves to be\nnot it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSir W. Raleigh's faults are those of a courtier and a soldier. In his\ncounsels and aphorisms we see not unfrequently the haste and rashness\nof a boy. His philosophy was not wide nor deep, but continually giving\nway to the generosity of his nature. What he touches he adorns by his\ngreater humanity and native nobleness, but he touches not the true nor\noriginal. He thus embellishes the old, but does not unfold the new. He\nseems to have been fitted by his genius for short flights of impulsive\npoetry, but not for the sustained loftiness of Shakespeare or Milton.\nHe was not wise nor a seer in any sense, but rather one of nature's\nnobility; the most generous nature which can be spared to linger in the\npurlieus of the court.\n\nHis was a singularly perverted genius, with such an inclination to\noriginality and freedom, and yet who never steered his own course. Of\nso fair and susceptible a nature, rather than broad or deep, that he\ndelayed to slake his thirst at the nearest and even more turbid wells\nof truth and beauty. Whose homage to the least fair or noble left no\nspace for homage to the all fair. The misfortune of his circumstances,\nor rather of the man, appears in the fact that he was the author of\n\"Maxims of State\" and \"The Cabinet Council\" and \"The Soul's Errand.\"\n\n\n_Feb. 19. Saturday._ I never yet saw two men sufficiently great to meet\nas two. In proportion as they are great the differences are fatal,\nbecause they are felt not to be partial but total. Frankness to him\nwho is unlike me will lead to the utter denial of him. I begin to see\nhow that the preparation for all issues is to do virtuously. When two\napproach to meet, they incur no petty dangers, but they run terrible\nrisks. Between the sincere there will be no civilities. No greatness\nseems prepared for the little decorum, even savage unmannerliness, it\nmeets from equal greatness.\n\n\n_Feb. 20. Sunday._ \"Examine animal forms geometrically, from man, who\nrepresents the perpendicular, to the reptile which forms the horizontal\nline, and then applying to those forms the rules of the exact sciences,\nwhich God himself cannot change, we shall see that visible nature\ncontains them all; that the combinations of the seven primitive forms\nare entirely exhausted, and that, therefore, they can represent all\npossible varieties of morality.\"\u2014From \"The True Messiah; or the Old and\nNew Testaments, examined according to the Principles of the Language of\nNature. By G. Segger,\" translated from French by Grater.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am amused to see from my window here how busily man has divided and\nstaked off his domain. God must smile at his puny fences running hither\nand thither everywhere over the land.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy path hitherto has been like a road through a diversified country,\nnow climbing high mountains, then descending into the lowest vales.\nFrom the summits I saw the heavens; from the vales I looked up to the\nheights again. In prosperity I remember God, or memory is one with\nconsciousness; in adversity I remember my own elevations, and only hope\nto see God again.\n\nIt is vain to talk. What do you want? To bandy words, or deliver some\ngrains of truth which stir within you? Will you make a pleasant rumbling\nsound after feasting, for digestion's sake, or such music as the birds\nin springtime?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe death of friends should inspire us as much as their lives. If they\nare great and rich enough, they will leave consolation to the mourners\nbefore the expenses of their funerals.[336] It will not be hard to part\nwith any worth, because it is worthy. How can any good depart? It does\nnot go and come, but we. Shall we wait for it? Is it slower than we?\n\n\n_Feb. 21._ I must confess there is nothing so strange to me as my own\nbody. I love any other piece of nature, almost, better.\n\nI was always conscious of sounds in nature which my ears could never\nhear,\u2014that I caught but the prelude to a strain. She always retreats as\nI advance. Away behind and behind is she and her meaning. Will not this\nfaith and expectation make to itself ears at length? I never saw to the\nend, nor heard to the end; but the best part was unseen and unheard.\n\nI am like a feather floating in the atmosphere; on every side is depth\nunfathomable.\n\nI feel as if years had been crowded into the last month,[337] and yet\nthe regularity of what we call time has been so far preserved as that\nI[338] ... will be welcome in the present. I have lived ill for the\nmost part because too near myself. I have tripped myself up, so that\nthere was no progress for my own narrowness. I cannot walk conveniently\nand pleasantly but when I hold myself far off in the horizon. And the\nsoul dilutes the body and makes it passable. My soul and body have\ntottered along together of late, tripping and hindering one another like\nunpracticed Siamese twins. They two should walk as one, that no obstacle\nmay be nearer than the firmament.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere must be some narrowness in the soul that compels one to have\nsecrets.\n\n\n_Feb. 23. Wednesday._ Every poet's muse is circumscribed in her\nwanderings, and may be well said to haunt some favorite spring or\nmountain. Chaucer seems to have been the poet of gardens. He has hardly\nleft a poem in which some retired and luxurious retreat of the kind is\nnot described, to which he gains access by some secret port, and there,\nby some fount or grove, is found his hero and the scene of his tale. It\nseems as if, by letting his imagination riot in the matchless beauty\nof an ideal garden, he thus fed [_sic_] his fancy on to the invention\nof a tale which would fit the scene. The muse of the most universal\npoet retires into some familiar nook, whence it spies out the land as\nthe eagle from his eyrie, for he who sees so far over plain and forest\nis perched in a narrow cleft of the crag. Such pure childlike love of\nNature is nowhere to be matched.[339] And it is not strange that the\npoetry of so rude an age should contain such polished praise of Nature;\nfor the charms of Nature are not enhanced by civilization, as society\nis, but she possesses a permanent refinement, which at last subdues and\neducates men.\n\nThe reader has great confidence in Chaucer. He tells no lies. You read\nhis story with a smile, as if it were the circumlocution of a child,\nand yet you find that he has spoke with more directness and economy of\nwords than a sage. He is never heartless. So new was all his theme in\nthose days, that [he] had not to invent, but only to tell.[340]\n\nThe language of poetry is _infantile_. It cannot talk.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is the charm and greatness of all society, from friendship to the\ndrawing-room, that it takes place on a level slightly higher than the\nactual characters of the parties would warrant;[341] it is an expression\nof faith. True politeness is only hope and trust in men. It never\naddresses a fallen or falling man, but salutes a rising generation. It\ndoes not flatter, but only congratulates. The rays of light come to us\nin such a curve that every fellow in the street appears higher than he\nreally is. It is the innate civility of nature.[342]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am glad that it was so because it could be.\n\n\n_March 1._ Whatever I learn from any circumstances, that especially I\nneeded to know. Events come out of God, and our characters determine\nthem and constrain fate, as much as they determine the words and tone\nof a friend to us. Hence are they always acceptable as experience, and\nwe do not see how we could have done without them.\n\n\n_March 2._ The greatest impression of character is made by that\nperson who consents to have no character. He who sympathizes with and\nruns through the whole circle of attributes cannot afford to be an\nindividual. Most men stand pledged to themselves, so that their narrow\nand confined virtue has no suppleness. They are like children who cannot\nwalk in bad company and learn the lesson which even it teaches, without\ntheir guardians, for fear of contamination. He is a fortunate man who\ngets through the world without being burthened by a name and reputation,\nfor they are at any rate but his past history and no prophecy, and as\nsuch concern him no more than another. Character is Genius settled. It\ncan maintain itself against the world, and if it relapses it repents.\nIt is as a dog set to watch the property of Genius. Genius, strictly\nspeaking, is not responsible, for it is not moral.\n\n\n_March 8._ I live in the perpetual verdure of the globe. I die in the\nannual decay of nature.\n\nWe can understand the phenomenon of death in the animal better if we\nfirst consider it in the order next below us, the vegetable.\n\nThe death of the flea and the elephant are but phenomena of the life of\nnature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMost lecturers preface their discourses on music with a history of\nmusic, but as well introduce an essay on virtue with a history of\nvirtue.[343] As if the possible combinations of sound, the last wind\nthat sighed, or melody that waked the wood, had any history other than\na perceptive ear might hear in the least and latest sound of nature!\nA history of music would be like the history of the future; for so\nlittle past is it, and capable of record, that it is but the hint of a\nprophecy. It is the history of gravitation. It has no history more than\nGod. It circulates and resounds forever, and only flows like the sea\nor air. There might be a history of men or of hearing, but not of the\nunheard. Why, if I should sit down to write its story, the west wind\nwould rise to refute me. Properly speaking, there can be no history but\nnatural history, for there is no past in the soul but in nature. So that\nthe history of anything is only the true account of it, which will be\nalways the same. I might as well write the history of my aspirations.\nDoes not the last and highest contain them all? Do the lives of the\ngreat composers contain the facts which interested them? What is this\nmusic? Why, thinner and more evanescent than ether; subtler than sound,\nfor it is only a disposition of sound. It is to sound what color is to\nmatter. It is the color of a flame, or of the rainbow, or of water. Only\none sense has known it. The least profitable, the least tangible fact,\nwhich cannot be bought or cultivated but by virtuous methods, and yet\nour ears ring with it like shells left on the shore.\n\n\n_March 11. Friday._ Chaucer's familiar, but innocent, way of speaking of\nGod is of a piece with his character. He comes readily to his thoughts\nwithout any false reverence. If Nature is our mother, is not God much\nmore? God should come into our thoughts with no more parade than the\nzephyr into our ears. Only strangers approach him with ceremony. How\nrarely in our English tongue do we find expressed any affection for\nGod! No sentiment is so rare as love of God,\u2014universal love. Herbert\nis almost the only exception. \"Ah, my dear God,\" etc. Chaucer's was a\nremarkably affectionate genius. There is less love and simple trust in\nShakespeare. When he sees a beautiful person or object, he almost takes\na pride in the \"maistry\" of his God.[344] The Protestant Church seems to\nhave nothing to supply the place of the Saints of the Catholic calendar,\nwho were at least channels for the affections. Its God has perhaps too\nmany of the attributes of a Scandinavian deity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe can only live healthily the life the gods assign us. I must receive\nmy life as passively as the willow leaf that flutters over the brook. I\nmust not be for myself, but God's work, and that is always good. I will\nwait the breezes patiently, and grow as Nature shall determine. My fate\ncannot but be grand so. We may live the life of a plant or an animal,\nwithout living an animal life. This constant and universal content of\nthe animal comes of resting quietly in God's palm. I feel as if [I]\ncould at any time resign my life and the responsibility of living into\nGod's hands, and become as innocent, free from care, as a plant or\nstone.\n\nMy life, my life! why will you linger? Are the years short and the\nmonths of no account? How often has long delay quenched my aspirations!\nCan God afford that I should forget him? Is he so indifferent to my\ncareer? Can heaven be postponed with no more ado? Why were my ears given\nto hear those everlasting strains which haunt my life, and yet to be\nprophaned much more by these perpetual dull sounds?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur doubts are so musical that they persuade themselves.\n\nWhy, God, did you include me in your great scheme? Will you not make me\na partner at last? Did it need there should be a conscious material?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy friend, my friend, I'd speak so frank to thee that thou wouldst pray\nme to keep back some part, for fear I robbed myself. To address thee\ndelights me, there is such cleanness in the delivery. I am delivered of\nmy tale, which, told to strangers, still would linger on my lips as if\nuntold, or doubtful how it ran.\n\n\n_March 12._ Consider what a difference there is between living and\ndying. To die is not to _begin_ to die, and _continue_; it is not a\nstate of continuance, but of transientness; but to live is a condition\nof continuance, and does not mean to be born merely. There is no\ncontinuance of death. It is a transient phenomenon. Nature presents\nnothing in a state of death.\n\n\n_March 13. Sunday._ The sad memory of departed friends is soon incrusted\nover with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as their monuments are\novergrown with moss.[345] Nature doth thus kindly heal every wound. By\nthe mediation of a thousand little mosses and fungi, the most unsightly\nobjects become radiant of beauty. There seem to be two sides to this\nworld, presented us at different times, as we see things in growth or\ndissolution, in life or death. For seen with the eye of a poet, as God\nsees them, all are alive and beautiful; but seen with the historical\neye, or the eye of the memory, they are dead and offensive. If we see\nNature as pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays; but seen as\nprogressing, she is beautiful.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am startled that God can make me so rich even with my own cheap\nstores. It needs but a few wisps of straw in the sun, or some small word\ndropped, or that has long lain silent in some book. When heaven begins\nand the dead arise, no trumpet is blown; perhaps the south wind will\nblow. What if you or I be dead! God is alive still.\n\n\n_March 14._ Chaucer's genius does not soar like Milton's, but is\ngenial and familiar. It is only a greater portion of humanity, with\nall its weakness. It is not heroic, as Raleigh, or pious, as Herbert,\nor philosophical, as Shakespeare, but the child of the English nation,\nbut that child that is \"father of the man.\" His genius is only for the\nmost part an exceeding naturalness. It is perfect sincerity, though with\nthe behavior of a child rather than of a man.[346] He can complain, as\nin the \"Testament of Love,\" but yet so truly and unfeignedly that his\ncomplaint does not fail to interest. All England has his case at heart.\n\nHe shows great tenderness and delicacy, but not the heroic sentiment.\nHis genius was feminine, not masculine,\u2014not but such is rarest to find\nin woman (though the appreciation of it is not),\u2014but less manly than\nthe manliest.[347]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not easy to find one brave enough to play the game of love quite\nalone with you, but they must get some third person, or world, to\ncountenance them. They thrust others between. Love is so delicate and\nfastidious that I see not how [it] can ever begin. Do you expect me to\nlove with you, unless you make my love secondary to nothing else? Your\nwords come tainted, if the thought of the world darted between thee and\nthe thought of me. You are not venturous enough for love. It goes alone\nunscared through wildernesses.\n\nAs soon as I see people loving what they see merely, and not their own\nhigh hopes that they form of others, I pity, and do not want their love.\nSuch love delays me. Did I ask thee to love me who hate myself? No! Love\nthat I love, and I will love thee that lovest it.\n\nThe love is faint-hearted and short-lived that is contented with the\npast history of its object. It does not prepare the soil to bear new\ncrops lustier than the old.\n\n\"I would I had leisure for these things,\" sighs the world. \"When I have\ndone my quilting and baking, then I will not be backward.\"\n\nLove never stands still, nor does its object. It is the revolving sun\nand the swelling bud. If I know what I love, it is because I _remember_\nit.\n\nLife is grand, and so are its environments of Past and Future. Would\nthe face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man's destiny were not\nequally so? What am I good for now, who am still marching after high\nthings, but to hear and tell the news, to bring wood and water, and\ncount how many eggs the hens lay? In the meanwhile, I expect my life\nwill begin. I will not aspire longer. I will see what it is I would be\nafter. I will be unanimous.\n\n\n_March 15. Tuesday._ It is a new day; the sun shines. The poor have\ncome out to employ themselves in the sunshine, the old and feeble to\nscent the air once more. I hear the bluebird and the song sparrow and\nthe robin, and the note of the lark leaks up through the meadows, as if\nits bill had been thawed by the warm sun.\n\nAs I am going to the woods I think to take some small book in my pocket\nwhose author has been there already, whose pages will be as good as my\nthoughts, and will eke them out or show me human life still gleaming in\nthe horizon when the woods have shut out the town. But I can find none.\nNone will sail as far forward into the bay of nature as my thought.\nThey stay at home. I would go home. When I get to the wood their thin\nleaves rustle in my fingers. They are bare and obvious, and there is no\nhalo or haze about them. Nature lies far and fair behind them all.[348]\nI should like to meet the great and serene sentence, which does not\nreveal itself,\u2014only that it is great,\u2014which I may never with my utmost\nintelligence pierce through and beyond (more than the earth itself),\nwhich no intelligence can understand. There should be a kind of life\nand palpitation to it; under its rind a kind of blood should circulate\nforever, communicating freshness to its countenance.[349]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCold Spring.\u2014I hear nothing but a ph\u0153be, and the wind, and the rattling\nof a chaise in the wood. For a few years I stay here, not knowing,\ntaking my own life by degrees, and then I go. I hear a spring bubbling\nnear, where I drank out of a can in my earliest youth. The birds, the\nsquirrels, the alders, the pines, they seem serene and in their places.\nI wonder if my life looks as serene to them too. Does no creature, then,\nsee with the eyes of its own narrow destiny, but with God's? When God\nmade man, he reserved some parts and some rights to himself. The eye has\nmany qualities which belong to God more than man. It is his lightning\nwhich flashes in it. When I look into my companion's eye, I think it is\nGod's private mine. It is a noble feature; it cannot be degraded; for\nGod can look on all things undefiled.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPond.\u2014Nature is constantly original and inventing new patterns, like a\nmechanic in his shop. When the overhanging pine drops into the water, by\nthe action of the sun, and the wind rubbing it on the shore, its boughs\nare worn white and smooth and assume fantastic forms, as if turned by a\nlathe.[350] All things, indeed, are subjected to a rotary motion, either\ngradual and partial or rapid and complete, from the planet and system\nto the simplest shellfish and pebbles on the beach; as if all beauty\nresulted from an object turning on its own axis, or others turning\nabout it. It establishes a new centre in the universe. As all curves\nhave reference to their centres or foci, so all beauty of character\nhas reference to the soul, and is a graceful gesture of recognition or\nwaving of the body toward it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe great and solitary heart will love alone, without the knowledge of\nits object. It cannot have society in its love. It will expend its love\nas the cloud drops rain upon the fields over which [it] floats.\n\nThe only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly; only the lover's\nwords are heard. The intellect should never speak; it is not a natural\nsound. How trivial the best actions are! I am led about from sunrise to\nsunset by an ignoble routine, and yet can find no better road. I must\nmake a part of the planet. I must obey the law of nature.\n\n\n_March 16. Wednesday._ Raleigh's Maxims are not true and impartial, but\nyet are expressed with a certain magnanimity, which was natural to the\nman, as if this selfish policy could easily afford to give place in him\nto a more human and generous. He gives such advice that we have more\nfaith in his conduct than his principles.\n\nHe seems to have carried the courtier's life to the highest pitch of\nmagnanimity and grace it was capable of. He is liberal and generous\nas a prince,\u2014that is, within bounds; brave, chivalrous, heroic, as the\nknight in armor and not as a defenseless man. His was not the heroism of\nLuther, but of Bayard. There was more of grace than of truth in it. He\nhad more taste than character. There may be something petty in a refined\ntaste; it easily degenerates into effeminacy; it does not consider the\nbroadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is\nfastidious and curious, or nice only.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe most attractive sentences are not perhaps the wisest, but the surest\nand soundest. He who uttered them had a right to speak. He did not stand\non a rolling stone, but was well assured of his footing, and naturally\nbreathed them without effort. They were spoken in the nick of time.\nWith rare fullness were they spoken, as a flower expands in the field;\nand if you dispute their doctrine, you will say, \"But there is truth\nin their assurance.\" Raleigh's are of this nature, spoken with entire\nsatisfaction and heartiness. They are not philosophy, but poetry.\n\nWith him it was always well done and nobly said.\n\nThat is very true which Raleigh says about the equal necessity of\nwar and law,\u2014that \"the necessity of war, which among human actions\nis most lawless, hath some kind of affinity and near resemblance with\nthe necessity of law;\" for both equally rest on force as their basis,\nand war is only the resource of law, either on a smaller or larger\nscale,\u2014its authority asserted. In war, in some sense, lies the very\ngenius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle\nof the law. What is human warfare but just this,\u2014an effort to make the\nlaws of God and nature take sides with one party. Men make an arbitrary\ncode, and, because it is not right, they try to make it prevail by\nmight. The moral law does not want any champion. Its asserters do not\ngo to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is inconsistent to\ndecry war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war there would\nbe no need of law.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI must confess I see no resource but to conclude that conscience was not\ngiven us to no purpose, or for a hindrance, but that, however flattering\norder and expediency may look, it is but the repose of a lethargy; and\nwe will choose rather to be awake, though it be stormy, and maintain\nourselves on this earth and in this life as we may, without signing our\ndeath-warrant in the outset. What does the law protect? My rights? or\nany rights? My right, or the right? If I avail myself of it, it may help\nmy sin; it cannot help my virtue. Let us see if we cannot stay here,\nwhere God has put us, on his own conditions. Does not his law reach\nto the earth? While the law holds fast the thief and murderer for my\nprotection (I should say its own), it lets itself go loose. Expediencies\ndiffer. They may clash. English law may go to war with American law,\nthat is English interest with American interest, but what is expedient\nfor the whole world will be absolute right, and synonymous with the law\nof God. So the law is only partial right. It is selfish, and consults\nfor the interest of the few.[351]\n\nSomehow, strangely, the vice of men gets well represented and protected,\nbut their virtue has none to plead its cause, nor any charter of\nimmunities and rights. The Magna Charta is not chartered rights, but\nchartered wrongs.\n\n\n_March 17. Thursday._ I have been making pencils all day, and then at\nevening walked to see an old schoolmate who is going to help make the\nWelland Canal navigable for ships round Niagara. He cannot see any\nsuch motives and modes of living as I; professes not to look beyond\nthe securing of certain \"creature comforts.\" And so we go silently\ndifferent ways, with all serenity, I in the still moonlight through the\nvillage this fair evening to write these thoughts in my journal, and he,\nforsooth, to mature his schemes to ends as good, maybe, but different.\nSo are we two made, while the same stars shine quietly over us. If I or\nhe be wrong, Nature yet consents placidly. She bites her lip and smiles\nto see how her children will agree. So does the Welland Canal get built,\nand other conveniences, while I live. Well and good, I must confess.\nFast sailing ships are hence not detained.\n\nWhat means this changing sky, that now I freeze and contract and go\nwithin myself to warm me, and now I say it is a south wind, and go all\nsoft and warm along the way? I sometimes wonder if I do not breathe the\nsouth wind.\n\n\n_March 18. Friday._ Whatever book or sentence will bear to be read\ntwice, we may be sure was thought twice. I say this thinking of Carlyle,\nwho writes pictures or first impressions merely, which consequently\nwill only bear a first reading. As if any transient, any _new_, mood of\nthe best man deserved to detain the world long. I should call Carlyle's\nwriting essentially dramatic, excellent acting, entertaining especially\nto those who see rather than those who hear, not to be repeated more\nthan a joke. If he did not think who made the joke, how shall we think\nwho hear it? He never consults the oracle, but thinks to utter oracles\nhimself. There is nothing in his books for which he is not, and does\nnot feel, responsible. He does not retire behind the truth he utters,\nbut stands in the foreground. I wish he would just think, and tell\nme what he thinks, appear to me in the attitude of a man with his ear\ninclined, who comes as silently and meekly as the morning star, which\nis unconscious of the dawn it heralds, leading the way up the steep as\nthough alone and unobserved in its observing, without looking behind.\nHe is essentially a humorist. But humors will not feed a man; they are\nthe least satisfactory morsel to the healthy appetite. They circulate;\nI want rather to meet that about which they circulate. The heart is not\na humor, nor do they go to the heart, as the blood does.[352]\n\n\n_March 19. Saturday_. When I walk in the fields of Concord and meditate\non the destiny of this prosperous slip of the Saxon family, the\nunexhausted energies of this new country, I forget that this which is\nnow Concord was once Musketaquid, and that the _American race_ has had\nits destiny also. Everywhere in the fields, in the corn and grain land,\nthe earth is strewn with the relics of a race which has vanished as\ncompletely as if trodden in with the earth. I find it good to remember\nthe eternity behind me as well as the eternity before. Wherever I go, I\ntread in the tracks of the Indian. I pick up the bolt which he has but\njust dropped at my feet. And if I consider destiny I am on his trail. I\nscatter his hearthstones with my feet, and pick out of the embers of his\nfire the simple but enduring implements of the wigwam and the chase. In\nplanting my corn in the same furrow which yielded its increase to his\nsupport so long, I displace some memorial of him.\n\nI have been walking this afternoon over a pleasant field planted with\nwinter rye, near the house, where this strange people once had their\ndwelling-place. Another species of mortal men, but little less wild to\nme than the musquash they hunted. Strange spirits, d\u00e6mons, whose eyes\ncould never meet mine; with another nature and another fate than mine.\nThe crows flew over the edge of the woods, and, wheeling over my head,\nseemed to rebuke, as dark-winged spirits more akin to the Indian than\nI. Perhaps only the present disguise of the Indian. If the new has a\nmeaning, so has the old.[353]\n\nNature has her russet hues as well as green. Indeed, our eye splits\non every object, and we can as well take one path as the other. If I\nconsider its history, it is old; if its destiny, it is new. I may see\na part of an object, or the whole. I will not be imposed on and think\nNature is old because the season is advanced. I will study the botany of\nthe mosses and fungi on the decayed [wood], and remember that decayed\nwood is not old, but has just begun to be what it is. I need not think\nof the pine almond[354] or the acorn and sapling when I meet the fallen\npine or oak, more than of the generations of pines and oaks which have\nfed the young tree. The new blade of the corn, the third leaf of the\nmelon, these are not green but gray with time, but sere in respect of\ntime.\n\nThe pines and the crows are not changed, but instead that Philip and\nPaugus stand on the plain, here are Webster and Crockett. Instead of the\ncouncil-house is the legislature. What a new aspect have new eyes given\nto the land! Where is this country but in the hearts of its inhabitants?\nWhy, there is only so much of Indian America left as there is of the\nAmerican Indian in the character of this generation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA blithe west wind is blowing over all. In the fine flowing haze, men\nat a distance seem shadowy and gigantic, as ill-defined and great as\nmen should always be. I do not know if yonder be a man or a ghost.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat a consolation are the stars to man!\u2014so high and out of his reach,\nas is his own destiny. I do not know but my life is fated to be thus low\nand grovelling always. I cannot discover its use even to myself. But it\nis permitted to see those stars in the sky equally useless, yet highest\nof all and deserving of a fair destiny. My fate is in some sense linked\nwith that of the stars, and if they are to persevere to a great end,\nshall I die who could conjecture it? It surely is some encouragement\nto know that the stars are my fellow-creatures, for I do not suspect\nbut they are reserved for a high destiny. Has not he who discovers and\nnames a planet in the heavens as long a year as it? I do not fear that\nany misadventure will befall _them_. Shall I not be content to disappear\nwith the missing stars? Do I mourn their fate?\n\nMan's moral nature is a riddle which only eternity can solve.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI see laws which never fail, of whose failure I never conceived. Indeed\nI cannot detect failure anywhere but in my fear. I do not fear that\nright is not right, that good is not good, but only the annihilation of\nthe present existence. But only that can make me incapable of fear. My\nfears are as good prophets as my hopes.\n\n\n_March 20. Sunday_. My friend is cold and reserved because his love\nfor me is waxing and not waning. These are the early processes; the\nparticles are just beginning to shoot in crystals. If the mountains\ncame to me, I should no longer go to the mountains. So soon as that\nconsummation takes place which I wish, it will be past. Shall I not have\na friend in reserve? Heaven is to come. I hope this is not it.\n\nWords should pass between friends as the lightning passes from cloud\nto cloud. I don't know how much I assist in the economy of nature when\nI declare a fact. Is it not an important part in the history of the\nflower that I tell my friend where I found it? We do [not] wish friends\nto feed and clothe our bodies,\u2014neighbors are kind enough for that,\u2014but\nto do the like offices to ourselves.[355] We wish to spread and publish\nourselves, as the sun spreads its rays; and we toss the new thought\nto the friend, and thus it is dispersed. Friends are those twain who\nfeel their interests to be one. Each knows that the other might as well\nhave said what he said. All beauty, all music, all delight springs from\napparent dualism but real unity. My friend is my real brother. I see his\nnature groping yonder like my own. Does there go one whom I know? then\nI go there.\n\nThe field where friends have met is consecrated forever. Man seeks\nfriendship out of the desire to realize a home here. As the Indian\nthinks he receives into himself the courage and strength of his\nconquered enemy, so we add to ourselves all the character and heart of\nour friends. He is my creation. I can do what I will with him. There\nis no possibility of being thwarted; the friend is like wax in the rays\nthat fall from our own hearts.\n\nThe friend does not take my word for anything, but he takes me. He\ntrusts me as I trust myself. We only need be as true to others as we\nare to ourselves, that there may be ground enough for friendship. In\nthe beginnings of friendship,\u2014for it does not grow,\u2014we realize such love\nand justice as are attributed to God.\n\nVery few are they from whom we derive any _in_formation. The most only\nannounce and tell tales, but the friend _in_-forms.\n\nWhat is all nature and human life at this moment, what the scenery and\nvicinity of a human soul, but the song of an early sparrow from yonder\nfences, and the cackling hens in the barn? So for one while my destiny\nloiters within ear-shot of these sounds. The great busy Dame Nature is\nconcerned to know how many eggs her hens lay. The Soul, the proprietor\nof the world, has an interest in the stacking of hay, the foddering\nof cattle, and the draining of peat meadows. Away in Scythia, away in\nIndia, they make butter and cheese for its larder.[356] I wish that in\nsome page of the Testament there were something like Charlemagne's egg\naccount. Was not Christ interested in the setting hens of Palestine?\n\nNature is very ample and roomy. She has left us plenty of space to\nmove in. As far as I can see from this window, how little life in the\nlandscape! The few birds that flit past do not crowd; they do not fill\nthe valley. The traveller on the highway has no fellow-traveller for\nmiles before or behind him. Nature was generous and not niggardly,\ncertainly.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow simple is the natural connection of events. We complain greatly of\nthe want of flow and sequence in books, but if the journalist only move\nhimself from Boston to New York, and speak as before, there is link\nenough. And so there would be, if he were as careless of connection\nand order when he stayed at home, and let the incessant progress which\nhis life makes be the apology for abruptness. Do I not travel as far\naway from my old resorts, though I stay here at home, as though I were\non board the steamboat? Is not my life riveted together? Has not it\nsequence? Do not my breathings follow each other naturally?\n\n\n_March 21._[357] Who is old enough to have learned from experience?\n\n\n_March 22. Tuesday._ Nothing can be more useful to a man than a\ndetermination not to be hurried.\n\nI have not succeeded if I have an antagonist who fails. It must be\nhumanity's success.\n\nI cannot think nor utter my thought unless I have infinite room. The\ncope of heaven is not too high, the sea is not too deep, for him who\nwould unfold a great thought. It must feed me and warm and clothe me.\nIt must be an entertainment to which my whole nature is invited. I must\nknow that the gods are to be my fellow-guests.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.\n\n\n_March 23. Wednesday._ Plain speech is always a desideratum. Men write\nin a florid style only because they would match the simple beauties of\nthe plainest speech. They prefer to be misunderstood, rather than come\nshort of its exuberance. Hussein Effendi praises the epistolary style of\nIbrahim Pasha to the French traveller Botta, because of \"the difficulty\nof understanding it: there was, he said, but one person at Jidda who was\ncapable of understanding and explaining the Pasha's correspondence.\"\nA plain sentence, where every word is rooted in the soil, is indeed\nflowery and verdurous. It has the beauty and variety of mosaic with the\nstrength and compactness of masonry. All fullness looks like exuberance.\nWe are not rich without superfluous wealth; but the imitator only copies\nthe superfluity. If the words were sufficiently simple and answering to\nthe thing to be expressed, our sentences would be as blooming as wreaths\nof evergreen and flowers.[358] You cannot fill a wine-glass quite to\nthe brim without heaping it. Simplicity is exuberant.\n\nWhen I look back eastward over the world, it seems to be all in repose.\nArabia, Persia, Hindostan are the land of contemplation. Those Eastern\nnations have perfected the luxury of idleness. Mount Sab\u00e9r, according\nto the French traveller and naturalist Botta, is celebrated for\nproducing the K\u00e1t tree. \"The soft tops of the twigs and tender leaves\nare eaten,\" says his reviewer, \"and produce an agreeable soothing\nexcitement, restoring from fatigue, banishing sleep, and disposing to\nthe enjoyment of conversation.\" What could be more dignified than to\nbrowse the tree-tops with the camelopard? Who would not be a rabbit or\npartridge sometimes, to chew mallows and pick the apple tree buds? It\nis not hard to discover an instinct for the opium and betel and tobacco\nchewers.[359]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter all, I believe it is the style of thought entirely, and not the\nstyle of expression, which makes the difference in books. For if I find\nany thought worth extracting, I do not wish to alter the language. Then\nthe author seems to have had all the graces of eloquence and poetry\ngiven him.\n\nI am pleased to discover myself as much a pensioner in Nature as moles\nand titmice. In some very direct and simple uses to which man puts\nNature he stands in this relation to her. Oriental life does not want\nthis grandeur. It is in Sadi and the Arabian Nights and the Fables of\nPilpay. In the New England noontide I have discovered more materials\nof Oriental history than the Sanskrit contains or Sir W. Jones has\nunlocked. I see why it is necessary there should be such history at\nall. Was not Asia mapped in my brain before it was in any geography? In\nmy brain is the Sanskrit which contains the history of the primitive\ntimes. The Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as my serenest\ncontemplations.[360] My mind contemplates them, as Brahma his scribe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI occasionally find myself to be nothing at all, because the gods give\nme nothing to do. I cannot brag; I can only congratulate my masters.\n\nIn idleness I am of no thickness, I am thinnest wafer. I never compass\nmy own ends. God schemes for me.\n\nWe have our times of action and our times of reflection. The one mood\ncaters for the other. Now I am Alexander, and then I am Homer. One while\nmy hand is impatient to handle an axe or hoe, and at another to [_sic_]\npen. I am sure I write the tougher truth for these calluses on my palms.\nThey give firmness to the sentence. The sentences of a laboring man are\nlike hardened thongs, or the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the\npine.[361]\n\n\n_March 24. Thursday._ Those authors are successful who do not _write\ndown_ to others, but make their own taste and judgment their audience.\nBy some strange infatuation we forget that we do not approve what yet\nwe recommend to others. It is enough if I please myself with writing;\nI am then sure of an audience.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf hoarded treasures can make me rich, have I not the wealth of the\nplanet in my mines and at the bottom of the sea?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is always singular to meet common sense in very old books, as the\nVeeshnoo Sarma,\u2014as if they could have dispensed with the experience of\nlater times.[362] We had not given space enough to _their_ antiquity\nfor the accumulation of wisdom. We meet even a trivial wisdom in them,\nas if truth were already hackneyed. The present is always younger than\nantiquity. A playful wisdom, which has eyes behind as well as before and\noversees itself. This pledge of sanity cannot be spared in a book, that\nit sometimes reflect upon itself, that it pleasantly behold itself, that\nit hold the scales over itself.[363] The wise can afford to doubt in\nhis wisest moment. The easiness of doubt is the ground of his assurance.\nFaith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not\nbelieve.\n\nIt is seen in this old scripture how wisdom is older than the talent\nof composition. It is a simple and not a compound rock. The story is\nas slender as the thread on which pearls are strung; it is a spiral\nline, growing more and more perplexed till it winds itself up and dies\nlike the silkworm in its cocoon. It is an interminable labyrinth. It\nseems as if the old philosopher could not talk without moving, and each\nmotion were made the apology or occasion for a sentence, but, this being\nfound inconvenient, the fictitious progress of the tale was invented.\nThe story which winds between and around these sentences, these barrows\nin the desert, these oases, is as indistinct as a camel track between\nMourzuk and Darfur, between the Pyramids and the Nile, from Gaza to\nJaffa.[364]\n\nThe great thoughts of a wise man seem to the vulgar who do not\ngeneralize to stand far apart like isolated mounts; but science knows\nthat the mountains which rise so solitary in our midst are parts of a\ngreat mountain-chain, dividing the earth, and the eye that looks into\nthe horizon toward the blue Sierra melting away in the distance may\ndetect their flow of thought. These sentences which take up your common\nlife so easily are not seen to run into ridges, because they are the\ntable-land on which the spectator stands.[365] I do not require that\nthe mountain-peaks be chained together, but by the common basis on\nwhich they stand, nor that the path of the muleteer be kept open at so\nmuch pains, when they may be bridged by the Milky Way. That they stand\nfrowning upon one another, or mutually reflecting the sun's rays, is\nproof enough of their common basis.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe book should be found where the sentence is, and its connection be\nas inartificial. It is the inspiration of a day and not of a moment.\nThe links should be gold also. Better that the good be not united than\nthat a bad man be admitted into their society. When men can select they\nwill. If there be any stone in the quarry better than the rest, they\nwill forsake the rest because of it. Only the good will be quarried.\n\nIn these fables the story goes unregarded, while the reader leaps from\nsentence to sentence, as the traveller leaps from stone to stone while\nthe water rushes unheeded between them.[366]\n\n\n_March 25. Friday._ Great persons are not soon learned, not even their\noutlines, but they change like the mountains in the horizon as we ride\nalong.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA man's life should be as fresh as a river. It should be the same\nchannel, but a new water every instant.[367] Some men have no\ninclination; they have no rapids nor cascades, but marshes, and\nalligators, and miasma instead.[368]\n\nHow insufficient is all wisdom without love! There may be courtesy,\nthere may be good will, there may be even temper, there may be wit,\nand talent, and sparkling conversation,\u2014and yet the soul pine for\nlife. Just so sacred and rich as my life is to myself will it be to\nanother. Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and\nskill without. Our life without love is like coke and ashes,\u2014like the\ncocoanut in which the milk is dried up. I want to see the sweet sap\nof living wood in it. Men may be pure as alabaster and Parian marble,\nelegant as a Tuscan villa, sublime as Terni, but if they are not in\nsociety as retiring and inexperienced as children, we shall go join\nAlaric and the Goths and Vandals. There is no milk mixed with the wine\nat the entertainment.[369]\n\nEnthusiasm which is the formless material of thought. Comparatively\nspeaking, I care not for the man or his designs who would make the\nhighest use of me short of an all-adventuring friendship. I wish by the\nbehavior of my friend toward me to be led to have such regard for myself\nas for a box of precious ointment. I shall not be so cheap to myself if\nI see that another values me.\n\nWe talk much about education, and yet none will assume the office of an\neducator. I never gave any one the whole advantage of myself. I never\nafforded him the culture of my love. How can I talk of charity, who at\nlast withhold the kindness which alone makes charity desirable? The poor\nwant nothing less than me myself, and I shirk charity by giving rags\nand meat.\n\nVery dangerous is the talent of composition, the striking out the heart\nof life at a blow, as the Indian takes off a scalp. I feel as if my life\nhad grown more outward since I could express it.[370]\n\nWhat can I give or what deny to another but myself?\n\nThe stars are God's dreams, thoughts remembered in the silence of his\nnight.\n\nIn company, that person who alone can understand you you cannot get out\nof your mind.\n\nThe artist must work with indifferency. Too great interest vitiates his\nwork.\n\n\n_March 26. Saturday._ The wise will not be imposed on by wisdom. You\ncan tell, but what do you know?\n\nI thank God that the cheapness which appears in time and the world,\nthe trivialness of the whole scheme of things, is in my own cheap and\ntrivial moment. I am time and the world. I assert no independence. In me\nare summer and winter, village life and commercial routine, pestilence\nand famine and refreshing breezes, joy and sadness, life and death.\nHow near is yesterday! How far to-morrow! I have seen nails which were\ndriven before I was born. Why do they look old and rusty? Why does not\nGod make some mistake to show to us that time is a delusion? Why did I\ninvent time but to destroy it?\n\nDid you ever remember the moment when you were not mean?\n\nIs it not a satire to say that life is organic?\n\nWhere is my heart gone? They say men cannot part with it and live.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAre setting hens troubled with ennui? Nature is very kind; does she let\nthem reflect? These long March days, setting on and on in the crevice\nof a hayloft, with no active employment![371] Do setting hens sleep?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA book should be a vein of gold ore, as the sentence is a diamond found\nin the sand, or a pearl fished out of the sea.\n\nHe who does not borrow trouble does not lend it.\n\nI must confess I have felt mean enough when asked how I was to act\non society, what errand I had to mankind. Undoubtedly I did not feel\nmean without a reason, and yet my loitering is not without defense. I\nwould fain communicate the wealth of my life to men, would really give\nthem what is most precious in my gift. I would secrete pearls with the\nshellfish and lay up honey with the bees for them. I will sift the\nsunbeams for the public good. I know no riches I would keep back. I\nhave no private good, unless it be my peculiar ability to serve the\npublic. This is the only individual property. Each one may thus be\ninnocently rich. I inclose and foster the pearl till it is grown. I wish\nto communicate those parts of my life which I would gladly live again\nmyself.\n\nIt is hard to be a good citizen of the world in any great sense; but if\nwe do render no interest or increase to mankind out of that talent God\ngave us, we can at least preserve the principle unimpaired. One would\nlike to be making large dividends to society out [of] that deposited\ncapital in us, but he does well for the most part if he proves a secure\ninvestment only, without adding to the stock.\n\nIn such a letter as I like there will be the most naked and direct\nspeech, the least circumlocution.\n\n\n_March 27. Sunday._ The eye must be firmly anchored to this earth which\nbeholds birches and pines waving in the breeze in a certain fight, a\nserene rippling light.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCliffs.\u2014Two little hawks have just come out to play, like butterflies\nrising one above the other in endless alternation far below me. They\nswoop from side to side in the broad basin of the tree-tops, with wider\nand wider surges, as if swung by an invisible pendulum. They stoop down\non this side and scale up on that.\n\nSuddenly I look up and see a new bird, probably an eagle, quite above\nme, laboring with the wind not more than forty rods off. It was the\nlargest bird of the falcon kind I ever saw. I was never so impressed by\nany flight. She sailed the air, and fell back from time to time like a\nship on her beam ends, holding her talons up as if ready for the arrows.\nI never allowed before for the grotesque attitudes of our national\nbird.[372]\n\nThe eagle must have an educated eye.\n\nSee what a life the gods have given us, set round with pain and\npleasure. It is too strange for sorrow; it is too strange for joy. One\nwhile it looks as shallow, though as intricate, as a Cretan labyrinth,\nand again it is a pathless depth. I ask for bread incessantly,\u2014that my\nlife sustain me, as much as meat my body. No man knoweth in what hour\nhis life may come. Say not that Nature is trivial, for to-morrow she\nwill be radiant with beauty. I am as old\u2014as old as the Alleghanies. I\nwas going to say Wachusett, but it excites a youthful feeling, as I were\nbut too happy to be so young.\n\n\n_March 28. Monday._ How often must one feel, as he looks back on his\npast life, that he has gained a talent but lost a character! My life\nhas got down into my fingers. My inspiration at length is only so much\nbreath as I can breathe.\n\nSociety affects to estimate men by their talents, but really feels and\nknows them by their characters. What a man does, compared with what he\nis, is but a small part. To require that our friend possess a certain\nskill is not to be satisfied till he is something less than our friend.\n\nFriendship should be a great promise, a perennial springtime.\n\nI can conceive how the life of the gods may be dull and tame, if it is\nnot disappointed and insatiate.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne may well feel chagrined when he finds he can do nearly all he can\nconceive.\n\nSome books ripple on like a stream, and we feel that the author is in\nthe full tide of discourse. Plato and Jamblichus and Pythagoras and\nBacon halt beside them. Long, stringy, slimy thoughts which flow or run\ntogether. They read as if written for military men or men of business,\nthere is such a dispatch in them, and a double-quick time, a Saratoga\nmarch with beat of drum. But the grave thinkers and philosophers seem\nnot to have got their swaddling-clothes off; they are slower than a\nRoman army on its march, the rear encampment to-night where the van\ncamped last night. The wise Jamblichus eddies and gleams like a watery\nslough.\n\nBut the reviewer seizes the pen and shouts, \"Forward! Alamo and\nFanning!\" and after rolls the tide of war. Immediately the author\ndiscovers himself launched, and if the slope was easy and the grease\ngood, does not go to the bottom.\n\nThey flow as glibly as mill-streams sucking under a race-way. The flow\nis ofttimes in the poor reader who makes such haste over their pages,\nas to the traveller the walls and fences seem to travel. But the most\nrapid trot is no flow after all.[373]\n\nIf I cannot chop wood in the yard, can I not chop wood in my journal?\nCan I not give vent to that appetite so? I wish to relieve myself of\nsuperfluous energy. How poor is the life of the best and wisest! The\npetty side will appear at last. Understand once how the best in society\nlive,\u2014with what routine, with what tedium and insipidity, with what\ngrimness and defiance, with what chuckling over an exaggeration of the\nsunshine. Altogether, are not the actions of your great man poor, even\npitiful and ludicrous?\n\nI am astonished, I must confess, that man looks so respectable in\nnature, considering the littlenesses Socrates must descend to in the\ntwenty-four hours, that he yet wears a serene countenance and even\nadorns nature.\n\n\n_March 29. Tuesday._\n\n\n_March 30. Wednesday._ Though Nature's laws are more immutable than any\ndespot's, yet to our daily life they rarely seem rigid, but we relax\nwith license in summer weather. We are not often nor harshly reminded\nof the things we may not do. I am often astonished to see how long, and\nwith what manifold infringements of the natural laws, some men I meet\nin the highway maintain life. She does not deny them quarter; they do\nnot die without priest. All the while she rejoices, for if they are not\none part of her they are another. I am convinced that consistency is the\nsecret of health. How many a poor man, striving to live a pure life,\npines and dies after a life of sickness, and his successors doubt if\nNature is not pitiless; while the confirmed and consistent sot, who is\ncontent with his rank life like mushrooms, a mass of corruption, still\ndozes comfortably under a hedge. He has made his peace with himself;\nthere is no strife. Nature is really very kind and liberal to all\npersons of vicious habits. They take great licenses with her. She does\nnot exhaust them with many excesses.[374]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow hard it is to be greatly related to mankind! They are only my uncles\nand aunts and cousins. I hear of some persons greatly related, but\nonly he is so who has all mankind for his friend. Our intercourse with\nthe best grows soon shallow and trivial. They no longer inspire us.\nAfter enthusiasm comes insipidity and blankness. The sap of all noble\nschemes drieth up, and the schemers return again and again in despair\nto \"common sense and labor.\" If I could help infuse some life and heart\ninto society, should I not do a service? Why will not the gods mix a\nlittle of the wine of nobleness with the air we drink? Let virtue have\nsome firm foothold in the earth. Where does she dwell? Who are the\nsalt of the earth? May not Love have some resting-place on the earth as\nsure [as] the sunshine on the rock? The crystals imbedded in the cliff\nsparkle and gleam from afar, as if they did certainly enrich our planet;\nbut where does any virtue permanently sparkle and gleam? She was sent\nforth over the waste too soon, before the earth was prepared for her.\n\nRightfully we are to each other the gate of heaven and redeemers from\nsin, but now we overlook these lowly and narrow ways. We will go over\nthe bald mountain-tops without going through the valleys.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen do not after all meet on the ground of their real acquaintance and\nactual understanding of one another, but degrade themselves immediately\ninto the puppets of convention. They do as if, in given circumstances,\nthey had agreed to know each other only so well. They rarely get to that\n[point] that they inform one another gratuitously, and use each other\nlike the sea and woods for what is new and inspiring there.\n\nThe best intercourse and communion they have is in silence above and\nbehind their speech. We should be very simple to rely on words. As\nit is, what we knew before always interprets a man's words. I cannot\neasily remember what any man has said, but how can I forget what he is\nto me? We know each other better than we are aware; we are admitted to\nstartling privacies with every person we meet, and in some emergency we\nshall find how well we knew him. To my solitary and distant thought my\nneighbor is shorn of his halo, and is seen as privately and barely as\na star through a glass.\n\n\n_March 31. Thursday._ I cannot forget the majesty of that bird at the\nCliff. It was no sloop or smaller craft hove in sight, but a ship of the\nline, worthy to struggle with the elements. It was a great presence, as\nof the master of river and forest. His eye would not have quailed before\nthe owner of the soil; none could challenge his rights. And then his\nretreat, sailing so steadily away, was a kind of advance. How is it that\nman always feels like an interloper in nature, as if he had intruded on\nthe domains of bird and beast?[375]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with\nwork, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and\nleisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is\nonly earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the\nvalue of the husk. Why should the hen set all day? She can lay but one\negg, and besides she will not have picked up materials for a new one.\nThose who work much do not work hard.[376]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing is so rare as sense. Very uncommon sense is poetry, and has a\nheroic or sweet music. But in verse, for the most part, the music now\nruns before and then behind the sense, but is never coincident with it.\nGiven the metre, and one will make music while another makes sense. But\ngood verse, like a good soldier, will make its own music, and it will\nmarch to the same with one consent. In most verse there is no inherent\nmusic. The man should not march, but walk like a citizen. It is not time\nof war but peace. Boys study the metres to write Latin verses, but it\ndoes not help them to write English.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLydgate's \"Story of Thebes,\" intended for a Canterbury Tale, is a\nspecimen of most unprogressive, unmusical verse. Each line rings the\nknell of its brother, as if it were introduced but to dispose of him. No\nmortal man could have breathed to that cadence without long intervals of\nrelaxation; the repetition would have been fatal to the lungs. No doubt\nthere was much healthy exercise taken in the meanwhile. He should forget\nhis rhyme and tell his story, or forget his story and breathe himself.\n\nIn Shakespeare and elsewhere the climax may be somewhere along the line,\nwhich runs as varied and meandering as a country road, but in Lydgate\nit is nowhere but in the rhyme. The couplets slope headlong to their\nconfluence.\n\n\n_April 2. Saturday._[377] The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is full\nof good sense and humanity, but is not transcendent poetry. It is so\ngood that it seems like faultfinding to esteem it second to any other.\nFor picturesque description of persons it is without a parallel. It did\nnot need inspiration, but a cheerful and easy wit. It is essentially\nhumorous, as no inspired poetry is. Genius is so serious as to be grave\nand sublime rather. Humor takes a narrower vision\u2014however broad and\ngenial it may be\u2014than enthusiasm. Humor delays and looks back.[378]\n\n\n_April 3. Sunday._ I can remember when I was more enriched by a few\ncheap rays of light falling on the pond-side than by this broad sunny\nday. Riches have wings, indeed. The weight of present woe will express\nthe sweetness of past experience. When sorrow comes, how easy it is to\nremember pleasure! When, in winter, the bees cannot make new honey, they\nconsume the old.\n\nExperience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.\n\nSorrow singeth the sweetest strain: \"The Daughters of Zion,\" \"The Last\nSigh of the Moor.\"\n\nJoy is the nectar of flowers, sorrow the honey of bees.\n\nI thank God for sorrow. It is hard to be abused. Is not He kind still,\nwho lets this south wind blow, this warm sun shine on me?\n\nI have just heard the flicker among the oaks on the hillside ushering in\na new dynasty. It is the age and youth of time. Why did Nature set this\nlure for sickly mortals? Eternity could not begin with more security and\nmomentousness than the spring. The summer's eternity is re\u00ebstablished by\nthis note.[379] All sights and sounds are seen and heard both in time\nand eternity. And when the eternity of any sight or sound strikes the\neye or ear, they are intoxicated with delight.\n\nSometimes, as through a dim haze, we see objects in their eternal\nrelations; and they stand like Stonehenge and the Pyramids, and we\nwonder who set them up and what for.\n\nThe destiny of the soul can never be studied by the reason, for its\nmodes are not ecstatic. In the wisest calculation or demonstration I\nbut play a game with myself. I am not to be taken captive by myself.\n\nI cannot convince myself. God must convince. I can calculate a problem\nin arithmetic, but not any morality.\n\nVirtue is incalculable, as it is inestimable. Well, man's destiny is\nbut virtue, or manhood. It is wholly moral, to be learned only by the\nlife of the soul. God cannot calculate it. He has no moral philosophy,\nno ethics. The reason, before it can be applied to such a subject, will\nhave to fetter and restrict it. How can he, step by step, perform that\nlong journey who has not conceived whither he is bound? How can he\nexpect to perform an arduous journey without interruption who has no\npassport to the end?\n\nOn one side of man is the actual, and on the other the ideal. The former\nis the province of the reason; it is even a divine light when directed\nupon it, but it cannot reach forward into the ideal without blindness.\nThe moon was made to rule by night, but the sun to rule by day. Reason\nwill be but a pale cloud, like the moon, when one ray of divine light\ncomes to illumine the soul.\n\nHow rich and lavish must be the system which can afford to let so many\nmoons burn all the day as well as the night, though no man stands in\nneed of their light! There is none of that kind of economy in Nature\nthat husbands its stock, but she supplies inexhaustible means to the\nmost frugal methods. The poor may learn of her frugality, and the rich\ngenerosity. Having carefully determined the extent of her charity,\nshe establishes it forever; her almsgiving is an annuity. She supplies\nto the bee only so much wax as is necessary for its cell, so that no\npoverty could stint it more; but the little economist which fed the\nEvangelist in the desert still keeps in advance of the immigrant, and\nfills the cavities of the forest for his repast.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n1845-1846\n\n(\u00c6T. 27-29)\n\n\n_July 5. Saturday._ Walden.\u2014Yesterday I came here to live. My house\nmakes me think of some mountain houses I have seen, which seemed to\nhave a fresher auroral atmosphere about them, as I fancy of the halls\nof Olympus. I lodged at the house of a saw-miller last summer, on the\nCaatskill Mountains, high up as Pine Orchard, in the blueberry and\nraspberry region, where the quiet and cleanliness and coolness seemed to\nbe all one,\u2014which had their ambrosial character. He was the miller of\nthe Kaaterskill Falls. They were a clean and wholesome family, inside\nand out, like their house. The latter was not plastered, only lathed,\nand the inner doors were not hung. The house seemed high-placed, airy,\nand perfumed, fit to entertain a travelling god. It was so high, indeed,\nthat all the music, the broken strains, the waifs and accompaniments of\ntunes, that swept over the ridge of the Caatskills, passed through its\naisles. Could not man be man in such an abode? And would he ever find\nout this grovelling life?[380] It was the very light and atmosphere in\nwhich the works of Grecian art were composed, and in which they rest.\nThey have appropriated to themselves a loftier hall than mortals ever\noccupy, at least on a level with the mountain-brows of the world. There\nwas wanting a little of the glare of the lower vales, and in its place\na pure twilight as became the precincts of heaven. Yet so equable and\ncalm was the season there that you could not tell whether it was morning\nor noon or evening. Always there was the sound of the morning cricket.\n\n\n_July 6._ I wish to meet the facts of life\u2014the vital facts, which are\nthe phenomena or actuality the gods meant to show us\u2014face to face, and\nso I came down here. Life! who knows what it is, what it does? If I am\nnot quite right here, I am less wrong than before; and now let us see\nwhat they will have. The preacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy\nfarmers on their day of rest, at the end of the week,\u2014for Sunday always\nseemed to me like a fit conclusion of an ill-spent week and not the\nfresh and brave beginning of a new one,\u2014with this one other draggletail\nand postponed affair of a sermon, from thirdly to fifteenthly, should\nteach them with a thundering voice pause and simplicity. \"Stop! Avast!\nWhy so fast?\"[381] In all studies we go not forward but rather backward\nwith redoubled pauses. We always study _antiques_ with silence and\nreflection. Even time has a depth, and below its surface the waves do\nnot lapse and roar. I wonder men can be so frivolous almost as to attend\nto the gross form of negro slavery, there are so many keen and subtle\nmasters who subject us both. Self-emancipation in the West Indies of a\nman's thinking and imagining provinces, which should be more than his\nisland territory,\u2014one emancipated heart and intellect! It would knock\noff the fetters from a million slaves.\n\n\n_July 7._ I am glad to remember to-night, as I sit by my door, that\nI too am at least a remote descendant of that heroic race of men of\nwhom there is tradition. I too sit here on the shore of my Ithaca, a\nfellow-wanderer and survivor of Ulysses. How symbolical, significant\nof I know not what, the pitch pine stands here before my door! Unlike\nany glyph I have seen sculptured or painted yet, one of Nature's later\ndesigns, yet perfect as her Grecian art. There it is, a done tree. Who\ncan mend it? And now where is the generation of heroes whose lives are\nto pass amid these our northern pines, whose exploits shall appear to\nposterity pictured amid these strong and shaggy forms? Shall there be\nonly arrows and bows to go with these pines on some pipe-stone quarry\nat length? There is something more respectable than railroads in these\nsimple relics of the Indian race. What hieroglyphs shall we add to the\npipe-stone quarry?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf we can forget, we have done somewhat; if we can remember, we have\ndone somewhat. Let us remember this.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Great Spirit makes indifferent all times and places. The place where\nhe is seen is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our\nsenses. We had allowed only neighboring and transient circumstances to\nmake our occasions. They were, in fact, the causes of our distractions.\nBut nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next\nto us the grandest laws are being enacted and administered. Next to us\nis not the workman whom we have hired, but ever the workman whose work\nwe are. He is at work, not in my backyard, but inconceivably nearer\nthan that. We are the subjects of an experiment how singular! Can we\nnot dispense with the society of our gossips a little while under these\ncircumstances?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy auxiliaries are the dews and rains,\u2014to water this dry soil,\u2014and\ngenial fatness in the soil itself, which for the most part is lean and\neffete. My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks.\nThey have nibbled for me an eighth of an acre clean. I plant in faith,\nand they reap. This is the tax I pay for ousting johnswort and the rest.\nBut soon the surviving beans will be too tough for woodchucks, and then\nthey will go forward to meet new foes.[382]\n\n\n_July 14._ What sweet and tender, the most innocent and divinely\nencouraging society there is in every natural object, and so in\nuniversal nature, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man!\nThere can be no really black melan-choly to him who lives in the midst\nof nature and has still his senses. There never was yet such a storm but\nit was \u00c6olian music to the innocent ear. Nothing can compel to a vulgar\nsadness a simple and brave man. While I enjoy the sweet friendship of\nthe seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. This rain\nwhich is now watering my beans and keeping me in the house waters me\ntoo. I needed it as much. And what if most are not hoed! Those who send\nthe rain, whom I chiefly respect, will pardon me.[383]\n\nSometimes, when I compare myself with other men, methinks I am favored\nby the gods. They seem to whisper joy to me beyond my deserts, and that\nI do have a solid warrant and surety at their hands, which my fellows\ndo not. I do not flatter myself, but if it were possible _they_ flatter\nme. I am especially guided and guarded.[384]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat was seen true once, and sanctioned by the flash of Jove, will\nalways be true, and nothing can hinder it. I have the warrant that no\nfair dream I have had need fail of its fulfillment.\n\nHere I know I am in good company; here is the world, its centre and\nmetropolis, and all the palms of Asia and the laurels of Greece and the\nfirs of the Arctic Zone incline thither. Here I can read Homer, if I\nwould have books, as well as in Ionia, and not wish myself in Boston,\nor New York, or London, or Rome, or Greece. In such place as this he\nwrote or sang. Who should come to my lodge just now but a true Homeric\nboor, one of those Paphlagonian men? Alek Therien, he called himself;\na Canadian now, a woodchopper, a post-maker; makes fifty posts\u2014holes\nthem, _i. e._\u2014in a day; and who made his last supper on a woodchuck\nwhich his dog caught. And he too has heard of Homer, and _if it were\nnot for books, would not know what to do_ rainy days. Some priest once,\nwho could read glibly from the Greek itself, taught him reading in a\nmeasure\u2014his verse, at least, in his turn\u2014away by the Trois Rivi\u00e8res, at\nNicolet. And now I must read to him, while he holds the book, Achilles'\nreproof of Patroclus on his sad countenance.\n\n\"Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young child (girl)?\" etc., etc.\n\n     \"Or have you only heard some news from Phthia?\n     They say that Men\u0153tius lives yet, son of Actor,\n     And Peleus lives, son of \u00c6acus, among the Myrmidons,\n     Both of whom having died, we should greatly grieve.\"\n\nHe has a neat[385] bundle of white oak bark under his arm for a sick\nman, gathered this Sunday morning. \"I suppose there's no harm in going\nafter such a thing to-day.\"[386] The simple man. May the gods send him\nmany woodchucks.\n\nAnd earlier to-day came five Lestrigones, railroad men who take care\nof the road, some of them at least. They still represent the bodies of\nmen, transmitting arms and legs and bowels downward from those remote\ndays to more remote. They have some got a rude wisdom withal, thanks\nto their dear experience. And one with them, a handsome younger man, a\nsailor-like, Greek-like man, says: \"Sir, I like your notions. I think I\nshall live so myself. Only I should like a wilder country, where there\nis more game. I have been among the Indians near Appalachicola. I have\nlived with them. I like your kind of life. Good day. I wish you success\nand happiness.\"\n\nTherien said this morning (July 16th, Wednesday), \"If those beans\nwere mine, I shouldn't like to hoe them till the dew was off.\" He was\ngoing to his woodchopping. \"Ah!\" said I, \"that is one of the notions\nthe farmers have got, but I don't believe it.\" \"How thick the pigeons\nare!\" said he. \"If working every day were not my trade, I could get\nall the meat I should want by hunting,\u2014pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits,\npartridges,\u2014by George! I could get all I should want for a week in one\nday.\"[387]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI imagine it to be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier\nlife, though in the midst of an outward civilization. Of course all\nthe improvements of the ages do not carry a man backward nor forward in\nrelation to the great facts of his existence.[388]\n\nOur furniture should be as simple as the Arab's or the Indian's.[389] At\nfirst the thoughtful, wondering man plucked in haste the fruits which\nthe boughs extended to him, and found in the sticks and stones around\nhim his implements ready to crack the nut, to wound the beast, and\nbuild his house with. And he still remembered that he was a sojourner\nin nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his\njourney again. He dwelt in a tent in this world. He was either threading\nthe valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain-tops.[390]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow the best works of art serve comparatively but to dissipate the mind,\nfor they themselves represent transitionary and paroxysmal, not free\nand absolute, thoughts.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently\nplucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer.[391]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are scores of pitch pines in my field, from one to three inches\nin diameter, girdled by the mice last winter. A Norwegian winter it was\nfor them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they had to mix much pine\nmeal with their usual diet. Yet these trees have not many of them died,\neven in midsummer, and laid bare for a foot, but have grown a foot. They\nseem to do all their gnawing beneath the snow. There is not much danger\nof the mouse tribe becoming extinct in hard winters, for their granary\nis a cheap and extensive one.[392]\n\nHere is one has had her nest under my house, and came when I took my\nluncheon to pick the crumbs at my feet. It had never seen the race of\nman before, and so the sooner became familiar. It ran over my shoes and\nup my pantaloons inside, clinging to my flesh with its sharp claws. It\nwould run up the side of the room by short impulses like a squirrel,\nwhich [it] resembles, coming between the house mouse and the former. Its\nbelly is a little reddish, and its ears a little longer. At length, as\nI leaned my elbow on the bench, it ran over my arm and round the paper\nwhich contained my dinner. And when I held it a piece of cheese, it came\nand nibbled between my fingers, and then cleaned its face and paws like\na fly.[393]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a memorable interval between the written and the spoken\nlanguage, the language read and the language heard. The one is\ntransient, a sound, a tongue, a dialect, and all men learn it of their\nmothers. It is loquacious, fragmentary,\u2014raw material. The other is a\nreserved, select, matured expression, a deliberate word addressed to\nthe ear of nations and generations. The one is natural and convenient,\nthe other divine and instructive. The clouds flit here below, genial,\nrefreshing with their showers and gratifying with their tints,\u2014alternate\nsun and shade, a grosser heaven adapted to our trivial wants; but above\nthem repose the blue firmament and the stars. The stars are written\nwords and stereotyped on the blue parchment of the skies; the fickle\nclouds that hide them from our view, which we on this side need, though\nheaven does not, these are our daily colloquies, our vaporous, garrulous\nbreath.\n\nBooks must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.\nThe herd of men, the generations who speak the Greek and Latin, are\nnot entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of genius,\nwhose mother tongue speaks everywhere, and is learned by every child\nwho hears. The army of the Greeks and Latins are not co\u00e6ternary,\nthough contemporary, with Homer and Plato, Virgil and Cicero. In the\ntransition ages, nations who loudest spoke the Greek and Latin tongues,\nwhose mother's milk they were, learned not their nobler dialects,\nbut a base and vulgar speech. The men of the Middle Ages who spoke so\nglibly the language of the Roman and, in the Eastern Empire, of the\nAthenian mob, prized only a cheap contemporary learning. The classics\nof both languages were virtually lost and forgotten. When, after\nthe several nations of Europe had acquired in some degree rude and\noriginal languages of their own, sufficient for the arts of life and\nconversation, then the few scholars beheld with advantage from this\nmore distant standpoint the treasures of antiquity, and a new Latin\nage commenced, the era of reading. Those works of genius were then\nfirst classical. All those millions who had spoken Latin and Greek\nhad not read Latin and Greek. The time had at length arrived for the\nwritten word, the _scripture_, to be heard. What the multitude could\nnot _hear_, after the lapse of centuries a few scholars _read_. This is\nthe matured thought which was not spoken in the market-place, unless it\nbe in a market-place where the free genius of mankind resorts to-day.\nThere is something very choice and select in a written word. No wonder\nAlexander carried his Homer in a precious casket on his expeditions. A\nword which may be translated into every dialect, and suggests a truth\nto every mind, is the most perfect work of human art; and as it may\nbe breathed and taken on our lips, and, as it were, become the product\nof our physical organs, as its sense is of our intellectual, it is the\nnearest to life itself.[394] It is the simplest and purest channel by\nwhich a revelation may be transmitted from age to age. How it subsists\nitself whole and undiminished till the intelligent reader is born to\ndecipher it! There are the tracks of Zoroaster, of Confucius and Moses,\nindelible in the sands of the remotest times.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are no monuments of antiquity comparable to the classics for\ninterest and importance. It does not need that the scholar should be\nan antiquarian, for these works of art have such an immortality as the\nworks of nature, and are modern at the same time that they are ancient,\nlike the sun and stars, and occupy by right no small share of the\npresent. This palpable beauty is the treasured wealth of the world and\nthe proper inheritance of each generation. Books, the oldest and the\nbest, stand rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have not to\nplead their cause, but they enlighten their readers and it is gained.\nWhen the illiterate and scornful rustic earns his imagined leisure and\nwealth, he turns inevitably at last\u2014he or his children\u2014to these still\nhigher and yet inaccessible circles; and even when his descendant has\nattained to move in the highest rank of the wise men of his own age\nand country, he will still be sensible only of the imperfection of his\nculture and the vanity and inefficiency of his intellectual wealth, if\nhis genius will not permit him to listen with somewhat of the equanimity\nof an equal to the fames of godlike men, which yet, as it were, form an\ninvisible upper class in every society.[395]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have carried an apple in my pocket to-night\u2014a sopsivine, they call\nit\u2014till, now that I take my handkerchief out, it has got so fine a\nfragrance that it really seems like a friendly trick of some pleasant\nd\u00e6mon to entertain me with.[396] It is redolent of sweet-scented\norchards, of innocent, teeming harvests. I realize the existence of a\ngoddess Pomona, and that the gods have really intended that men should\nfeed divinely, like themselves, on their own nectar and ambrosia. They\nhave so painted this fruit, and freighted it with such a fragrance,\nthat it satisfies much more than an animal appetite. Grapes, peaches,\nberries, nuts, etc., are likewise provided for those who will sit at\ntheir sideboard. I have felt, when partaking of this inspiring diet,\nthat my appetite was an indifferent consideration; that eating became\na sacrament, a method of communion, an ecstatic exercise, a mingling\nof bloods, and [a] sitting at the communion table of the world; and so\nhave not only quenched my thirst at the spring but the health of the\nuniverse.\n\nThe indecent haste and grossness with which our food is swallowed have\ncast a disgrace on the very act of eating itself. But I do believe that,\nif this process were rightly conducted, its aspect and effects would\nbe wholly changed, and we should receive our daily life and health,\nAnt\u00e6us-like, with an ecstatic delight, and, with upright front, an\ninnocent and graceful behavior, take our strength from day to day. This\nfragrance of the apple in my pocket has, I confess, deterred me from\neating of it. I am more effectually fed by it another way.\n\nIt is, indeed, the common notion that this fragrance is the only food\nof the gods, and inasmuch as we are partially divine we are compelled\nto respect it.\n\n     Tell me, ye wise ones, if ye can,\n     Whither and whence the race of man.\n     For I have seen his slender clan\n     Clinging to hoar hills with their feet,\n     Threading the forest for their meat.\n     Moss and lichens, bark and grain\n     They rake together with might and main,\n     And they digest them with anxiety and pain.\n     I meet them in their rags and unwashed hair,\n     Instructed to eke out their scanty fare\u2014\n     Brave race\u2014with a yet humbler prayer.\n     Beggars they are, aye, on the largest scale.\n     They beg their daily bread at heaven's door,\n     And if their this year's crop alone should fail,\n     They neither bread nor begging would know more.\n     They are the titmen of their race,\n     And hug the vales with mincing pace\n     Like Troglodytes, and fight with cranes.\n     We walk 'mid great relations' feet.\n     What they let fall alone we eat.\n     We are only able\n     To catch the fragments from their table.\n     These elder brothers of our race,\n     By us unseen, with larger pace\n     Walk o'er our heads, and live our lives,\n     Embody our desires and dreams,\n     Anticipate our hoped-for gleams.\n     We grub the earth for our food.\n     We know not what is good.\n     Where does the fragrance of our orchards go,\n     Our vineyards, while we toil below?\n     A finer race and finer fed\n     Feast and revel above our head.\n     The tints and fragrance of the flowers and fruits\n     Are but the crumbs from off their table,\n     While we consume the pulp and roots.\n     Sometimes we do assert our kin,\n     And stand a moment where once they have been.\n     We hear their sounds and see their sights,\n     And we experience their delights.\n     But for the moment that we stand\n     Astonished on the Olympian land,\n     We do discern no traveller's face,\n     No elder brother of our race,\n     To lead us to the monarch's court\n     And represent our case;\n     But straightway we must journey back,\n     Retracing slow the arduous track,\n     Without the privilege to tell,\n     Even, the sight we know so well.[397]\n\nIn my father's house are many mansions.\n\nWho ever explored the mansions of the air? Who knows who his neighbors\nare? We seem to lead our human lives amid a concentric system of\nworlds, of realm on realm, close bordering on each other, where dwell\nthe unknown and the imagined races, as various in degree as our own\nthoughts are,\u2014a system of invisible partitions more infinite in number\nand more inconceivable in intricacy than the starry one which science\nhas penetrated.\n\nWhen I play my flute to-night, earnest as if to leap the bounds [of] the\nnarrow fold where human life is penned, and range the surrounding plain,\nI hear echo from a neighboring wood, a stolen pleasure, occasionally\nnot rightfully heard, much more for other ears than ours, for 'tis the\nreverse of sound. It is not our own melody that comes back to us, but an\namended strain. And I would only hear myself as I would hear my echo,\ncorrected and repronounced for me. It is as when my friend reads my\nverse.\n\nThe borders of our plot are set with flowers, whose seeds were blown\nfrom more Elysian fields adjacent. They are the pot-herbs of the gods,\nwhich our laborious feet have never reached, and fairer fruits and\nunaccustomed fragrance betray another realm's vicinity. There, too, is\nEcho found, with which we play at evening. There is the abutment of the\nrainbow's arch.[398]\n\n\n_Aug. 6._ Walden.\u2014I have just been reading a book called \"The Crescent\nand the Cross,\"[399] till now I am somewhat ashamed of myself. Am I\nsick, or idle, that I can sacrifice my energy, America, and to-day to\nthis man's ill-remembered and indolent story? Carnac and Luxor are but\nnames, and still more desert sand and at length a wave of the great\nocean itself are needed to wash away the filth that attaches to their\ngrandeur. Carnac! Carnac! this is Carnac for me, and I behold the\ncolumns of a larger and a purer temple.[400] May our childish and fickle\naspirations be divine, while we descend to this mean intercourse. Our\nreading should be heroic, in an unknown tongue, a dialect always but\nimperfectly learned, through which we stammer line by line, catching but\na glimmering of the sense, and still afterward admiring its unexhausted\nhieroglyphics, its untranslated columns. Here grow around me nameless\ntrees and shrubs, each morning freshly sculptured, rising new stories\nday by day, instead of hideous ruins,\u2014their myriad-handed worker\nuncompelled as uncompelling. This is my Carnac; that its unmeasured\ndome. The measuring art man has invented flourishes and dies upon this\ntemple's floor, nor ever dreams to reach that ceiling's height. Carnac\nand Luxor crumble underneath. Their shadowy roofs let in the light once\nmore reflected from the ceiling of the sky.\n\nBehold these flowers! Let us be up with Time, not dreaming of three\nthousand years ago. Erect ourselves and let those columns lie, not stoop\nto raise a foil against the sky. Where is the _spirit_ of that time but\nin this present day, this present line? Three thousand years ago are\nnot agone; they are still lingering here this summer morn.\n\n     And Memnon's mother sprightly greets us now;\n     Wears still her youthful blushes on her brow.\n     And Carnac's columns, why stand they on the plain?\n     T' enjoy our opportunities they would fain remain.\n\n\n     This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome\n     Shelters the measuring art and measurer's home,\n     Whose propyl\u00e6um is the system high [?]\n     And sculptured fa\u00e7ade the visible sky.\n\nWhere there is memory which compelleth Time, the Muses' mother, and the\nMuses nine, there are all ages, past and future time,\u2014unwearied memory\nthat does not forget the actions of the past, that does not forego\nto stamp them freshly, that Old Mortality, industrious to retouch the\nmonuments of time, in the world's cemetery throughout every clime.[401]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe student may read Homer or \u00c6schylus in the original Greek; for to do\nso implies to emulate their heroes,\u2014the consecration of morning hours\nto their pages.\n\nThe heroic books, though printed in the character of our mother tongue,\nare always written in a foreign language, dead to idle and degenerate\ntimes, and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line,\nconjecturing a larger sense than the text renders us, at last, out of\nour own valor and generosity.[402]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA man must find his own occasion in himself. The natural day is very\ncalm, and will hardly reprove our indolence. If there is no elevation\nin our spirits, the pond will not seem elevated like a mountain tarn,\nbut a low pool, a silent muddy water, a place for fishermen.\n\nI sit here at my window like a priest of Isis, and observe the phenomena\nof three thousand years ago, yet unimpaired. The tantivy of wild\npigeons, an ancient race of birds, gives a voice to the air, flying by\ntwos and threes athwart my view or perching restless on the white pine\nboughs occasionally; a fish hawk dimples the glassy surface of the pond\nand brings up a fish; and for the last half-hour I have heard the rattle\nof railroad cars conveying travellers from Boston to the country.[403]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter the evening train has gone by and left the world to silence and\nto me, the whip-poor-will chants her vespers for half an hour. And when\nall is still at night, the owls take up the strain, like mourning women\ntheir ancient ululu. Their most dismal scream is truly Ben-Jonsonian.\nWise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the\npoets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty,\u2014but the\nmutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the\ndelights of supernal love in the infernal groves. And yet I love to hear\ntheir wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside,\nreminding me sometimes of music and singing birds, as if it were the\ndark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs, that would fain\nbe sung. The spirits, the _low_ spirits and melancholy forebodings,\nof fallen spirits who once in human shape night-walked the earth and\ndid the deeds of darkness, now expiating with their wailing hymns,\nthrenodiai, their sins in the very scenery of their transgressions. They\ngive me a new sense of the vastness and mystery of that nature which\nis the common dwelling of us both. \"Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been\nbor-or-or-or-orn!\" sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles in\nthe restlessness of despair to some new perch in the gray oaks. Then,\n\"That I never had been bor-or-or-or-orn!\" echoes one on the further\nside, with a tremulous sincerity, and \"Bor-or-or-or-orn\" comes faintly\nfrom far in the Lincoln woods.[404]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then the frogs, bullfrogs; they are the more sturdy spirits of\nancient wine-bibbers and wassailers, still unrepentant, trying to sing\na catch in their Stygian lakes. They would fain keep up the hilarious\ngood fellowship and all the rules of their old round tables, but they\nhave waxed hoarse and solemnly grave and serious their voices, mocking\nat mirth, and their wine has lost its flavor and is only liquor to\ndistend their paunches, and never comes sweet intoxication to drown\nthe memory of the past, but mere saturation and water-logged dullness\nand distension. Still the most aldermanic, with his chin upon a pad,\nwhich answers for a napkin to his drooling chaps, under the eastern\nshore quaffs a deep draught of the once scorned water, and passes\nround the cup with the ejaculation _tr-r-r-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-r-r-oonk,\ntr-r-r-r-oonk!_ and straightway comes over the water from some distant\ncove the selfsame password, where the next in seniority and girth has\ngulped down to his mark; and when the strain has made the circuit of\nthe shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies with satisfaction\n_tr-r-r-r-oonk!_ and each in turn repeats the sound, down to the least\ndistended, leakiest, flabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and\nthe bowl goes round again, until the sun dispels the morning mist, and\nonly the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing _troonk_\nfrom time to time, pausing for a reply.[405]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll nature is classic and akin to art. The sumach and pine and hickory\nwhich surround my house remind me of the most graceful sculpture.\nSometimes their tops, or a single limb or leaf, seems to have grown to a\ndistinct expression as if it were a symbol for me to interpret. Poetry,\npainting, and sculpture claim at once and associate with themselves\nthose perfect specimens of the art of nature,\u2014leaves, vines, acorns,\npine cones, etc. The critic must at last stand as mute though contented\nbefore a true poem as before an acorn or a vine leaf. The perfect work\nof art is received again into the bosom of nature whence its material\nproceeded, and that criticism which can only detect its unnaturalness\nhas no longer any office to fulfill. The choicest maxims that have come\ndown to us are more beautiful or integrally wise than they are wise to\nour understandings. This wisdom which we are inclined to pluck from\ntheir stalk is the point only of a single association. Every natural\nform\u2014palm leaves and acorns, oak leaves and sumach and dodder\u2014are\n[_sic_] untranslatable aphorisms.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTwenty-three years since, when I was five years old, I was brought from\nBoston to this pond, away in the country,\u2014which was then but another\nname for the extended world for me,\u2014one of the most ancient scenes\nstamped on the tablets of my memory, the oriental Asiatic valley of my\nworld, whence so many races and inventions have gone forth in recent\ntimes. That woodland vision for a long time made the drapery of my\ndreams. That sweet solitude my spirit seemed so early to require that\nI might have room to entertain my thronging guests, and that speaking\nsilence that my ears might distinguish the significant sounds. Somehow\nor other it at once gave the preference to this recess among the pines,\nwhere almost sunshine and shadow were the only inhabitants that varied\nthe scene, over that tumultuous and varied city, as if it had found its\nproper nursery.\n\nWell, now, to-night my flute awakes the echoes over this very water,\nbut one generation of pines has fallen, and with their stumps I have\ncooked my supper, and a lusty growth of oaks and pines is rising all\naround its brim and preparing its wilder aspect for new infant eyes.\nAlmost the same johnswort springs from the same perennial root in this\npasture. Even I have at length helped to clothe that fabulous landscape\nof my imagination, and one result of my presence and influence is seen\nin these bean leaves and corn blades and potato vines.[406]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs difficult to preserve is the tenderness of your nature as the bloom\nupon a peach.\n\nMost men are so taken up with the cares and rude practice of life that\nits finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Literally, the laboring man\nhas not leisure for a strict and lofty integrity day by day; he cannot\nafford to sustain the fairest and noblest relations. His labor will\ndepreciate in the market.\n\nHow can he remember well his ignorance who has so often to use his\nknowledge.\n\n\n_Aug. 15._ The sounds heard at this hour, 8.30, are the distant\nrumbling of wagons over bridges,\u2014a sound farthest heard of any human at\nnight,\u2014the baying of dogs, the lowing of cattle in distant yards.[407]\n\nWhat if we were to obey these fine dictates, these divine suggestions,\nwhich are addressed to the mind and not to the body, which are certainly\ntrue,\u2014not to eat meat, not to buy, or sell, or barter, etc., etc., etc.?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI will not plant beans another summer, but sincerity, truth, simplicity,\nfaith, trust, innocence, and see if they will not grow in this soil\nwith such manure as I have, and sustain me.[408] When a man meets a\nman, it should not be some uncertain appearance and falsehood, but\nthe personification of great qualities. Here comes truth, perchance,\npersonified, along the road.[409] Let me see how Truth behaves. I have\nnot seen enough of her. He shall utter no foreign word, no doubtful\nsentence, and I shall not make haste to part with him.\n\nI would not forget that I deal with infinite and divine qualities in\nmy fellow. All men, indeed, are divine in their core of light, but that\nis indistinct and distant to me, like the stars of the least magnitude,\nor the galaxy itself, but my kindred planets show their round disks and\neven their attendant moons to my eye.\n\nEven the tired laborers I meet on the road, I really meet as travelling\ngods, but it is as yet, and must be for a long season, without speech.\n\n\n_Aug. 23. Saturday._ I set out this afternoon to go a-fishing for\npickerel to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. From Walden I went\nthrough the woods to Fair Haven, but by the way the rain came on again,\nand my fates compelled me to stand a half-hour under a pine, piling\nboughs over my head, and wearing my pocket handkerchief for an umbrella;\nand when at length I had made one cast over the pickerel-weed, the\nthunder gan romblen in the heven with that grisly steven that Chaucer\ntells of.[410] (The gods must be proud, with such forked flashes and\nsuch artillery to rout a poor unarmed fisherman.) I made haste to\nthe nearest hut for a shelter. This stood a half a mile off the road,\nand so much the nearer to the pond. There dwelt a shiftless Irishman,\nJohn Field, and his wife, and many children, from the broad-faced boy\nthat ran by his father's side to escape the rain to the wrinkled and\nsibyl-like, crone-like infant, not knowing whether to take the part of\nage or infancy, that sat upon its father's knee as in the palaces of\nnobles, and looked out from its home in the midst of wet and hunger\ninquisitively upon the stranger, with the privilege of infancy; the\nyoung creature not knowing but it might be the last of a line of kings\ninstead of John Field's poor starveling brat, or, I should rather\nsay, still knowing that it was the last of a noble line and the hope\nand cynosure of the world. An honest, hard-working, but shiftless man\nplainly was John Field; and his wife, she too was brave to cook so many\nsucceeding dinners in the recesses of that lofty stove; with round,\ngreasy face and bare breast, still thinking to improve her condition one\nday; with the never absent mop in hand, and yet no effects of it visible\nanywhere. The chickens, like members of the family, stalked about the\nroom, too much humanized to roast well. They stood and looked in my eye\nor pecked at my shoe. He told me his story, how hard he worked bogging\nfor a neighbor, at ten dollars an acre and the use of the land with\nmanure for one year, and the little broad-faced son worked cheerfully\nat his father's side the while, not knowing, alas! how poor a bargain\nhe had made. Living, John Field, alas! without arithmetic; failing to\nlive.\n\n\"Do you ever fish?\" said I. \"Oh yes, I catch a mess when I am lying\nby; good perch I catch.\" \"What's your bait?\" \"I catch shiners with\nfishworms, and bait the perch with them.\" \"You'd better go now, John,\"\nsaid his wife, with glistening, hopeful face. But poor John Field\ndisturbed but a couple of fins, while I was catching a fair string,\nand he said it was his luck; and when he changed seats luck changed\nseats too. Thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this\nprimitive new country, _e. g._ to catch perch with shiners.[411]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI find an instinct in me conducting to a mystic spiritual life, and also\nanother to a primitive savage life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nToward evening, as the world waxes darker, I am permitted to see the\nwoodchuck stealing across my path, and tempted to seize and devour it.\nThe wildest, most desolate scenes are strangely familiar to me.[412]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy not live a hard and emphatic life, not to be avoided, full of\nadventures and work, learn much in it, travel much, though it be only in\nthese woods? I sometimes walk across a field with unexpected expansion\nand long-missed content, as if there were a field worthy of me. The\nusual daily boundaries of life are dispersed, and I see in what field\nI stand.\n\nWhen on my way this afternoon, Shall I go down this long hill in the\nrain to fish in the pond? I ask myself. And I say to myself: Yes, roam\nfar, grasp life and conquer it, learn much and live. Your fetters are\nknocked off; you are really free. Stay till late in the night; be unwise\nand daring. See many men far and near, in their fields and cottages\nbefore the sun sets, though as if many more were to be seen. And yet\neach _rencontre_ shall be so satisfactory and simple that no other shall\nseem possible. Do not repose every night as villagers do. The noble life\nis continuous and unintermitting. At least, live with a longer radius.\nMen come home at night only from the next field or street, where their\nhousehold echoes haunt, and their life pines and is sickly because\nit breathes its own breath. Their shadows morning and evening reach\nfarther than their daily steps. But come home from far, from ventures\nand perils, from enterprise and discovery and crusading, with faith\nand experience and character.[413] Do not rest much. Dismiss prudence,\nfear, conformity. Remember only what is promised. Make the day light\nyou, and the night hold a candle, though you be falling from heaven to\nearth \"from morn to dewy eve a summer's day.\"\n\nFor Vulcan's fall occupied a day, but our highest aspirations and\nperformances fill but the interstices of time.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAre we not reminded in our better moments that we have been needlessly\nhusbanding somewhat, perchance our little God-derived capital, or\ntitle to capital, guarding it by methods we know? But the most diffuse\nprodigality a better wisdom teaches,\u2014that we _hold_ nothing. We are not\nwhat we were. By usurers' craft, by Jewish methods, we strive to retain\nand increase the divinity in us, when infinitely the greater part of\ndivinity is out of us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMost men have forgotten that it was ever morning; but a few serene\nmemories, healthy and wakeful natures, there are who assure us that the\nsun rose clear, heralded by the singing of birds,\u2014this very day's sun,\nwhich rose before Memnon was ready to greet it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn all the dissertations on language, men forget the language that\nis, that is really universal, the inexpressible meaning that is in all\nthings and everywhere, with which the morning and evening teem. As if\nlanguage were especially of the tongue of course. With a more copious\nlearning or understanding of what is published, the present _languages_,\nand all that they express, will be forgotten.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe rays which streamed through the crevices will be no more remembered\nwhen the shadow is wholly removed.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLeft house on account of plastering, Wednesday, November 12th, at night;\nreturned Saturday, December 6th.[414]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThough the race is not so degenerated but a man might possibly live\nin a cave to-day and keep himself warm by furs, yet, as caves and wild\nbeasts are not plenty enough to accommodate all at the present day, it\nwere certainly better to accept the advantages which the invention and\nindustry of mankind offer. In thickly settled civilized communities,\nboards and shingles, lime and brick, are cheaper and more easily come by\nthan suitable caves, or the whole logs, or bark in sufficient quantity,\nor even well-tempered clay or flat stones.[415] A tolerable house for\na rude and hardy race that lived much out of doors was once made here\nwithout any of these last materials. According to the testimony of the\nfirst settlers of Boston, an Indian wigwam was as comfortable in winter\nas an English house with all its wainscotting, and they had advanced so\nfar as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the\nhole in the roof, which was moved by a string. Such a lodge was, in the\nfirst instance, constructed in a day or two and taken down and put up\nagain in a few hours, and every family had one.[416]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus, to try our civilization by a fair test, in the ruder states of\nsociety every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient\nfor its ruder and simpler wants; but in modern civilized society, though\nthe birds of the air have their nests, and woodchucks and foxes their\nholes, though each one is commonly the owner of his coat and hat though\nnever so poor, yet not more than one man in a thousand owns a shelter,\nbut the nine hundred and ninety-nine pay an annual tax for this outside\ngarment of all, indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a\nvillage of Indian wigwams and contributes to keep them poor as long\nas they live. But, answers one, by simply paying this annual tax the\npoorest man secures an abode which is a palace compared to the Indian's.\nAn annual rent of from twenty to sixty or seventy dollars entitles him\nto the benefit of all the improvements of centuries,\u2014Rumford fireplace,\nback plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock, etc.,\netc.[417] But while civilization has been improving our houses, she has\nnot equally improved the men who should occupy them. She has created\npalaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. The mason\nwho finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night, perchance, to\na hut no better than a wigwam.[418] If she claims to have made a real\nadvance in the welfare of man, she must show how she has produced better\ndwellings without making them more costly. And the cost of a thing, it\nwill be remembered, is the amount of life it requires to be exchanged\nfor it, immediately or in the long run. An average house costs perhaps\nfrom one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars, and to earn this sum will\nrequire from fifteen to twenty years of the day laborer's life, even\nif he is not incumbered with a family; so that he must spend more than\nhalf his life before a wigwam can be earned; and if we suppose he pays\na rent instead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage\nhave been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?[419]\n\nWhen I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, for instance, who\nare at least as well off as the other classes, what are they about? For\nthe most part I find that they have been toiling ten, twenty, or thirty\nyears to pay for their farms, and we may set down one half of that toil\nto the cost of their houses; and commonly they have not yet paid for\nthem.[420] This is the reason they are poor; and for similar reasons we\nare all poor in respect to a thousand savage comforts, though surrounded\nby luxuries.[421]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut most men do not know what a house is, and the mass are actually\npoor all their days because they think they must have such an one as\ntheir neighbor's. As if one were to wear any sort of coat the tailor\nmight cut out for him, or, gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat and cap\nof woodchuck-skin, should complain of hard times because he could not\nbuy him a crown![422]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt reflects no little dignity on Nature, the fact that the Romans once\ninhabited her,\u2014that from this same unaltered hill, forsooth, the Roman\nonce looked out upon the sea, as from a signal station. The vestiges of\nmilitary roads, of houses and tessellated courts and baths,\u2014Nature need\nnot be ashamed of these relics of her children. The hero's cairn,\u2014one\ndoubts at length whether his relations or Nature herself raised the\nhill. The whole earth is but a hero's cairn. How often are the Romans\nflattered by the historian and antiquary! Their vessels penetrated\ninto this frith and up that river of some remote isle. Their military\nmonuments still remain on the hills and under the sod of the valleys.\nThe oft-repeated Roman story is written in still legible characters\nin every quarter of the old world, and but to-day a new coin is dug up\nwhose inscription repeats and confirms their fame. Some \"Jud\u00e6a Capta,\"\nwith a woman mourning under a palm tree, with silent argument and\ndemonstration puts at rest whole pages of history.[423]\n\n\nThe Earth\n\n     Which seems so barren once gave birth\n     To heroes, who o'erran her plains,\n     Who plowed her seas and reaped her grains.\n\nSome make the mythology of the Greeks to have been borrowed from that of\nthe Hebrews, which however is not to be proved by analogies,\u2014the story\nof Jupiter dethroning his father Saturn, for instance, from the conduct\nof Cham towards his father Noah, and the division of the world among\nthe three brothers. But the Hebrew fable will not bear to be compared\nwith the Grecian. The latter is infinitely more sublime and divine. The\none is a history of mortals, the other a history of gods and heroes,\ntherefore not so ancient. The one god of the Hebrews is not so much of\na gentleman, not so gracious and divine, not so flexible and catholic,\ndoes not exert so intimate an influence on nature as many a one of the\nGreeks. He is not less human, though more absolute and unapproachable.\nThe Grecian were youthful and living gods, but still of godlike or\ndivine race, and had the virtues of gods. The Hebrew had not all of\nthe divinity that is in man, no real love for man, but an inflexible\njustice. The attribute of the one god has been infinite power, not\ngrace, not humanity, nor love even,\u2014wholly masculine, with no sister\nJuno, no Apollo, no Venus in him. I might say that the one god was not\nyet apotheosized, not yet become the current material of poetry.[424]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe wisdom of some of those Greek fables is remarkable. The god Apollo\n(Wisdom, Wit, Poetry) condemned to serve, keep the sheep of _King_\nAdmetus. So is poetry allied to the state.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo \u00c6acus, Minos, Rhadamanthus, judges in hell, only naked men came to\nbe judged. As Alexander Ross comments, \"In this world we must not look\nfor Justice; when we are stript of all, then shall we have it. For here\nsomething will be found about us that shall corrupt the Judge.\" When the\nisland of \u00c6gina was depopulated by sickness at the instance of \u00c6acus,\nJupiter turned the ants into men, _i. e._ made men of the inhabitants\nwho lived meanly like ants.[425]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe hidden significance of these fables which has been detected, the\nethics running parallel to the poetry and history, is not so remarkable\nas the readiness with which they may be made to express any truth.\nThey are the skeletons of still older and more universal truths than\nany whose flesh and blood they are for the time made to wear. It is\nlike striving to make the sun and the wind and the sea signify. What\nsignifies it?[426]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPiety, that carries its father on its shoulders.[427]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMusic was of three kinds,\u2014mournful, martial, and effeminate,\u2014Lydian,\nDoric, and Phrygian. Its inventors Amphion, Thamyris, and Marsyas.\nAmphion was bred by shepherds. He caused the stones to follow him and\nbuilt the walls of Thebes by his music. All orderly and harmonious or\nbeautiful structures may be said to be raised to a slow music.\n\nHarmony was begotten of Mars and Venus.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnt\u00e6us was the son of Neptune and the Earth. All physical bulk and\nstrength is of the earth and mortal. When it loses this _point d'appui_\nit is weakness; it cannot soar. And so, _vice versa_, you can interpret\nthis fable to the credit of the earth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey all provoked or challenged the gods,\u2014Amphion, Apollo and Diana,\nand was killed by them; Thamyris, the Muses, who conquered him in music,\ntook away his eyesight and melodious voice, and broke his lyre. Marsyas\ntook up the flute which Minerva threw away, challenged Apollo, was\nflayed alive by him, and his death mourned by Fauns, Satyrs, and Dryads,\nwhose tears produced the river which bears his name.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe fable which is truly and naturally composed, so as to please the\nimagination of a child, harmonious though strange like a wild-flower,\nis to the wise man an apothegm and admits his wisest interpretation.\n\nWhen we read that Bacchus made the Tyrrhenian mariners mad, so that they\nleaped into the sea, mistaking it for \"a meadow full of flowers,\" and\nso became dolphins, we are not concerned about the historical truth of\nthis, but rather a higher, poetical truth. We seem to hear the music of\na thought, and care not if our intellect be not gratified.[428]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe mythologies, those vestiges of ancient poems, the world's\ninheritance, still reflecting some of their original hues, like the\nfragments of clouds tinted by the departed sun, the wreck of poems,\na retrospect as [of] the loftiest fames,\u2014what survives of oldest\nfame,\u2014some fragment will still float into the latest summer day and\nally this hour to the morning of creation. These are the materials and\nhints for a history of the rise and progress of the race. How from\nthe condition of ants it arrived at the condition of men, how arts\nwere invented gradually,\u2014let a thousand surmises shed some light on\nthis story. We will not be confined by historical, even geological,\nperiods, which would allow us to doubt of a progress in human events.\nIf we rise above this wisdom for the day, we shall expect that\nthis morning of the race, in which they have been supplied with the\nsimplest necessaries,\u2014with corn and wine and honey and oil and fire and\narticulate speech and agricultural and other arts,\u2014reared up by degrees\nfrom the condition of ants to men, will be succeeded by a day of equally\nprogressive splendor; that, in the lapse of the divine periods, other\ndivine agents and godlike men will assist to elevate the race as much\nabove its present condition.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nArist\u00e6us \"found out honey and oil.\" \"He obtained of Jupiter and Neptune,\nthat the pestilential heat of the dog-days, wherein was great mortality,\nshould be mitigated with wind.\"[429]\n\n\n_Dec. 12. Friday._ The pond skimmed over on the night of this day,\nexcepting a strip from the bar to the northwest shore. Flint's Pond has\nbeen frozen for some time.[430]\n\n\n_Dec. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20._ Pond _quite free_ from ice, not yet having\nbeen frozen quite over.\n\n\n_Dec. 23. Tuesday._ The pond froze over last night entirely for the\nfirst time, yet so as not to be safe to walk upon.[431]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI wish to say something to-night not of and concerning the Chinese and\nSandwich-Islanders, but _to_ and concerning you who hear me, who are\nsaid to live in New England; something about your condition, especially\nyour outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town;\nwhat it is, whether it is necessarily as bad as it is, whether it can't\nbe improved as well as not.[432]\n\nIt is generally admitted that some of you are poor, find it hard to get\na living, haven't always something in your pockets, haven't paid for all\nthe dinners you've actually eaten, or all your coats and shoes, some\nof which are already worn out. All this is very well known to all by\nhearsay and by experience. It is very evident what a mean and sneaking\nlife you live, always in the hampers, always on the limits, trying to\nget into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough,\ncalled by the Latins _aes alienum_, another's brass,\u2014some of their\ncoins being made of brass,\u2014and still so many living and dying and buried\nto-day by another's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay,\nwith interest, to-morrow perhaps, and die to-day, insolvent; seeking\nto curry favor, to get custom, lying, flattering, voting, contracting\nyourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into a world of thin\nand vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you\nmake his [shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, etc.].[433]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a civilization going on among brutes as well as men. Foxes\nare forest dogs. I hear one barking raggedly, wildly, demoniacally in\nthe darkness to-night, seeking expression, laboring with some anxiety,\nstriving to be a dog outright that he may carelessly run in the\nstreet, struggling for light. He is but a faint man, before pygmies; an\nimperfect, burrowing man. He has come up near to my window, attracted\nby the light, and barked a vulpine curse at me, then retreated.[434]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nReading suggested by Hallam's History of Literature.\n\n1. \"Abelard and Heloise.\"\n\n2. Look at Luigi Pulci. His \"Morgante Maggiore,\" published in 1481,\n\"was to the poetical romances of chivalry what Don Quixote was to their\nbrethren in prose.\"\n\n3. Leonardo da Vinci. The most remarkable of his writings still in\nmanuscript. For his universality of genius, \"the first name of the\nfifteenth century.\"\n\n4. Read Boiardo's \"Orlando Innamorato,\" published between 1491 and 1500,\nfor its influence on Ariosto and its intrinsic merits. Its sounding\nnames repeated by Milton in \"Paradise Regained.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLandor's works are:\u2014\n\nA small volume of poems, 1793, out of print.\n\nPoems of \"Gebir,\" \"Chrysaor,\" the \"Phoceans,\" etc. The \"Gebir\" eulogized\nby Southey and Coleridge.\n\nWrote verses in Italian and Latin.\n\nThe dramas \"Andrea of Hungary,\" \"Giovanna of Naples,\" and \"Fra Rupert.\"\n\n\"Pericles and Aspasia.\"\n\n\"Poems from the Arabic and Persian,\" 1800, pretending to be translations.\n\n\"A Satire upon Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors,\" printed 1836,\nnot published.\n\nLetters called \"High and Low Life in Italy.\"\n\n\"Imaginary Conversations.\"\n\n\"Pentameron and Pentalogia.\"\n\n\"Examination of William Shakspeare before Sir Thomas Lucy, Knt.,\ntouching Deer-stealing.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Vide_ again Richard's sail in \"Richard First and the Abbot.\"[435]\n\nPhocion's remarks in conclusion of \"Eschines and Phocion.\"\n\n\"Demosthenes and Eubulides.\"\n\nIn Milton and Marvel, speaking of the Greek poets, he says, \"There is a\nsort of refreshing odor flying off it perpetually; not enough to oppress\nor to satiate; nothing is beaten or bruised; nothing smells of the\nstalk; the flower itself is half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering\nround.\"\n\nPericles and Sophocles.\n\nMarcus Tullius Cicero and his brother Quintus. In this a sentence on\nSleep and Death.\n\nJohnson and Tooke, for a criticism on words.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is worth the while to have lived a primitive wilderness life at\nsome time, to know what are, after all, the necessaries of life and\nwhat methods society has taken to supply them. I have looked over the\nold day-books of the merchants with the same view,\u2014to see what it was\nshopmen bought. They are the grossest groceries.[436] Salt is perhaps\nthe most important article in such a list, and most commonly bought at\nthe stores, of articles commonly thought to be necessaries,\u2014salt, sugar,\nmolasses, cloth, etc.,\u2014by the farmer. You will see why stores or shops\nexist, not to furnish tea and coffee, but salt, etc. Here's the rub,\nthen.\n\nI see how I could supply myself with every other article which I need,\nwithout using the shops, and to obtain this might be the fit occasion\nfor a visit to the seashore. Yet even salt cannot strictly speaking be\ncalled a necessary of human life, since many tribes do not use it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Have you seen my hound, sir? I want to know!\u2014what! a lawyer's office?\nlaw books?\u2014if you've seen anything of a hound about here. Why, what do\nyou do here?\" \"I live here. No, I haven't.\" \"Haven't you heard one in\nthe woods anywhere?\" \"Oh, yes, I heard one this evening.\" \"What do you\ndo here?\" \"But he was some way off.\" \"Which side did he seem to be?\"\n\"Well, I should think he [was] the other side of the pond.\" \"This is a\nlarge dog; makes a large track. He's been out hunting from Lexington for\na week. How long have you lived here?\" \"Oh, about a year.\" \"Somebody\nsaid there was a man up here had a camp in the woods somewhere, and\nhe'd got him.\" \"Well, I don't know of anybody. There's Britton's camp\nover on the other road. It may be there.\" \"Isn't there anybody in these\nwoods?\" \"Yes, they are chopping right up here behind me.\" \"How far is\nit?\" \"Only a few steps. Hark a moment. There, don't you hear the sound\nof their axes?\"[437]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTherien, the woodchopper, was here yesterday, and while I was cutting\nwood, some chickadees hopped near pecking the bark and chips and the\npotato-skins I had thrown out. \"What do you call them,\" he asked. I told\nhim.\n\n\"What do _you_ call them,\" asked I. \"_Mezezence_[?],\" I think he said.\n\"When I eat my dinner in the woods,\" said he, \"sitting very still,\nhaving kindled a fire to warm my coffee, they come and light on my arm\nand peck at the potato in my fingers. I like to have the little fellers\nabout me.\"[438] Just then one flew up from the snow and perched on the\nwood I was holding in my arms, and pecked it, and looked me familiarly\nin the face. _Chicadee-dee-dee-dee-dee_, while others were whistling\nphebe,\u2014_phe-bee_,\u2014in the woods behind the house.[439]\n\n\n_March 26, 1846._ The change from foul weather to fair, from dark,\nsluggish hours to serene, elastic ones, is a memorable crisis which all\nthings proclaim. The change from foulness to serenity is instantaneous.\nSuddenly an influx of light, though it was late, filled my room. I\nlooked out and saw that the pond was already calm and full of hope as\non a summer evening, though the ice was dissolved but yesterday. There\nseemed to be some intelligence in the pond which responded to the unseen\nserenity in a distant horizon. I heard a robin in the distance,\u2014the\nfirst I had heard this spring,\u2014repeating the assurance. The green pitch\n[pine] suddenly looked brighter and more erect, as if now entirely\nwashed and cleansed by the rain. I knew it would not rain any more. A\nserene summer-evening sky seemed darkly reflected in the pond, though\nthe clear sky was nowhere visible overhead. It was no longer the end\nof a season, but the beginning. The pines and shrub oaks, which had\nbefore drooped and cowered the winter through with myself, now recovered\ntheir several characters and in the landscape revived the expression\nof an immortal beauty. Trees seemed all at once to be fitly grouped,\nto sustain new relations to men and to one another. There was somewhat\ncosmical in the arrangement of nature. O the evening robin, at the close\nof a New England day! If I could ever find the twig he sits upon! Where\ndoes the minstrel really roost? We perceive it is not the bird of the\nornithologist that is heard,\u2014the _Turdus migratorius_.\n\nThe signs of fair weather are seen in the bosom of ponds before they are\nrecognized in the heavens. It is easy to tell by looking at any twig of\nthe forest whether its winter is past or not.[440]\n\nWe forget how the sun looks on our fields, as on the forests and the\nprairies, as they reflect or absorb his rays. It matters not whether we\nstand in Italy or on the prairies of the West, in the eye of the sun the\nearth is all equally cultivated like a garden, and yields to the wave\nof an irresistible civilization.\n\nThis broad field, which I have looked on so long, looks not to me as\nthe farmer, looks away from me to the sun, and attends to the harmony of\nnature. These beans have results which are not harvested in the autumn\nof the year. They do not mind, if I harvest them, who waters and makes\nthem grow? Our grain-fields make part of a beautiful picture which the\nsun beholds in his daily course, and it matters little comparatively\nwhether they fill the barns of the husbandman. The true husbandman will\ncease from anxiety and labor with every day, and relinquish all claim\nto the produce of his fields.[441]\n\nThe avaricious man would fain plant by himself.\n\nA flock of geese has just got in late, now in the dark flying low\nover the pond. They came on, indulging at last like weary travellers\nin complaint and consolation, or like some creaking evening mail late\nlumbering in with regular anserine clangor. I stood at my door and could\nhear their wings when they suddenly spied my light and, ceasing their\nnoise, wheeled to the east and apparently settled in the pond.[442]\n\n\n_March 27._ This morning I saw the geese from the door through the mist\nsailing about in the middle of the pond, but when I went to the shore\nthey rose and circled round like ducks over my head, so that I counted\nthem,\u2014twenty-nine. I after saw thirteen ducks.[443]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n1845-1847\n\n(\u00c6T. 27-30)\n\n\n[The small and much mutilated journal which begins here appears to\nbelong to the Walden period (1845-47), but the entries are undated.]\n\n\nTHE HERO[444]\n\n             What doth he ask?\n             Some worthy task,\n             Never to run\n             Till that be done,\n             That never done\n             Under the sun.\n             Here to begin\n             All things to win\n             By his endeavor\n             Forever and ever.\n             Happy and well\n             On this ground to dwell,\n             This soil subdue,\n             Plant, and renew.\n             By might and main\n             Health and strength gain,\n             So to give nerve\n                     To his slenderness;\n             Yet some mighty pain\n             He would sustain,\n             So to preserve\n             His tenderness.\n             Not be deceived,\n             Of suff'ring bereaved,\n             Not lose his life\n             By living too well,\n             Nor escape strife\n             In his lonely cell,\n             And so find out heaven\n             By not knowing hell.\n             Strength like the rock\n             To withstand any shock,\n             Yet some Aaron's rod,\n             Some smiting by God,\n             Occasion to gain\n             To shed human tears\n             And to entertain\n             Still demonic fears.\n     Not once for all, forever, blest,\n     Still to be cheered out of the west;\n     Not from his heart to banish all sighs;\n     Still be encouraged by the sunrise;\n     Forever to love and to love and to love,\n     Within him, around him, beneath him, above.\n     To love is to know, is to feel, is to be;\n     At once 'tis his birth and his destiny.\n             Having sold all,\n             Something would get,\n                     Furnish his stall\n             With better yet,\u2014\n             For earthly pleasures\n             Celestial pains,\n             Heavenly losses\n             For earthly gains.\n             Still to begin\u2014unheard-of sin\n             A fallen angel\u2014a risen man\n             Never returns to where he began.\n             Some childlike labor\n             Here to perform,\n             Some baby-house\n             To keep out the storm,\n             And make the sun laugh\n             While he doth warm,\n             And the moon cry\n             To think of her youth,\n             The months gone by,\n             And wintering truth.\n\n             How long to morning?\n             Can any tell?\n             How long since the warning\n             On our ears fell?\n             The bridegroom cometh\n             Know we not well?\n             Are we not ready,\n             Our packet made,\n             Our hearts steady,\n             Last words said?\n             Must we still eat\n                     The bread we have spurned?\n             Must we rekindle\n             The faggots we've burned?\n             Must we go out\n             By the poor man's gate?\n             Die by degrees,\n             Not by new fate?\n             Is there no road\n             This way, my friend?\n             Is there no road\n             Without any end?\n             Have you not seen\n             In ancient times\n             Pilgrims go by here\n             Toward other climes,\n             With shining faces\n             Youthful and strong\n             Mounting this hill\n             With speech and with song?\n             Oh, my good sir,\n             I know not the ways;\n             Little my knowledge,\n             Though many my days.\n             When I have slumbered,\n             I have heard sounds\n             As travellers passing\n             Over my grounds.\n             'Twas a sweet music\n             Wafted them by;\n             I could not tell\n             If far off or nigh.\n                     Unless I dreamed it,\n             This was of yore,\n             But I never told it\n             To mortal before;\n             Never remembered\n             But in my dreams\n             What to me waking\n             A miracle seems.\n     If you will give of your pulse or your grain,\n     We will rekindle those flames again.\n     Here will we tarry, still without doubt,\n     Till a miracle putteth that fire out.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     At midnight's hour I raised my head.\n     The owls were seeking for their bread;\n     The foxes barked, impatient still\n     At their wan [?] fate they bear so ill.\n     I thought me of eternities delayed\n     And of commands but half obeyed.\n     The night wind rustled through the glade,\n     As if a force of men there staid;\n     The word was whispered through the ranks,\n     And every hero seized his lance.\n     The word was whispered through the ranks,\n           Advance!\n\nTo live to a good old age such as the ancients reached, serene and\ncontented, dignifying the life of man, leading a simple, epic country\nlife in these days of confusion and turmoil,\u2014that is what Wordsworth\nhas done. Retaining the tastes and the innocence of his youth. There is\nmore wonderful talent, but nothing so cheering and world-famous as this.\n\nThe life of man would seem to be going all to wrack and pieces, and no\ninstance of permanence and the ancient natural health, notwithstanding\nBurns, and Coleridge, and Carlyle. It will not do for men to die young;\nthe greatest genius does not die young. Whom the gods love most do\nindeed die young, but not till their life is matured, and their years\nare like those of the oak, for they are the products half of nature and\nhalf of God. What should nature do without old men, not children but\nmen?\n\nThe life of men, not to become a mockery and a jest, should last a\nrespectable term of years. We cannot spare the age of those old Greek\nPhilosophers. They live long who do not live for a near end, who still\nforever look to the immeasurable future for their manhood.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll dramas have but one scene. There is but one stage for the peasant\nand for the actor, and both on the farm and in the theatre the curtain\nrises to reveal the same majestic scenery. The globe of earth is poised\nin space for his stage under the foundations of the theatre, and the\ncope of heaven, out of reach of the scene-shifter, overarches it. It\nis always to be remembered by the critic that all actions are to be\nregarded at last as performed from a distance upon some rood of earth\nand amid the operations of nature.\n\nRabelais, too, inhabited the soil of France in sunshine and shade in\nthose years; and his life was no \"farce\" after all.\n\n     I seek the present time,\n     No other clime,\n     Life in to-day,\u2014\n     Not to sail another way,\u2014\n     To Paris or to Rome,\n     Or farther still from home.\n     That man, whoe'er he is,\n     Lives but a moral death\n     Whose life is not coeval\n     With his breath.\n     My feet forever stand\n     On Concord fields,\n     And I must live the life\n     Which their soil yields.\n     What are deeds done\n     Away from home?\n     What the best essay\n     On the Ruins of Rome?\n     The love of the new,\n     The unfathomed blue,\n     The wind in the wood,\n     All future good,\n     The sunlit tree,\n     The small chickadee,\n     The dusty highways,\n     What Scripture says,\n     This pleasant weather,\n     And all else together,\n     The river's meander,\n     All things, in short,\n     Forbid me to wander\n     In deed or in thought.\n     In cold or in drouth,\n     Not seek the sunny South,\n     But make my whole tour\n     In the sunny present hour.\n\n     For here if thou fail,\n     Where can'st thou prevail?\n     If you love not\n     Your own land most,\n     You'll find nothing lovely\n     On a distant coast.\n     If you love not\n     The latest sunset,\n     What is there in pictures\n     Or old gems set?\n     If no man should travel\n     Till he had the means,\n     There'd be little travelling\n     For kings or for queens.\n     The means, what are they?\n     They are the wherewithal\n     Great expenses to pay,\n     Life got, and some to spare,\n     Great works on hand,\n     And freedom from care,\n     Plenty of time well spent\n     To use,\n     Clothes paid for and no rent\n     In your shoes,\n     Something to eat\n\n\n     And something to burn,\n     And above all no need to return.\n     Then they who come back,\n     Say, have they not failed,\n     Wherever they've ridden,\n     Or steamed it, or sailed?\n\n     All your grass hay'd,\n     All your debts paid,\n     All your wills made;\n     Then you might as well have stay'd,\n     For are you not dead,\n     Only not buried?\n\n     The way unto \"to-day,\"\n     The railroad to \"here,\"\n     They never'll grade that way\n     Nor shorten it, I fear.\n     There are plenty of depots\n     All the world o'er,\n     But not a single station\n     At a man's door.\n     If he would get near\n     To the secret of things,\n     He'll not have to hear\n     When the engine bell rings.\n\nExaggeration! was ever any virtue attributed to a man without\nexaggeration? was ever any vice, without infinite exaggeration? Do\nwe not exaggerate ourselves to ourselves, or do we often recognize\nourselves for the actual men we are? The lightning is an exaggeration\nof light. We live by exaggeration. Exaggerated history is poetry, and\nis truth referred to a new standard. To a small man every greater one\nis an exaggeration. No truth was ever expressed but with this sort of\nemphasis, so that for the time there was no other truth. The value of\nwhat is really valuable can never be exaggerated. You must speak loud to\nthose who are hard of hearing; so you acquire a habit of speaking loud\nto those who are not. In order to appreciate any, even the humblest,\nman, you must not only understand, but you must first love him; and\nthere never was such an exaggerator as love. Who are we? Are we not all\nof us great men? And yet what [are] we actually? Nothing, certainly, to\nspeak of. By an immense exaggeration we appreciate our Greek poetry and\nphilosophy, Egyptian ruins, our Shakespeares and Miltons, our liberty\nand Christianity. We give importance to this hour over all other hours.\nWe do not live by justice, but [by grace.][445]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLove never perjures itself, nor is it mistaken.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe is not the great writer, who is afraid to let the world know that he\never committed an impropriety. Does it not know that all men are mortal?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCarlyle told R. W. E. that he first discovered that he was not a jackass\non reading \"Tristram Shandy\" and Rousseau's \"Confessions,\" especially\nthe last. His first essay is an article in _Fraser's Magazine_ on two\nboys quarrelling.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYouth wants something to look up to, to look forward to; as the little\nboy who inquired of me the other day, \"How long do those old-agers\nlive?\" and expressed the intention of compassing two hundred summers at\nleast. The old man who cobbles shoes without glasses at a hundred, and\ncuts a handsome swath at a hundred and five, is indispensable to give\ndignity and respectability to our life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom all points of the compass, from the earth beneath and the heavens\nabove, have come these inspirations and been entered duly in the order\nof their arrival in the journal. Thereafter, when the time arrived, they\nwere winnowed into lectures, and again, in due time, from lectures into\nessays. And at last they stand, like the cubes of Pythagoras, firmly on\neither basis; like statues on their pedestals, but the statues rarely\ntake hold of hands. There is only such connection and series as is\nattainable in the galleries. And this affects their immediate practical\nand popular influence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCarlyle, we should say, more conspicuously than any other, though with\nlittle enough expressed or even conscious sympathy, represents the\nReformer class. In him the universal plaint is most settled and serious.\nUntil the thousand named and nameless grievances are righted, there will\nbe no repose for him in the lap of Nature or the seclusion of science\nand literature. And all the more for not being the visible acknowledged\nleader of any class.[446]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll places, all positions\u2014all things in short\u2014are a medium happy or\nunhappy. Every realm has its centre, and the nearer to that the better\nwhile you are in it. Even health is only the happiest of all mediums.\nThere may be excess, or there may be deficiency; in either case there\nis disease. A man must only be _virtuous_ enough.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI had one neighbor within half a mile for a short time when I first\nwent to the woods, Hugh Quoil, an Irishman who had been a soldier at\nWaterloo, Colonel Quoil, as he was called,\u2014I believe that he had killed\na colonel and ridden off his horse,\u2014who lived from hand\u2014sometimes to\nmouth,\u2014though it was commonly a glass of rum that the hand carried. He\nand his wife awaited their fate together in an old ruin in Walden woods.\nWhat life he got\u2014or what means of death\u2014he got by ditching.\n\nI never was much acquainted with Hugh Quoil, though sometimes I met him\nin the path, and now do believe that a solid shank-bone, and skull which\nno longer aches, lie somewhere, and can still be produced, which once\nwith garment of flesh and broadcloth were called and hired to do work\nas Hugh Quoil. He was a man of manners and gentlemanlike, as one who\nhad seen the world, and was capable of more civil speech than you could\nwell attend to. At a distance he had seemingly a ruddy face as of biting\nJanuary, but nearer at hand it was bright carmine. It would have burnt\nyour finger to touch his cheek. He wore a straight-bodied snuff-colored\ncoat which had long been familiar with him, and carried a turf-knife in\nhis hand\u2014instead of a sword. He had fought on the English side before,\nbut he fought on the Napoleon side now. Napoleon went to St. Helena;\nHugh Quoil came to Walden Pond. I heard that he used to tell travellers\nwho inquired about myself that \u2014\u2014 and Thoreau owned the _farm_ together,\nbut Thoreau lived on the _place_ and carried it on.[447]\n\nHe was thirstier than I, and drank more, probably, but not out of\nthe pond. That was never the lower for him. Perhaps I ate more than\nhe. The last time I met him, the only time I spoke with him, was at\nthe foot of the hill on the highway as I was crossing to the spring\none summer afternoon, the pond water being too warm for me. I was\ncrossing the road with a pail in my hand, when Quoil came down the\nhill, wearing his snuff-colored coat, as if it were winter, and shaking\nwith delirium-tremens. I hailed him and told him that my errand was to\nget water at a spring close by, only at the foot of the hill over the\nfence. He answered, with stuttering and parched lips, bloodshot eye,\nand staggering gesture, he'd like to see it. \"Follow me there, then.\"\nBut I had got my pail full and back before he scaled the fence. And he,\ndrawing his coat about him, to warm him, or to cool him, answered in\ndelirium-tremens, hydrophobia dialect, which is not easy to be written\nhere, he'd heard of it, but had never seen it; and so shivered his way\nalong to town,\u2014to liquor and to oblivion.\n\nOn Sundays, brother Irishmen and others, who had gone far astray\nfrom steady habits and the village, crossed my bean-field with empty\njugs toward Quoil's. But what for? Did they sell rum there? I asked.\n\"Respectable people they,\" \"Know no harm of them,\" \"Never heard that\nthey drank too much,\" was the answer of all wayfarers. They went by\nsober, stealthy, silent, skulking (no harm to get elm bark Sundays);\nreturned loquacious, sociable, having long intended to call on you.\n\nAt length one afternoon Hugh Quoil, feeling better, perchance, with\nsnuff-colored coat, as usual, paced solitary and soldier-like, thinking\n[of] Waterloo, along the woodland road to the foot of the hill by\nthe spring; and there the Fates met him, and threw him down in his\nsnuff-colored coat on the gravel, and got ready to cut his thread;\nbut not till travellers passed, who would raise him up, get him\nperpendicular, then settle, settle quick; but legs, what are they? \"Lay\nme down,\" says Hugh hoarsely. \"House locked up\u2014key\u2014in pocket\u2014wife in\ntown.\" And the Fates cut, and there he lay by the wayside, five feet\nten, and looking taller than in life.\n\nHe has gone away; his house here \"all tore to pieces.\" What kind of\nfighting or ditching work he finds to do now, how it fares with him,\nwhether his thirst is quenched, whether there is still some semblance of\nthat carmine cheek, struggles still with some liquid demon\u2014perchance on\nmore equal terms\u2014till he swallow him completely, I cannot by any means\nlearn. What his salutation is now, what his January-morning face, what\nhe thinks of Waterloo, what start he has gained or lost, what work still\nfor the ditcher and forester and soldier now, there is no evidence. He\nwas here, the likes of him, for a season, standing light in his shoes\nlike a faded gentleman, with gesture almost learned in drawing-rooms;\nwore clothes, hat, shoes, cut ditches, felled wood, did farm work for\nvarious people, kindled fires, worked enough, ate enough, drank too\nmuch. He was one of those unnamed, countless sects of philosophers who\nfounded no school.\n\nNow that he was gone, and his wife was gone too,\u2014for she could not\nsupport the solitude,\u2014before it was too late and the house was torn\ndown, I went over to make a call. Now that Irishmen with jugs avoided\nthe old house, I visited it,\u2014an \"unlucky castle now,\" said they. There\nlay his old clothes curled up by habit, as if it were himself, upon his\nraised plank bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth; and scattered about\nwere soiled cards\u2014king of diamonds, hearts, spades\u2014on the floor. One\nblack chicken, which they could not catch, still went to roost in the\nnext apartment, stepping silent over the floor, frightened by the sound\nof its own wings, black as night and as silent, too, not even croaking;\nawaiting Reynard, its god actually dead. There was the dim outline of a\ngarden which had been planted, but had never received its first hoeing,\nnow overrun with weeds, with burs and cockles, which stick to your\nclothes; as if in the spring he had contemplated a harvest of corn and\nbeans before that strange trembling of the limbs overtook him. Skin of\nwoodchuck fresh-stretched, never to be cured, met once in bean-field by\nthe Waterloo man with uplifted hoe; no cap, no mittens wanted. Pipe on\nhearth no more to be lighted, best buried with him.[448]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo thirst for glory, only for strong drink.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnly the convalescent are conscious of the health of nature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn case of an embargo there will be found to be old clothes enough in\neverybody's garret to last till the millennium. We are fond of news,\nnovelties, new things. The bank-bill that is torn in two will pass if\nyou save the pieces, if you have only got the essential piece with the\nsignatures. Lowell and Manchester and Fall River think you will let go\ntheir broadcloth currency when it is torn; but hold on, have an eye to\nthe signature about the back of it, and endorse the man's name from whom\nyou received it, and they will be the first to fail and find nothing at\nall in their garrets. Every day our garments become more assimilated to\nthe man that wears them, more near and dear to us, and not finally to\nbe laid aside but with such delay and medical appliance and solemnity\nas our other mortal coil.[449] We know, after all, but few men, a great\nmany coats and breeches. Dress a scarecrow with your last shift, you\nstanding shiftless by, who would not soonest address the scarecrow and\nsalute it?[450]\n\nKing James loved his old shoes best. Who does not? Indeed these new\nclothes are often won and worn only after a most painful birth. At\nfirst movable prisons, oyster-shells which the tide only raises, opens,\nand shuts, washing in what scanty nutriment may be afloat. How many\nmen walk over the limits, carrying their limits with them? In the\nstocks they stand, not without gaze of multitudes, only without rotten\neggs, in torturing boots, the last wedge but one driven. Why should\nwe be startled at death? Life is constant putting off of the mortal\ncoil,\u2014coat, cuticle, flesh and bones, all old clothes.\n\nNot till the prisoner has got some rents in his prison walls,\npossibility of egress without lock and key some day,\u2014result of steel\nwatch-spring rubbing on iron grate, or whatever friction and wear and\ntear,\u2014will he rest contented in his prison.\n\nClothes brought in sewing, a kind of work you may call endless.[451]\n\nA man who has at length found out something important to do will not\nhave to get a new suit to do it in. For him the old will do, lying\ndusty in the garret for an indefinite period. Old shoes will serve a\nhero longer than they have served his valet. Bare feet are the oldest\nof shoes, and he can make them do. Only they who go to legislature\nand soir\u00e9es,\u2014they must have new coats, coats to turn as often as the\nman turns in them. Who ever saw his old shoes, his old coat, actually\nworn out, returned to their original elements, so that it was not [a]\ndeed [of] charity to bestow them on some poorer boy, and by him to be\nbestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say on some richer who can\ndo with less?[452]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOver eastward of my bean-field lived Cato Ingraham, slave, born slave,\nperhaps, of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village,\nwho built him a house and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods,\nfor which no doubt he was thanked; and then, on the northeast corner,\nZilpha, colored woman of fame; and down the road, on the right hand,\nBrister, colored man, on Brister's Hill, where grow still those little\nwild apples he tended, now large trees, but still wild and ciderish\nto my taste; and farther still you come to Breed's location, and again\non the left, by well and roadside, Nutting lived. Farther up the road,\nat the pond's end, Wyman, the potter, who furnished his townsmen with\nearthenware,\u2014the squatter.[453]\n\nNow only a dent in the earth marks the site of most of these human\ndwellings; sometimes the well-dent where a spring oozed, now dry and\ntearless grass, or covered deep,\u2014not to be discovered till late days by\naccident,\u2014with a flat stone under the sod. These dents, like deserted\nfox-burrows, old holes, where once was the stir and bustle of human life\noverhead, and man's destiny, \"fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,\"\nwere all by turns discussed.\n\nStill grows the vivacious lilac for a generation after the last vestige\nelse is gone, unfolding still its early sweet-scented blossoms in the\nspring, to be plucked only by the musing traveller; planted, tended,\nweeded [?], watered by children's hands in front-yard plot,\u2014now by\nwall-side in retired pasture, or giving place to a new rising forest.\nThe last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did\nthe dark children think that that weak slip with its two eyes which\nthey watered would root itself so, and outlive them, and house in\nthe rear that shaded it, and grown man's garden and field, and tell\ntheir story to the retired wanderer a half-century after they were no\nmore,\u2014blossoming as fair, smelling as sweet, as in that first spring.\nIts still cheerful, tender, civil lilac colors.[454]\n\nThe woodland road, though once more dark and shut in by the forest,\nresounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and was notched\nand dotted here and there with their little dwellings. Though now but\na humble rapid passage to neighboring villages or for the woodman's\nteam, it once delayed the traveller longer, and was a lesser village in\nitself.[455]\n\nYou still hear from time to time the whinnering of the raccoon, still\nliving as of old in hollow trees, washing its food before it eats it.\nThe red fox barks at night. The loon comes in the fall to sail and\nbathe in the pond, making the woods ring with its wild laughter in the\nearly morning, at rumor of whose arrival all Concord sportsmen are\non the alert, in gigs, on foot, two by two, three [by three], with\npatent rifles, patches, conical balls, spy-glass or open hole over\nthe barrel. They seem already to hear the loon laugh; come rustling\nthrough the woods like October leaves, these on this side, those on\nthat, for the poor loon cannot be omnipresent; if he dive here, must\ncome up somewhere. The October wind rises, rustling the leaves, ruffling\nthe pond water, so that no loon can be seen rippling the surface. Our\nsportsmen scour, sweep the pond with spy-glass in vain, making the\nwoods ring with rude [?] charges of powder, for the loon went off in\nthat morning rain with one loud, long, hearty laugh, and our sportsmen\nmust beat a retreat to town and stable and daily routine, shop work,\nunfinished jobs again.[456]\n\nOr in the gray dawn the sleeper hears the long ducking gun explode over\ntoward Goose Pond, and, hastening to the door, sees the remnant of\na flock, black duck or teal, go whistling by with outstretched neck,\nwith broken ranks, but in ranger order. And the silent hunter emerges\ninto the carriage road with ruffled feathers at his belt, from the dark\npond-side where he has lain in his bower since the stars went out.\n\nAnd for a week you hear the circling clamor, clangor, of some solitary\ngoose through the fog, seeking its mate, peopling the woods with a\nlarger life than they can hold.[457]\n\nFor hours in fall days you shall watch the ducks cunningly tack and\nveer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman on the\nshore,\u2014tricks they have learned and practiced in far Canada lakes or in\nLouisiana bayous.[458]\n\nThe waves rise and dash, taking sides with all waterfowl.[459]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen in dark winter mornings, in short winter afternoons, the pack\nof hounds, threading all woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable to\nresist the instinct of the chase, and note of hunting-horn at intervals,\nshowing that man too is in the rear. And the woods ring again, and yet\nno fox bursts forth on to the open level of the pond, and no following\npack after their Act\u00e6on.[460]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut this small village, germ of something more, why did it fail while\nConcord grows apace? No natural advantages, no water privilege, only\nthe deep Walden Pond and cool Brister's Spring,\u2014privileges to drink\nlong, healthy, pure draughts, alas, all unimproved by those men but\nto dilute their glass. Might not the basket-making, stable-broom,\nmat-making, corn-parching, potters' business have thrived here, making\nthe wilderness to blossom as the rose? Now, all too late for commerce,\nthis waste, depopulated district has its railroad too. And transmitted\nthe names of unborn Bristers, Catos, Hildas,[461] Zilphas to a remote\nand grateful posterity.\n\nAgain Nature will try, with me for a first settler, and my house raised\nlast spring to be the oldest in the settlement.\n\nThe sterile soil would have been proof against any lowland\ndegeneracy.[462]\n\nFarmers far and near call it the paradise of beans.\n\nAnd here, too, on winter days, while yet is cold January, and snow and\nice lie thick, comes the prudent, foreseeing landlord or housekeeper\n(anticipating thirst) from the village, to get ice to cool his summer\ndrink,\u2014a grateful beverage if he should live, if time should endure so\nlong. How few so wise, so industrious, to lay up treasures which neither\nrust nor melt, \"to cool their summer drink\" one day!\n\nAnd cut off the solid pond, the element and air of fishes, held fast\nwith chain and stake like corded wood, all through favoring, willing,\nkind, permitting winter air to wintery cellar, to underlie the summer\nthere. And cut and saw the cream of the pond, unroof the house of\nfishes.[463]\n\nAnd in early mornings come men with fishing-reels and slender lunch, men\nof real faith, and let down their fine lines and live minnows through\nthe snowy field to hook the pickerel and perch.[464]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith buried well-stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble-berries\ngrowing on the sunny sward there; some pitchy pine or gnarled oak in\nthe chimney-nook, or the sweet-scented black birch where the doorstone\nwas.[465]\n\nBreed's,\u2014history must not yet tell the tragedies enacted there. Let time\nintervene to assuage and lend an azure atmospheric tint to them.[466]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is something pathetic in the sedentary life of men who have\ntravelled. They must naturally die when they leave the road.\n\nWhat seems so fair and poetic in antiquity\u2014almost fabulous\u2014is realized,\ntoo, in Concord life. As poets and historians brought their work to the\nGrecian games, and genius wrestled there as well as strength of body, so\nhave we seen works of kindred genius read at our Concord games, by their\nauthor, in their own Concord amphitheatre. It is virtually repeated by\nall ages and nations.[467]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMoles nesting in your cellar and nibbling every third potato.[468]\nA whole rabbit-warren only separated from you by the flooring.\nTo be saluted when you stir in the dawn by the hasty departure\nof Monsieur,\u2014thump, thump, thump, striking his head against the\nfloor-timbers.[469] Squirrels and field mice that hold to a community\nof property in your stock of chestnuts.\n\nThe blue jays suffered few chestnuts to reach the ground, resorting to\nyour single tree in flocks in the early morning, and picking them out\nof the burs at a great advantage.\n\nThe crop of blackberries small; berries not yet grown. Ground-nuts not\ndug.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne wonders how so much, after all, was expressed in the old way, so\nmuch here depends upon the emphasis, tone, pronunciation, style, and\nspirit of the reading. No writer uses so profusely all the aids to\nintelligibility which the printer's art affords. You wonder how others\nhad contrived to write so many pages without emphatic, italicized words,\nthey are so expressive, so natural and indispensable, here. As if none\nhad ever used the demonstrative pronoun demonstratively. In another's\nsentences the thought, though immortal, is, as it were, embalmed and\ndoes not _strike_ you, but here it is so freshly living, not purified\nby the ordeal of death, that it stirs in the very extremities, the\nsmallest particles and pronouns are all alive with it.\u2014You must not\nsay it, but _it_. It is not simple it, your it or mine, but _it_. His\nbooks are solid, workmanlike, like all that England does. They tell\nof endless labor done, well done, and all the rubbish swept away, like\nthis bright cutlery which glitters in the windows, while the coke and\nashes, turnings, filings, borings, dust lie far away at Birmingham,\nunheard of. The words did not come at the command of grammar but of a\ntyrannous, inexorable meaning; not like the standing soldiers, by vote\nof Parliament, but any able-bodied countryman pressed into the service.\nIt is no China war, but a revolution. This style is worth attending\nto as one of the most important features of the man that we at this\ndistance know.[470]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat are the men of New England about? I have travelled some in New\nEngland, especially in Concord, and I found that no enterprise was on\nfoot which it would not disgrace a man to take part in. They seemed to\nbe employed everywhere in shops and offices and fields. They seemed,\nlike the Brahmins of the East, to be doing penance in a thousand\ncurious, unheard-of ways, their endurance surpassing anything I had ever\nseen or heard of,\u2014Simeon Stylites, Brahmins looking in the face of the\nsun, standing on one leg, dwelling at the roots of trees, nothing to\nit; any of the twelve labors of Hercules to be matched,\u2014the Nemean lion,\nLern\u00e6an hydra, \u0152n\u0153an stag, Erymanthian boar, Augean stables, Stymphalian\nbirds, Cretan bull, Diomedes' mares, Amazonian girdle, monster Geryon,\nHesperian apples, three-headed Cerberus, nothing at all in comparison,\nbeing only twelve and having an end. For I could never see that these\nmen ever slew or captured any of their monsters, or finished any of\ntheir labors. They have no \"friend Iolaus to burn, with a hot iron,\nthe root\" of the hydra's head; for as soon as one head is crushed, two\nspring up.[471]\n\nMen labor under a mistake; they are laying up treasures which moth and\nrust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. Northern Slavery,\nor the slavery which includes the Southern, Eastern, Western, and all\nothers.[472]\n\nIt is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern\none; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver. Look at\nthe lonely teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night;\nis he a son of the morning, with somewhat of divinity in him, fearless\nbecause immortal, going to receive his birthright, greeting the sun as\nhis fellow, bounding with youthful, gigantic strength over his mother\nearth? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely, indefinitely all the\nday he fears, not being immortal, not divine, the slave and prisoner of\nhis own opinion of himself, fame which he has earned by his own deeds.\nPublic opinion is a weak tyrant compared with private opinion. What I\nthink of myself, that determines my fate.[473]\n\nI see young men, my equals, who have inherited from their spiritual\nfather a soul,\u2014broad, fertile, uncultivated,\u2014from their earthly father\na farm,\u2014with cattle and barns and farming tools, the implements of the\npicklock and the counterfeiter. Better if they had been born in the\nopen pasture and suckled by a wolf, or perhaps cradled in a manger, that\nthey might have seen with clear eye what was the field they were called\nto labor in. The young man has got to live a man's life, then, in this\nworld, pushing all these things before him, and get on as well as he\ncan. How many a poor immortal soul I have met, well-nigh crushed and\nsmothered, creeping slowly down the road of life, pushing before it a\nbarn seventy-five by forty feet and one hundred acres of land,\u2014tillage,\npasture, wood-lot! This dull, opaque garment of the flesh is load enough\nfor the strongest spirit, but with such an earthly garment superadded\nthe spiritual life is soon plowed into the soil for compost. It's a\nfool's life, as they will all find when they get to the end of it. The\nman that goes on accumulating property when the bare necessaries of life\nare cared for is a fool and knows better.[474]\n\nThere is a stronger desire to be respectable to one's neighbors than to\none's self.\n\nHowever, such distinctions as poet, philosopher, literary man, etc., do\nnot much assist our final estimate. We do not lay much stress on them;\n\"a man's a man for a' that.\" Any writer who interests us much is all\nand more than these.\n\nIt is not simple dictionary it.[475]\n\nTalent at making books solid, workmanlike, graceful, which may be\nread.[476]\n\nSome idyllic chapter or chapters are needed.\n\nIn the French Revolution are Mirabeau, king of men; Danton, Titan of\nthe Revolution; Camille Desmoulins, poetic editor; Roland, heroic woman;\nDumouriez, first efficient general: on the other side, Marat, friend of\nthe people; Robespierre; Tinville, infernal judge; St. Just; etc., etc.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNutting and Le Gros by the wall-side. The Stratten house and barn where\nthe orchard covered all the slope of Brister's Hill,\u2014now killed out by\nthe pines.\n\nBrister Freeman, a handy negro, slave once of Squire Cummings (?), and\nFenda, his hospitable, pleasant wife, large, round, black, who told\nfortunes, blacker than all the children of night, such a dusky orb as\nhad never risen on Concord before.\n\nZilpha's little house where \"she was spinning linen,\" making the\nWalden woods ring with her shrill singing,\u2014a loud, shrill, remarkable\nvoice,\u2014when once she was away to town, set on fire by English soldiers\non parole, in the last war, and cat and dog and hens all burned up.\nBoiling her witch's dinner, and heard muttering to herself over the\ngurgling pot by silent traveller, \"Ye are all bones, bones.\"\n\nAnd Cato, the Guinea negro,\u2014his house and little patch among the\nwalnuts,\u2014who let the trees grow up till he should be old, and Richardson\ngot them.\n\nWhere Breed's house stood tradition says a tavern once stood, the well\nthe same, and all a swamp between the woods and town, and road made on\nlogs.[477]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBread I made pretty well for awhile, while I remembered the rules; for\nI studied this out methodically, going clear back to the primitive days\nand first invention of the unleavened kind, and coming gradually down\nthrough that lucky accidental souring of the dough which taught men the\nleavening process, and all the various fermentations thereafter, till\nyou get to \"good, sweet, wholesome bread,\" the staff of life. I went\non very well, mixing rye and flour and Indian and potato with success,\ntill one morning I had forgotten the rules, and thereafter scalded the\nyeast,\u2014killed it out,\u2014and so, after the lapse of a month, was glad after\nall to learn that such palatable staff of life could be made out of the\ndead and scalt creature and risings that lay flat.\n\nI have hardly met with the housewife who has gone so far with this\nmystery. For all the farmers' wives pause at yeast. Given this and they\ncan make bread. It is the axiom of the argument. What it is, where it\ncame from, in what era bestowed on man, is wrapped in mystery. It is\npreserved religiously, like the vestal fire, and its virtue is not yet\nrun out. Some precious bottleful, first brought over in the Mayflower,\ndid the business for America, and its influence is still rising,\nswelling, spreading like Atlantic billows over the land,\u2014the soul of\nbread, the spiritus, occupying its cellular tissue.[478]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe way to compare men is to compare their respective ideals. The actual\nman is too complex to deal with.\n\nCarlyle is an earnest, honest, heroic worker as literary man and\nsympathizing brother of his race.\n\nIdealize a man, and your notion takes distinctness at once.\n\nCarlyle's talent is perhaps quite equal to his genius.[479]\n\nStriving [?] to live in reality,\u2014not a general critic, philosopher, or\npoet.\n\nWordsworth, with very feeble talent, has not so great and admirable as\nunquestionable and persevering genius.\n\nHeroism, heroism is his word,\u2014his thing.\n\nHe would realize a brave and adequate human life, and die hopefully at\nlast.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEmerson again is a critic, poet, philosopher, with talent not so\nconspicuous, not so adequate to his task; but his field is still higher,\nhis task more arduous. Lives a far more intense life; seeks to realize\na divine life; his affections and intellect equally developed. Has\nadvanced farther, and a new heaven opens to him. Love and Friendship,\nReligion, Poetry, the Holy are familiar to him. The life of an Artist;\nmore variegated, more observing, finer perception; not so robust,\nelastic; practical enough in his own field; faithful, a judge of men.\nThere is no such general critic of men and things, no such trustworthy\nand faithful man. More of the divine realized in him than in any. A\npoetic critic, reserving the unqualified nouns for the gods.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlcott is a geometer, a visionary, the Laplace of ethics, more\nintellect, less of the affections, sight beyond talents, a substratum of\npractical skill and knowledge unquestionable, but overlaid and concealed\nby a faith in the unseen and impracticable. Seeks to realize an entire\nlife; a catholic observer; habitually takes in the farthest star and\nnebula into his scheme. Will be the last man to be disappointed as the\nages revolve. His attitude is one of greater faith and expectation\nthan that of any man I know; with little to show; with undue share,\nfor a philosopher, of the weaknesses of humanity. The most hospitable\nintellect, embracing high and low. For children how much that means,\nfor the insane and vagabond, for the poet and scholar![480]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEmerson has special talents unequalled. The divine in man has had no\nmore easy, methodically distinct expression. His personal influence upon\nyoung persons greater than any man's. In his world every man would be\na poet, Love would reign, Beauty would take place, Man and Nature would\nharmonize.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Alcott's day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect,[481]\nthe system will crystallize according to them, all seals and falsehood\nwill slough off, everything will be in its place.\n\n\n_Feb. 22_ [no year]. Jean Lapin sat at my door to-day, three paces from\nme, at first trembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor, wee\nthing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and\nslender paws. It looked as if nature no longer contained the breed of\nnobler bloods, the earth stood on its last legs. Is nature, too, unsound\nat last? I took two steps, and lo, away he scud with elastic spring\nover the snowy crust into the bushes, a free creature of the forest,\nstill wild and fleet; and such then was his nature, and his motion\nasserted its vigor and dignity. Its large eye looked at first young\nand diseased, almost dropsical, unhealthy. But it bound[ed] free, the\nvenison, straightening its body and its limbs into graceful length, and\nsoon put the forest between me and itself.[482]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEmerson does not consider things in respect to their essential utility,\nbut an important partial and relative one, as works of art perhaps. His\nprobes pass one side of their centre of gravity. His exaggeration is of\na part, not of the whole.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow many an afternoon has been stolen from more profitable, if not\nmore attractive, industry,\u2014afternoons when a good run of custom might\nhave been expected on the main street, such as tempt the ladies out\na-shopping,\u2014spent, I say, by me away in the meadows, in the well-nigh\nhopeless attempt to set the river on fire or be set on fire by it, with\nsuch tinder as I had, with such flint as I was. Trying at least to make\nit flow with milk and honey, as I had heard of, or liquid gold, and\ndrown myself without getting wet,\u2014a laudable enterprise, though I have\nnot much to show for it.\n\nSo many autumn days spent outside the town, trying to hear what was\nin the wind, to hear it and carry it express. I well-nigh sunk all\nmy capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, by running\nin the face of it. Depend upon it, if it had concerned either of the\nparties, it would have appeared in the yeoman's gazette, the _Freeman_,\nwith other earliest intelligence.\n\nFor many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and\nrain-storms, and did my duty faithfully, though I never received one\ncent for it.\n\nSurveyor, if not of higher ways, then of forest paths and all across-lot\nroutes, keeping many open ravines bridged and passable at all seasons,\nwhere the public heel had testified to the importance of the same,\nall not only without charge, but even at considerable risk and\ninconvenience. Many a mower would have forborne to complain had he been\naware of the invisible public good that was in jeopardy.\n\nSo I went on, I may say without boasting, I trust, faithfully minding my\nbusiness without a partner, till it became more and more evident that my\ntownsmen would not, after all, admit me into the list of town officers,\nnor make the place a sinecure with moderate allowance.\n\nI have looked after the wild stock of the town, which pastures in\ncommon, and every one knows that these cattle give you a good deal of\ntrouble in the way of leaping fences. I have counted and registered\nall the eggs I could find at least, and have had an eye to all nooks\nand corners of the farm, though I didn't always know whether Jonas\nor Solomon worked in a particular field to-day; that was none of my\nbusiness. I only knew him for one of the men, and trusted that he was as\nwell employed as I was. I had to make my daily entries in the general\nfarm book, and my duties may sometimes have made me a little stubborn\nand unyielding.\n\nMany a day spent on the hilltops waiting for the sky to fall, that\nI might catch something, though I never caught much, only a little,\nmanna-wise, that would dissolve again in the sun.\n\nMy accounts, indeed, which I can swear to have been faithfully kept,\nI have never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and\nsettled. However, I haven't set my heart upon _that_.\n\nI have watered the red huckleberry and the sand cherry and the hoopwood\n[?] tree, and the cornel and spoonhunt and yellow violet, which might\nhave withered else in dry seasons. The white grape.\n\nTo find the bottom of Walden Pond, and what inlet and outlet it might\nhave.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI found at length that, as they were not likely to offer me any office\nin the court-house, any curacy or living anywhere else, I must shift\nfor myself, I must furnish myself with the necessaries of life.\n\nNow watching from the observatory of the Cliffs or Annursnack to\ntelegraph any new arrival, to see if Wachusett, Watatic, or Monadnock\nhad got any nearer. Climbing trees for the same purpose. I have\nbeen reporter for many years to one of the journals of no very wide\ncirculation, and, as is too common, got only my pains for my labor.\nLiterary contracts are little binding.[483]\n\nThe unlimited anxiety, strain, and care of some persons is one very\nincurable form of disease. Simple arithmetic might have corrected it;\nfor the life of every man has, after all, an epic integrity, and Nature\nadapts herself to our weaknesses and deficiencies as well as talents.\n\nNo doubt it is indispensable that we should do _our_ work between sun\nand sun, but only a wise man will know what that is. And yet how much\nwork will be left undone, put off to the next day, and yet the system\ngoes on!\n\nWe presume commonly to take care of ourselves, and trust as little as\npossible. Vigilant more or less all our days, we say our prayers at\nnight and commit ourselves to uncertainties, as if in our very days\nand most vigilant moments the great part were not a necessary trust\nstill.[484] How serenity, anxiety, confidence, fear paint the heavens\nfor us.\n\nAll the laws of nature will bend and adapt themselves to the least\nmotion of man.\n\nAll change is a miracle to contemplate, but it is a miracle which is\ntaking place unobserved every instant; when all is ready it takes place,\nand only a miracle could stay it.\n\nWe [are] compelled to live so thoroughly and sincerely, reflecting on\nour steps, reverencing our life, that we never make allowance for the\npossible changes.\n\nWe may waive just so much care of ourselves as we devote of care\nelsewhere.[485]\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n1837-1847\n\n(\u00c6T. 20-30)\n\n[This chapter consists of paragraphs (chiefly undated) taken from a\nlarge commonplace-book containing transcripts from earlier journals.\nThoreau drew largely from this book in writing the \"Week,\" and to a less\nextent in writing \"Walden.\" Passages used in these volumes (as far as\nnoted), and those duplicating earlier journal entries already printed\nin the preceding pages, have been omitted. All the matter in the book\nappears to have been written before 1847.]\n\n\n     I was born upon thy bank, river,\n     My blood flows in thy stream,\n     And thou meanderest forever\n     At the bottom of my dream.\n\nThis great but silent traveller which had been so long moving past my\ndoor at three miles an hour,\u2014might I not trust myself under its escort?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn friendship we worship moral beauty without the formality of religion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nConsider how much the sun and the summer, the buds of spring and the\nsered leaves of autumn, are related to the cabins of the settlers which\nwe discover on the shore,\u2014how all the rays which paint the landscape\nradiate from them. The flight of the crow and the gyrations of the hawk\nhave reference to their roofs.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFriends do not interchange their common wealth, but each puts his\nfinger into the private coffer of the other. They will be most familiar,\nthey will be most unfamiliar, for they will be so one and single that\ncommon themes will not have to be bandied between them, but in silence\nthey will digest them as one mind; but they will at the same time be\nso two and double that each will be to the other as admirable and as\ninaccessible as a star. He will view him as it were through \"optic\nglass,\"\u2014\"at evening from the top of Fesol\u00e9.\" And after the longest\nearthly period, he will still be in apogee to him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt [the boat] had been loaded at the door the evening before, half a\nmile from the river, and provided with wheels against emergencies, but,\nwith the bulky cargo which we stevedores had stowed in it, it proved\nbut an indifferent land carriage. For water and water-casks there was\na plentiful supply of muskmelons from our patch, which had just begun\nto be ripe, and chests and spare spars and sails and tent and guns and\nmunitions for the galleon. And as we pushed it through the meadows to\nthe river's bank, we stepped as lightly about it as if a portion of\nour own bulk and burden was stored in its hold. We were amazed to find\nourselves outside still, with scarcely independent force enough to push\nor pull effectually.\n\nThe robin is seen flying directly and high in the air at this season,\nespecially over rivers, where in the morning they are constantly passing\nand repassing in company with the blackbird.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have never insisted enough on the nakedness and simplicity of\nfriendship, the result of all emotions, their subsidence, a fruit of the\ntemperate zone. The friend is an unrelated man, solitary and of distinct\noutline.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMust not our whole lives go unexplained, without regard to us,\nnotwithstanding a few flourishes of ours, which themselves need\nexplanation?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet a friend does not afford us cheap contrasts or encounters. He\nforbears to ask explanations, but doubts and surmises with full\nfaith, as we silently ponder our fates. He is vested with full powers,\nplenipotentiary, all in all.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Plato gives science sublime counsels, directs her toward the regions\nof the ideal; Aristotle gives her positive and severe laws, and directs\nher toward a practical end.\"\u2014DEGERANDO.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll day the dark blue outline of Crotched mountain in Goffstown skirted\nthe horizon. We took pleasure in beholding its outline, because at this\ndistance our vision could so easily grasp the design of the founder. It\nwas a pretty victory to conquer the distance and dimensions so easily\nwith our eyes, which it would take our feet so long to traverse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNotwithstanding the unexplained mystery of nature, man still pursues\nhis studies with confidence, ever ready to grasp the secret, as if the\ntruth were only contained, not withheld; as one of the three circles on\nthe cocoanut is always so soft that it may be pierced with a thorn, and\nthe traveller is grateful for the thick shell which held the liquor so\nfaithfully.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGracefulness is undulatory like these waves, and perhaps the sailor\nacquires a superior suppleness and grace through the planks of his ship\nfrom the element on which he lives.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe song sparrow, whose voice is one of the first heard in the spring,\nsings occasionally throughout the season, from a greater depth in the\nsummer, as it were behind the notes of other birds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs the temperature and density of the atmosphere, so the aspects of our\nlife vary.\n\nIn this bright and chaste light the world seemed like a pavilion made\nfor holidays and washed in light. The ocean was a summer's lake, and\nthe land a smooth lawn for disport, while in the horizon the sunshine\nseemed to fall on walled towns and villas, and the course of our lives\nwas seen winding on like a country road over the plain.[486]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen we looked out from under our tent, the trees were seen dimly\nthrough the mist, and a cool dew hung upon the grass, and in the damp\nair we seemed to inhale a solid fragrance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCommunicating with the villas and hills and forests on either hand,\nby the glances we sent them, or the echoes we awakened. We glanced up\nmany a pleasant ravine with its farmhouse in the distance, where some\ncontributory stream came in; again the site of a sawmill and a few\nforsaken eel-pots were all that greeted us.[487]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhile we sail here we can remember unreservedly those friends who dwell\nfar away on the banks and by the sources of this very river, and people\nthis world for us, without any harsh and unfriendly interruptions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt noon his horn[488] is heard echoing from shore to shore to give\nnotice of his approach to the farmer's wife with whom he is to take\nhis dinner, frequently in such retired scenes that only muskrats and\nkingfishers seem to hear.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf ever our idea of a friend is realized it will be in some broad and\ngenerous natural person, as frank as the daylight, in whose presence\nour behavior will be as simple and unconstrained as the wanderer amid\nthe recesses of these hills.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI who sail now in a boat, have I not sailed in a thought? _Vide_\nChaucer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe hardest material obeys the same law with the most fluid. Trees\nare but rivers of sap and woody fibre flowing from the atmosphere and\nemptying into the earth by their trunks, as their roots flow upward\nto the surface. And in the heavens there are rivers of stars and milky\nways. There are rivers of rock on the surface and rivers of ore in the\nbowels of the earth. And thoughts flow and circulate, and seasons lapse\nas tributaries of the current year.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nConsider the phenomena of morn, or eve, and you will say that Nature\nhas perfected herself by an eternity of practice,\u2014evening stealing over\nthe fields, the stars coming to bathe in retired waters, the shadows of\nthe trees creeping farther and farther into the meadows, and a myriad\nphenomena beside.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOccasionally we had to muster all our energy to get round a point\nwhere the river broke rippling over rocks and the maples trailed their\nbranches in the stream.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe future reader of history will associate this generation with the\nred man in his thoughts, and give it credit for some sympathy with\nthat race. Our history will have some copper tints and reflections, at\nleast, and be read as through an Indian-summer haze; but such were not\nour associations. But the Indian is absolutely forgotten but by some\npersevering poets.\n\nThe white man has commenced a new era. What do our anniversaries\ncommemorate but white men's exploits? For Indian deeds there must be\nan Indian memory; the white man will remember his own only. We have\nforgotten their hostility as well as friendship. Who can realize that,\nwithin the memory of this generation, the remnant of an ancient and\ndusky race of mortals called the Stockbridge Indians, within the limits\nof this very State, furnished a company for the war, on condition only\nthat they should not be expected to fight white man's fashion, or to\ntrain, but Indian fashion. And occasionally their wigwams are seen on\nthe banks of this very stream still, solitary and inobvious, like the\ncabins of the muskrats in the meadows.\n\nThey seem like a race who have exhausted the secrets of nature, tanned\nwith age, while this young and still fair Saxon slip, on whom the sun\nhas not long shone, is but commencing its career.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTheir memory is in harmony with the russet hue of the fall of the\nyear.[489]\n\nFor the Indian there is no safety but in the plow. If he would not be\npushed into the Pacific, he must seize hold of a plow-tail and let go\nhis bow and arrow, his fish-spear and rifle. This the only Christianity\nthat will save him.[490]\n\nHis fate says sternly to him, \"Forsake the hunter's life and enter into\nthe agricultural, the second, state of man. Root yourselves a little\ndeeper in the soil, if you would continue to be the occupants of the\ncountry.\" But I confess I have no little sympathy with the Indians and\nhunter men. They seem to me a distinct and equally respectable people,\nborn to wander and to hunt, and not to be inoculated with the twilight\ncivilization of the white man.\n\nFather Le Jeune, a French missionary, affirmed \"that the Indians were\nsuperior in intellect to the French peasantry of that time,\" and advised\n\"that laborers should be sent from France in order to work for the\nIndians.\"\n\nThe Indian population within the present boundaries of New Hampshire,\nMassachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut has been estimated not to\nhave exceeded 40,000 \"before the epidemic disease which preceded the\nlanding of the Pilgrims,\" and it was far more dense here than elsewhere;\nyet they had no more land than they wanted. The present white population\nis more than 1,500,000 and two thirds of the land is unimproved.\n\nThe Indian, perchance, has not made up his mind to some things which the\nwhite man has consented to; he has not, in all respects, stooped so low;\nand hence, though he too loves food and warmth, he draws his tattered\nblanket about him and follows his fathers, rather than barter his\nbirthright. He dies, and no doubt his Genius judges well for him. But\nhe is not worsted in the fight; he is not destroyed. He only migrates\nbeyond the Pacific to more spacious and happier hunting-grounds.\n\nA race of hunters can never withstand the inroads of a race of\nhusbandmen. The latter burrow in the night into their country and\nundermine them; and [even] if the hunter is brave enough to resist,\nhis game is timid and has already fled. The rifle alone would never\nexterminate it, but the plow is a more fatal weapon; it wins the country\ninch by inch and holds all it gets.\n\nWhat detained the Cherokees so long was the 2923 plows which that\npeople possessed; and if they had grasped their handles more firmly,\nthey would never have been driven beyond the Mississippi. No sense of\njustice will ever restrain the farmer from plowing up the land which\nis only hunted over by his neighbors. No hunting-field was ever well\nfenced and surveyed and its bounds accurately marked, unless it were an\nEnglish park. It is a property not held by the hunter so much as by the\ngame which roams it, and was never well secured by warranty deeds. The\nfarmer in his treaties says only, or means only, \"So far will I plow\nthis summer,\" for he has not seed corn enough to plant more; but every\nsummer the seed is grown which plants a new strip of the forest.\n\nThe African will survive, for he is docile, and is patiently learning\nhis trade and dancing at his labor; but the Indian does not often dance,\nunless it be the war dance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn whatever moment we awake to life, as now I this evening, after\nwalking along the bank and hearing the same evening sounds that were\nheard of yore, it seems to have slumbered just below the surface, as in\nthe spring the new verdure which covers the fields has never retreated\nfar from the winter.\n\nAll actions and objects and events lose their _distinct_ importance in\nthis hour, in the brightness of the vision, as, when sometimes the pure\nlight that attends the setting sun falls on the trees and houses, the\nlight itself is the phenomenon, and no single object is so distinct to\nour admiration as the light itself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf criticism is liable to abuse, it has yet a great and humane apology.\nWhen my sentiments aspire to be universal, then my neighbor has an equal\ninterest to see that the expression be just, with myself.\n\n     My friends, why should we live?\n       Life is an idle war, a toilsome peace;\n     To-day I would not give\n       One small consent for its securest ease.\n\n     Shall we outwear the year\n       In our pavilions on its dusty plain,\n     And yet no signal hear\n       To strike our tents and take the road again?\n\n     Or else drag up the slope\n       The heavy ordnance of religion's train?\n     Useless, but in the hope\n       Some far remote and heavenward hill to gain.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe tortoises rapidly dropped into the water, as our boat ruffled the\nsurface amid the willows. We glided along through the transparent water,\nbreaking the reflections of the trees.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot only are we late to find our friends, but mankind are late, and\nthere is no record of a great success in history.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy friend is not chiefly wise or beautiful or noble. At least it is not\nfor me to know it. He has no visible form nor appreciable character. I\ncan never praise him nor esteem him praiseworthy, for I should sunder\nhim from myself and put a bar between us. Let him not think he can\nplease me by any behavior or even treat me well enough. When he treats,\nI retreat.[491]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI know of no rule which holds so true as that we are always paid\nfor our suspicion by finding what we suspect. There can be no fairer\nrecompense than this. Our suspicions exercise a demoniacal power over\nthe subject of them. By some obscure law of influence, when we are\nperhaps unconsciously the subject of another's suspicion, we feel a\nstrong impulse, even when it is contrary to our nature, to do that which\nhe expects but reprobates.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo man seems to be aware that his influence is the result of his entire\ncharacter, both that which is subject and that which is superior to\nhis understanding, and what he really means or intends it is not in his\npower to explain or offer an apology for.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo man was ever party to a secure and settled friendship. It is no\nmore a constant phenomenon than meteors and lightning. It is a war of\npositions, of silent tactics.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     I mark the summer's swift decline;\n     The springing sward its grave-clothes weaves.[492]\n\n     Oh, could I catch the sounds remote!\n     Could I but tell to human ear\n     The strains which on the breezes float\n     And sing the requiem of the dying year!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Sept. 29, 1842._ To-day the lark sings again down in the meadow, and\nthe robin peeps, and the bluebirds, old and young, have revisited their\nbox, as if they would fain repeat the summer without the intervention\nof winter, if Nature would let them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBeauty is a finer utility whose end we do not see.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Oct. 7, 1842._ A little girl has just brought me a purple finch or\nAmerican linnet. These birds are now moving south. It reminds me of the\npine and spruce, and the juniper and cedar on whose berries it feeds.\nIt has the crimson hues of the October evenings, and its plumage still\nshines as if it had caught and preserved some of their tints (beams?).\nWe know it chiefly as a traveller. It reminds me of many things I had\nforgotten. Many a serene evening lies snugly packed under its wing.\n\nGower writes like a man of common sense and good parts who has\nundertaken with steady, rather than high, purpose to do narrative with\nrhyme. With little or no invention, following in the track of the old\nfablers, he employs his leisure and his pen-craft to entertain his\nreaders and speak a good word for the right. He has no fire, or rather\nblaze, though occasionally some brand's end peeps out from the ashes,\nespecially if you approach the heap in a dark day, and if you extend\nyour hands over it you experience a slight warmth there more than\nelsewhere. In fair weather you may see a slight smoke go up here and\nthere. He narrates what Chaucer sometimes sings. He tells his story with\na fair understanding of the original, and sometimes it gains a little\nin blunt plainness and in point in his hands. Unlike the early Saxon\nand later English, his poetry is but a plainer and directer speech than\nother men's prose. He might have been a teamster and written his rhymes\non his wagon-seat as he went to mill with a load of plaster.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe banks by retired roadsides are covered with asters, hazels, brakes,\nand huckleberry bushes, emitting a dry, ripe scent.[493]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFacts must be learned directly and personally, but principles may be\ndeduced from information. The collector of facts possesses a perfect\nphysical organization, the philosopher a perfect intellectual one. One\ncan walk, the other sit; one acts, the other thinks. But the poet in\nsome degree does both, and uses and generalizes the results of both; he\ngeneralizes the widest deductions of philosophy.[494]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Oct. 21, 1842._ The atmosphere is so dry and transparent and, as it\nwere, inflammable at this season that a candle in the grass shines\nwhite and dazzling, and purer and brighter the farther off it is. Its\nheat seems to have been extracted and only its harmless refulgent light\nleft. It is a star dropped down. The ancients were more than poetically\ntrue when they called fire Vulcan's flower. Light is somewhat almost\nmoral. The most intense\u2014as the fixed stars and our own sun\u2014has an\nunquestionable pre\u00ebminence among the elements. At a certain stage in the\ngeneration of all life, no doubt, light as well as heat is developed.\nIt guides to the first rudiments of life. There is a vitality in heat\nand light.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen who are felt rather than understood are being most rapidly\ndeveloped. They stand many deep.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn many parts the Merrimack is as wild and natural as ever, and the\nshore and surrounding scenery exhibit only the revolutions of nature.\nThe pine stands up erect on its brink, and the alders and willows fringe\nits edge; only the beaver and the red man have departed.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy friend knows me face to face, but many only venture to meet me under\nthe shield of another's authority, backed by an invisible _corps du\nr\u00e9serve_ of wise friends and relations. To such I say, \"Farewell, we\ncannot dwell alone in the world.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSometimes, by a pleasing, sad wisdom, we find ourselves carried beyond\nall counsel and sympathy. Our friends' words do not reach us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe truly noble and settled character of a man is not put forward, as\nthe king or conqueror does not march foremost in a procession.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAmong others I have picked up a curious spherical stone, probably\nan implement of war, like a small paving-stone about the size of a\ngoose egg, with a groove worn quite round it, by which it was probably\nfastened to a thong or a withe and answered to strike a severe blow like\na shotted colt. I have since seen larger ones of the same description.\n\nThese arrowheads are of every color and of various forms and materials,\nthough commonly made of a stone which has a conchoidal fracture. Many\nsmall ones are found, of white quartz, which are mere equilateral\ntriangles, with one side slightly convex. These were probably small shot\nfor birds and squirrels. The chips which were made in their manufacture\nare also found in large numbers wherever a lodge stood for any length\nof time. And these slivers are the surest indication of Indian ground,\nsince the geologists tell us that this stone is not to be found in this\nvicinity.\n\nThe spear-heads are of the same form and material only larger.\n\nSome are found as perfect and sharp as ever, for time has not the effect\nof blunting them, but when they break they have a ragged and cutting\nedge. Yet they are so brittle that they can hardly be carried in the\npocket without being broken.\n\nIt is a matter of wonder how the Indians made even those rude implements\nwithout iron or steel tools to work with. It is doubtful whether one of\nour mechanics, with all the aids of Yankee ingenuity, could soon learn\nto copy one of the thousands under our feet. It is well known the art of\nmaking flints with a cold chisel, as practiced in Austria, requires long\npractice and knack in the operator, but the arrowhead is of much more\nirregular form, and, like the flint, such is the nature of the stone,\nmust be struck out by a succession of skillful blows.\n\nAn Indian to whom I once exhibited some, but to whom they were objects\nof as much curiosity as [to] myself, suggested that, as white men\nhave but one blacksmith, so Indians had one arrowhead-maker for many\nfamilies. But there are the marks of too many forges\u2014unless they were\nlike travelling cobblers\u2014to allow of this.\n\nI have seen some arrowheads from the South Seas which were precisely\nsimilar to those from here, so necessary, so little whimsical is this\nlittle tool.\n\nSo has the steel hatchet its prototype in the stone one of the Indian,\nas the stone hatchet in the necessities of man.\n\nVenerable are these ancient arts, whose early history is lost in that\nof the race itself.\n\nHere, too, is the pestle and mortar,\u2014ancient forms and symbols older\nthan the plow or the spade.\n\nThe invention of that plow which now turns them up to the surface marks\nthe era of their burial. An era which can never have its history, which\nis older than history itself. These are relics of an era older than\nmodern civilization, compared with which Greece and Rome and Egypt are\nmodern. And still the savage retreats and the white man advances.\n\nI have the following account of some relics in my possession which\nwere brought from Taunton [?] in Bristol County. A field which had been\nplanted with corn for many years. The sod being broken, the wind began\nto blow away the soil and then the sand, for several years, until at\nlength it was blown away to the depth of several feet, where it ceased,\nand the ground appeared strewed with the remains of an Indian village,\nwith regular circles of stones which formed the foundation of their\nwigwams, and numerous implements beside.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCommonly we use life sparingly, we husband it as if it were scarce,\nand admit the right of prudence; but occasionally we see how ample and\ninexhaustible is the stock from which we so scantily draw, and learn\nthat we need not be prudent, that we may be prodigal, and all expenses\nwill be met.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAm I not as far from those scenes, though I have wandered a different\nroute, as my companion who has finished the voyage of life? Am I not\nmost dead who have not life to die, and cast off my sere leaves?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt seemed the only right way to enter this country, borne on the bosom\nof the flood which receives the tribute of its innumerable vales. The\nriver was the only key adequate to unlock its maze. We beheld the hills\nand valleys, the lakes and streams, in their natural order and position.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA state should be a complete epitome of the earth, a natural\nprincipality, and by the gradations of its surface and soil conduct\nthe traveller to its principal marts. Nature is stronger than law, and\nthe sure but slow influence of wind and water will balk the efforts of\nrestricting legislatures. Man cannot set up bounds with safety but where\nthe revolutions of nature will confirm and strengthen, not obliterate,\nthem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery man's success is in proportion to his _average_ ability. The\nmeadow flowers spring and bloom where the waters annually deposit\ntheir slime, not where they reach in some freshet only. We seem to do\nourselves little credit in our own eyes for our performance, which all\nknow must ever fall short of our aspiration and promise, which only we\ncan know entirely; as a stick will avail to reach further than it will\nstrike effectually, since its greatest momentum is a little short of\nits extreme end. But we do not disappoint our neighbors. A man is not\nhis hope nor his despair, nor his past deed.[495]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut it is in the order of destiny that whatever is remote shall be\nnear. Whatever the eyes see, the hands shall touch. The sentinels upon\nthe turret and at the window and on the wall behold successively the\napproaching traveller whom the host will soon welcome in the hall.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not to be forgotten that the poet is innocent; but he is\nyoung, he is not yet a parent or a brother to his race. There are\na thousand degrees of grace and beauty before absolute humanity and\ndisinterestedness.\n\nThe meanest man can easily test the noblest. Is he embraced? Does he\nfind him a brother?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am sometimes made aware of a kindness which may have long since been\nshown, which surely memory cannot retain, which reflects its light long\nafter its heat. I realize, my friend, that there have been times when\nthy thoughts of me have been of such lofty kindness that they passed\nover me like the winds of heaven unnoticed, so pure that they presented\nno object to my eyes, so generous and universal that I did not detect\nthem. Thou hast loved me for what I was not, but for what I aspired to\nbe. We shudder to think of the kindness of our friend which has fallen\non us cold, though in some true but tardy hour we have awakened. There\nhas just reached me the kindness of some acts, not to be forgotten,\nnot to be remembered. I wipe off these scores at midnight, at rare\nintervals, in moments of insight and gratitude.\n\n     Far o'er the bow,\n       Amid the drowsy noon,\n     Souhegan, creeping slow,\n       Appeareth soon.[496]\n\n     Methinks that by a strict behavior\n     I could elicit back the brightest star\n     That hides behind a cloud.\n\n     I have rolled near some other spirit's path,\n     And with a pleased anxiety have felt\n     Its purer influence on my opaque mass,\n     But always was I doomed to learn, alas!\n     I had scarce chang\u00e8d its sidereal time.\n\nGray sedulously cultivated poetry, but the plant would not thrive. His\nlife seems to have needed some more sincere and ruder experience.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOccasionally we rowed near enough to a cottage to see the sunflowers\nbefore the door, and the seed-vessels of the poppy, like small goblets\nfilled with the waters of Lethe, but without disturbing the sluggish\nhousehold.\n\nDriving the small sandpiper before us.\n\n\nFOG[497]\n\n     Thou drifting meadow of the air,\n     Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,\n     And in whose fenny labyrinths\n     The bittern booms and curlew peeps,\n     The heron wades and boding rain-crow clucks;\n     Low-anchored cloud,\n     Newfoundland air,\n     Fountain-head and source of rivers,\n     Ocean branch that flowest to the sun,\n     Diluvian spirit, or Deucalion shroud,\n     Dew-cloth, dream drapery,\n     And napkin spread by fays,\n     Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,\n     Sea-fowl that with the east wind\n     Seek'st the shore, groping thy way inland,\n     By whichever name I please to call thee,\n     Bear only perfumes and the scent\n     Of healing herbs to just men's fields.\n\nI am amused with the manner in which Quarles and his contemporary poets\nspeak of Nature,\u2014with a sort of gallantry, as a knight of his lady,\u2014not\nas lovers, but as having a thorough respect for her and some title to\nher acquaintance. They speak manfully, and their lips are not closed by\naffection.\n\n     \"The pale-faced lady of the black-eyed night.\"\n\nNature seems to have held her court then, and all authors were\nher gentlemen and esquires and had ready an abundance of courtly\nexpressions.\n\nQuarles is never weak or shallow, though coarse and untasteful. He\npresses able-bodied and strong-backed words into his service, which\nhave a certain rustic fragrance and force, as if now first devoted\nto literature after having served sincere and stern uses. He has the\npronunciation of a poet though he stutters. He certainly speaks the\nEnglish tongue with a right manly accent. To be sure his poems have\nthe[498] musty odor of a confessional.\n\n     How little curious is man,\n     Who hath not searched his mystery a span,\n     But dreams of mines of treasure\n     Which he neglects to measure,\n     For threescore years and ten\n     Walks to and fro amid his fellow men\n     O'er this small tract of continental land,\n     His fancy bearing no divining wand.\n     Our uninquiring corpses lie more low\n     Than our life's curiosity doth go;\n     Our most ambitious steps climb not so high\n     As in their hourly sport the sparrows fly.\n     Yonder cloud's blown farther in a day\n     Than our most vagrant feet may ever stray.\n     Surely, O Lord, he hath not greatly erred\n     Who hath so little from his birthplace stirred.\n     He wanders through this low and shallow world,\n     Scarcely his bolder thoughts and hopes unfurled,\n     Through this low wall\u00e8d world, which his huge sin\n     Hath hardly room to rest and harbor in.\n     Bearing his head just o'er some fallow ground,\n     Some cowslip'd meadows where the bitterns sound,\n     He wanders round until his end draws nigh,\n     And then lays down his aged head to die.\n     And this is life! this is that famous strife!\n     His head doth court a fathom from the land,\n     Six feet from where his grovelling feet do stand.\n\nWhat is called talking is a remarkable though I believe universal\nphenomenon of human society. The most constant phenomenon when men or\nwomen come together is talking. A chemist might try this experiment in\nhis laboratory with certainty, and set down the fact in his journal.\nThis characteristic of the race may be considered as established. No\ndoubt every one can call to mind numerous conclusive instances. Some\nnations, it is true, are said to articulate more distinctly than others;\nyet the rule holds with those who have the fewest letters in their\nalphabet. Men cannot stay long together without talking, according\nto the rules of polite society. (As all men have two ears and but one\ntongue, they must spend the extra and unavoidable hours of silence in\nlistening to the whisperings of genius, and this fact it is that makes\nsilence always respectable in my eyes.) Not that they have anything to\ncommunicate, or do anything quite natural or important to be done so,\nbut by common consent they fall to using the invention of speech, and\nmake a conversation, good or bad. They say things, first this one and\nthen that. They express their \"opinions,\" as they are called.\n\nBy a well-directed silence I have sometimes seen threatening and\ntroublesome people routed. You sit musing as if you were in broad\nnature again. They cannot stand it. Their position becomes more and more\nuncomfortable every moment. So much humanity over against one without\nany disguise,\u2014not even the disguise of speech! They cannot stand it nor\nsit against it.\n\nNot only must men talk, but for the most part must talk about talk,\u2014even\nabout books, or dead and buried talk. Sometimes my friend expects a\nfew periods from me. Is he exorbitant? He thinks it is my turn now.\nSometimes my companion thinks he has said a good thing, but I don't see\nthe difference. He looks just as he did before. Well, it is no loss. I\nsuppose he has plenty more.\n\nThen I have seen very near and intimate, very old friends introduced\nby very old strangers, with liberty given to talk. The stranger, who\nknows only the countersign, says, \"Jonas\u2014Eldred,\" giving those names\nwhich will make a title good in a court of law. (It may be presumed\nthat God does not know the Christian names of men.) Then Jonas, like\na ready soldier, makes a remark,\u2014a benediction on the weather it may\nbe,\u2014and Eldred swiftly responds, and unburdens his breast, and so the\naction begins. They bless God and nature many times gratuitously, and\npart mutually well pleased, leaving their cards. They did not happen to\nbe present at each other's christening.\n\nSometimes I have listened so attentively and with so much interest\nto the whole expression of a man that I did not hear one word he was\nsaying, and saying too with the more vivacity observing my attention.\n\nBut a man may be an object of interest to me though his tongue is pulled\nout by the roots.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen sometimes do as if they could eject themselves like bits of\npack-thread from the end of the tongue.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nScholars have for the most part a diseased way of looking at the world.\nThey mean by it a few cities and unfortunate assemblies of men and\nwomen, who might all be concealed in the grass of the prairies. They\ndescribe this world as old or new, healthy or diseased, according to the\nstate of their libraries,\u2014a little dust more or less on their shelves.\nWhen I go abroad from under this shingle or slate roof, I find several\nthings which they have not considered. Their conclusions seem imperfect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs with two eyes we see and with two ears we hear, with the like\nadvantage is man added to man. Making no complaint, offering no\nencouragement, one human being is made aware of the neighboring\nand contemporaneous existence of another. Such is the tenderness of\nfriendship. We never recognize each other as finite and imperfect\nbeings, but with a smile and as strangers. My intercourse with men is\ngoverned by the same laws with my intercourse with nature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBuonaparte said that the three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage was the\nrarest, but I cannot agree with him.[499] Fear does not awake so early.\nFew men are so degenerate as to balk nature by not beginning the day\nwell.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI hold in my hands a recent volume of essays and poems, in its outward\naspect like the thousands which the press sends forth, and, if the gods\npermitted their own inspiration to be breathed in vain, this might be\nforgotten in the mass, but the accents of truth are as sure to be heard\non earth as in heaven. The more I read it the more I am impressed by its\nsincerity, its depth and grandeur. It already seems ancient and has lost\nthe traces of its modern birth. It is an evidence of many virtues in the\nwriter. More serenely and humbly confident, this man has listened to the\ninspiration which all may hear, and with greater fidelity reported it.\nIt is therefore a true prophecy, and shall at length come to pass. It\nhas the grandeur of the Greek tragedy, or rather its Hebrew original,\nyet it is not necessarily referred to any form of faith. The slumbering,\nheavy depth of its sentences is perhaps without recent parallel. It\nlies like the sward in its native pasture, where its roots are never\ndisturbed, and not spread over a sandy embankment.\n\n     On fields o'er which the reaper's hand has passed,\n     Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,\n     My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind\n     And of such fineness as October airs,\n     There, after harvest, could I glean my life,\n     A richer harvest reaping without toil,\n     And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will,\n     In subtler webs than finest summer haze.\n\nIn October the air is really the fine element the poets describe.[500]\nThe fields emit a dry and temperate odor. There is something in the\nrefined and elastic air which reminds us of a work of art. It is like\na verse of Anacreon or a tragedy of \u00c6schylus.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll parts of nature belong to one head, as the curls of a maiden's hair.\nHow beautifully flow the seasons as one year, and all streams as one\nocean!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI hate museums; there is nothing so weighs upon my spirits. They are the\ncatacombs of nature. One green bud of spring, one willow catkin, one\nfaint trill from a migrating sparrow would set the world on its legs\nagain. The life that is in a single green weed is of more worth than\nall this death. They are dead nature collected by dead men. I know not\nwhether I muse most at the bodies stuffed with cotton and sawdust or\nthose stuffed with bowels and fleshy fibre outside the cases.\n\nWhere is the proper herbarium, the true cabinet of shells, and museum of\nskeletons, but in the meadow where the flower bloomed, by the seaside\nwhere the tide cast up the fish, and on the hills and in the valleys\nwhere the beast laid down its life and the skeleton of the traveller\nreposes on the grass? What right have mortals to parade these things on\ntheir legs again, with their wires, and, when heaven has decreed that\nthey shall return to dust again, to return them to sawdust? Would you\nhave a dried specimen of a world, or a pickled one?\n\nEmbalming is a sin against heaven and earth,\u2014against heaven, who has\nrecalled the soul and set free the servile elements, and against the\nearth, which is thus robbed of her dust. I have had my right-perceiving\nsenses so disturbed in these haunts as to mistake a veritable living\nman for a stuffed specimen, and surveyed him with dumb wonder as the\nstrangest of the whole collection. For the strangest is that which,\nbeing in many particulars most like, is in some essential particular\nmost unlike.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is one great and rare merit in the old English tragedy that it says\nsomething. The words slide away very fast, but toward some conclusion.\nIt has to do with things, and the reader feels as if he were advancing.\nIt does not make much odds what message the author has to deliver at\nthis distance of time, since no message can startle us, but how he\ndelivers it,\u2014that it be done in a downright and manly way. They come to\nthe point and do not waste the time.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey say that Carew was a laborious writer, but his poems do not show\nit. They are finished, but do not show the marks of the chisel. Drummond\nwas indeed a quiddler, with little fire or fibre, and rather a taste\n_for_ poetry than a taste _of_ it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter all, we draw on very gradually in English literature to\nShakespeare, through Peele and Marlowe, to say nothing of Raleigh and\nSpenser and Sidney. We hear the same great tone already sounding to\nwhich Shakespeare added a serener wisdom and clearer expression. Its\nchief characteristics of reality and unaffected manliness are there.\nThe more we read of the literature of those times, the more does\nacquaintance divest the genius of Shakespeare of the in some measure\nfalse mystery which has thickened around it, and leave it shrouded in\nthe grander mystery of daylight. His critics have for the most part made\ntheir [_sic_] contemporaries less that they might make Shakespeare more.\n\nThe distinguished men of those times had a great flow of spirits, a\ncheerful and elastic wit far removed from the solemn wisdom of later\ndays. What another thing was fame and a name then than now! This is seen\nin the familiar manner in which they were spoken of by each other and\nthe nation at large,\u2014_Kit_ Marlowe, and _George_ (Peele), and _Will_\nShakespeare, and _Ben_ Jonson,\u2014great _fellows_,\u2014_chaps_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe pass through all degrees of life from the least organic to the most\ncomplex. Sometimes we are mere pudding-stone and scori\u00e6.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe present is the instant work and near process of living, and will be\nfound in the last analysis to be nothing more nor less than digestion.\nSometimes, it is true, it is indigestion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDaniel deserves praise for his moderation, and sometimes has risen\ninto poetry before you know it. Strong sense appears in his epistles,\nbut you have to remember too often in what age he wrote, and yet that\nShakespeare was his contemporary. His style is without the tricks of\nthe trade and really in advance of his age. We can well believe that he\nwas a retired scholar, who would keep himself shut up in his house two\nwhole months together.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDonne was not a poet, but a man of strong sense, a sturdy English\nthinker, full of conceits and whimsicalities, hammering away at his\nsubject, be it eulogy or epitaph, sonnet or satire, with the patience\nof a day laborer, without taste but with an occasional fine distinction\nor poetic phrase. He was rather _Doctor_ Donne, than the _poet_ Donne.\nHis letters are perhaps best.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLovelace is what his name expresses,\u2014of slight material to make a poet's\nfame. His goings and comings are of no great account. His taste is not\nso much love of excellence as fear of failure, though in one instance\nhe has written fearlessly and memorably.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow wholesome are the natural laws to contemplate, as gravity, heat,\nlight, moisture, dryness. Only let us not interfere. Let the soul\nwithdraw into the chambers of the heart, let the mind reside steadily\nin the labyrinth of the brain, and not interfere with hands or feet more\nthan with other parts of nature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThomson was a true lover of nature and seems to have needed only a\ndeeper human experience to have taken a more vigorous and lofty flight.\nHe is deservedly popular, and has found a place on many shelves and in\nmany cottages. There are great merits in \"The Seasons\"\u2014and the almanac.\nIn \"Autumn:\"\u2014\n\n                       \"Attemper'd suns arise,\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     ... while broad and brown, below,\n     Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.\n     Rich, silent, deep, they stand.\"\n\nThe moon in \"Autumn:\"\u2014\n\n                       \"Her spotted disk,\n     Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n               ... gives all his blaze again,\n     Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.\n     Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,\n     Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     The whole air whitens with a boundless tide\n     Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.\"\n\nMy friend, thou art not of some other race and family of men;\u2014thou art\nflesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. Has not nature associated us in\nmany ways?[501] Water from the same fountain, lime from the same quarry,\ngrain from the same field compose our bodies. And perchance our elements\nbut reassert their ancient kindredship. Is it of no significance that\nI have so long partaken of the same loaf with thee, have breathed the\nsame air summer and winter, have felt the same heat and cold, the same\nfruits of summer have been pleased to refresh us both, and thou hast\nnever had a thought of different fibre from my own?[502]\n\nOur kindred, of one blood with us. With the favor and not the\ndispleasure of the gods, we have partaken the same bread.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is hard to know rocks. They are crude and inaccessible to our nature.\nWe have not enough of the stony element in us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is hard to know men by rumor only. But to stand near somewhat living\nand conscious. Who would not sail through mutiny and storm farther than\nColumbus, to reach the fabulous retreating shores of some continent man?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy friend can only be in any measure my foe, because he is fundamentally\nmy friend; for everything is after all more nearly what it should\nrightfully be, than that which it is simply by failing to be the other.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt [friendship] cannot be the subject of reconciliation or the theme of\nconversation ever between friends. The true friend must in some sense\ndisregard all professions of friendship and forget them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is as far from pity as from contempt. I should hesitate even to call\nit the highest sympathy, since the word is of suspicious origin and\nsuggests suffering rather than joy. It was established before religion,\nfor men are not friends in religion, but over and through it; and it\nrecords no apostasy or repentance, but there is a certain divine and\ninnocent and perennial health about it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIts charity is generosity, its virtue nobleness, its religion trust. We\ncome nearer to friendship with flowers and inanimate objects than with\nmerely affectionate and loving men. It is not for the friend to be just\neven,\u2014at least he is not to be lost in this attribute,\u2014but to be only\na large and free existence, representative of humanity, its general\ncourt. Admirable to us as the heavenly bodies, but like them affording\nrather a summer heat and daylight,\u2014the light and fire of sunshine and\nstars,\u2014rather than the intense heats and splendors which our weakness\nand appetite require.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYesterday I skated after a fox over the ice. Occasionally he sat on his\nhaunches and barked at me like a young wolf. It made me think of the\nbear and her cubs mentioned by Captain Parry, I think. All brutes seem\nto have a genius for mystery, an Oriental aptitude for symbols and the\nlanguage of signs; and this is the origin of Pilpay and \u00c6sop. The fox\nmanifested an almost human suspicion of mystery in my actions. While\nI skated directly after him, he cantered at the top of his speed; but\nwhen I stood still, though his fear was not abated, some strange but\ninflexible law of his nature caused him to stop also, and sit again on\nhis haunches. While I still stood motionless, he would go slowly a rod\nto one side, then sit and bark, then a rod to the other side, and sit\nand bark again, but did not retreat, as if spellbound. When, however, I\ncommenced the pursuit again, he found himself released from his durance.\n\nPlainly the fox belongs to a different order of things from that which\nreigns in the village. Our courts, though they offer a bounty for his\nhide, and our pulpits, though they draw many a moral from his cunning,\nare in few senses contemporary with his free forest life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo the poet considered as an artist, his words must be as the relation\nof his oldest and finest memory, and wisdom derived from the remotest\nexperience.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have thought, when walking in the woods through a certain retired\ndell, bordered with shrub oaks and pines, far from the village and\naffording a glimpse only through an opening of the mountains in the\nhorizon, how my life might pass there, simple and true and natural, and\nhow many things would be impossible to be done there. How many books I\nmight not read!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy avoid my friends and live among strangers? Why not reside in my\nnative country?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMany a book is written which does not necessarily suggest or imply the\nphenomenon or object to explain which it professes to have been written.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery child should be encouraged to study not man's system of nature\nbut nature's.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGiles Fletcher knew how to write, and has left English verses behind.\nHe is the most valuable imitator of the Spenserian stanza, and adds a\nmoral tone of his own.\n\n\nTO A MARSH HAWK IN SPRING\n\n     There is health in thy gray wing,\n     Health of nature's furnishing.\n     Say, thou modern-winged antique,\n     Was thy mistress ever sick?\n\n\n     In each heaving of thy wing\n     Thou dost health and leisure bring,\n     Thou dost waive disease and pain\n     And resume new life again.\n\n     Man walks in nature still alone,\n       And knows no one,\n     Discovers no lineament nor feature\n       Of any creature.\n\n     Though all the firmament\n       Is o'er me bent,\n     Yet still I miss the grace\n       Of an intelligent and kindred face.\n\n     I still must seek the friend\n     Who does with nature blend.\n     Who is the person in her mask,\n     He is the friend I ask;\n\n     Who is the expression of her meaning,\n     Who is the uprightness of her leaning,\n     Who is the grown child of her weaning.\n\n     We twain would walk together\n       Through every weather,\n     And see this aged Nature\n       Go with a bending stature.\n\n     The centre of this world,\n     The face of Nature,\n     The site of human life,\n     Some sure foundation\n     And nucleus of a nation,\n     At least, a private station.\n\nIt is the saddest thought of all, that what we are to others, that we\nare much more to ourselves,\u2014avaricious, mean, irascible, affected,\u2014we\nare the victims of these faults. If our pride offends our humble\nneighbor, much more does it offend ourselves, though our lives are never\nso private and solitary.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf the Indian is somewhat of a stranger in nature, the gardener is too\nmuch a familiar. There is something vulgar and foul in the latter's\ncloseness to his mistress, something noble and cleanly in the former's\ndistance. Yet the hunter seems to have a property in the moon which\neven the farmer has not. Ah! the poet knows uses of plants which are\nnot easily reported, though he cultivates no parterre. See how the sun\nsmiles on him while he walks in the gardener's aisles, rather than on\nthe gardener.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot only has the foreground of a picture its glass of transparent\ncrystal spread over it, but the picture itself is a glass or transparent\nmedium to a remoter background. We demand only of all pictures that they\nbe perspicuous, that the laws of perspective have been truly observed.\nIt is not the fringed foreground of the desert nor the intermediate\noases that detain the eye and the imagination, but the infinite, level,\nand roomy horizon, where the sky meets the sand, and heavens and earth,\nthe ideal and actual, are coincident, the background into which leads\nthe path of the pilgrim.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll things are in revolution; it is the one law of nature by which order\nis preserved, and time itself lapses and is measured. Yet some things\nmen will do from age to age, and some things they will not do.\n\n\n\"Fisherman's Acct. for 1805[503] Began March 25\n\n                                                                   cts.\n           Dd Mr. Saml Potter 2 qts W I 3/ 1 lb sugar 10d         $0.64\n               One Cod line 5/                                       84\n     April 8   Qt W I 1/6 & 1 lb Sugar 10d & Brown Mug               48\n           9   Qt N E rum 1/ 10th Do. of Do 1/                       33\n          13   Qt N E rum & 1 lb Sugar 15th 2 Qts N E rum 2/        62\n          17   Qt W I 1/6 Do N E 1/ lb Sugar 9d & Qt N E Rum         71\n          22   Qt N E rum 1/ lb sugar 9d & Qt N E rum 1/             44\u00bd\n          23   Qt N E rum 1/ Do of Do & sugar 5d                     39\n          24   Qt N E rum 1/ lb sugar 9d                             28\u00bd\n          29   Qt N E rum 1/ & lb sugar 9d\u201430th Rum 1/               44\u00bd\n     May first Qt rum \u00bd lb Sugar 1/5d                                22\n               Qt N E rum 1/ & \u00bd lb Loaf Sugar 9d                    29\n           4   Qt rum 1/ Sugar 5d                                    22\n           6   Qt N E rum 1/ & lb good sugar 11d                     31\n           7   Qt N E rum 1/8th Qt N E rum 1/ & \u00bd lb Sugar 5d        40\n          11   Qt N E rum 11d lb Sugar 10d                           29\n          15   Qt rum & lb Sugar 1/9 & Qt N E rum                    44\n          16   To a Line for the Sceene 3/                         0.50\n          20   To Qt N E rum 11d lb Sugar 10d                      0.29\n          21   To Qt N E rum 11d & lb Sugar 10d                    0.29\n          27   To Qt W I 1/6 & lb Sugar 10d                        0.39\n     June 5th  1805 Settled this acct by Recev.g Cash in Full     $8.82\u00bd\n\nHow many young finny contemporaries of various character and destiny,\nform and habits, we have even in this water! And it will not be\nforgotten by some memory that we _were_ contemporaries. It is of _some_\nimport. We shall be some time friends, I trust, and know each other\nbetter. Distrust is too prevalent now. We are so much alike! have so\nmany faculties in common! I have not yet met with the philosopher who\ncould, in a quite conclusive, undoubtful way, show me _the_, and, if\nnot _the_, then how _any_, difference between man and a fish. We are so\nmuch alike! How much could a really tolerant, patient, humane, and truly\ngreat and natural man make of them, if he should try? For they are to\nbe understood, surely, as all things else, by no other method than that\nof sympathy. It is easy to say what they are not to us, _i. e._, what\nwe are not to them; but what we might and ought to be is another affair.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the tributaries the brook minnow and the trout. Even in the rills\nemptying into the river, over which you stride at a step, you may see\nsmall trout not so large as your finger glide past or hide under the\nbank.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe character of this [the horned pout], as indeed of all fishes,\ndepends directly upon that of the water it inhabits, those taken in\nclear and sandy water being of brighter hue and cleaner and of firmer\nand sweeter flesh. It makes a peculiar squeaking noise when drawn out,\nwhich has given it the name of the minister or preacher.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe bream is the familiar and homely sparrow, which makes her nest\neverywhere, and is early and late.\n\nThe pickerel is the hawk, a fish of prey, hovering over the finny broods.\n\nThe pout is the owl, which steals so noiselessly about at evening with\nits clumsy body.\n\nThe shiner is the summer yellowbird, or goldfinch, of the river.\n\nThe sucker is the sluggish bittern, or stake-driver.\n\nThe minnow is the hummingbird.\n\nThe trout is the partridge woodpecker.\n\nThe perch is the robin.[504]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe read Marlowe as so much poetical pabulum. It is food for poets, water\nfrom the Castalian Spring, some of the atmosphere of Parnassus, raw and\ncrude indeed, and at times breezy, but pure and bracing. Few have so\nrich a phrase! He had drunk deep of the Pierian Spring, though not deep\nenough, and had that fine madness, as Drayton says,\n\n     \"Which justly should possess a poet's brain.\"\n\nWe read his \"Dr. Faustus,\" \"Dido, Queen of Carthage,\" and \"Hero and\nLeander,\" especially the last, without being wearied. He had many of\nthe qualities of a great poet, and was in some degree worthy to precede\nShakespeare. But he seems to have run to waste for want of seclusion\nand solitude, as if mere pause and deliberation would have added a new\nelement of greatness to his poetry. In his unquestionably fine, heroic\ntone it would seem as if he had the rarest part of genius, and education\ncould have added the rest. The \"Hero and Leander\" tells better for his\ncharacter than the anecdotes which survive.\n\n     I fain would stretch me by the highway-side,\n       To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,\n     That mingled soul and body with the tide\n       I too might through the pores of Nature flow,[505]\n\n     Might help to forward the new spring along,\n       If it were mine to choose my toil or day,\n     Scouring the roads with yonder sluice-way throng,\n       And so work out my tax on _Her_ highway.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     Yet let us thank the purblind race\n       Who still have thought it good\n     With lasting stone to mark the place\n       Where braver men have stood.\n\n     In Concord, town of quiet name\n       And quiet fame as well, ...\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     I've seen ye, sisters, on the mountain-side,\n     When your green mantles fluttered in the wind;\n     I've seen your footprints on the lake's smooth shore,\n     Lesser than man's, a more ethereal trace;\n     I have heard of ye as some far-famed race,\n     Daughters of gods, whom I should one day meet,\n     Or mothers, I might say, of all our race.\n     I reverence your natures, so like mine\n     Yet strangely different, like but still unlike.\n     Thou only stranger that hast crossed my path,\n     Accept my hospitality; let me hear\n     The message which thou bring'st.\n         Made different from me,\n       Perchance thou'rt made to be\n       The creature of a different destiny.\n     I know not who ye are that meekly stand\n     Thus side by side with man in every land.\n     When did ye form alliance with our race,\n     Ye children of the moon, who in mild nights\n     Vaulted upon the hills and sought this earth?\n     Reveal that which I fear ye cannot tell,\n     Wherein ye are not I, wherein ye dwell\n     Where I can never come.\n     What boots it that I do regard ye so?\n     Does it make suns to shine or crops to grow?\n     What boots [it] that I never should forget\n     That I have sisters sitting for me yet?\n     And what are sisters?\n     The robust man, who can so stoutly strive,\n     In this bleak world is hardly kept alive.\n     And who is it protects _ye_, smooths _your_ way?\n\nWe can afford to lend a willing ear occasionally to those earnest\nreformers of the age. Let us treat them hospitably. Shall we be\ncharitable only to the poor? What though they are fanatics? Their errors\nare likely to be generous errors, and these may be they who will put to\nrest the American Church and the American government, and awaken better\nones in their stead.\n\nLet us not meanly seek to maintain our delicate lives in chambers or in\nlegislative halls by a timid watchfulness of the rude mobs that threaten\nto pull down our baby-houses. Let us not think to raise a revenue\nwhich shall maintain our domestic quiet by an impost on the liberty\nof speech. Let us not think to live by the principle of self-defense.\nHave we survived our accidents hitherto, think you, by virtue of our\ngood swords,\u2014that three-foot lath that dangles by your side, or those\nbrazen-mouthed pieces under the burying hill which the trainers keep\nto hurrah with in the April and July mornings? Do our protectors burrow\nunder the burying-ground hill, on the edge of the bean-field which you\nall know, gorging themselves once a year with powder and smoke, and kept\nbright and in condition by a chafing of oiled rags and rotten stone?\nHave we resigned the protection of our hearts and civil liberties to\nthat feathered race of wading birds and marching men who drill but\nonce a month?\u2014and I mean no reproach to our Concord train-bands, who\ncertainly make a handsome appearance\u2014and dance well. Do we enjoy the\nsweets of domestic life undisturbed, because the naughty boys are all\nshut up in that whitewashed \"stone-yard,\" as it is called, and see the\nConcord meadows only through a grating.\n\nNo, let us live amid the free play of the elements. Let the dogs bark,\nlet the cocks crow, and the sun shine, and the winds blow!\n\n     Ye do commend me to all virtue ever,\n     And simple truth, the law by which we live.\n     Methinks that I can trust your clearer sense\n     And your immediate knowledge of the truth.\n     I would obey your influence, one with fate.\n\nThere is a true march to the sentence, as if a man or a body of men were\nactually making progress there step by step, and these are not the mere\n_disjecta membra_, the dispersed and mutilated members though it were of\nheroes, which can no longer walk and join themselves to their comrades.\nThey are not perfect nor liberated pieces of art for the galleries, yet\nthey stand on the natural and broad pedestal of the living rock, but\nhave a principle of life and growth in them still, as has that human\nnature from which they spring.[506]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a marvel how the birds contrive to survive in this world. These\ntender sparrows that flit from bush to bush this evening, though it is\nso late, do not seem improvident, [but appear] to have found a roost for\nthe night. They must succeed by weakness and reliance, for they are not\nbold and enterprising, as their mode of life would seem to require, but\nvery weak and tender creatures. I have seen a little chipping sparrow,\ncome too early in the spring, shivering on an apple twig, drawing in\nits head and striving to warm it in its muffled feathers; and it had no\nvoice to intercede with nature, but peeped as helpless as an infant,\nand was ready to yield up its spirit and die without any effort. And\nyet this was no new spring in the revolution of the seasons.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur offense is rank, it smells to heaven. In the midst of our village,\nas in most villages, there is a slaughterhouse, and throughout the\nsummer months, day and night, to the distance of half a mile, which\nembraces the greater part of the village, the air [is] filled with such\nscents as we instinctively avoid in a woodland walk; and doubtless, if\nour senses were once purified and educated by a simpler and truer life,\nwe should not consent to live in such a neighborhood.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGeorge Melvin, our Concord trapper, told me that in going to the spring\nnear his house, where he kept his minnows for bait, he found that they\nwere all gone, and immediately suspected that a mink had got them;\nso he removed the snow all around and laid open the trail of a mink\nunderneath, which he traced to his hole, where were the fragments of his\nbooty. There he set his trap, and baited it with fresh minnows. Going\nagain soon to the spot, he found one of the mink's fore legs in the trap\ngnawed off near the body, and, having set it again, he caught the mink\nwith his three legs, the fourth having only a short bare bone sticking\nout.\n\nWhen I expressed some surprise at this, and said that I heard of such\nthings but did not know whether to believe them, and was now glad to\nhave the story confirmed, said he: \"Oh, the muskrats are the greatest\nfellows to gnaw their legs off. Why I caught one once that had just\ngnawed his third leg off, this being the third time he had been\ntrapped; and he lay dead by the trap, for he couldn't run on one leg.\"\nSuch tragedies are enacted even in this sphere and along our peaceful\nstreams, and dignify at least the hunter's trade. Only courage does\nanywhere prolong life, whether of man or beast.\n\nWhen they are caught by the leg and cannot get into the water to drown\nthemselves, they very frequently gnaw the limb off. They are commonly\ncaught under water or close to the edge, and dive immediately with the\ntrap and go to gnawing and are quackled and drowned in a moment, though\nunder other circumstances they will live several minutes under water.\nThey prefer to gnaw off a fore leg to a hind leg, and do not gnaw off\ntheir tails. He says the wharf rats are very common on the river and\nwill swim and cross it like a muskrat, and will gnaw their legs and even\ntheir tails off in the trap.\n\nThese would be times that tried men's souls, if men had souls to be\ntried; aye, and the souls of brutes, for they must have souls as well\nas teeth. Even the water-rats lead sleepless nights and live Achillean\nlives. There are the strong will and the endeavor. Man, even the hunter,\nnaturally has sympathy with every brave effort, even in his game, to\nmaintain that life it enjoys. The hunter regards with awe his game, and\nit becomes at last his medicine.[507]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf Cadew or Case worms there are the Ruff-coats or Cockspurs, whose\ncases are rough and made of various materials, and the Piper Cadis or\nStraw-worm, made of reed or rush, and straight and smooth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCarlyle's works are not to be studied,\u2014hardly re-read. Their first\nimpression is the truest and the deepest. There is no reprint. If you\nlook again, you will be disappointed and find nothing answering to the\nmood they have excited. They are true natural products in this respect.\nAll things are but once, and never repeated. The first faint blushes\nof the morning gilding the mountain-tops, with the pale phosphorus\nand saffron-colored clouds,\u2014they verily transport us to the morning of\ncreation; but what avails it to travel eastward, or look again there an\nhour hence. We should be as far in the day ourselves, mounting toward\nour meridian. There is no _double entendre_ for the alert reader; in\nfact the work was designed for such complete success that it serves\nbut for a single occasion. It is the luxury of wealth and art when for\nevery deed its own instrument is manufactured. The knife which sliced\nthe bread of Jove ceased to be a knife when that service was rendered.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor every inferior, earthly pleasure we forego, a superior, celestial\none is substituted.\n\nTo purify our lives requires simply to weed out what is foul and noxious\nand the sound and innocent is supplied, as nature purifies the blood if\nwe will but reject impurities.\n\nNature and human life are as various to our several experiences as\nour constitutions are various. Who shall say what prospect life offers\nto another? Could a greater miracle take place than if we should look\nthrough each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages\nof the world in an hour,\u2014aye, in all the worlds of the ages. What I have\nread of rhapsodists, of the primitive poets, Argonautic expeditions,\nthe life of demigods and heroes, Eleusinian mysteries, etc., suggests\nnothing so ineffably grand and informing as this would be.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe ph\u0153be came into my house to find a place for its nest, flying\nthrough the windows.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was a bright thought, that of man's to have bells; no doubt the birds\nhear them with pleasure.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo compete with the squirrels in the chestnut harvest, picking ofttimes\nthe nuts that bear the mark of their teeth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI require of any lecturer that he will read me a more or less simple and\nsincere account of his own life, of what he has done and thought,\u2014not\nso much what he has read or heard of other men's lives and actions,\nbut some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant\nland,\u2014and if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land\nto me,\u2014describing even his outward circumstances and what adventures\nhe has had, as well as his thoughts and feelings about them. He who\ngives us only the results of other men's lives, though with brilliant\ntemporary success, we may in some measure justly accuse of having\ndefrauded us of our time. We want him to give us that which was most\nprecious to him,\u2014not his life's blood but even that for which his life's\nblood circulated, what he has got by living. If anything ever yielded\nhim pure pleasure or instruction, let him communicate it. Let the\nmoney-getter tell us how much he loves wealth, and what means he takes\nto accumulate it. He must describe those facts which he knows and loves\nbetter than anybody else. He must not write on foreign missions. The\nmechanic will naturally lecture about his trade, the farmer about his\nfarm, and every man about that which he, compared with other men, knows\nbest. Yet incredible mistakes are made. I have heard an owl lecture with\nperverse show of learning upon the solar microscope, and chanticleer\nupon nebulous stars, when both ought to have been sound asleep, the one\nin a hollow tree, the other on his roost.\n\nAfter I lectured here before, this winter, I heard that some of my\ntownsmen had expected of me some account of my life at the pond. This\nI will endeavor to give to-night.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI know a robust and hearty mother who thinks that her son, who died\nabroad, came to his end by living too low, as she had since learned\nthat he drank only water. Men are not inclined to leave off hanging\nmen to-day, though they will be to-morrow. I heard of a family in\nConcord this winter which would have starved, if it had not been for\npotatoes\u2014and tea and coffee.\n\nIt has not been my design to live cheaply, but only to live as I could,\nnot devoting much time to getting a living. I made the most of what\nmeans were already got.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo determine the character of our life and how adequate it is to its\noccasion, just try it by any test, as for instance that this same sun is\nseen in Europe and in America at the same time, that these same stars\nare visible in twenty-four hours to two thirds the inhabitants of the\nglobe, and who knows how many and various inhabitants of the universe.\nWhat farmer in his field lives according even to this somewhat trivial\nmaterial fact.\n\nI just looked up at a fine twinkling star and thought that a voyager\nwhom I know, now many days' sail from this coast, might possibly be\nlooking up at that same star with me. The stars are the apexes of what\ntriangles! There is always the possibility\u2014the possibility, I say\u2014of\nbeing _all_, or remaining a particle, in the universe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn these days and in this country, a few implements, as the axe, shovel,\netc., and, to the studious, light and stationery and access to a few\nbooks, will rank next to necessaries, but can all be obtained at a very\ntrifling cost. Under the head of clothing is to be ranked bedding, or\nnight-clothes.\n\nWe are very anxious to keep the animal heat in us. What pains we take\nwith our beds! robbing the nests of birds and their breasts, this\nshelter within a shelter, as the mole has a bed of leaves and grass at\nthe end of its burrow.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the summer I caught fish occasionally in the pond, but since\nSeptember have not missed them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn a man or his work, over all special excellence or failure, prevails\nthe general authority or value.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlmost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows\nhow to spend it. If he had known so much as this, he would never have\nearned it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll matter, indeed, is capable of entertaining thought.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe complete subjugation of the body to the mind prophesies the\nsovereignty of the latter over the whole of nature. The instincts are\nto a certain extent a sort of independent nobility, of equal date with\nthe mind, or crown,\u2014ancient dukes and princes of the regal blood. They\nare perhaps the mind of our ancestors subsided in us, the experience of\nthe race.\n\nA small sum would really do much good, if the donor spent himself\nwith it and did not merely relinquish it to some distant society whose\nmanagers do the good or the evil with it. How much might be done for\nthis town with a hundred dollars! I could provide a select course of\nlectures for the summer or winter with that sum, which would be an\nincalculable benefit to every inhabitant. With a thousand dollars\nI could purchase for this town a more complete and select library\nthan exists in the State out of Cambridge and Boston, perhaps a more\navailable one than any. Men sit palsied and helpless by the side of\ntheir buried treasures.[508]\n\nAfter all those who do most good with money, do it with the least,\nbecause they can do better than to acquire it.\n\n\n_March 13, 1846._ The song sparrow and blackbird heard to-day. The snow\ngoing off. The ice in the pond one foot thick.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen talk much of co\u00f6peration nowadays, of working together to some\nworthy end; but what little co\u00f6peration there is, is as if it were\nnot, being a simple result of which the means are hidden, a harmony\ninaudible to men. If a man has faith, he will co\u00f6perate with equal faith\neverywhere. If he has not faith he will continue to live like the rest\nof the world, whatever company he is joined to. To co\u00f6perate thoroughly\nimplies to get your living together. I heard it proposed lately that\ntwo young men should travel together over the world, the one earning his\nmeans as he went, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket.\nIt was easy to see that they could not long be companions, or co\u00f6perate,\nsince one would not operate at all. They would part company at the first\nand most interesting crisis in their adventures.\n\n\nEND OF VOLUME I\n\n\n\n\n                           The Riverside Press\n\n                       H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY\n                                CAMBRIDGE\n                              MASSACHUSETTS\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n     [1] In many cases the punctuation seems to be absolutely\n     without significance; as if the writer had simply fallen into\n     the habit of dropping dashes in an absent-minded way as he\n     passed along. The following examples (the longest an extreme\n     case) will show what is meant:\u2014\n\n     \"I heard from time to time\u2014a new note.\"\n\n     \"The _Equisetum sylvaticum_\u2014there is now of a reddish cast.\"\n\n     \"It is very difficult\u2014to find a suitable place to camp near\n     the road\u2014affording\u2014water\u2014a good\u2014prospect and retirement.\"\n\n     \"Another alighted near\u2014by\u2014and a third a little further off.\"\n\n     [2] Under date of June 9, 1854, we find him writing: \"I\n     should like to know the birds of the woods better. What birds\n     inhabit our woods? I hear their various notes ringing through\n     them. What musicians compose our woodland quire? They must be\n     forever strange and interesting to me.\" Even the glass that\n     he finally bought was not an opera-glass, but a \"spy-glass\"\n     (monocular) so called, and must have been of comparatively\n     little help in the identification of woodland species.\n\n     [3] Once he saw it (August 3, 1858), and then it proved to\n     be a Maryland yellow-throat. At other times it was almost\n     certainly an oven-bird.\n\n     [4] [_Week_, p. 375; Riv. 464.]\n\n     [5] [_Week_, p. 314; Riv. 390.]\n\n     [6] [_Week_, p. 352; Riv. 435, 436.]\n\n     [7] [_Week_, p. 348; Riv. 430.]\n\n     [8] [_Week_, p. 383; Riv. 473.]\n\n     [9] [_Week_, p. 417; Riv. 515.]\n\n     [10] [_Week_, p. 93; Riv. 116. _Excursions_, p. 138; Riv.\n     169.]\n\n     [11] [_Week_, p. 373; Riv. 461.]\n\n     [12] [_Excursions_, pp. 126, 127; Riv. 155, 156.]\n\n     [13] [_Week_, pp. 347, 348; Riv. 429, 430.]\n\n     [14] [Later.] We must consider war and slavery, with many\n     other institutions and even the best existing governments,\n     notwithstanding their apparent advantages, as the abortive\n     rudiments of nobler institutions such as distinguish man in\n     his savage and half-civilized state.\n\n     [15] [_Excursions_, pp. 127, 128; Riv. 157.]\n\n     [16] [_Week_, p. 186; Riv. 231. _The Service_, Boston, 1902,\n     p. 21]\n\n     [17] [A fanciful derivation of the word \"Saxons\"?]\n\n     [18] [_Excursions_, p. 128; Riv. 158.]\n\n     [19] [_Excursions_, p. 128; Riv. 157, 158.]\n\n     [20] [_Familiar Letters_, Sept. 8, 1841.]\n\n     [21] [_Week_, p. 163; Riv. 203.]\n\n     [22] [_Excursions_, p. 141; Riv. 173.]\n\n     [23] [_Excursions_, p. 127; Riv. 156.]\n\n     [24] [_Excursions_, p. 112; Riv. 138.]\n\n     [25] [_Week_, pp. 347, 348; Riv. 429-431.]\n\n     [26] [_Week_, p. 66; Riv. 82, 83.]\n\n     [27] [_Week_, p. 66; Riv. 83.]\n\n     [28] [_Week_, p. 96; Riv. 119, 120.]\n\n     [29] [_Week_, p. 65; Riv. 81.]\n\n     [30] [_Week_, p. 96; Riv. 120.]\n\n     [31] [\"Carlyleish\" is written in the margin against this\n     passage.]\n\n     [32] [The word seems to be a new one, but its meaning is\n     clear.]\n\n     [33] [_Week_, p. 129; Riv. 161.]\n\n     [34] [_Excursions_, p. 108; Riv. 133.]\n\n     [35] [_Week_, p. 78; Riv. 97.]\n\n     [36] [_Week_, pp. 94, 95; Riv. 117, 119.]\n\n     [37] [_Week_, p. 79; Riv. 98, 99. _The Service_, p. 4.]\n\n     [38] [_Week_, pp. 9-11; Riv. 11, 13.]\n\n     [39] [_Week_, p. 96; Riv. 120.]\n\n     [40] [_Week_, p. 319; Riv. 395.]\n\n     [41] [See _Week_, p. 95 (Riv. 118), where the passages\n     referred to appear in translation.]\n\n     [42] [_Excursions_, pp. 181, 182; Riv. 221, 222.]\n\n     [43] [All but the last stanza, somewhat revised and without\n     title, appears in _Excursions_, pp. 176, 177; Riv. 215, 216.]\n\n     [44] [Cf. _Week_, pp. 417-420; Riv. 515-518.]\n\n     [45] [_Excursions_, p. 108; Riv. 133. \"Drinking\" for \"Sipping\"\n     in l. 3 is the only change.]\n\n     [46] [_Excursions_, pp. 109, 110; Riv. 135.]\n\n     [47] [_Week_, p. 244; Riv. 302. Lines 2 and 3 are altered.]\n\n     [48] [_Excursions_, p. 112; Riv. 138.]\n\n     [49] [_Excursions, and Poems_, pp. 120 and 409; _Excursions_,\n     Riv. 147.]\n\n     [50] [_Week_, p. 180; Riv. 224.]\n\n     [51] [_Week_, pp. 364, 365; Riv. 451, 452.]\n\n     [52] [This poem will be found in _Excursions, and Poems_, p.\n     417, under the title \"Ding Dong,\" somewhat revised and without\n     the last stanza.]\n\n     [53] [_Excursions_, p. 109; Riv. 134.]\n\n     [54] [_Walden_, p. 8; Riv. 14, 15.]\n\n     [55] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 278; _Misc._, Riv. 36,\n     37. _The Service_, pp. 5, 6.]\n\n     [56] [_Week_, pp. 276, 277; Riv. 343, 344.]\n\n     [57] [_Week_, p. 188; Riv. 234.]\n\n     [58] [_Week_, p. 188; Riv. 234.]\n\n     [59] [_Week_, p. 200; Riv. 248.]\n\n     [60] [_Week_, pp. 302, 303; Riv. 375, 376.]\n\n     [61] [_Week_, p. 38; Riv. 47.]\n\n     [62] [_Week_, p. 38; Riv. 47.]\n\n     [63] [_Week_, p. 39; Riv. 48.]\n\n     [64] [_Week_, p. 39; Riv. 48, 49.]\n\n     [65] [_Week_, p. 39; Riv. 49.]\n\n     [66] [_Week_, p. 43; Riv. 54.]\n\n     [67] [_Week_, p. 118; Riv. 147.]\n\n     [68] [_Week_, p. 179; Riv. 222.]\n\n     [69] [_Week_, p. 248; Riv. 307.]\n\n     [70] [_Week_, p. 309; Riv. 383.]\n\n     [71] [See_ Week_, pp. 318-322; Riv. 394-399.]\n\n     [72] [The original name of Woodstock, N. H.]\n\n     [73] [See _Week_, pp. 335-353; Riv. 414-437.]\n\n     [74] [See _Week_, pp. 356-420; Riv. 442-518.]\n\n     [75] [_Week_, pp. 110, 111; Riv. 137.]\n\n     [76] [_Week_, p. 110; Riv. 137.]\n\n     [77] [_Excursions_, p. 107; Riv. 132.]\n\n     [78] [_Excursions_, p. 107; Riv. 131, 132.]\n\n     [79] [This comes at the end of the first book of Journal\n     transcripts (1837-39) and follows immediately a bit of verse\n     dated Oct. 16, 1838, which has been included in its proper\n     chronological place.]\n\n     [80] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 277: _Misc._, Riv. 35.\n     _The Service_, p. 1.]\n\n     [81] [_Excursions_, p. 107; Riv. 132.]\n\n     [82] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 277; _Misc._, Riv. 35.\n     _The Service_, p. 1.]\n\n     [83] [_Week_, p. 376; Riv. 465. _The Service_, pp. 8, 9.]\n\n     [84] [Plutarch's _Morals_, \"Roman Questions,\" lxviii.]\n\n     [85] [_The Service_, p. 9.]\n\n     [86] [_The Service_, p. 12.]\n\n     [87] [A pencil interlineation in this paragraph is as\n     follows:] The soldier is the degenerate hero, as the priest\n     is the degenerate saint; and the soldier and the priest are\n     related as the hero and [the] saint. The one's virtue is\n     bravery, the other's bravery virtue. Mankind still pay to the\n     soldier the honors due only to the hero. They delight to do\n     him honor. He is adorned with silver and gold and the colors\n     of the rainbow, invested with outward splendor; music is for\n     him especially, and his life is a holiday.\n\n     [88] [_The Service_, p. 11.]\n\n     [89] [_Week_, p. 183; Riv. 228.]\n\n     [90] [_The Service_, p. 11.]\n\n     [91] [_The Service_, p. 12.]\n\n     [92] [_Week_, p. 183; Riv. 228.]\n\n     [93] [_Week_, p. 183; Riv. 227. _The Service_, p. 13.]\n\n     [94] [_Week_, p. 183; Riv. 228. _The Service_, p. 14.]\n\n     [95] [_The Service_, p. 14. See also p. 151 of this volume.]\n\n     [96] [_The Service_, p. 15.] [In pencil on a fly-leaf of the\n     Journal:] The coward substitutes for this thrilling sphere\n     music a universal wail, for this melodious chant a nasal cant,\n     and but whistles to keep his courage up. He blows a feeble\n     blast of slender melody and can compel his neighborhood only\n     into a partial concord with himself, because nature has but\n     little sympathy with such a soul. Hence he hears no accordant\n     note in the universe, and is a coward, or consciously outcast\n     and deserted man. But the brave man, without drum or trumpet,\n     compels concord everywhere by the universality and tunefulness\n     of his soul.\n\n     [97] [_The Service_, p. 13.]\n\n     [98] [_Week_, pp. 183, 184; Riv. 228. _The Service_, p. 13.\n     The quotation is from Plutarch's _Morals_, \"Of Superstition.\"]\n\n     [99] [_The Service_, pp. 7, 8. See p. 154 of this volume.]\n\n     [100] [_The Service_, pp. 23, 24.]\n\n     [101] [Cf. _Week_, pp. 274-307; Riv. 341-381.]\n\n     [102] [_Excursions_, p. 108; Riv. 133.]\n\n     [103] [Stanzas 8, 10, 11, 12, with revision, _Week_, p.\n     255; Riv. 317. Stanzas 2-5, 9, 13, _Familiar Letters,\n     Introduction_.]\n\n     [104] [Week, p. 93; Riv. 116.]\n\n     [105] [_Week_, p. 93; Riv. 116.]\n\n     [106] [_Week_, p. 132; Riv. 164.]\n\n     [107] [_Week_, p. 132; Riv. 165.]\n\n     [108] [The criticism was not transcribed here. The title was\n     inserted doubtless as a memorandum and to record the date of\n     its composition. See Week, p. 327; Riv. 405.]\n\n     [109] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 279; _Misc._, Riv.\n     37.]\n\n     [110] [_The Service_, p. 20.]\n\n     [111] [_Week_, p. 351; Riv. 434.]\n\n     [112] [_Week_, p. 351; Riv. 434. A sheet with specimens of\n     this familiar school-boy amusement is slipped into one of the\n     manuscript Journal volumes.]\n\n     [113] [_Excursions_, p. 118; Riv. 146.]\n\n     [114] [_Week_, p. 406; Riv. 501.]\n\n     [115] [_Excursions_, p. 114; Riv. 141.]\n\n     [116] [_Excursions_, pp. 120, 121; Riv. 148, 149.]\n\n     [117] [See pp. 174 and 263.]\n\n     [118] [_Week_, p. 300; Riv. 373.]\n\n     [119] [_Excursions_, p. 114; Riv. 140.]\n\n     [120] [_Excursions_, pp. 119, 120; Riv. 147, 148.]\n\n     [121] [Stanzas 3, 2, and 5, in this order, with slight\n     alterations, are printed in _Week_, p. 366 (Riv. 453), under\n     the title of \"The Poet's Delay.\"]\n\n     [122] [_Walden_, p. 352; Riv. 493.]\n\n     [123] [_Week_, p. 383; Riv. 474.]\n\n     [124] [_The Service_, p. 15.]\n\n     [125] [_Week_, p. 12; Riv. 15.]\n\n     [126] [_Week_, p. 17; Riv. 21.]\n\n     [127] [T. finally sold this boat to Hawthorne, who changed the\n     name from Musketaquid to Pond-Lily; and later it passed into\n     Channing's hands. See Hawthorne's _American Note-Books_, Riv.\n     pp. 318-321, and Channing, p. 13.]\n\n     [128] [_Week_, pp. 12, 13; Riv. 15-17.]\n\n     [129] [_Week_, p. 19; Riv. 24.]\n\n     [130] [_Week_, p. 37; Riv. 47.]\n\n     [131] [_Week_, p. 17; Riv. 21.]\n\n     [132] [_Week_, p. 250; Riv. 310, 311.]\n\n     [133] [This was Thoreau's first journal, from which he made\n     the transcripts which are now the only representatives of his\n     early diarizing. See p. 188, where Journal of 396 pages ends.]\n\n     [134] [_Week_, p. 386; Riv. 476.]\n\n     [135] [Wordsworth, incorrectly quoted. The line reads,\u2014\n\n               \"Following his plough, along the mountain-side.\"]\n\n     [136] [_Week_, pp. 44, 45; Riv. 56.]\n\n     [137] [_Week_, pp. 37, 38; Riv. 47.]\n\n     [138] [_Week_, p. 38; Riv. 47, 48.]\n\n     [139] [_Week_, pp. 319, 320; Riv. 395, 396.]\n\n     [140] [_Week_, p. 45; Riv. 56, 57.]\n\n     [141] [_The Service_, p. 6.]\n\n     [142] [_Week_, p. 280; Riv. 347.]\n\n     [143] [_Week_, p. 163; Riv. 203.]\n\n     [144] [_Week_, p. 45; Riv. 57.]\n\n     [145] [_The Service_, p. 14.]\n\n     [146] [_Week_, p. 181; Riv. 224, 225.]\n\n     [147] [_Week_, pp. 39, 40; Riv. 49, 50.]\n\n     [148] [_Week_, p. 304; Riv. 378.]\n\n     [149] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 277; _Misc._, Riv.\n     35.]\n\n     [150] [_The Service_, p. 2.]\n\n     [151] [_The Service_, p. 13.]\n\n     [152] [_The Service_, p. 24.]\n\n     [153] [_Week_, pp. 93, 94; Riv. 116, 117.]\n\n     [154] [See p. 104.]\n\n     [155] [See p. 106.]\n\n     [156] [See p. 106.]\n\n     [157] [_The Service_, p. 12.]\n\n     [158] [_Week_, pp. 384, 385; Riv. 475.]\n\n     [159] [_The Service_, pp. 15, 16.]\n\n     [160] [_The Service_, p. 23.]\n\n     [161] [_The Service_, p. 23.]\n\n     [162] [_The Service_, p. 23.]\n\n     [163] [_The Service_, p. 23.]\n\n     [164] [_The Service_, p. 23.]\n\n     [165] [_The Service_, pp. 25, 26.]\n\n     [166] [_The Service_, pp. 21, 22.]\n\n     [167] [_The Service_, p. 22.]\n\n     [168] [_The Service_, p. 14.]\n\n     [169] [_The Service_, p. 12.]\n\n     [170] I have heard a strain of music issuing from a soldiers'\n     camp in the dawn, which sounded like the morning hymn\n     of creation. The birches rustling in the breeze and the\n     slumberous breathing of the crickets seemed to hush their\n     murmuring to attend to it. [Written in pencil on a fly-leaf\n     of the Journal.]\n\n     [171] [_The Service_, p. 7. Mr. Sanborn, in a note to this\n     passage, says, \"The allusion here is to the extraordinary\n     sight of the gravest citizens of Concord, in that summer\n     [1840], ... turning out to roll a huge ball, emblematic of\n     the popular movement against President Van Buren, from the\n     battle-ground of Concord to that of Bunker Hill, singing as\n     they rolled:\u2014\n\n               'It is the Ball a-rolling on\n               For Tippecanoe and Tyler too.'\"]\n\n     [172] [_Week_, p. 129; Riv. 161.]\n\n     [173] [_Week_, p. 129; Riv. 160, 161.]\n\n     [174] [_Week_, p. 129; Riv. 161.]\n\n     [175] [_Excursions_, p. 119; Riv. 146.]\n\n     [176] [_The Service_, p. 13.]\n\n     [177] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 277; _Misc._, Riv.\n     36.]\n\n     [178] [_The Service_, pp. 3, 4.]\n\n     [179] [_Week_, p. 265; Riv. 329.]\n\n     [180] [_Week_, p. 79; Riv. 99. _The Service_, p. 5.]\n\n     [181] [_Week_, p. 301; Riv. 374.]\n\n     [182] [_The Service_, p. 24.]\n\n     [183] [_The Service_, p. 26.]\n\n     [184] [_The Service_, p. 23.]\n\n     [185] [_The Service_, p. 10.]\n\n     [186] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 277; _Misc._, Riv.\n     36. _The Service_, p. 3.]\n\n     [187] [_The Service_, p. 3.]\n\n     [188] [_Week_, p. 407; Riv. 502. _The Service_, p. 17.]\n\n     [189] [_The Service_, p. 17.]\n\n     [190] [_Week_, p. 407; Riv. 502. _The Service_, p. 17.]\n\n     [191] [_The Service_, p. 9.]\n\n     [192] [The last two sentences appear also in pencil on a\n     fly-leaf, preceded by, \"It sleeps securely within its camp,\n     not even dreaming of a foe.\"]\n\n     [193] [_Week_, p. 230; Riv. 285.]\n\n     [194] [_Week_, p. 229; Riv. 284, 285.]\n\n     [195] [_Week_, p. 229; Riv. 285. See also p. 124 of this\n     volume.]\n\n     [196] [_Excursions_, p. 106; Riv. 131.]\n\n     [197] [See _Excursions_, p. 110; Riv. 135.]\n\n     [198] [_Week_, p. 315; Riv. 390, 391. See also below.]\n\n     [199] [See above.]\n\n     [200] [_Week_, p. 304; Riv. 377, 378. See also p. 205.]\n\n     [201] _Excursions_, p. 117; Riv. 144.\n\n     [202] [_Excursions_, p. 117; Riv. 144.]\n\n     [203] [_Excursions_, pp. 117, 118; Riv. 144, 145.]\n\n     [204] [_Week_, p. 184; Riv. 228.]\n\n     [205] [See Emerson's Journal (1841), quoted in E. W. Emerson's\n     _Emerson in Concord_, p. 99.]\n\n     [206] [_Walden_, p. 28; Riv. 43.]\n\n     [207] [_Week_, p. 415; Riv. 512.]\n\n     [208] [See p. 214,\u2014bronchitis!]\n\n     [209] [_Excursions_, p. 167; Riv. 203, 204.]\n\n     [210] [_Excursions_, p. 173; Riv. 211.]\n\n     [211] [_Week_, p. 289; Riv. 359.]\n\n     [212] [See p. 180.]\n\n     [213] [_Week_, p. 236; Riv. 293.]\n\n     [214] [_Week_, p. 50; Riv. 63.]\n\n     [215] [_Week_, p. 305; Riv. 379.]\n\n     [216] [_Week_, p. 406; Riv. 501.]\n\n     [217] [_Excursions_, p. 182; Riv. 222.]\n\n     [218] [_Week_, p. 288; Riv. 358.]\n\n     [219] [See his sister's account of his last sickness in\n     Sanborn's _Thoreau_, pp. 310-313.]\n\n     [220] [_Week_, p. 106; Riv. 132.]\n\n     [221] [_Week_, p. 157; Riv. 195.]\n\n     [222] [_Excursions_, p. 182; Riv. 223.]\n\n     [223] [See _Week_, p. 45; Riv. 57.]\n\n     [224] [_Week_, p. 40; Riv. 50.]\n\n     [225] [An interpretation of Emerson's poem. The numbers refer\n     to the stanzas.]\n\n     [226] [The italics are Thoreau's.]\n\n     [227] [_Week_, pp. 111, 112; Riv. 138-140.]\n\n     [228] [_Week_, p. 108; Riv. 134.]\n\n     [229] [_Week_, p. 79; Riv. 98.]\n\n     [230] [_Week_, p. 283; Riv. 351.]\n\n     [231] [See p. 299.]\n\n     [232] [_Walden_, p. 25; Riv. 39.]\n\n     [233] [_Week_, p. 54; Riv. 67, 68.]\n\n     [234] [See _Week_, p. 131; Riv. 163.]\n\n     [235] [_Week_, p. 131; Riv. 163.]\n\n     [236] [_Week_, p. 129; Riv. 161.]\n\n     [237] [_Week_, pp. 318, 319; Riv. 395. Tree sparrow = chipping\n     sparrow? The \"hair-bird\" of _Week_, p. 317 (Riv. 393), is\n     called tree sparrow in the commonplace-book referred to on p.\n     438.]\n\n     [238] [Field sparrow, Nuttall's _Fringilla juncorum_. Nuttall\n     gives both field sparrow and rush sparrow as its vernacular\n     names.]\n\n     [239] [_Week_, p. 336; Riv. 416.]\n\n     [240] [_Week_, p. 336; Riv. 416.]\n\n     [241] [_Week_, p. 54; Riv. 67.]\n\n     [242] [In _Excursions_, p. 135 (Riv. 165), these lines are\n     printed as part of a poem beginning, \"With frontier strength\n     ye stand your ground.\" The poem appears also, in extended\n     form, in _Week_, pp. 170-173; Riv. 212-215.]\n\n     [243] [_Week_, p. 132; Riv. 164.]\n\n     [244] [_Week_, p. 132; Riv. 164.]\n\n     [245] [_Excursions_, p. 133; Riv. 163.]\n\n     [246] [This poem appears in _Week_, p. 50 (Riv. 62), with some\n     variations and without title.]\n\n     [247] [_Walden_, p. 354; Riv. 496.]\n\n     [248] [See _Week_, p. 154; Riv. 192.]\n\n     [249] [_Week_, p. 140; Riv. 174, 175.]\n\n     [250] [See pp. 124 and 174.]\n\n     [251] [_Week_, p. 155; Riv. 193.]\n\n     [252] [_Week_, p. 12; Riv. 15.]\n\n     [253] [_Week_, p. 394; Riv. 486.]\n\n     [254] [_Week_, p. 155; Riv. 193.]\n\n     [255] [_Week_, p. 109; Riv. 136.]\n\n     [256] [_Week_, p. 157; Riv. 195, 196.]\n\n     [257] [_Week_, p. 157; Riv. 195.]\n\n     [258] [_Week_, pp. 161-163; Riv. 200-204.]\n\n     [259] [_Excursions_, p. 148; Riv. 181.]\n\n     [260] [_Week_, p. 339; Riv. 419. The \"double spruce\" is now\n     generally known as the black spruce. Thoreau makes it \"single\n     spruce\" (_i. e._, white spruce) in the book, but the tree he\n     was familiar with was the black. He confused these two species\n     for a time, but eventually discovered his error.]\n\n     [261] [_Excursions_, pp. 125, 126; Riv. 154, 155.]\n\n     [262] [_Week_, p. 363; Riv. 449.]\n\n     [263] [_Week_, p. 56; Riv. 70.]\n\n     [264] [_Week_, p. 341; Riv. 422.]\n\n     [265] [_Week_, p. 229; Riv. 284.]\n\n     [266] [_Week_, p. 341; Riv. 421, 422.]\n\n     [267] [_Week_, p. 353; Riv. 436, 437.]\n\n     [268] [_Week_, p. 363; Riv. 450.]\n\n     [269] [_Week_, p. 365; Riv. 453.]\n\n     [270] [_Week_, p. 159; Riv. 198.]\n\n     [271] [_Week_, p. 159; Riv. 199.]\n\n     [272] [_Week_, p. 155; Riv. 194.]\n\n     [273] [_Week_, p. 155; Riv. 193.]\n\n     [274] [_Week_, p. 155; Riv. 194.]\n\n     [275] [_Week_, p. 156; Riv. 195.]\n\n     [276] [_Week_, p. 159; Riv. 198.]\n\n     [277] [_Week_, p. 402; Riv. 496.]\n\n     [278] [_Week_, p. 159; Riv. 198.]\n\n     [279] [_Week_, p. 156; Riv. 194.]\n\n     [280] [_Week_, p. 156; Riv. 195.]\n\n     [281] [_Week_, p. 358; Riv. 443.]\n\n     [282] [_Week_, p. 155; Riv. 193.]\n\n     [283] [_Excursions_, p. 119; Riv. 146, 147.]\n\n     [284] [_Excursions_, pp. 331, 332; Riv. 408.]\n\n     [285] [_Week_, p. 358; Riv. 443.]\n\n     [286] [_Week_, p. 48; Riv. 60.]\n\n     [287] [_Week_, p. 393; Riv. 486.]\n\n     [288] [_Week_, pp. 393, 394; Riv. 486.]\n\n     [289] [_Week_, p. 394; Riv. 486.]\n\n     [290] [_Week_, p. 111; Riv. 138.]\n\n     [291] [See p. 213 for the possible origin of this figure.]\n\n     [292] [On the back lining-page of the manuscript Journal\n     volume which ends with this date are the following sentences\n     in pencil:\n\n     There is another young day let loose to roam the earth.\n\n     Happiness is very unprofitable stock.\n\n     The love which is preached nowadays is an ocean of new milk\n     for a man to swim in. I hear no surf nor surge, but the winds\n     coo over it.]\n\n     [293] [See _Week_, pp. xx, xxi; _Misc._, Riv. 8, 9 (Emerson's\n     Biographical Sketch of Thoreau).]\n\n     [294] [_Week_, p. 291; Riv. 361.]\n\n     [295] [_Week_, p. 363; Riv. 450.]\n\n     [296] [_Week_, p. 395; Riv. 488.]\n\n     [297] [_Week_, p. 395; Riv. 488.]\n\n     [298] [This poem, with the four additional stanzas of the\n     next date, appears in the _Week_, pp. 313, 314 (Riv. 388, 389)\n     under the title of \"The Inward Morning.\" The second stanza is\n     there omitted and there are other alterations.]\n\n     [299] [_Familiar Letters_, Sept., 1852.]\n\n     [300] [See p. 347.]\n\n     [301] [_Week_, p. 373; Riv. 461.]\n\n     [302] [_Week_, p. 54; Riv. 67.]\n\n     [303] [_Excursions_, p. 174; Riv. 212.]\n\n     [304] [Written in pencil on a fly-leaf of the Journal:] A man\n     might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of\n     nature by being buried in it.\n\n     [305] [Channing, p. 241.]\n\n     [306] [See p. 244.]\n\n     [307] [_Excursions_, p. 173; Riv. 212.]\n\n     [308] [_Week_, p. 314; Riv. 389.]\n\n     [309] [_Week_, p. 133; Riv. 166.]\n\n     [310] [_Week_, p. 280; Riv. 347.]\n\n     [311] [_Week_, p. 314; Riv. 390.]\n\n     [312] [_Week_, p. 384; Riv. 474.]\n\n     [313] [_Week_, p. 396; Riv. 489.]\n\n     [314] [_Week_, p. 397; Riv. 490.]\n\n     [315] [_Week_, p. 398; Riv. 491.]\n\n     [316] [_Week_, p. 397; Riv. 490.]\n\n     [317] [_Week_, p. 398; Riv. 491, 492.]\n\n     [318] [_Excursions_, pp. 103, 104; Riv. 127, 128.]\n\n     [319] [_Excursions_, pp. 103-105; Riv. 127-129.]\n\n     [320] [_Week_, p. 362; Riv. 449.]\n\n     [321] [_Excursions_, p. 105; Riv. 129, 130.]\n\n     [322] [_Week_, pp. 77, 78; Riv. 96, 97.]\n\n     [323] [_Week_, p. 396; Riv. 489.]\n\n     [324] [_Week_, p. 398; Riv. 492.]\n\n     [325] [_Week_, p. 396; Riv. 489, 490.]\n\n     [326] [_Week_, pp. 237, 238; Riv. 294, 295.]\n\n     [327] [_Week_, pp. 108-110; Riv. 134-136.]\n\n     [328] [_Week_, p. 110; Riv. 136, 137.]\n\n     [329] [_Excursions_, p. 104; Riv. 128.]\n\n     [330] [_Week_, p. 184; Riv. 228.]\n\n     [331] [_Week_, p. 182; Riv. 226.]\n\n     [332] [_Week_, p. 183; Riv. 227.]\n\n     [333] [It was about a year after the date of this entry that\n     Richard F. Fuller made Thoreau a present of a music-box (see\n     _Familiar Letters_, March 2, 1842, and Jan. 16 and 24, 1843),\n     which a few months later, on departing for Staten Island, he\n     lent to Hawthorne (_American Note-Books_, Riv. pp. 333, 338).]\n\n     [334] [_Week_, p. 184; Riv. 228.]\n\n     [335] [_Week_, p. 184; Riv. 228.]\n\n     [336] [_Week_, p. 303; Riv. 377.]\n\n     [337] [Thoreau's brother John died Jan. 11, 1842.]\n\n     [338] [Two lines missing from the manuscript here.]\n\n     [339] [_Week_, p. 398; Riv. 492.]\n\n     [340] [_Week_, p. 397; Riv. 490.]\n\n     [341] [_Week_, p. 288; Riv. 357.]\n\n     [342] [_Week_, p. 288; Riv. 358.]\n\n     [343] [At the head of this paragraph appears the following in\n     pencil:\n\n     What has music to do with the lives of the Great Composers? It\n     is the great composer who is not yet dead whose life should\n     be written. Shall we presume to write such a history as the\n     former while the winds blow?]\n\n     [344] [_Week_, pp. 398, 399; Riv. 492.]\n\n     [345] [_Week_, p. 303; Riv. 377.]\n\n     [346] [_Week_, pp. 397, 398; Riv. 491.]\n\n     [347] [_Week_, pp. 397, 398; Riv. 491, 492.]\n\n     [348] [_Week_, p. 156; Riv. 195.]\n\n     [349] [_Week_, p. 157; Riv. 196.]\n\n     [350] [_Week_, pp. 339, 340; Riv. 420.]\n\n     [351] [_Week_, p. 138; Riv. 172, 173.]\n\n     [352] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 336; _Misc._, Riv.\n     106, 107.]\n\n     [353] [See pp. 443, 444.]\n\n     [354] [See _Journal_, vol. ii, p. 128.]\n\n     [355] [_Week_, p. 283; Riv. 351.]\n\n     [356] [_Week_, pp. 130, 131; Riv. 163.]\n\n     [357] Set the red hen, Sunday, March 21st [=20th]. [This\n     memorandum is written in the margin. It is pretty good proof\n     that by now we have come to the original Journal. Just where\n     the transcripts end, however, it seems to be impossible to\n     determine.]\n\n     [358] [_Week_, p. 107; Riv. 133.]\n\n     [359] [_Week_, p. 130; Riv. 162.]\n\n     [360] [_Week_, p. 160; Riv. 199.]\n\n     [361] [_Week_, p. 109; Riv. 135, 136.]\n\n     [362] [_Week_, p. 153; Riv. 191.]\n\n     [363] [_Week_, p. 153; Riv. 191.]\n\n     [364] [_Week_, p. 153; Riv. 191.]\n\n     [365] [_Week_, p. 105; Riv. 130.]\n\n     [366] [_Week_, p. 153; Riv. 191.]\n\n     [367] [See pp. 295, 296.]\n\n     [368] [_Week_, p. 137; Riv. 170.]\n\n     [369] [_Week_, p. 301; Riv. 374, 375.]\n\n     [370] [_Week_, p. 351; Riv. 434.]\n\n     [371] [_Week_, p. 130; Riv. 163.]\n\n     [372] [In _Excursions_, p. 110 (Riv. 136), what appears to be\n     the same bird is described, and is called the fish hawk.]\n\n     [373] [_Week_, pp. 105, 106; Riv. 131, 132.]\n\n     [374] [_Week_, pp. 34, 35; Riv. 42, 43.]\n\n     [375] [_Excursions_, p. 110; Riv. 136.]\n\n     [376] [_Week_, p. 110; Riv. 137.]\n\n     [377] [On the margin of this page appears the memorandum: \"Set\n     the gray hen April 1st.\"]\n\n     [378] [_Week_, p. 397; Riv. 490, 491.]\n\n     [379] [_Excursions_, p. 111; Riv. 137.]\n\n     [380] [_Walden_, p. 94; Riv. 134.]\n\n     [381] [_Walden_, p. 106; Riv. 150.]\n\n     [382] [_Walden_, pp. 171, 172; Riv. 242.]\n\n     [383] [_Walden_, p. 145; Riv. 205.]\n\n     [384] [_Walden_, pp. 145, 146; Riv. 206.]\n\n     [385] [Plainly \"neat\" in Journal, though _Walden_ has\n     \"great.\"]\n\n     [386] [_Walden_, pp. 159, 160; Riv. 224, 225.]\n\n     [387] [_Walden_, p. 161; Riv. 227.]\n\n     [388] [_Walden_, pp. 12, 13; Riv. 21.]\n\n     [389] [_Walden_, p. 39; Riv. 59.]\n\n     [390] [_Walden_, p. 41; Riv. 61.]\n\n     [391] [_Walden_, p. 41; Riv. 61.]\n\n     [392] [_Walden_, p. 309; Riv. 433.]\n\n     [393] [_Walden_, p. 250; Riv. 351.]\n\n     [394] [_Walden_, pp. 112-114; Riv. 159-161.]\n\n     [395] [_Walden_, p. 114; Riv. 162.]\n\n     [396] [See _Excursions_, p. 295; Riv. 362.]\n\n     [397] [Eight lines, somewhat altered, _Week_, pp. 407, 408;\n     Riv. 503.]\n\n     [398] [_Week_, p. 407; Riv. 503.]\n\n     [399] [By Eliot Warburton, London, 1844, and New York, 1845.]\n\n     [400] [_Week_, pp. 266, 267; Riv. 331.]\n\n     [401] [_Week_, pp. 266, 267; Riv. 330-332.]\n\n     [402] [_Walden_, p. 111; Riv. 157, 158.]\n\n     [403] [_Walden_, p. 127; Riv. 179, 180.]\n\n     [404] [_Walden_, pp. 137, 138; Riv. 194-196.]\n\n     [405] [_Walden_, pp. 139, 140; Riv. 197, 198.]\n\n     [406] [_Walden_, p. 242, where he makes his age four instead\n     of five at the time of this early visit.]\n\n     [407] [_Walden_, p. 139; Riv. 197.]\n\n     [408] [_Walden_, p. 181; Riv. 255.]\n\n     [409] [_Walden_, p. 182; Riv. 256.]\n\n     [410] [_The Legend of Good Women_, ll. 1218, 1219.]\n\n     [411] [_Walden_, pp. 225-227, 229, 231; Riv. 317-320, 322,\n     325, 326.]\n\n     [412] [_Walden_, p. 232; Riv. 327.]\n\n     [413] [_Walden_, pp. 230, 231; Riv. 323-325.]\n\n     [414] [See _Walden_, pp. 271, 272; Riv. 380, 381.]\n\n     [415] [_Walden_, p. 44; Riv. 65, 66.]\n\n     [416] [_Walden_, pp. 32, 33; Riv. 48, 49.]\n\n     [417] [_Walden_, pp. 33, 34; Riv. 50, 51.]\n\n     [418] [_Walden_, pp. 37, 38; Riv. 56.]\n\n     [419] [_Walden_, p. 34; Riv. 51, 52.]\n\n     [420] [_Walden_, p. 35; Riv. 53.]\n\n     [421] [_Walden_, p. 36; Riv. 55.]\n\n     [422] [_Walden_, p. 39; Riv. 58.]\n\n     [423] [_Week_, p. 264; Riv. 328.]\n\n     [424] [_Week_, p. 65; Riv. 81.]\n\n     [425] [_Week_, p. 58; Riv. 72.]\n\n     [426] [_Week_, p. 61; Riv. 76.]\n\n     [427] [_Week_, p. 136; Riv. 169.]\n\n     [428] [_Week_, p. 58; Riv. 72, 73.]\n\n     [429] [_Week_, p. 57; Riv. 72.]\n\n     [430] [_Walden_, p. 275; Riv. 386.]\n\n     [431] [_Walden_, p. 275; Riv. 386.]\n\n     [432] [_Walden_, p. 4; Riv. 9.]\n\n     [433] [_Walden_, p. 7; Riv. 12, 13.]\n\n     [434] [_Walden_, p. 301; Riv. 422.]\n\n     [435] [See _Journal_, vol. vii, Feb. 1, 1855.]\n\n     [436] [_Walden_, pp. 12, 13; Riv. 21.]\n\n     [437] [_Walden_, p. 306; Riv. 429.]\n\n     [438] [_Walden_, p. 162; Riv. 228.]\n\n     [439] [_Walden_, p. 304; Riv. 426.]\n\n     [440] [_Walden_, pp. 344, 345; Riv. 481, 482.]\n\n     [441] [_Walden_, pp. 183, 184; Riv. 258, 259.]\n\n     [442] [_Walden_, p. 345; Riv. 482.]\n\n     [443] [_Walden_, p. 345; Riv. 482, 483.]\n\n     [444] [Twenty-six lines of this, somewhat revised, appear\n     under the title of \"Pilgrims\" in _Excursions, and Poems_, p.\n     413.]\n\n     [445] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 352, 353; _Misc._,\n     Riv. 127, 128.]\n\n     [446] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 344; _Misc._, Riv.\n     116, 117.]\n\n     [447] [_Walden_, pp. 288, 289; Riv. 405.]\n\n     [448] [_Walden_, p. 289; Riv. 405, 406.]\n\n     [449] [_Walden_, pp. 24, 26; Riv. 36, 40.]\n\n     [450] [_Walden_, p. 24; Riv. 37.]\n\n     [451] [_Walden_, p. 25; Riv. 38.]\n\n     [452] [_Walden_, p. 25; Riv. 38, 39.]\n\n     [453] [_Walden_, pp. 283, 284, 287, 288; Riv. 397-400, 404.]\n\n     [454] [_Walden_, pp. 289-291; Riv. 406-408.]\n\n     [455] [_Walden_, pp. 282, 283; Riv. 396, 397.]\n\n     [456] [_Walden_, pp. 258, 259; Riv. 363, 364.]\n\n     [457] [_Walden_, p. 345; Riv. 483.]\n\n     [458] [_Walden_, p. 262; Riv. 368.]\n\n     [459] [_Walden_, p. 259; Riv. 364.]\n\n     [460] [_Walden_, p. 305; Riv. 428.]\n\n     [461] [\"Hilda\" was originally written where \"Nutting\" appears\n     on p. 420.]\n\n     [462] [_Walden_, p. 292; Riv. 408, 409.]\n\n     [463] [_Walden_, pp. 323, 324; Riv. 452, 453.]\n\n     [464] [_Walden_, p. 313; Riv. 438.]\n\n     [465] [_Walden_, pp. 289, 290; Riv. 406, 407.]\n\n     [466] [_Walden_, p. 285; Riv. 400.]\n\n     [467] [See _Week_, p. 102; Riv. 127.]\n\n     [468] [_Walden_, p. 280; Riv. 392, 393.]\n\n     [469] [_Walden_, p. 309; Riv. 434.]\n\n     [470] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 325-327; _Misc._,\n     Riv. 93-95 (\"Thomas Carlyle and his Works\").]\n\n     [471] [_Walden_, pp. 4, 5; Riv. 9, 10.]\n\n     [472] [_Walden_, pp. 6, 8; Riv. 11, 14.]\n\n     [473] [_Walden_, p. 8; Riv. 14, 15.]\n\n     [474] [_Walden_, pp. 5, 6; Riv. 10, 11.]\n\n     [475] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 327; _Misc._, Riv. 95\n     (\"Thomas Carlyle and his Works\").]\n\n     [476] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 325; _Misc._, Riv. 93\n     (\"Thomas Carlyle and his Works\").]\n\n     [477] [_Walden_, pp. 283-285, 287, 288; Riv. 397-400, 404.]\n\n     [478] [_Walden_, pp. 68, 69; Riv. 99, 100.]\n\n     [479] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 348; _Misc._, Riv.\n     121 (\"Thomas Carlyle and his Works\").]\n\n     [480] [_Walden_, p. 296; Riv. 415, 416.]\n\n     [481] [_Walden_, p. 296; Riv. 415.]\n\n     [482] [_Walden_, p. 310; Riv. 434, 435.]\n\n     [483] [_Walden_, pp. 19-21; Riv. 30-33.]\n\n     [484] [_Walden_, p. 12; Riv. 19, 20.]\n\n     [485] [_Walden_, p. 12; Riv. 20.]\n\n     [486] [_Week_, p. 45; Riv. 57.]\n\n     [487] [This follows matter used on p. 81 of _Week_ (Riv.\n     101).]\n\n     [488] [The boatman's. See _Week_, p. 222; Riv. 276.]\n\n     [489] [See p. 337.]\n\n     [490] [This and the succeeding paragraphs on the Indian were\n     written in pencil on loose sheets of paper and slipped between\n     the pages of the Journal.]\n\n     [491] [See _Week_, pp. 286, 287; Riv. 356.]\n\n     [492] _Vide_ the Fall of the Leaf poem. [This note is written\n     in pencil between this line and the following stanza. The poem\n     referred to is reprinted (without these lines) in _Excursions,\n     and Poems_, p. 407.]\n\n     [493] [This refers to the middle of September and follows\n     matter used in _Week_, on p. 357 (Riv. 443).]\n\n     [494] [_Week_, p. 387; Riv. 478.]\n\n     [495] [_Week_, p. 133; Riv. 166.]\n\n     [496] [The first four lines of a poem the rest of which\n     appears on pp. 234, 235 of _Week_ (Riv. 290, 291).]\n\n     [497] [This poem appears, slightly abridged and altered, in\n     _Week_, p. 201 (Riv. 249).]\n\n     [498] [There is a blank space here before \"musty,\" as if\n     Thoreau had sought another adjective to go with it.]\n\n     [499] [See _Excursions_, p. 208; Riv. 255.]\n\n     [500] [_Week_, p. 377; Riv. 465.]\n\n     [501] [_Week_, p. 302; Riv. 375.]\n\n     [502] [_Week_, p. 302; Riv. 375.]\n\n     [503] [See _Week_, pp. 33, 34; Riv. 41, 42.]\n\n     [504] [This appears in pencil on a loose sheet of paper\n     inclosed between the pages of the Journal.]\n\n     [505] [_Excursions, and Poems_, p. 409. See also p. 71.]\n\n     [506] [Here follows matter printed on pp. 105, 106 of _Week_\n     (Riv. 130-132).]\n\n     [507] [See _Journal_, vol. vi, Feb. 5, 1854.]\n\n     [508] [See _Walden_, pp. 120, 121; Riv. 171, 172.]","title":"Journal 01, 1837-1846: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 07 (of 20)","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":136278}