A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers

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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

Landscape Architecture
GIFT OF

Frederick Law Olms ted
the Younger

FROM THE COLLECTION OF

F. L. OLMSTFDJR.
LOWTHORPE SCHOOL

A WEEK

ON

CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVEBS.

A WEEK ON THE CONCORD
AND MERRIMACK RIVERS

BY

HENRY D. THOREAU

AUTHOR OF " WALDEN," ETC.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

1892

LANDSCAPT
ARCHITECTURE

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by

TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Add'l

\

'v*^

C5T5

LANDSCAPE
ARCH.

LIBRARY

Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me,
Though now thou climbest loftier mounts,
And fairer rivers dost ascend,
Be thou my Muse, my Brother—.

I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore.
By a lonely isle, by a far Azore,
There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek.
On the barren sands of a desolate creek.

I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind,
New lands, new people, and new thoughts to find j
Many fair reaches and headlands appeared,
And many dangers were there to be feared ;
But when I remember where I have been,
And the fair landscapes that I have seen,
THOU seemest the only permanent shore,
The cape never rounded, nor wandered o'«r.

Fluminaque obliquis cinxit declivia ripis ;
Quae. diversa locis, partim sorbentur ab ipsa ;
In mare perveniunt partim, campoque recepta
Liberioris aquae, pro ripis litora pulsant

OVID, Met I. 39^

He confined the rivers within their sloping banks,
Which in different places are part absorbed by the earth.
Part reach the sea, and being received within the plain
Of its freer waters, beat the shore for banks.

CONCORD RIVER.

« Beneath low hills, in the broad interval
Through which at will our Indian rivulet
Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw,
Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburiea,
Here, in pine houses, built of new-fallen trees,
Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell."

SMEBSOH.

THE MUSKETAQUID, or Grass-ground River, though
probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not be
gin to have a place in civilized history, until the fame of
its grassy meadows and its fish attracted settlers out
of England in 1635, when it received the other but
kindred name of CONCORD from the first plantation
on its banks, which appears to have been commenced
in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass-
ground River as long as grass grows and water runs
here ; it will be Concord River only while men lead
peaceable lives on its banks. To an extinct race it
was grass-ground, where they hunted and fished, and
it is still perennial grass-ground to Concord farmers,
who own the Great Meadows, and get the hay from
year to year. "One branch of it," according to the
historian of Concord, for I love to quote so good au
thority, "rises in the south part of Hopkinton, and
another from a pond and a large cedar-swamp in
Westborough," and flowing between Hopkinton and
Southborough, through Framingham, and between Sud-

10 CONCOKD RIVER.

bury and Wayland, where it is sometimes called Sud-
bury River, it enters Concord at the south part of
the town, and after receiving the North or Assabetli
River, which has its source a little farther to the north
and west, goes out at the northeast angle, and flow
ing between Bedford and Carlisle, and through Billerica,
empties into the Merriraack at Lowell. In Concord
it is, in summer, from four to fifteen feet deep, and
from one hundred to three hundred feet wide, but in
the spring freshets, when it overflows its banks, it is
in some places nearly a mile wide. Between Sudbury
and Wayland the meadows acquire their greatest
breadth, and when covered with water, they form a
handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to
by numerous ^ulls and ducks. Just above Sherman's
Bridge, between these towns, is the largest expanse,
and when the wind blows freshly in a raw March
lay, heaving up the surface into dark and sober bil
lows or regular swells, skirted as it is in the distance
with alder-swamps and smoke-like maples, it looks
like a smaller Lake Huron, and is very pleasant and
exciting for a landsman to row or sail over. The
farm-houses along the Sudbury shore, which rises
gently to a considerable height, command fine water
prospects at this season. The shore is more flat on
the Wayland side, and this town is the greatest loser
by the flood. Its farmers tell me that thousands of
acres are flooded now, since the dams have been
erected, where they remember to have seen the
white honeysuckle or clover growing once, and they
could go dry with shoes only in summer. Now there
is nothing but blue-joint and sedge and cut-grass there,
standing in water all the year round. For a long

CONCORD RIVER. 11

time, they 'made the most of the driest season to got
their hay, working sometimes till nine o'clock at night,
sedulously paring with their scythes in the twilight
round the hummocks left by the ice; but now it is
not worth the getting when they can come at it, and
they look sadly round to their wood-lots and upland
as a last resource.

It is worth the while to make a voyage up this stream,
if you go no farther than Sudbury, only to see how
much country there is in the rear of us ; great hills,
and a hundred brooks, and farm-houses, and barns, and
haystacks, you never saw before, and men everywhere,
Sudbury, that is Southborough men, and Wayland, and
Nine- Acre- Corner men, and Bound Rock, where four
towns bound on a rock in the river, Lincoln, Wayland,
Sudbury, Concord. Many waves are there agitated by
the wind, keeping nature fresh, the spray blowing in
your face, reeds and rushes waving ; ducks by the
hundred, all uneasy in the surf, in the raw wind, just
ready to rise, and now going off with a clatter and a
whistling like riggers straight for Labrador, flying
against the stiff gale with reefed wings, or else circling
round first, with all their paddles briskly moving, just
over the surf, to reconnoitre you before they leave these
parts ; gulls wheeling overhead, muskrats swimming for
dear life, wet and cold, with no fire to warm them by
that you know of; their labored homes rising here and
there like haystacks; and countless mice and moles
and winged titmice along the sunny windy shore ; cran
berries tossed on the waves and heaving up on the
beach, their little red skiffs beating about among the
alders ; — such healthy natural tumult as proves the
\ast day is not yet at hand. And there stand aV

12 CONCOUD RIVER.

around the aiders, and birches, and oaks, and maples
full of glee and sap, holding in their buds until the
waters subside. You shall perhaps run aground on
Cranberry Island, only some spires of last year's pipe-
grass above water, to show where the danger is, and
get as good a freezing there as anywhere on the
Northwest Coast. I never voyaged so far in all my
life. You shall see men you never heard of before,
whose names you don't know, going away down through
the meadows with long ducking-guns, with water-tight
boots wading through the fowl -meadow grass, on bleak,
wintry, distant shores, with guns at half-cocK, and they
shall see teal, blue-winged, green-winged, shelldrakes,
whistlers, black ducks, ospreys, and many other wild and
noble sights before night, sucli as they who sit in parlors
never dream of. You shall see rude and sturdy, expe
rienced and wise men, keeping their castles, or teaming
up their summer's wood, or chopping alone in the woods,
men fuller of talk and rare adventure in the sun and
wind and rain, than a chestnut is of meat ; who were out
not only in '75 and 1812, but have been out every day of
their lives; greater men than Homer, or Chaucer, or
Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so ; they
never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields,
and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put
pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face
of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratch
ing, and harrowing, and ploughing, and subsoiling, in and
n, and out and out, and over and over, again and again,
erasing what they had already written for want of
k archment.

As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the
work of to-day is present, so some flitting perspectives.

CONCORD RIVER. 13

»nd demi-experiences of the life that is in nature are in
time veritably future, or rather outside to time, peren
nial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never
die.

The respectable folks, —

Where dwel] they?

They whisper in the oaks,

And they sigh in the hay;

Summer and winter, night and day,

Out on the meadow, there dwell they.

They never die,

Nor snivel, nor cry,

Nor ask our pity

With a wet eye.

A sound estate they ever mend

To every asker readily lend;

To the ocean wealth,

To the meadow health,

To Time his length,

To the rocks strength,

To the stars light,

To the weary night,

To the busy day,

To the idle play ;

And so their good cheer never ends,

For all are their debtors, and all their friends.

Concord River is remarkable for the gentleness of its
current, which is scarcely perceptible, and some have re
ferred to its influence the proverbial moderation of the
inhabitants of Concord, as exhibited in the Revolution,
<nd on later occasions. It has been proposed, that the
town should adopt for its coat of arms a field verdant, with
ne Concord circling nine times round. I have read that
a descent of an eighth of an inch in a mile is sufficient to
produce a flow. Our river has, probably, very near the
imallest allowance. The story is current, at any rate
though I believe that strict history will not bear it out

14 CONCORD RIVER.

that the only bridge ever carried away on the oam
branch, within the limits of the town, was driven up
stream by the wind. But wherever it makes a sudden
bend it is shallower and swifter, and asserts its title to be
called a river. Compared with the other tributaries of
the Merrimack, it appears to have been properly named
Musketaquid, or Meadow River, by the Indians. For
the most part, it creeps through broad meadows, adorned
with scattered oaks, where the cranberry is found in
abundance, covering the ground like a moss-bed. A
row of Sunken dwarf willows borders the stream on one
or both sides, while at a greater distance the meadow is
skirted with maples, alders, and other fluviatile trees,
overrun with the grape-vine, which bears fruit in its
season, purple, red, white, and other grapes. Still far
ther from the stream, on the edge of the firm land, are
seen the gray and white dwellings of the inhabitants.
According to the valuation of 1831, there were in Con
cord two thousand one hundred and eleven acres, or
about one seventh of the whole territory in meadow ;
this standing next in the list after pasturage and unim
proved lands, and, judging from the returns of previous
years, the meadow is not reclaimed so fast as the woods
are cleared.

Let us here read what old Johnson says of these
meadows in his " Wonder-working Providence," which
gives the account of New England from 1628 to 1652,
and see how matters looked to him. He says of the
Twelfth Church of Christ gathered at Concord : " This
town is seated upon a fair fresh river, whose rivulets are
filled with fresh marsh, and her streams with fish, it be
ing a branch of that large river of Merrimack. All-
rrifes and shad in their season come up to this town, bu'

CONCORD RIVER* 15

lalmon and dace cannot come up, by reason of the rocky
falls, which causeth their meadows to lie much covered
with water, the which these people, together with their
neighbor town, have several times essayed to cut through
but cannot, yet it may be turned another way with an
hundred pound charge as it appeared." As to their
farming he says : " Having laid out their estate upon
cattle at 5 to 20 pound a cow, when they came to winter
them with inland hay, and feed upon such wild fother
as was never cut before, they could not hold out the
winter, but, ordinarily the first or second year after
their coming up to a new plantation, many of their cat-
'le died." And this from the same author " Of the
Planting of the 19th Church in the Mattachusets' Gov
ernment, called Sudbury " : " This year [does he mean
1654] the town and church of Christ at Sudbury began
to have the first foundation stones laid, taking up her
station in the inland country, as her elder sister Concord
had formerly done, lying further up the same river,
being furnished with great plenty of fresh marsh, but,
it lying very low is much indamaged with land floods,
insomuch that when the summer proves wet they lose
part of their hay ; yet are they so sufficiently provided
that they take in cattle of other towns to winter."

The sluggish artery of the Concord meadows steals
thus unobserved through the town, without a murmur
or a pulse-beat, its general course from southwest to
northeast, and its length about fifty miles ; a huge vol
ume of matter, ceaselessly rolling through the plains
and valleys of the substantial earth with the moccasoned
tread of an Indian warrior, making haste from the high
places of the earth to its ancient reservoir. The mur
murs of many a famous river on the other side of the

16 CONCORD RIVER.

globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwell
ers on its banks ; many a poet's stream floating the
helms and shields of heroes on its bosom. The Xanthus
or Scamander is not a mere dry channel and bed of a
mountain torrent, but fed by the overflowing springs of
fame ; —

" And thou Simois, that as an arrowe, clere
Through Troy rennest, aie downward to the sea"; —

and I trust that I may be allowed to associate our muddy
but much abused Concord River with the most famous
in history.

" Sure there are poets which did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream
Of Helicon ; we therefore may suppose
Those made not poets, but the poets those."

The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile, those jour
neying atoms from the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh,
and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal
importance in the annals of the world. The heavens
are not yet drained over their sources, but the Moun
tains of the Moon still send their annual tribute to the
Pasha without fail, as they did to the Pharaohs, though
he must collect the rest of his revenue at the point of
the sword. Rivers must have been the guides which
conducted the footsteps of the first travellers. They are
the constant lure, when they flow by our doors, to dis
tant enterprise and adventure, and, by a natural impulse,
the dwellers on their banks will at length accompany
their currents to the lowlands of the globe, or explore
at their invitation the interior of continents. They are
the natural highways of all nations, not only levelling
the ground and removing obstacles from the path of the
traveller, quenching his thirst and bearing him on ther

CO A CORD RIVER. 17

bosoms, but conducting him through the most interesting
scenery, the most populous portions of the globe, and
where the animal and vegetable kingdoms attain their
greatest perfection.

I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watch
ing the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress,
following the same law with the system, with time, and
all that is made ; the weeds at the bottom gently bend
ing down the stream, shaken by the watery wind, still
planted where their seeds had sunk, but erelong to die
and go down likewise ; the shining pebbles, not yet anx
ious to better their condition, the chips and weeds, and
occasional logs and stems of trees that floated past, fulfil
ling their fate, were objects of singular interest to me,
and at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and
float whither it would bear me.

SATURDAY.

"Come, come, ay lovely fair, and let us try
Those rural delicacies."

curtgfs Invitation to the Soul. Qc

SATUKDAY.

AT length, on Saturday, the last day of August, 1839
we two, brothers, and natives of Concord, weighed an
chor in this river port ; for Concord, too, lies under the
sun, a port of entry and departure for the bodies as well
as the souls of men ; one shore at least exempted from
all duties but such as an honest man will gladly dis
charge. A warm drizzling rain had obscured the
morning, and threatened to delay our voyage, but at
length the leaves and grass were dried, and it came out
a mild afternoon, as serene and fresh as if Nature were
maturing some greater scheme of her own. After this
long dripping and oozing from every pore, she began to
respire again more healthily than ever. So with a vig
orous shove we launched our boat from the bank, while
the flags and bulrushes courtesied a God-speed, and
dropped silently down the stream.

Our boat, which had cost us a week's labor in the
spring, was in form like a fisherman's dory, fifteen feet
long by three and a half in breadth at the widest part,
painted green below, with a border of blue, with refer
ence to the two elements in which it was to spend its
existence. It had been loaded the evening before at
our door, half a mile from the river, with potatoes and
melons from a patch which we had cultivated, and a few
atensils, and was provided with wheels in order to be

22 A WEEK.

rolled around falls, as well as with two seta of oars, and
several slender poles for shoving in shallow places, and
also two masts, one of which served for a tent-pole at
night ; for a buffalo-skin was to be our bed, and a tent
of cotton cloth our roof. It was strongly built, but
heavy, and hardly of better model than usual. If right*
ly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal,
a creature of two elements, related by one half its struc
ture to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to
some strong-winged and graceful bird. The fish shows
where there should be the greatest breadth of beam and
depth in the hold ; its fins direct where to set the oars,
and the tail gives some hint for the form and position of
the rudder. The bird shows how to rig and trim the
sails, and what form to give to the prow that it may
balance the boat, and divide the air and water best
These hints we had but partially obeyed. But the
eyes, though they are no sailors, will never be satisfied
with any model, however fashionable, which does not
answer all the requisitions of art. However, as art is
all of a ship but the wood, and yet the wood alone will
rudely serve the purpose of a ship, so our boat, being
of wood, gladly availed itself of the old law that the
heavier shall float the lighter, and though a dull water
fowl, proved a sufficient buoy for our purpose.

" Were it the will of Heaven, an osier bough
Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough."

Some village friends stood upon a promontory lower
down the stream to wave us a last farewell ; but we
having already performed these shore rites, with excus
able reserve, as befits those who are embarked on un
usual enterprises, who behold but speak not, silently
glided past the firm lands of Concord, both peopled cape

SATURDAY. 23

and lonely summer meadow, with steady sweeps. And
yet we did unbend so far as to let our guns speak for us,
when at length we had swept out of sight, and thus left
the woods to ring again with their echoes ; and it may
be many russet-clad children, lurking in those broad
meadows, with the bittern and the woodcock and the
rail, though wholly concealed by brakes and hardback
and meadow-sweet, heard our salute that afternoon.

We were soon floating past the first regular battle
ground of the Revolution, resting on our oars between
the still visible abutments of that " North Bridge," over
which in April, 1775, rolled the first faint tide of that
war, which ceased not, till, as we read on the stone on
our right, it " gave peace to these United States." As
a Concord poet has sung : —

" By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

" The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps."

Our reflections had already acquired a historical re
moteness from the scenes we had left, and we ourselves
essayed to sing.

Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din

That wakes the ignoble town,
Not thus did braver spirits win

A patriot's renown.

There is one field beside this stream,

Wherein no foot does fall,
But yet it beareth in my dream

A richer crop than all.

24 A WEEK.

Let me believe a dream BO dear,

Some heart beat high that day,
Above the petty Province here,

And Britain far away j

Some hero of the ancient mould,

Some arm of knightly worth,
Of strength unbought, and faith unsold,

Honored this spot of earth;

Who sought the prize his heart described.

And did not ask release,
Whose free-born valor was not bribed

By prospect of a peace.

The men who stood on yonder height

That day are long since gone;
Not the same hand directs the fight

And monumental stone*

Ye were the Grecian cities then,

The Romes of modern birth,
Where the New England husbandmen

Have shown a Roman worth.

In vain I search a foreign land

To find our Bunker Hill,
And Lexington and Concord stand

By no Laconian rill.

With such thoughts we swept gently by this now
peaceful pasture-ground, on waves of Concord, in which
uras long since drowned the din of war.

But since wo sailed
Some things have failed,
And many a dream
Gone down the stream.

Here then an aged shepherd dwelt,
Who to his flock his substance dealt,

SATURDAY. 25

And ruled them with a vigorous crook,
By precept of the sacred Book ;
But he the pierless bridge passed o'er,
And solitary left the shore.

Anon a youthful pastor came,
Whose crook was not unknown to fame,
His lambs he viewed with gentle glance,
Spread o'er the country's wide expanse,
And fed with " Mosses from the Manse."
Here was our Hawthorne in the dale,
And here the shepherd told his tale.

That slight shaft had now sunk behind the hills, and
we had floated round the neighboring bend, and under
the new North Bridge between Ponkawtasset and the
Poplar Hill, into the Great Meadows, which, like a broad
moccason print, have levelled a fertile and juicy place in
nature.

On Ponkawtasset, since, we took our way,
Down this still stream to far Billericay,
A poet wise has settled, whose fine ray
Doth often shine on Concord's twilight day.

Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high,
Shining more brightly as the day goes by,
Most travellers cannot at first descry,
But eyes that wont to range the evening sky,

And know celestial lights, do plainly see,
And gladly hail them, numbering two or threa;
For lore that 's deep must deeply studied be,
As from deep wells men read star-poetry.

These stars are never paled, though out of sight,
But like the sun they shine forever bright;
Ay, they are suns, though earth must in its flight
Put out its eyes that it may see their light.

Who would neglect the least celestial sound,
Or faintest light that fall? on earthly ground,

a

26 A WEKK.

If he could know it one day would be found
That star in Cygnus whither wo are bound,
And pale our sun with heavenly radiance round?

Gi adually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed
to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams
floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to
fresh morning or evening thoughts. We glided noise
lessly down the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel
or a bream from the covert of the pads, and the smaller
bittern now and then sailed away on sluggish wings from
some recess in the shore, or the larger lifted itself out of
the long grass at our approach, and carried its precious
legs away to deposit them in a place of safety. The
tortoises also rapidly dropped into the water, as our
boat ruffled the surface amid the willows, breaking the
reflections of the trees. The banks had passed the
height of their beauty, and some of the brighter flowers
showed by their faded tints that the season was verging
towards the afternoon of the year; but this sombre tinge
enhanced their sincerity, and in the still unabated heats
they seemed like the mossy brink of some cool well. The
narrow-leaved willow (Salix Purshiana} lay along the
surface of the water in masses of light green foliage, in
terspersed with the large balls of the button-bush. The
Bmall rose-colored polygonum raised its head proudly
above the water on either hand, and flowering at this
season and in these localities, in front of dense fields of
the white species which skirted the sides of the stream,
its little streak of red looked very rare and precious
The pure white blossoms of the arrow-head stood in the
shallower parts, and a few cardinals on the margin still
proudly surveyed themselves reflected in the water
though the latter, as well as the pickerel-weed, was now

SATURDAY. 27

nearly out of blossom. The snake-head, Chelone glabra,
grew close to the shore, while a kind of coreopsis, turn
ing its brazen face to the sun, full and rank, and a tall
dull red flower, Eupatorium purpureum, or trumpet-
weed, formed the rear rank of the fluvial array. The
bright blue flowers of the soap-wort gentian were
sprinkled here and there in the adjacent meadows, like
flowers which Proserpine had dropped, and still farther
in the fields or higher on the bank were seen the purple
Gerardia, the Virginian rhexia, and drooping neottia or
ladies'-tresses ; while from the more distant waysides
which we occasionally passed, and banks where the sun
had lodged, was reflected still a dull yellow beam from
the ranks of tansy, now past its prime. In short, Nature
seemed to have adorned herself for our departure with
a profusion of fringes and curls, mingled with the bright
tints of flowers, reflected in the water. But we missed
the white water-lily, which is the queen of river flowers,
its reign being over for this season. He makes his
voyage too late, perhaps, by a true water clock who
delays so long. Many of this species inhabit our Con
cord water. I have passed down the river before
sunrise on a summer morning between fields of lilies
still shut in sleep ; and when, at length, the flakes of
sunlight from over the bank fell on the surface of the
water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed to flash
open before me, as I floated along, like the unfolding of
a banner, so sensible is this flower to the influence of the
sun's rays.

As we were floating through the last of these fa
miliar meadows, we observed the large and conspicuous
flowers of the hibiscus, covering the dwarf willows,
and mingled with the leaves of the grape, and wished

28 A WEEK.

that we could inform one of our friends behind of the
locality of this somewhat rare and inaccessible flower
before it was too late to pluck it; but we were just
gliding out of sight of the village spire before it oc
curred to us that the farmer in the adjacent meadow
would go to church on the morrow, and would carry
this news for us; and so by the Monday, while we
should be floating on the Merrimack, our friend would
be reaching to pluck this blossom on the bank of the
Concord.

After a pause at Ball's Hill, the St. Ann's of Con
cord voyageurs, not to say any prayer for the success
of our voyage, but to gather the few berries which
were still left on the hills, hanging by very slender
threads, we weighed anchor again, and were soon out
of sight of our native village. The land seemed to
grow fairer as we withdrew from it. Far away to
the southwest lay the quiet village, left alone under
its elms and buttonwoods in mid afternoon ; and the
hills, notwithstanding their blue, ethereal faces, seemed
to cast a saddened eye on their old playfellows; but,
turning short to the north, we bade adieu to their
familiar outlines, and addressed ourselves to new scenes
and adventures. Naught was familiar but the heavens,
from under whose roof the voyageur never passes ;
but with their countenance, and the acquaintance we
had with river and wood, we trusted to fare well under
any circumstances.

From this point, the river runs perfectly straight
for a mile or more to Carlisle Bridge, which consists
of twenty wooden piers, and when we looked back
over it, its surface was reduced to a line's breadth,
and appeared like a cobweb gleaming in the sun

SATURDAY. 29

Here and there might be seen a pole sticking up, to
mark the place where some fisherman had enjoyed
unusual luck, and in return had consecrated his rod
to the deities who preside over these shallows. It was
full twice as broad as before, deep and tranquil, with
a muddy bottom, and bordered with willows, beyond
which spread broad lagoons covered with pads, bul
rushes, and flags.

Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the
shore fishing with a long birch pole, its silvery bark
left on, and a dog at his side, rowing so near as to
agitate his cork with our oars, and drive away luck
for a season ; and when we had rowed a mile as
straight as an arrow, with our faces turned towards him,
and the bubbles in our wake still visible on the tranquil
surface, there stood the fisher still with his dog, like
statues under the other side of the heavens, the only
objects to relieve the eye in the extended meadow;
and there would he stand abiding his luck, till he took
his way home through the fields at evening with hia
fish. Thus, by one bait or another, Nature allures
inhabitants into all her recesses. This man was the
last of our townsmen whom we saw, and we silently
through him bade adieu to our friends.

The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and
races of men are always existing in epitome in every
neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth
have become the inheritance of other men. This man
us still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I my
self have lived. Perchance he is not confounded by
many knowledges, and has not sought out many in-
rentions, but how to take many fishes before the BUD

30 A WEEK.

Bets, with his slender birchen pole and flaxen line,
that is invention enough for him. It is good even to
be a fisherman in summer and in winter. Some men
are judges these August days, sitting on benches, even
till the court rises ; they sit judging there honorably,
between the seasons and between meals, leading a
civil politic life, arbitrating in the case of Spaulding
versus Cummings, it may be, from highest noon till
the red vesper sinks into the west. The fisherman,
meanwhile, stands in three feet of water, under the
same summer's sun, arbitrating in other cases between
muckworm and shiner, amid the fragrance of water-
lilies, mint, and pontederia, leading his life many rods
from the dry land, within a pole's length of where
the larger fishes swim. Human life is to him very
much like a river,

"renning aie downward to the sea."

This was his observation. His honor made a great
discovery in bailments.

I can* just remember an old brown-coated man who
was the Walton of this stream, who had come over
from Newcastle, England, with his son, — the latter
a stout and hearty man who had lifted an anchor in
his day. A straight old man he was who took his
Way in silence through the meadows, having passed
the period of communication with his fellows; his old
experienced coat, hanging long and straight and brown
as the yellow-pine bark, glittering with so much smoth
ered sunlight, if you stood near enough, no work of
art but naturalized at length. I often discovered him
unexpectedly amid the pads and the gray willowi
wheu he moved, fishing in some old country method

SATURDAY. 31

— for youth and age then went a fishing together,—
full of incommunicable thoughts, perchance about his
own Tyne and Northumberland. He was always to
be seen in serene afternoons haunting the river, and
almost rustling with the sedge ; so many sunny hours
in an old man's life, entrapping silly fish ; almost
grown to be the sun's familiar; what need had he of
hat or raiment any, having served out his time, and
seen through such thin disguises? I have seen how
his coeval fates rewarded him with the yellow perch,
and yet I thought his luck was not in proportion to
his years ; and I have seen when, with slow steps
and weighed down with aged thoughts, he disappeared
with his fish under his low-roofed house on the skirts
of the village. I think nobody else saw him ; nobody
else remembers him now, for he spon after died, and
migrated to new Tyne streams. His fishing was not
a sport, nor solely a means of subsistence, but a sort
of solemn sacrament and withdrawal from the world,
just as the aged read their Bibles.

Whether we live by the seaside, or by the lakes
and rivers, or on the* prairie, it concerns us to attend
to the nature of fishes, since they are .not phenomena
confined to certain localities only, but forms and phases
of the life in nature universally dispersed. The count
less shoals which annually coast the shores of Europe
and America are not so interesting to the student of
mature, as the more fertile law itself, which deposits
their spawn on the tops of mountains, and on the
interior plains ; the fish principle in nature, from which
it results that they may be found in water in so many
places, in greater or less numbers. The natural hia*

32 A WEEI«

torian is not a fisherman, who prays for cloudy days
and good luck merely, but as fishing has been styled
"a contemplative man's recreation," introducing him
profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the
naturalist's observations is not in new genera or species,
but in new contemplations still, and science is only a
more contemplative man's recreation. The seeds of
the life of fishes are everywhere disseminated, whether
the winds waft them, or the waters float them, or the
deep earth holds them ; wherever a pond is dug,
straightway it is stocked with this vivacious race.
They have a lease of nature, and it is not yet out.
The Chinese are bribed to carry their ova from prov
ince to province in jars or in hollow reeds, or the
water-birds to transport them to the mountain tarns
and interior lakes. There are fishes wherever there
is a fluid medium, and even in clouds and in melted
metals we detect their semblance. Think how in
winter you can sink a line down straight in a pas
ture through snow and through ice, and pull up a
bright, slippery, dumb, subterranean silver or golden
fish ! It is curious, also, to reflect how they make
one family, from the largest to the smallest. The
least minnow that lies on the ice as bait for pickerel,
looks like a huge sea-fish cast up on the shore. In
the waters of this town there are about a dozen dis
tinct species, though the inexperienced would expect
many more.

It enhances our sense of the grand security and se
renity of nature, to observe the still undisturbed econ-
3my and content of the fishes of this century, their hap-
pines8 a regular fruit of the summer. The Fresh-

SATURDAY. 33

ter Sun-Fish, Bream, or Ruff, Pomotis vulgaris, as it
were, without ancestry, without posterity, still represents
the Fresh- Water Sun-Fish in nature. It is the most
common of all, and seen on every urchin's string ; a
simple and inoffensive fish, whose nests are visible all
along the shore, hollowed in the sand, over which it is
steadily poised through the summer hours on waving
fin. Sometimes there are twenty or thirty nests in the
space of a few rods, two feet wide by half a foot in
depth, and made with no little labor, the weeds being
removed, and the sand shoved up on the sides, like a
bowl. Here it may be seen early in summer assiduous
ly brooding, and driving away minnows and larger
fishes, even its own species, which would disturb its
ova, pursuing them a few feet, and circling round swift
ly to its nest again : the minnows, like young sharks,
instantly entering the empty nests, meanwhile, and
swallowing the spawn, which is attached to the weeds
and to the bottom, on the sunny side. The spawn is
exposed to so many dangers, that a very small propor
tion can ever become fishes, for beside being the con
stant prey of birds and fishes, a great many nests are
made so near the shore, in shallow water, that they are
left dry in a few days, as the river goes down. These
and the lamprey's are the only fishes' nests that I have
observed, though the ova of some species may be seen
floating on the surface. The breams are so careful of
their charge that you may stand close by in the water
and examine them at your leisure. I have thus stood
OTer them half an hour at a time, and stroked them fa
miliarly without frightening them, suffering them to nib
ble my fingers harmlessly, and seen them erect their
dorsal fins in anger when my hand approached their

2* O

34 A WEEK.

ova, and have even taken them gently out of the water
with my hand ; though this cannot be accomplished by
a sudden movement, however dexterous, for instant
warning is conveyed to them through their denser ele
ment, but only by letting the fingers gradually close
about them as they are poised over the palm, and with
the utmost gentleness raising them slowly to the surface.
Though stationary, they keep up a constant sculling «>
waving motion with their fins, which is exceedingly
graceful, and expressive of their humble happiness ;
for unlike ours, the element in which they live is a
stream which must be constantly resisted. From time
to time they nibble the weeds at the bottom or over
hanging their nests, or dart after a fly or a worm. The
dorsal fin, besides answering the purpose of a keel, with
the anal, serves to keep the fish upright, for in shallow
water, where this is not covered, they fall on their sides.
As you stand thus stooping over the bream in its nest,
the edges of the dorsal and caudal fins have a singular
dusty golden reflection, and its eyes, which stand out
from the head, are transparent and colorless. Seen in
its native element, it is a very beautiful and compact
fish, perfect in all its parts, and looks like a brilliant
coin fresh from the mint. It is a perfect jewel of the
river, the green, red, coppery, and golden reflections of
its mottled sides being the concentration of such rays as
struggle through the floating pads and flowers to the
sandy bottom, and in harmony with the sunlit brown
And yellow pebbles. Behind its watery shield it dwells
Par from many accidents inevitable to human life.

There is also another species of bream found in OUT
river, without the red spot on the operculum, which, ao
wdiug to M. Agassiz, is undescribed.

SATURDAY. 35

The Common Perch, Perca flavescens, which name
describes well the gleaming, golden reflections of its
scales as it is drawn out of the water, its red gills stand
ing out in vain in the thin element, is one of the hand
somest and most regularly formed of our fishes, and at
such a moment as this reminds us of the fish in the pic
ture which wished to be restored to its native element
until it had grown larger ; and indeed most of this spe
cies that are caught are not half grown. In the ponds
there is a light-colored and slender kind, which swim in
shoals of many hundreds in the sunny water, in com
pany with the shiner, averaging not more than six or
seven inches in length, while only a few larger speci
mens are found in the deepest water, which prey upon
their weaker brethren. I have often attracted these
small perch to the shore at evening, by rippling -the
water with my fingers, and they may sometimes be
caught while attempting to pass inside your hands. It
is a tough and heedless fish, biting from impulse, with
out nibbling, and from impulse refraining to bite, and
sculling indifferently past. It rather prefers the clear
water and sandy bottoms, though here it has not much
choice. It is a true fish, such as the angler loves to put
into his basket or hang at the top of his willow twig, in
shady afternoons along the banks of the stream. % So
many unquestionable fishes he counts, and so many
shiners, which he counts and then throws away. Old
Josselyn in his " New England's Rarities," published in
1672, mentions the Perch or River Partridge.

The Chivin, Dace, Roach, Cousin Trout, or whatever
else it is called, Leuciscus pulchellus, white and red, al
ways an unexpected prize, which, however, any angler
is glad to hook for its rarity. A name that reminds us of

86 A WEI:K.

many an unsuccessful ramble by swift streams, when
the wind rose to disappoint the fisher. It is commonly
a silvery soft-scaled fish, of graceful, scholarlike, and
classical look, like many a picture in an English book.
It loves a swift current and a sandy bottom, and bites
inadvertently, yet not without appetite for the bait.
The minnows are used as bait for pickerel in the winter.
The red chivin, according to some, is still the same fish,
only older, or with its tints deepened as they think by
the darker water it inhabits, as the red clouds swim in
the twilight atmosphere. He who has not hooked tho
red chivin is not yet a complete angler. Other fishes,
methinks, are slightly amphibious, but this is a denizen
of the water wholly. The cork goes dancing down the
swift-rushing stream, amid the weeds and sands, when
suddenly, by a coincidence never to be remembered,
emerges this fabulous inhabitant of another element, a
thing heard of but not seen, as if it were the in
stant creation of an eddy, a true product of the run
ning stream. And this bright cupreous dolphin was
spawned and has passed its life beneath the level of your
feet in your native fields. Fishes too, as well as birds
and clouds, derive 'their armor from the mine. I have
heard of mackerel visiting the copper banks at a par
ticular season ; this fish, perchance, has its habitat in
the Coppermine River. I have caught white chivin of
great size in the Aboljacknagesic, where it empties into
the Penobscot, at the base of Mount Ktaadn, but nc
red ones there. The latter variety seems not to have
been sufficiently observed.

The Dace, Lcuciscus argenteus, is a slight silvery
minnow, found generally in the middle of the stream,
where the current is most rapid, and freo'ientiv con
founded with the last named.

SATURDAY1. 37

The Shiner, Leuciscus crysoleucas, is a soft-scaled and
tender fish, the victim of its stronger neighbors, found in
all places, deep and shallow, clear and turbid ; generally
the first nibbler at the bait, but, with its small mouth and
nibbling propensities, not easily caught. It is a gold or
silver bit that passes current in the river, its limber tail
dimpling the surface in sport or flight. I have seen the
fry, when frightened by something thrown into the water,
leap out by dozens, together with the dace, and wreck
themselves upon a floating plank. It is the little light-
infant of the river, with body armor of gold or silver
spangles, slipping, gliding its life through with a quirk
of the tail, half in the water, half in the air, upward
and ever upward with flitting fin to more crystalline
tides, yet still abreast of us dwellers on the bank. It is
almost dissolved by the summer heats. A slighter and
lighter colored shiner is found in one of our ponds.

The Pickerel, Esox reticulatus, the swiftest, wariest,
and most ravenous of fishes, which Josselyn calls the
Fresh-Water or River Wolf, is very common in the shal
low and weedy lagoons along the sides of the stream.
It is a solemn, stately, ruminant fish, lurking under the
shadow of a pad at noon, with still, circumspect, vo
racious eye, motionless as a jewel set in water, or
moving slowly along to take up its position, darting
from time to time at such unlucky fish or frog or insect
as comes within its range, and swallowing it at a gulp.
I have caught one which had swallowed a brother
pickerel half as large as itself, with the tail still visible
'n its mouth, while the head was already digested in its
stomach. Sometimes a striped snake, bound to greener
meadows across the stream, ends its undulatory pro
gress in the same receptable. TheTOire so greedy and

38 A WEEK.

impetuous that they are frequently caught by being en
tangled in the line the moment it is cast. Fishermen
also distinguish the brook pickerel, a shorter and thicket
fish than the former.

The Horned Pout, Pimelodus ne^ulosus, sometimes
called Minister, from the peculiar squeaking noise
it makes when drawn out of the water, is a dull and
blundering fellow, and like the eel vespertinal in his
habits, and fond of the mud. It bites deliberately as
if about its business. They are taken at night with
a mass of worms strung on a thread, which catches
in their teeth, sometimes three or four, with an eel, at
one pull. They are extremely tenacious of life, open
ing and shutting their mouths for half an hour after
their heads have been cut off. A bloodthirsty and
bullying race of rangers, inhabiting the fertile river
bottoms, with ever a lance in rest, and ready to do battle
with their nearest neighbor. I have observed them in
summer, when every other one had a long and bloody
scar upon his back, where the skin was gone, the mark,
perhaps, of some fierce encounter. Sometimes the fry,
not an inch long, are seen darkening the shore with
their myriads.

The Suckers, Catostomi Bostonienses and tuberculati,
Common and Horned, perhaps on an average the largest
of our fishes, may be seen in shoals of a hundred or
more, stemming the current in the sun, on their mysteri
ous migrations, and sometimes sucking in the bait which
the fisherman suffers to float toward them. The for
mer, which sometimes grow to a large size, are frequent
ly caught by the hand in the brooks, or like the red
thiviu, are jerked out by a hook fastened firmly to th*
end of a stick, ano^.. placed under their jaws. They are

SATURDAY. 39

hardly known to the mere angler, however, not often
biting at his baits, though the spearer carries home
many a mess in the spring. To our village eyes, these
shoals have a foreign and imposing aspect, realizing the
fertility of the seas.

The Common Eel, too, Murcena Bostoniensis, the only
species of eel known in the State, a slimy, squirming
creature, informed of mud, still squirming in the pan,
is speared and hooked up with various success. Me-
thinks it too occurs in picture, left after the deluge,
in many a meadow high and dry.

In the shallow parts of the river, where the current
is rapid, and the bottom pebbly, you may sometimes
see the curious circular nests of the Lamprey Eel,
Petromyzon Americanus, the American Stone-Sucker,
as large as a cart-wheel, a foot or two in height, and
sometimes rising half a foot above the surface of the
water. They collect these stones, of the size of a hen's
egg, with their mouths, as their name implies, and are
said to fashion them into circles with their tails. They
ascend falls by clinging to the stones, which may some
times be raised, by lifting the fish by the tail. As they
are not seen on their way down the streams, it is
thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste
away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for
an indefinite period ; a tragic feature in the scenery
of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with
Shakespeare's description of the sea-floor. They are
rarely seen in our waters at present, on account of the
dams, though they are taken in great quantities at the
uaouth of the river in Lowell. Their nests, which are
very conspicuous, look more like art than anything in
toe river.

40 A WEEK.

If we had leisure this afternoon, we might turn our
prow up the brooks in quest of the classical trout and
the minnows. Of the last alone, according to M. Agas-
siz, several of the species found in this town are yet
undescribed. These would, perhaps, complete the list
of our finny contemporaries in the Concord waters.

Salmon, Shad, and Alewives were formerly abundant
here, and taken in weirs by the Indians, who taught
this method to the whites, by whom they were used as
food and as manure, until the dam, and afterward the
canal at Billerica, and the factories at Lowell, put an
end to their migrations hitherward ; though it is thought
that a few more enterprising shad may still occasionally
be seen in this part of the river. It is said, to account
for the destruction of the fishery, that those who at that
time represented the interests of the fishermen and the
fishes, remembering between what dates they were ac
customed to take the grown shad, stipulated, that the
dams should be left open for that season only, and the
fry, which go down a month later, were consequently
stopped and destroyed by myriads. Others say that the
fish-ways were not properly constructed. Perchance,
after a few thousands of years, if the fishes will be
patient, and pass their summers elsewhere, meanwhile,
nature will have levelled the Billerica dam, and the
Lowell factories, and the Grass-ground River run clear
again, to be explored by new migratory shoals, even
as far as the Hopkinton pond and Westborough swamp.

One would like to know more of that race, now
extinct, whose seines lie rotting in the garrets of their
children, who openly professed the trade of fishermen,
and even fed their townsmen creditably, not skulking
through the meadows to a rainy afternoon sport. Dint

SATURDAY. 41

visions we still get of miraculous draughts of fishes, and
heaps uncountable by the river-side, from the tales of
our seniors sent on horseback in their childhood from
the neighboring towns, perched on saddle-bags, with
instructions to get the one bag filled with shad, the other
with alewives. At least one memento of those days
may still exist in the memory of this generation, in the
familiar appellation of a celebrated train-band of this
town, whose untrained ancestors stood creditably at
Concord North Bridge. Their captain, a man of pisca
tory tastes, having duly warned his company to turn out
on a certain day, they, like obedient soldiers, appeared
promptly on parade at the appointed time, but, unfortu
nately, they went undrilled, except in the manurevres
of a soldier's wit and unlicensed jesting, that May day ;
for their captain, forgetting his own appointment, and
warned only by the favorable aspect of the heavens,
as he had often done before, went a-fishing that after
noon, and his company thenceforth was known to old
and young, grave and gay, as " The Shad," and by the
youths of this vicinity this was long regarded as the
proper name of all the irregular militia in Christendom.
But, alas ! no record of these fishers' lives remains that
we know, unless it be one brief page of hard but un
questionable history, which occurs in Day Book No. 4,
of an old trader of this town, long since dead, which
shows pretty plainly what constituted a fisherman's
stock in trade in those days. It purports to be a Fish
erman's Account Current, probably for the fishing sea-
Bon of the year 1805, during which months he purchased
daily rum and sugar, sugar and rum, N. E. and W. I.,
" one cod line," " one - brown mug," and " a line for the
seine " ; rum and sugar, sugar and rum, " good loaf

42 A WEEK.

Bugar," and " good brown," TV. I. and N. E., in short
and uniform entries to the bottom of the page, all carried
out in pounds, shillings, and pence, from March 25th to
June 5th, and promptly settled by receiving " cash in
full " at the last date. But perhaps not so settled alto
gether. These were the necessaries of life in those
days ; with salmon, shad, and alewives, fresh and pick
led, he was thereafter independent on the groceries.
Rather a preponderance of the fluid elements; but
such is the fisherman's nature. I can faintly remember
to have seen this same fisher in my earliest youth, still
as near the river as he could get, with uncertain undu-
latory step, after so many things had gone down stream,
swinging a scythe in the meadow, his bottle like a ser
pent hid in the grass ; himself as yet not cut down by
the Great Mower.

Surely the fates are forever kind, though Nature's
laws are more immutable than any despot's, yet to man's
daily life they rarely seem rigid, but permit him to
relax with license in summer weather. He is not
harshly reminded of the things he may not do. She
is very kind and liberal to all men of vicious habits, and
certainly does not deny them quarter ; they do not die
without priest. Still they maintain life along the way,
keeping this side the Styx, still hearty, still resolute,
" never better in their lives " ; and again, after a dozen
years have elapsed, they start up from behind a hedge,
asking for work and wages for able-bodied men Who
has not met such

" a beggar on the way,
Who sturdily could gang? ....
Who cared neither for wind nor wet,
In lands where'er he past? "

SATURDAY. 43

u That bold adopts each house ho views, his own ;
Makes every pulse his checquer, and, at pleasure,
Walks forth, and taxes all the world, like Caesar " ; —

RS if consistency were the secret of health, while the
poor inconsistent aspirant man, seeking to live a pure
life, feeding on air, divided against himself, cannot
stand, but pines and dies after a life of sickness, on
beds of down.

The unwise are accustomed to speak as if some were
not sick ; but methinks the difference between men in
respect to health is not great enough to lay much stress
upon. Some are reputed sick and some are "'not. It
often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the
Bounder.

Shad are still taken in the basin of Concord River at
Lowell, where they are said to be a month earlier than
the Merrimack shad, on account of the warmth of the
water. Still patiently, almost pathetically, with instinct
not to be discouraged, not to be reasoned with, revisiting
their old haunts, as if their stern fates would relent, and
still met by the Corporation with its dam. Poor shad !
where is thy redress ? When Nature gave thee insjjnct,
gave she thee the heart to bear thy fate ? Still wander
ing the sea in thy scaly armor to inquire humbly at the
mouths of rivers if man has perchance left them free for
thee to enter. By countless shoals loitering uncertain
meanwhile, merely stemming the tide there, in danger
from sea foes in spite of thy bright armor, awaiting new
instructions, until the sands, until the water itself, tel)
thee if it be so or not. Thus by whole migrating na
tions, full of instinct, which is thy faith, in this backward
spring, turned adrift, and peirrhance knowest not where
men do not dwell, where there are not factories, in these

44 A WEEK.

days. Armed with no sword, no electric shock, but
mere Shad, armed only with innocence and a just cause,
with tender dumb mouth only forward, and scales easy
to be detached. I for one am with thee, and who knows
what may avail a crow-bar against that Billerica dam ? —
Not despairing when whole myriads have gone to feed
those sea monsters during thy suspense, but still brave,
indifferent, on easy fin there, like shad reserved for
higher destinies. Willing to be decimated for man's
behoof after the spawning season. Away with the
superficial and selfish phil-anthropy of men, — who
knows what admirable virtue of fishes may be below
low-water-mark, bearing up against a hard destiny,
not admired by that fellow-creature who alone can
appreciate it ! Who hears the fishes when they cry ?
It will not be forgotten by some memory that we were
contemporaries. Thou shalt "erelong have thy way up
the rivers, up all the rivers of the globe, if I am not
mistaken. Yea, even thy dull watery dream shall be
more than realized. If it were not so, but thou wert to
be overlooked at first and at last, then would not I tike
they; heaven. Yes, I say so, who think I know better
than thou canst. Keep a stiff fin then, and stem all the
tides thou mayst meet.

At length it would seem that the interests, not of the
fishes only, but of the men of Wayland, of Sudbury, of
Concord, demand the levelling of that dam. Innumer
able acres of meadow are waiting to be made dry land,
wild native grass to give place to English. The farmers
Btand with scythes whet, waiting the subsiding of the
waters, by gravitation, by evaporation or otherwise, but
sometimes their eyes do not rest, their wheels do not
roll, on the quaking meadow ground during the haying

SATURDAY. 45

season at all. So many sources of wealth inaccessible.
They rate the loss hereby incurred in the single town of
Wayland alone as equal to the expense of keeping a
hundred yoke of oxen the year round. One year, as I
learn, not long ago, the farmers standing ready to drive
their teams afield as usual, the water gave no signs of
falling ; without new attraction in the heavens, without
freshet or visible cause, still standing stagnant at an
unprecedented height. All hydrometers were at fault;
some trembled for their English even. But speedy
emissaries revealed the unnatural secret, in the new
float-board, wholly a foot in width, added to their al
ready too high privileges by the dam proprietors. The
hundred yoke of oxen, meanwhile, standing patient, gaz
ing wishfully meadowward, at that inaccessible waving
native grass, uncut but by the great mower Time, who
cuts so broad a swathe, without so much as a wisp to
wind about their horns.

That was a long pull from Ball's Hill to Carlisle
Bridge, sitting with our faces to the south, a slight
breeze rising from the north, but nevertheless water
still runs and grass grows, for now, having passed the
bridge between Carlisle and Bedford, we see men hay
ing far off in the meadow, their heads waving like the
grass which they cut. In the distance the wind seemed
to bend all alike. As the night stole over, such a fresh
ness was wafted across the meadow that every blade of
cut grass seemed to teem with life. Faint purple clouds
began to be reflected in the water, and the cow-bells
tinkled louder along the banks, while, like sly water-rats,
we stole along nearer the shore, looking for a place to
pitch our camp.

46 A WEEK.

At length, when we had made about seven miles, as
far as Billerica, we moored our boat on the west side of
a little rising ground which in the spring forms an island
in the river. Here we found huckleberries still hanging
upon the bushes, where they seemed to have slowly
ripened for our especial use. Bread and sugar, and
cocoa boiled in river water, made our repast, and as we
had drank in the fluvial prospect all day, so now we took
a draft of the water with our evening meal to propitiate
the river gods, and whet our vision for the sights it was
to behold. The sun was setting on the one hand, while
our eminence was contributing its shadow to the night,
on the other. It seemed insensibly to grow lighter as
the night shut in, and a distant and solitary farm-house
was revealed, which before lurked in the shadows of the
noon. There was no other house in sight, nor any cul
tivated field. To the right and left, as far as the horizon,
were straggling pine woods with their plumes against
the sky, and across the river were rugged hills, covered
with shrub oaks, tangled with grape-vines and ivy, with
here and there a gray rock jutting out from the maze.
The sides of these cliffs, though a quarter of a mile dis
tant, were almost heard to rustle while we looked at
them, it was such a leafy wilderness ; a place for fauns
and satyrs, and where bats hung all day to the rocks, and
at evening flitted over the water, and fire-flies husbanded
.heir light under the grass and leaves against the night.
When we had pitched our tent on the hillside, a few
rods from the shore, we sat looking through its triangu
lar door in the twilight at our lonely mast on the shore
just seen above the alders, and hardly yet come to »
jtand-still from the swaying of the stream ; the first en
•nMChment of commerce on this land. There was ouj

SATURDAY. 47

port, our Ostia. That straight geometrical line against
the water and the sky stood for the last refinements of
civilized life, and what of sublimity there is in history
was there symbolized.

For the most part, there was no recognition of human
life in the night, no human breathing was heard, only
the breathing of the wind. As we sat up, kept awake
by the novelty of our situation, we heard at intervals
foxes stepping about over the dead leaves, and brushing
the dewy grass close to our tent, and once a musquash
fumbling among the potatoes and melons in our boat, but
when we hastened to the shore we could detect only a
ripple in the water ruffling the disk of a star. At inter
vals we were serenaded by the song of a dreaming sparrow
or the throttled cry of an owl, but after each sound which
near at hand broke the stillness of the night, each crack
ling of the twigs, or rustling among tbe leaves, there was
a sudden pause, apd deeper and more conscious silence,
as if the intruder were aware that no life was rightfully
abroad at that hour. There was a fire in Lowell, as we
judged, this night, and we saw the horizon blazing, and
heard the distant alarm-bells, as it were a faint tinkling
music borne to these woods. But the most constant and
memorable sound of a summer's night, which we did not
fail to hear every night afterward, though at no time so
incessantly and so favorably as now, was the barking of
the house-dogs, from the loudest and hoarsest bark to
ihe faintest aerial palpitation under the eaves of heaven,
from the patient but anxious mastiff to the timid and
wakeful terrier, at first loud and rapid, then faint and
glow, to be imitated only in a whisper ; wow-wow-wow-
wow — wo — wo — w — w. Even in a retired and un
inhabited district like this, it was a sufficiency of sound

48 A WEEK.

for the ear of night, and more impressive than any
music. I have heard the voice of a hound, just before
daylight, while the stars were shining, from over the
woods and river, far in the horizon, when it sounded as
sweet and melodious as an instrument. The hounding
of a dog pursuing a fox or other animal in the horizon,
may have first suggested the notes of the hunting-horn
to alternate with and relieve the lungs of the dog. This
natural bugle long resounded in the woods of the ancient
world before the horn was invented. The very dogs
that sullenly bay the moon from farm-yards in these
nights excite more heroism in our breasts than all the
civil exhortations or war sermons of the age. "I would
rather be a dog, and bay the moon," than many a Ro
man that I know. The night is equally indebted to the
clarion of the cock, with wakeful hope, from the very
setting of the sun, prematurely ushering in the dawn.
All these sounds, the crowing of cocks, the baying of
dogs, and the hum of insects at noon, are the evidence
of nature's health or sound state. Such is the never
failing beauty and accuracy of language, the most per
fect art in the world ; the chisel of a thousand years
retouches it.

At length the antepenultimate and drowsy hours
drew on, and all sounds were denied entrance to out
ears.

Who sleeps by day and walks by night,

Will meet no spirit but some sprite.

SUNDAY

" The river calmly flows,
Through shining banks, through lonely glen,
Where the owl shrieks, though ne'er the cheer of men

Has stirred its mute repose,
itill if ym should walk there, you would go there again."

"The Indiana tell oa of a beautiful River lying far to the south, which they
aril Merrimack."

San DI MONTS, Relations oj tne Jesuits, 1604.

SUNDAY.

IN the morning the river and adjacent country were
covered with a dense fog, through which the smoke of
our fire curled up like a still subtiler mist ; but before
we had rowed many rods, the sun arose and the fog
rapidly dispersed, leaving a slight steam only to curl
along the surface of the water. It was a quiet Sunday
morning, with more of the auroral rosy and white than
of the yellow light in it, as if it dated from earlier than
the fall of man, and still preserved a heathenish integ-
rity:-

An early unconverted Saint,

Free from noontide or evening taint,

Heathen without reproach,

That did upon the civil day encroach,

And ever since its birth

Had trod the outskirts of the earth.

But the impressions which the morning makes vanish
with its dews, and not even the most " persevering mor
tal " can preserve the memory of its freshness to mid
day. As we passed the various islands, or what were
islands in the spring, rowing with our backs down
stream, we gave names to them. The OL.C on which we
had camped we called Fox Island, and one fine densely
wooded island surrounded by deep water and overrun
by grape-vines, which looked like a mass of verdure
and of flowers cast upon the waves, we named Grape

52

A WKKK.

Island. From Ball's Hill to Billerica meeting-house,
the river was still twice as broad as in Concord, a deep,
dark, and dead stream, flowing between gentle hills and
sometimes cliffs, and well wooded all the way. It was
a long woodland lake bordered with willows. For long
reaches we could see neither house nor cultivated field,
nor any sign of the vicinity of man. Now we coasted
along some shallow shore by the edge of a dense pal
isade of bulrushes, which straightly bounded the water
as if clipt by art, reminding us of the reed forts of the
East-Indians, of which we had read ; and now the bank
slightly raised was overhung with graceful grasses and
various species of brake, whose downy stems stood
closely grouped and naked as in a vase, while their
heads spread several feet on either side. The dead
limbs of the willow were rounded and adorned by the
climbing mikania, Mikania scandens, which filled every
crevice in the leafy bank, contrasting agreeably with the
gray bark of its supporter and the balls of the button-
bush. The water willow, Salix Purshiana, when it is
of large size and entire, is the most graceful and ethe
real of our trees. Its masses of light green foliage,
piled one upon another to the height of twenty or thirty
feet, seemed to float on the surface of the water, while
the slight gray stems and the shore were hardly visible
between them. No tree is so wedded to the water, and
harmonizes so well with still streams. It is even more
graceful than the weeping willow, or any pendulous
trees, which dip their branches in the stream instead
of being buoyed up by it. Its limbs curved outward
over the -surface as if attracted by it. It had not a New
England but an Oriental character, reminding us of trim
Persian gardens, of Haroun Alraschid, and the artifl
cial lakes of the East.

SUNDAY. 53

As we thus dipped our way along between fresh
masses of foliage overrun with the grape and smaller
flowering vines, the surface was so calm, and both air
and water so transparent, that the flight of a kingfisner
or robin over the river was as distinctly seen reflected
in the water below as in the air above. The birds
seemed to flit through submerged groves, alighting on
the yielding sprays, and their clear notes to come up
from below. We were uncertain whether the water
floated the land, or the land held the water in its bosom.
It was such a season, in short, as that in which one of
our Concord poets sailed on its stream, and sung its
quiet glories.

" There is an inward voice, that in the stream
Sends forth its spirit to the listening ear,
And in a calm content it floweth on,
Like wisdom, welcome with its own respect.
Clear in its breast lie aL these beauteous thoughts,
It doth receive the green and graceful trees,
And the gray rocks smile in its peaceful arms."

And more he sung, but too serious for our page. For
every oak and birch too growing on the hill-top, as well
as for these elms and willows, we knew that there was a
graceful ethereal and ideal tree making down from t^e
roots, and sometimes Nature in high tides brings her mir
ror to its foot and makes it visible. The stillness was
intense and almost conscious, as if it were a natural
Sabbath, and we fancied that the morning was the even
ing of a celestial day. The air was so elastic and
crystalline that it had the same effect on the landscape
that a glass has on a picture, to give it an ideal remote
ness and perfection. The landscape was 'clothed in a
mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences

54 A WEEK.

checkered and partitioned it with new regularity, and
rough and uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like
smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct
and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairy
land. The world seemed decked for some holiday or
prouder pageantry, with silken streamers flying, and the
course of our lives to wind on before us like a green
lane into a country maze, at the season when fruit-trees
are in blossom.

Why should not our whole life and its scenery be act
ually thus fair and distinct ? All our lives want a suit
able background. They should at least, like the life of
the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in
the desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a
limitless horizon. Character always secures for itself
this advantage, and is thus distinct and unrelated to near
or trivial objects, whether things or persons. On this
same stream a maiden once sailed in my boat, thus un
attended but by invisible guardians, and as she sat in the
prow there was nothing but herself between the steers
man and the sky. I could then say witli the poet, —

" Sweet falls the summer air
Over her frame who sails with me ;
Her way like that is beautifully free,

Her nature far more rare,
And is her constant heart of virgin purity."

At evening still the very stars seem but this maiden's
emissaries and reporters of her progress.

Low in the eastern sky
Is set thy glancing eye ;
And though its gracious light
Ne'er riseth to my sight,
t Yet every star that climbs
• Above the gnarled limbs

Of yonder hill,
Conveys thy gentle will.

SUNDAY. 55

Believe I knew thy thought,
And that the zephyrs brought
Thy kindest wishes through,
As mine they bear to you,
That some attentive cloud
Did pause amid the crowd

Over my head,
While gentle things were said.

Believe the thrushes sung,
And that the flower-bells rung.
That herbs exhaled their scent,
And beasts knew what was meant,
The trees a welcome waved,
And lakes their margins laved,

When thy free mind
To my retreat did wind.

It was a summer eve,
The air did gently heave
While yet a low-hung cloud
Thy eastern skies did shroud ;
The lightning's silent gleam,
Startling my drowsy dream,

Seemed like the flash
Under thy dark eyelash.

Still will I strive to be
As if thou wert with me ;
Whatever path I take,
It shall be for thy sake,
Of gentle slope and wide,
As thou wert by my side,

Without a root
To trip thy gentle foot.

I '11 walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore
And gently steer my boat
Where water-lilies float,

And cardinal flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowei*

56 A WEEK.

It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat
the inirror-like surface of the water, in which every
twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected ; too
faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may
exaggerate herself. The shallowest still water is un
fathomable. Wherever the trees and skies are reflected,
there is more than Atlantic depth, and no danger of
fancy running aground. We notice that it required a
separate intention of the eye, a more free and abstracted
vision, to see the reflected trees and the sky, than to see
the river bottom merely ; and so are there manifold
visions in the direction of every object, and even the
most opaque reflect the heavens from their surface.
Some men have their eyes naturally intended to the ono
and some to the other object.

M A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And the heavens espy."

Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts,
floating buoyantly amid the reflections of the trees, like
a feather in mid-air, or a leaf which is wafted gently
from its twig to the water without turning over, seemed
still in their element, and to have very delicately availed
themselves of the natural laws. Their floating there
was a beautiful and successful experiment in natural
philosophy, and it served to ennoble in our eyes the art
of navigation ; for as birds fly and fishes swim, so these
men sailed. It reminded us how much fairer and nobler
all the actions of man might be, and that our life in ita
whole economy might be as beautiful as the fairest
works of art or nature.

The sun lodged on the old gray cliffs, and glanced

SUNDAY. 57

from every pad; the bulrushes and flags seemed to
rejoice in the delicious light and air ; the meadows were
a-drinking at their leisure ; the frogs sat meditating, all
sabbath thoughts, summing up their week, with one eye
out on the golden sun, and one toe upon a reed, eying
the wondrous universe in which they act their part ; the
fishes swam more staid and soberly, as maidens go to
church ; shoals of golden and silver minnows rose to the
surface to behold the heavens, and then sheered off into
more sombre aisles ; they swept by as if moved by one
mind, continually gliding past each other, and yet pre
serving the form of their battalion unchanged, as if they
were still embraced by the transparent membrane which
held the spawn ; a young band of brethren and sisters
trying their new fins ; now they wheeled, now shot
ahead, and when we drove them to the shore and cut
them off, they dexterously tacked and passed under
neath the boat. Over the old wooden bridges no trav
eller crossed, and neither the river nor the fishes avoided
to glide between the abutments.

Here was a village not far off behind the woods, Bil-
lerica, settled not long ago, and the children still bear
the names of the first settlers in this late "howling
wilderness " ; yet to all intents and purposes it is as old
as Fernay or as Mantua, an old gray town where men
grow old and sleep already under moss-grown monu
ments, — outgrow their usefulness. This is ancient
Billerica, (Villarica?) now in its dotage, named from
the English Billericay, and whose Indian name was
Shawshine. I never heard that it was young. See, is
not nature here gone to decay, farms all run out, meet
ing-house grown gray and racked with age? If you
know of its early youth, ask those old gray rocks
3*

58 A WEEK.

in the pasture. It has a bell that sounds sometimes as
far as Concord woods ; I have heard that, — ay, hear
it now. No wonder that such a sound startled the
dreaming Indian, and frightened his game, when the
first bells were swung on trees, and sounded through the
forest beyond the plantations of the white man. But
to-day I like best the echo amid these cliffs and woods.
It is no feeble imitation, but rather its original, or as if
some rural Orpheus played over the strain again tc
show how it should sound.

Dong, sounds the brass in the east,
As if to a funeral feast,
But I like that sound the best
Out of the fluttering west.

The steeple ringeth a knell,
But the fairies' silvery bell
Is the voice of that gentle folk,
Or else the horizon that spoke.

Its metal is not of brass,
But air, and water, and glass,
And under a cloud it is swung,
And by the wind it is rung.

When the steeple tolleth the noon,

It soundeth not so soon,

Yet it rings a far earlier hour,

And the sun has not reached its tower.

On the other hand, the road runs up to Carlisle, city
of the woods, which, if it is less civil, is the more natu
ral. It does well hold the earth together. It gets
laughed at because it is a small town, I know, but never-
'heless it is a place where great men may be born any
lay, for fair winds and foul blow right on over it with
out distinction. It has a meeting-house and horse-shed^

SUNDAY. 5i>

A tavern and & blacksmith's shop, for centre, and a good
deal of wood to cut and cord yet. And

" Bedford, most noble Bedford,
I shall not thee forget."

History has remembered thee; especially that meek
and humble petition of thy old planters, like the wail
ing of the Lord's own people, " To the gentlemen, the
selectmen" of Concord, praying to be erected into a
separate parish. We can hardly credit that so plaintive
a psalm resounded but little more than a century ago
along these Babylonish waters. " In the extreme diffi
cult seasons of heat and cold," said they, "we were
ready to say of the Sabbath, Behold what a weariness is
it." — " Gentlemen, if our seeking to draw off proceed
from any disaffection to our present Reverend Pastor,
or the Christian Society with whom we have taken such
sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of
God in company, then hear us not this day, but we
greatly desire, if God please, to be eased of our burden
on the Sabbath, the travel and fatigue thereof, that the
word of God may be nigh to us, near to our houses and
in our hearts, that we and our little ones may serve the
Lord. We hope that God, who stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus to set forward temple work, has stirred us up to
ask, and will stir you up to grant, the prayer of our
petition ; so shall your humble petitioners ever pray, as
01 duty bound — " And so the temple work went
forward here to a happy conclusion. Yonder in Car
lisle the building of the temple was many wearisome
years delayed, not that thei«j was wanting of Shittim
wood, or the gold of Opnir, but a site therefor con
venient to all the worshippers ; whether on " Buttrick's
Plain," or rather on " Poplar Hill." — I: was a tedious
question.

60 A WEEK.

In this Billerica solid men must have lived, select
from year to year ; a series of town clerks, at least ; and
there are old records that you may search. Some
spring the white man came, built him a house, and
made a clearing here, letting in the sun, dried up a farm,
piled up the old gray stones in fences, cut down the
pines around his dwelling, planted orchard seeds brought
from the old country, and persuaded the civil apple-
tree to blossom next to the wild pine and the juniper,
shedding its perfume in the wilderness. Their old
stocks still remain. He culled the graceful elm from
out the woods and from the river-side, and so refined
and smoothed his village plot. He rudely bridged the
stream, and drove his team afield into the river mead
ows, cut the wild grass, and laid bare the homes of
beaver, otter, muskrat, and with the whetting of his
scythe scared off the deer and bear. He set up a mill,
and fields of English grain sprang in the virgin soil.
And with his grain he scattered the seeds of the dande
lion and the wild trefoil over the meadows, mingling his
English flowers with the wild native ones. The bris
tling burdock, the sweet-scented catnip, and the humble
yarrow planted themselves along his woodland road,
they too seeking " freedom to worship God " in their
way. And thus he plants a town. The white man's
mullein soon reigned in Indian cornfields, and sweet-
scented English grasses clothed the new soil. Where,
then, could the Red Man set his foot? The honey-bee
hummed through the Massachusetts woods, and sipped
the wild-flowers round the Indian's wigwam, perchance
unnoticed, when, with prophetic warning, it stung the
Red child's hand, forerunner of that industrious tribe
that was to come and pluck the wild-flower of his rac«
ip by the root.

SUNDAY. 61

The 1/hite man comes, pale as the dawn, with a load
of thought, with a slumbering intelligence as a fire
raked up, knowing well what he knows, not guessing
but calculating ; strong in community, yielding obedience
to authority ; of experienced race ; of wonderful, won
derful common sense ; dull but capable, slow but per
severing, severe but just, of little humor but genuine;
a laboring man, despising game and sport; building a
house that endures, a framed house. He buys the
Indian's moccasins and baskets, then buys his hunting-
grounds, and at length forgets where he is buried and
ploughs up his bones. And here town records, old, tat
tered, time-worn, weather-stained chronicles, contain the
Indian sachem's mark perchance, an arrow or a beaver,
and the few fatal words by which he deeded his hunting-
grounds away. He comes with a list of ancient Saxon,
Norman, and Celtic names, and strews them up and
down this river, — Framingham, Sudbury, Bedford, Car
lisle, Billerica, Chelmsford, — and this is New Angle-
land, and these are the New West Saxons whom the
Hed Men call, not Angle-ish or English, but Yengeese,
and so at last they are known for Yankees.

When we were opposite to the middle of Billerica,
the fields on either hand had a soft and cultivated
English aspect, the village spire being seen over the
copses which skirt the river, and sometimes an orchard
straggled down to the water-side, though, generally, our
course this forenoon was the wildest part of our voyage.
It seemed that men led a quiet and very civil life
there. The inhabitants were plainly cultivators of the
earth, and lived under an organized political govern
ment. The school-house stood with a meek aspect,
entreating a long truce to war and savage life. Every

62 A WEEK.

one finds by his own experience, as well as in history,
that the era in which men cultivate the apple, and the
amenities of the garden, is essentially different from
that of the hunter and forest life, and neither can dis
place the other without loss. We have all had our day
dreams, as well as more prophetic nocturnal vision ; but
as for farming, I am convinced that my genius datea
from an older era than the agricultural. I would at
least strike my spade into the earth with such careless
freedom but accuracy as the woodpecker his bill into a
tree. There is in my nature, methinks, a singular
yearning toward all wildness. I know of no redeeming
qualities in myself but a sincere love for some things,
and when I am reproved I fall back on to this ground.
What have I to do with ploughs ? I cut another furrow
than you see. Where the off ox treads, there is it not,
it is farther off; where the nigh ox walks, it will not be,
it is nigher still. If corn fails, my crop fails not, and
what are drought and rain to me? The rude Saxon
pioneer will sometimes pine for that refinement and
artificial beauty which are English, and love to hear the
sound of such sweet and classical names as the Pentlaud
and Malvern Hills, the Cliffs of Dover and the Trosachs,
Richmond, Derwent, and Winandermere, which are to
him now instead of the Acropolis and Parthenon, of
Baiae, and Athens with its sea-walls, and Arcadia and
Tempe.

Greece, who am I that should remember thee,

Thy Marathon and thy Thermopylae?

Is my life vulgar, my fate mean,

Which on these golden memories can lean?

We are apt enough to be pleased with such books ai
Evelyn's Sylva, Acetarium, and Kalendarium Hortense

SUNDAY. 63

but they imply a relaxed nerve in the reader. Garden
ing is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom
of the forest and the outlaw. * There may be an excess
of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civiliza
tion becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man, — all
whose bones can be bent! whose heaven-born virtues
are but good manners ! The young pines springing up
in the cornfields from year to year are to me a refresh
ing fact. We talk of civilizing the Indian, but that is
not the name for his improvement. By the wary inde
pendence and aloofness of his dim forest life he preserves
his intercourse with his native gods, and is admitted
from time to time to a rare and peculiar society with
Nature. He has glances of starry recognition to which
our saloons are strangers. The steady illumination of
his genius, dim only because distant, is like the faint but
satisfying light of the stars compared with the dazzling
but ineffectual and short-lived blaze of candles. The
Society-Islanders had their day-born gods, but they were
not supposed to be "of equal antiquity with the atua
fauau po, or night-born gods." It is true, there are the
innocent pleasures of country life, and it is sometimes
pleasant to make the earth yield her increase, and
gather the fruits in their season, but the heroic spirit will
not fail to dream of remoter retirements and more
rugged paths. It will have its garden-plots and its par-
terres elsewhere than on the earth, and gather nuts and
berries by the way for its subsistence, or orchard fruits
with such heedlessness as berries. We would not
ulways be soothing and taming nature, breaking the
norse and the ox, but sometimes ride the horse wild and
chase the buffalo. The Indian's intercourse with Nature
is at least such as admits of the greatest independence

64 A WEEK.

of each. If he is somewhat of a stranger in her midst,
the gardener is too much of a familiar. There is some
thing vulgar and foul in the latter's closeness to his
mistress, something noble and cleanly in the former's
distance. In civilization, as in a southern latitude, man
degenerates at length, and yields to the incursion of
more northern tribes,

" Some nation yet shut in
With hills of ice."

There are other, savager, and more primeval aspects of
nature than our poets have sung. It is only white
man's poetry. Homer and Ossian even can never revive
in Condon or Boston. And yet behold how these cities
are refreshed by the mere tradition, or the imperfectly
transmitted fragrance and flavor of these wild fruits. If
we could listen but for an instant to the chant of the
Indian muse, we should understand why he will not ex
change his savageness for civilization. Nations are not
whimsical. Steel and blankets are strong temptations ;
but the Indian does well to continue Indian.

After sitting in my chamber many days, reading the
poets, I have been out early on a foggy morning, and
heard the cry of an owl in a neighboring wood as from a
nature behind the common, unexplored by science or by
literature. None of the feathered race has yet realized
my youthful conceptions of the woodland depths. I had
seen the red Election-bird brought from their recesses
on my comrades' string, and fancied that their plumage
would assume stranger and more dazzling colors, like
the tints of evening, in proportion as I advanced farther
into the darkness and solitude of the forest. Still lesr
have I seen such strong and wilderness tints on any
poet's string.

SUNDAY. 65

These modern ingenious sciences and arts do not
affect me as those more venerable arts of hunting and
fishing, and even of husbandry in its primitive and sim
ple form ; as ancient and honorable trades as the sun
and moon and winds pursue, coeval with the faculties of
man, and invented when these were invented. We do
not know their John Gutenberg, or Richard Arkwright,
though the poets would fain make them to have been
gradually learned and taught. According to Gower, —

" And ladahel, as saith the boke,

Firste made nette, and fishes toke.
Of huntyng eke he fond the chace,
Whiche nowe is knowe in many place ;
A tent of clothe, with corde and stake,
He sette up first, and did it make."

Also, Lydgate says : —

" Jason first sayled, in story it is tolde,
Toward Colchos, to wynne the flees of golde,
Ceres the Goddess fond first the tilthe of londei

* # * * *

Also, Aristeus fonde first the usage
Of my Ike, and cruddis, and of honey swote;
Peryodes, for greto avauntage,
From flyntes smote fuyre, daryng in the roote."

We read that Aristeus " obtained of Jupiter and Nep-
,nne, that the pestilential heat of the dog-days, wherein
was great mortality, should be mitigated with wind."
This is one of those dateless benefits conferred on man,
which have no record in our vulgar day, though we still
find some similitude to them in our dreams, in which we
have a more liberal and juster apprehension of things,
unconstrained by habit, which is then in some measure
put off, and divested of memory, which we call history.

According t<r fable, when the island of ^Egina was

66 A WEEK.

depopulated by sickness, at the instance of JEacus., Ju
piter turned the ants into men, that is, as some think, he
made men of the inhabitants who lived meanly like
ants. This is perhaps the fullest history of those early
days extant.

The fable which is naturally and truly composed, so
as to satisfy the imagination, ere it addresses the under
standing, beautiful though strange as a wild-flower, is to
the wise man an apothegm, and admits of his most gen
erous interpretation. When we read that Bacchus made
the Tyrrhenian mariners mad, so that they leapt into
the sea, mistaking it for a meadow full of flowers, and
BO became dolphins, we are not concerned about the his
torical truth of this, but rather a higher poetical truth.
We seem to hear the music of a thought, and care not
if the understanding be not gratified. For their beauty,
consider the fables of Narcissus, of Endymion, of Mera-
non son of Morning, the representative of all promising
youths who have died a premature death, and whose
memory is melodiously prolonged to the latest morning ;
the beautiful stories of Phaeton, and of the Sirens
whose isle shone afar off white witli the bones of un-
buried men ; and the pregnant ones of Pan, Prome
theus, and the Sphinx; and that long list of names
which have already become part of the universal lan
guage of civilized men, and from proper are becoming
common names or nouns, — the Sibyls, the Eumenides,
the Parcae, the Graces, the Muses, Nemesis, &c.

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanim-
Jty the farthest sundered nations and generations con
sent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient
fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty

SUNDAY. 67

or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though
it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest
posterity slowly add some trait to the mytlms. As when
astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune ;
or the asteroid Astraa, that the Virgin who was driven
from earth to heaven at the end of the golden age, may
have her local habitation in the heavens more distinctly
assigned her, — for the slightest recognition of poetic
worth is significant. By such slow aggregation has
mythology grown from the first. The very nursery
tales of this generation, were the nursery tales of pri
meval races. They migrate from east to west, and
again from west to east ; now expanded into the " tale
divine" of bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme.
This is an approach to that universal language which
men have sought in vain. This fond reiteration of the
oldest expressions of truth by the latest posterity, con
tent with slightly and religiously retouching the old
material, is the most impressive proof of a common hu
manity.

All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Chris
tians, and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice
for all. All men are children, and of one family. The
same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the
morning. Joseph Wolff, the missionary, distributed cop
ies of Robinson Crusoe, translated into Arabic, among
the Arabs, and they made a great sensation. " Robinson
Crusoe's adventures and wisdom," says he, " were read
by Mahometans in the market-places of Sanaa, Hody-
eda, and Loheya, and admired and believed!" On
reading the book, the Arabians exclaimed, "O, that
Robinson Crusoe must have been a great prophet ! "

To some extent, mythology is on'y the most ancient

68 A WEEK.

history and biography. So far from being false or fabu
lous in the common sense, it contains only enduring and
essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the
now and then, being omitted. Either time or rare wis
dom writes it Before printing was discovered, a century
was equal to a thousand years. The poet is he who can
write some pure mythology to-day without the aid of
posterity. In how few words, for instance, the Greeks
would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise,
making but a sentence for our classical dictionary, —
and then, perchance, have stuck up their names to shine
in some corner of the firmament. We moderns, on the
other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography
and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which
itself is but materials to serve for a mythology. How
many volumes folio would the Life and Labors of Pro
metheus have filled, if perchance it had fallen, as per
chance it did first, in days of cheap printing! Who
knows what shape the fable of Columbus will at length
assume, to be confounded witli that of Jason and the
expedition of the Argonauts. And Franklin, — there
may be a line for him in the future classical dictionary,
recording what that demigod did, and referring him

to some new genealogy. " Son of and .

He aided the Americans to gain their independence, in
structed mankind in economy, and drew down lightning
from the clouds."

The hidden significance of these fables which is some
times thought to have been detected, the ethics running
parallel to the poetry and history, are not so remarkable
as the readiness with which they may be made to ex
press a variety of truths. As if they were the skeleton*
if still older and more universal truths than any whose

SUNDAY. 69

flesh and blood they are for the time made to wear. It
is like striving to make the sun, or the wind, or the ;sea
symbols to signify exclusively the particular thoughts
of our day. But what signifies it? In the mythus a
superhuman intelligence uses the unconscious thoughts
and dreams of men as its hieroglyphics to address men
unborn. In the history of the human mind, these glow
ing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of
men, as Aurora the sun's rays. The matutine intellect
of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philoso
phy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.

As we said before, the Concord is a dead stream, but
its scenery is the more suggestive to the contemplative
voyager, and this day its water was fuller of reflections
than our pages even. Just before it reaches the falls in
Billerica, it is contracted, and becomes swifter and shal
lower, with a yellow pebbly bottom, hardly passable for
a canal-boat, leaving the broader and more stagnant por
tion above like a lake among the hills. All through
the Concord, Bedford, and Billerica meadows we had
heard no murmur from its stream, except where some
tributary runnel tumbled in, —

Some tumultuous little rill,

Purling round its storied pebble,
Tinkling to the selfsame tune,
From September until June,

Which no drought doth e'er enfeeble.

Silent flows the parent stream,

And if rocks do lie below,
Smothers with her waves the din,
As it were a youthful sin,

Just as still, and just as slow.

But now at length we heard this staid and primitive

rfO A WEKK.

river rushing to her fall, like any rill. We here left it*
channel, just above the Billerica Falls, and entered the
canal, which runs, or rather is conducted, six miles
through the woods to the Merrimack, at Middlesex, and
as we did not care to loiter in this part of our voyage,
while one ran along the tow-path drawing the boat by
a cord, the other kept it off the shore with a pole, so
that we accomplished the whole distance in little more
than an hour. This canal, which is the oldest in the
country, and has even an antique look beside the more
modern railroads, is fed by the Concord, so that we were
still floating on its familiar waters. It is so much water
which the river lets for the advantage of commerce.
There appeared some want of harmony in its scenery,
since it was not of equal date with the woods and
meadows through which it is led, and we missed the con
ciliatory influence of time on land and water; but in
the lapse of ages, Nature will recover and indemnify
herself, and gradually plant fit shrubs and flowers along
its borders. Already the kingfisher sat upon a pine over
the water, and the bream and pickerel swam below.
Thus all works pass directly out of the hands of the
architect into the hands of Nature, to be perfected.

It was a retired and pleasant route, without houses or
travellers, except some young men who were lounging
upon a bridge in Chelmsford, who leaned impudently
over the rails to pry into our concerns, but we caught
the eye of the most forward, and looked at him till he
was visibly discomfited. Not that there was any pecu
liar efficacy in our look, but rather a sense of shame
left in him which disarmed him.

It is a very true and expressive phrase, " He looked
daggers at me," for the first pattern and prototype of all

SUNDAI. 71

daggers must have been a glance of the eye. First,
there was the glance of Jove's eye, then his fiery bolt,
then, the material gradually hardening, tridents, spears,
javelins, and finally, for the convenience of private men,
daggers, krisses, and so forth, were invented. It is won«
derful how we get about the streets without being
wounded by these delicate and glancing weapons, a man
can so nimbly whip out his rapier, or without being
noticed carry it unsheathed. Yet it is rare that one
gets seriously looked at.

As we passed under the last bridge over the canal,
just before reaching the Merrimack, the people coming
out of church paused to look at us from above, and ap
parently, so strong is custom, indulged in some heathen
ish comparisons ; but we were the truest observers of
this sunny day. According to Hesiod,

" The seventh is a holy day,
For then Latona brought forth golden-rayed Apollo,"

and by our reckoning this was the seventh day of the
week, and not the first. I find among the papers of an
old Justice of the Peace and Deacon of the town of Con
cord, this singular memorandum, which is worth pre
serving as a relic of an ancient custom. After reform
ing the spelling and grammar, it runs as follows : " Men
that travelled with teams on the Sabbath, Dec. 18th,
1803, were Jeremiah Richardson and Jonas Parker, both
of Shirley. They had teams with rigging such as is
used to carry barrels, and they were travelling west
ward. Richardson was questioned by the Hon. Ephraim
Wood, Esq., and he said that Jonas Parker was his
fellow-traveller, and he further said that a Mr. Longley
was his employer, who promised to bear him ?ut." We

72 A WEEK.

were the men that were gliding northward, this Sept
1st, 1839, with still team, and rigging not the most con
venient to carry barrels, unquestioned by any Squire or
Church Deacon and ready to bear ourselves out if need
were. In the latter part of the seventeenth century,
according to the historian of Dunstable, " Towns were
directed to erect ' a cage ' near the meeting-house, and
in this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath
were confined." Society has relaxed a little from its
strictness, one would say, but I presume that there is
not less religion than formerly. If the ligature is found
to be loosened in one part, it is only drawn the tighter
in another.

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a life
time, but must content yourself with the reflection that
the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced,
his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that
it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are or
ganic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove that they
are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge. I am
not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to
the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my coun
try's God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired
new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but
hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a
gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not ex
ert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as
many a god of the Greeks. I should fear the infinite
power and inflexible justice of the almighty mortal
hardly as yet apotheosized, so wholly masculine, with nc
lister Juno, no Apollo, no Venus, nor Minerva, to inter
cede for ms, 6vp.a c^uXeovaa Tf, KT)8op.evr] rt. The Greciat
we youthful and erring and fallen gods, with the vice*

SUNDAY. 73

of men, but in many important respects essentially of
the divine race. In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in
his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard,
and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph
Echo, and his chosen daughter lambe; for the great
god Pan is not dead, as was rumored. No god ever dies.
Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient
Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.

It seems to me that the god that is commonly wor
shipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though
he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming author
ity and respectability of mankind combined. Men rev
erence one another, not yet God. If I thought that I
could speak with discrimination and impartiality of the
nations of Christendom, I should praise them, but it
tasks me too much. They seem to be the most civil and
humane, but I may be mistaken. Every people have
gods to suit their circumstances ; the Society Islanders
had a god called Toahitu, " in shape like a dog ; he saved
such as were in danger of falling from rocks and trees."
I think that we can do without him, as we have not
much climbing to do. Among them a man could make
himself a god out of a piece of wood in a few minutes,
which would frighten him out of his wits.

I fancy that some indefatigable spinster of the old
school, who had the supreme felicity to be born in " days
that tried men's souls," hearing this, may say with Nes
tor, another of the old school, " But you are younger
than I. For time was when I conversed with greater
snen than you. For not at any time have I seen such
saen, nor shall see them, as Perithous, and Dryas, and
not/icva Xawf," that is probably Washington, sole " Shep
herd of the People." And when Apollo has now si*
4

74 A WEEK.

times rolled westward, or seemed to roll, and now for the
seventh time shows his face in the east, eyes wellnigb
glazed, long glassed, which have fluctuated only between
lamb's wool and worsted, explore ceaselessly some good
sermon book. For six days shalt. thou labor and do all
thy knitting, but on the seventh, forsooth, thy reading.
Happy we who can bask in this warm September sun,
which illumines all creatures, as well when they rest aa
when they toil, not without a feeling of gratitude ; whose
life is as blameless, how blameworthy soever it may be,
on the Lord's Mona-day as on his Suna-day.

There are various, nay, incredible faiths ; why should
we be alarmed at any of them ? What man believes,
God believes. Long as I have lived, and many blas
phemers as I have heard and seen, I have never yet
heard or witnessed any direct and conscious blasphemy
or irreverence ; but of indirect and habitual, enough.
Where is the man who is guilty of direct and personal
insolence to Him that made him?

One memorable addition to the old mythology is due
to this era, — the Christian fable. With what pains,
and tears, and blood these^ centuries have woven thia
and added it to the mythology of mankind. The new
Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and pa
tience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped
on the memory of the race ! It would seem as if it
were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jeho
vah, and crown Christ in his stead.

If it is not a tragical life we live, then I know no
what to call it. Such a story as that of Jesus Christ, —
the history of Jerusalem, say, being a part of the Uni
versal History. The naked, the embalmed, unburied
death of Jerusalem amid its desolate hills, — think of it

SUNDAY. 76

In Tasso's poem I trust some things are sweetly buried.
Consider the snappish tenacity with which they preach
Christianity still. What are time and space to Chris
tianity, eighteen hundred years, and a new world? —
that the humble life of a Jewish peasant should have
force to make a New York bishop so bigoted. Forty-
four lamps, the gift of kings, now burning in a place
called the Holy Sepulchre ; — a church-bell ringing ; — -
some unaffected tears shed by a pilgrim on Mount Cal
vary within the week. —

" Jerusalem, Jerusalem, when I forget thee, may my
right hand forget her cunning."

" By the waters of Babylon there we sat down, and
we wept when we remembered Zion."

I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha,
or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of
their churches. It is necessary not to be Christian to
appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of
Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts
of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my
Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should
love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is
the main thing, and I like him too. " God is the letter
Ku, as well as Khu." Why need Christians be still
intolerant and superstitious ? The simple-minded sailors
were unwilling to cast overboard Jonah at his own re-
l|uest. —

" Where is this love become in later age ?
* Alas ! 't is gone in endless pilgrimage

From hence, and never to return, I doubt,
Till revolution wheel those times about."

One man says, —

" The world 's a popular disease, that reigns
Within the froward heart and frantic brains
Of poor distemv/ered mortals/

76 A WEES-

Another, that

"all the world 's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players."

The world is a strange place for a playhouse to stand
within it. Old Drayton thought that a man that lived
hore, and would be a poet, for instance, should have in
him certain "brave, translanary things," and a "fine
madness " should possess his brain. Certainly it were
as well, that he might be up to the occasion. That is a
superfluous wonder, which Dr. Johnson expresses at the
assertion of Sir Thomas Browne that " his life has been
a miracle of thirty years, which to relate, were not his
tory but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a
fable." The wonder is, rather, that all men do not
assert as much. That would be a rare praise, if it were
true, which was addressed to Francis Beaumont,—
* Spectators sate part in your tragedies."

Think what a mean and wretched place this world
it ; that half the time we have to light a lamp that we
may see to live in it. This is half our life. Who
would undertake the enterprise if it were all ? And,
pray, what more has day to offer? A lamp that burns
more clear, a purer oil, say winter-strained, that so
we may pursue our idleness with less obstruction.
Bribed with a little sunlight and a few prismatic tints,
we bless our Maker, and stave off his wrath with

aymns.

I make ye an offer,

Ye gods, hear the scoffer,

The scheme will not hurt you,

If ye will find goodness, I will find virtue.

Though I am your creature,

And child of your nature,

I have pride still unbended,

And blood uudescended,

SUNDAY 77

Some free independence,
And my own descendants.
I cannot toil blindly,
Though ye behave kindly,
And I swear by the rood,
I '11 be slave to no God.
If ye will deal plainly,
I will strive mainly,
If ye will discover,
Great plans to your lover,
And give him a sphere
Somewhat larger than here.

" Verily, my angels ! I was abashed on account of my
servant, who had no Providence but me ; therefore did
I pardon him." — The Gulistan of Sadi.

Most people with whom I talk, men and women even
of some originality and genius, have their scheme of the
universe all cut and dried, — very dry, I assure you, to
hear, dry enough to burn, dry-rotted and powder-post,
methinks, — which they set up between you and them in
the shortest intercourse ; an ancient and tottering frame
with all its boards blown off. They do not walk with
out their bed. Some, to me, seemingly very unimpor
tant and unsubstantial things and relations, are for them
everlastingly settled, — as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
and the like. These are like the everlasting hills to
them. But in all my wanderings I never came across
the least vestige of authority for these things. They
nave not left so distinct a trace as the delicate flower of
a remote geological period on the coal in my grate.
The wisest man preaches no doctrines ; he has no
scheme ; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against
the heavens. It is clear sky. If I ever see more
llearly at one time than at another, the medium through

78 A WEEK.

which I see is clearer. To see from earth to heaven,
and see there standing, still a fixture, that old Jewish
Bcheme ! What right have you to hold up this obstacle
to my understanding you, to your understanding me!
You did not invent it ; it was imposed on you. Exam
ine your authority. Even Christ, we fear, had his
scheme, his conformity to tradition, which slightly viti
ates his teaching. He had not swallowed all formulas.
Pie preached some mere doctrines. As for me, Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtilest imagi
nable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.
Your scheme must be the framework of the universe ;
all other schemes will soon be ruins. The perfect God
in his revelations of himself has never got to the length
of one such proposition as you, his prophets, state.
Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count
three ? Do you know the number of God's family ?
Can you put mysteries into words ? Do you presume to
fable of the ineffable ? Pray, what geographer are you,
that speak of heaven's topography? Whose friend
are you that speak of God's personality? Do you,
Miles Howard, think that he has made you his confi
dant ? Tell me of the height of the mountains of the
moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you,
but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pro
nounce thee mad. Yet we have a sort of family history
of our God, — so have the Tahitians of theirs, — and
some old poet's grand imagination is imposed on us as
adamantine everlasting truth, and God's own word
Pythagoras says, truly enough, "A true assertion re
specting God, is an assertion of God"; but we maj
well doubt if thnrc is any example of this in litora
tore.

SUNDAY. 79

The New Testament is an invaluable book, though 1
confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in
my very early days by the church and the Sabbath
school, so that it seemed, before I read it, to be the yel
lowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early escaped from
their meshes. It was hard to get the commentaries out
of one's head and taste its true flavor. — I think that
Pilgrim's Progress is the best sermon which has been
preached from this text ; almost all other sermons that
I have heard, or heard of, have been but poor imitations
of this. — It would be a poor story to be prejudiced
against the Life of Christ because the book has been
edited by Christians. In fact, I love this book rarely,
though it is a sort of castle in the air to me, which I am
permitted to dream. Having come to it so recently and
freshly, it has the greater charm, so that I cannot find
any to talk with about it. I never read a novel, they
have so little real life and thought in them. The read
ing which I love best is the scriptures of the several
nations, though it happens that I am better acquainted
with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Persians,
than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last. Give
me one of these Bibles and you have silenced me for a
while. When I recover the use of my tongue, I am
wont to worry my neighbors with the new sentences;
but commonly they cannot see that there is any wit in
them. Such has been my experience with the New
Testament. I have not yet got to the crucifixion, I
have read it over so many times. I should love dearly
to isad it aloud to my frienis, some of whom are seri
ously inclined ; it is so good, and I am sure that they
have never heard it, it fits their case exactly, and we
should enjoy it so much together, — but I instinctively

80 A WEEK.

despair of getting their ears. They soon show, by signs
not to be mistaken, that it is inexpressibly wearisome to
them. I do not mean to imply that I am any better
than my neighbors ; for, alas ! I know that I am only as
good, though I love better books than they.

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal
favor with which the New Testament is outwardly re
ceived, and even the bigotry with which it is defended,
there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation
of, the order of truth with which it deals. I know of no
book that has so few readers. There is none so truly
strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To Christians,
no less than Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness and a
stumbling-block. There are, indeed, severe things in it
which no man should read aloud more than once. —
" Seek first the kingdom of heaven." — " Lay not up for
yourselves treasures on earth." — " If thou wilt be per
fect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." — " For what
is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul?" — Think of this, Yankees ! — " Verily, I
say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard
seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to
yonder place ; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be
impossible unto you." — Think of repeating these things
to a New England audience ! thirdly, fourthly, fifteenth-
]y, till there are three barrels of sermons ! Who,
without cant, can read them aloud? Who, without
cant, can hear them, and not go out of the meet
ing-house ? They never were read, they never were
heard. Let but one of these sentences be rightly read,
from any pulpit in the land, and there would not be left
one stone of that rneeting-house upon another.

SUNDAY. 81

Yet the New Testament treats of man and man's so-
railed spiritual affairs too exclusively, and is too con
stantly moral and personal, to alone content me, who Am
not interested solely in man's religious or moral nature,
or in man even. I have not the most definite designs on
the future. Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you
would that they should do unto you, is by no means a
golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest
man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden
not to have any rule at all in such a case. The book has
never been written which is to be accepted without any
allowance. Christ was a sublime actor on the stage of
the world. He knew what he was thinking of when he
said, " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words
shall not pass away." I draw near to him at such a
time. Yet he taught mankind but imperfectly how to
live ; his thoughts were all directed toward another world.
There is another kind of success than his. Even here
we have a sort of living to get, and must buffet it some
what longer. There are various tough problems yet to
solve, and we must make shift to live, betwixt spirit and
matter, such a human life as we can.

A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-
chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods,
will not be a good subject for Christianity. The New
Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not
c/i all or most of his days. He will rather go a-fishing
m his leisure hours. The Apostles, though they were
rishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and
never trolled for pickerel on inland streams.

Men have a singular desire to be good without being
good for anything, because, perchance, they think vaguely
that so it will be good for them in .,'ae end. The sort of

4* F

82 A WEEK.

morality which the priests inculcate is a vory subtle
policy, far finer than the politicians, and the world is
very successfully ruled by them as the policemen. It is
not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us al
ways. The conscience really does not, and ought not to
monopolize the whole of our lives, any more than the heart
or the head. It is as liable to disease as any other part. I
have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to
former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt
children, and at length gave them no peace. They did
not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of
course yielded no milk.

Conscience is instinct bred in the house,

Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin

By an unnatural breeding in and in.

I say, Turn it out doors,

Into the moors.

I love a life whose plot is simple,

And does not thicken with every pimple,

A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it,

That makes the universe no worse than 't find* it.

1 love an earnest soul,

Whose mighty joy and sorrow

Are not drowned in a bowl,

And brought to life to-morrow;

That lives one tragedy,

And not seventy j

A conscience worth keeping,

Laughing not weeping;

A conscience wise and steady,

And forever ready ;

Not changing with events,

Dealing in compliments;

A conscience exercised about

Large things, where one may doubt.

I love a soul not all of wood,

Predestinated to be good,

But true to the backbone

Unto iteelf alone,

SUNDAY. 63

And false to none ;

Born to its own affairs,

Its own joys and own cares;

By whom the work which God begun

Is finished, and not undone;

Taken up whore he left off,

Whether to worship or to scoff;

If not good, why then evil,

If not good god, good devil.

Goodness ! — you hypocrite, come out of that,

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

I have no patience towards

Such conscientious cowards.

Give me simple laboring folk,

Who love their work,

Whose virtue is a song

To cheer God along.

I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a
poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the
hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending my steps
to a mountain-top on the Sabbath, instead of a church,
when I would have gone farther than he to hear a true
word spoken on that or any day. He declared that I was
** breaking the Lord's fourth commandment," and pro
ceeded to enumerate, in a sepulchral tone, the disasters
which had befallen him whenever he had done any ordi
nary work on the Sabbath. He really thought that a
god was on the watch to trip up those men who followed
any secular work on this day, and did not see that it was
the evil conscience of the workers that did it. The
country is full of this superstition, so that when one en
ters a village, the church, not only really but from asso
ciation, is the ugliest looking building in it, because it is
the one in which human naturr stoops the lowest and is
most disgraced. Certainly, such temples as these shall
erelong ceas^ to deform the landscape. There are few

84 A WEEK.

things more disheartening and disgusting than wncn you
are walking the streets of a strange village on the Sab
bath, to hear a preacher shouting like a boatswain in a
gale of wind, and thus harshly profaning the quiet at
mosphere of the day. You fancy him to have taken
off his coat, as when men are about to do hot and dirty
work.

If I should ask the minister of Middlesex to let me
speak in his pulpit on a Sunday, he would object, because
I do not pray as he does, or because I am not ordained.
What under the sun are these things ?

Really, there is no infidelity, now-a-days, so great as
tbst which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds
the churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches
a truer doctrine. The church is a sort of hospital for
men's souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for
their bodies. Those who are taken into it live like pen
sioners in their Retreat or Sailor's Sung Harbor, where
you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside
in sunny weather. Let not the apprehension that he
may one day have to occupy a ward therein, discourage
the cheerful labors of the able-souled man. While he re
members the sick in their extremities, let him not look
thither as to his goal. One is sick at heart of this pago
da worship. It is like the beating of gongs in a Hindoo
subterranean temple. In dark places and dungeons the
preacher's words might perhaps strike root and grow,
but not in broad daylight in any part of the world that I
know. The sound of the Sabbath bell far away, now
breaking on these shores, does not awaken pleasing asso
ciations, but melancholy and sombre ones rather. One
Nn voluntarily rests on his oar, to humor his unusually
meditative mood. It is as the sound of many catechism*

SUNDAY. 85

and religious books twanging a canting peal round the
earth, seeming to issue from some Egyptian temple and
echo along the shore of the Nile, right opposite to Pha
raoh's palace and Moses in the bulrushes, startling a mul
titude of storks and alligators basking in the sun.

Everywhere " good men " sound a retreat, and the
word has gone forth to fall back on innocence. Fall
forward rather on to whatever there is there. Chris
tianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows,
and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed
a sad dream, and does not yet welcome the morning with
joy. The mother tells her falsehoods to her child, but,
thank Heaven, the child does not grow up in its parent's
shadow. Our mother's faith has not grown with her ex
perience. Her experience has been too much for her.
The lesson of life was too hard for her to learn.

It is remarkable, that almost all speakers and writers
feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove
or to acknowledge the personality of God. Some Earl
of Bridgewater, thinking it better late than never, has
provided for it in his will. It is a sad mistake. In
reading a work on agriculture, we have to skip the au
thor's moral reflections, and the words " Providence "
and " He " scattered along the page, to come at the prof
itable level of what he has to say. What he calls his
religion is for the most part offensive to the nostrils. He
should know better than expose himself, and keep his
foul sores covered till they are quite healed. There is
more religion in men's science than there is science in
their religion. Let us make haste to the report of the
committee on swine.

A man's real faith is never contained in his creed, nor
is his creed an article of K's faith The last is never

86 A WEEK.

adoptc-d. This it is that permits him to smile ever, and
to live even as bravely as he does. And yet he clings
anxiously to his creed, as to a straw, thinking that that
does him good service because his sheet anchor does not
drag.

In most men's religion, the ligature, which should be
its umbilical cord connecting them with divinity, is rather
like that thread which the accomplices of Cylon held in
their hands when they went abroad from the temple of
Minerva, the other end being attached to the statue of
the goddess. But frequently, as in their case, the thread
breaks, being stretched, and they are left without an
asylum.

" A good and pious man reclined his head on the bosom of
contemplation, and was absorbed in the ocean of a revery. At
the instant when he awaked from his vision, one of his friends,
by way of pleasantry, said, What rare gift have you brought
us from that garden, where you have been recreating ? He
replied, I fancied to myself and said, when I can reach the
rose-bower, I will fill my lap with the flowers, and bring them
as a present to my friends ; but when I got there, the fra
grance of the roses so intoxicated me, that the skirt dropped

from my hands. ' O bird of dawn ! learn the warmth of

affection from the moth ; for that scorched creature gave up
the ghost, and uttered not a groan : These vain pretenders
are ignorant of him they seek after ; for of him that knew
him we never heard again : — O thou ! who towerest above
the flights of conjecture, opinion, and comprehension ; what
ever has been reported of thee we have heard and read ; the
congregation is dismissed, and life drawn to a close ; and we
itill rrst at onr first encomium of thee ! ' " — Sadi.

By noon we were let down irto the Merrimack through
the locks at Middlesex, just above Pawtucket Falls, by
a serene and liberal-minded man, who came quietly from

SUNDAY. 87

his book, though his duties, we supposed, did not require
him to open the locks on Sundays. With him we had
R just and equal encounter of the eyes, as between two
honest men.

The movements of the eyes express the perpetual and
unconscious courtesy of the parties. It is said, that a
rogue does not look you in the face, neither does an
honest man look at you as if he had his reputation to
establish. I have seen some who did not know when to
turn aside their eyes in meeting yours. A truly con
fident and magnanimous spirit is wiser than to contend
for the mastery in such encounters. Serpents alone
conquer by the steadiness of their gaze. My friend
looks me in the face and sees me, that is all.

The best relations were at once established between
us and this man, and though few words were spoken,
he could not conceal a visible interest in us and our ex
cursion. He was a lover of the higher mathematics, as
we found, and in the midst of some vast sunny problem,
when we overtook him and whispered our conjectures.
By this man we were presented with the freedom of the
Merrimack. We now felt as if we were fairly launched
on the ocean-stream of our voyage, and were pleased to
find that our boat would float on Merrimack water. We
began again busily to put in practice those old arts of
mowing, steering, and paddling. It seemed a strange
phenomenon to us that the two rivers should mingle
their waters so readily, since we had never associated
them in our thoughts.

As we glided over the broad bosom of the Merrimack.
between Chelmsford and Dracut, at noon, here a quarter
of a mile wide, the rattling of our oars was echoed over
the water to those villages, and their slight sounds to us.

88 A WF.RK.

Their harbors lay as smooth and fairy-like as the Lida,
or S) racuse, or Rhodes, in our imagination, while, like
some strange roving craft, we flitted past what seemed
the dwellings of noble home-staying men, seemingly as
conspicuous as if on an eminence, or floating upon a tide
which came up to those villagers* breasts. At a third
of a mile over the water we heard distinctly some chil
dren repeating their catechism in a cottage near the
shore, while in the broad shallows between, a herd of
cows stood lashing their sides, and waging war with the
flies.

Two hundred years ago other catechizing than th'.g
was going on here ; for here came the Sachem Wanna-
lancet, and his people, and sometimes Tahatawan, our
Concord Sachem, who afterwards had a church at home,
to catch fish at the falls ; and here also came John Eliot,
with the Bible and Catechism, and Baxter's Call to the
Unconverted, and other tracts, done into the Massachu
setts tongue, and taught them Christianity meanwhile.
" This place," says Gookin, referring to Wamesit,

" being an ancient and capital seat of Indians, they c^me to
fish ; and this good man takes this opportunity to spread the
net of the gospel, to fish for their souls." — "May 5th, 1674,"
he continues, " according to our usual custom, Mr. Eliot and
myself took our journey to Wamesit, or Pawtuckett ; and
arriving there that evening, Mr. Eliot preached to as many
of them as could be got together, out of Matt. xxii. 1 - 14,
uhe parable of the marriage of the king's son. We met at
the wigwam of one called Wannalancet, about two milea
from the town, near Pawtuckett falls, and bordering upor
Merrimak river. This person, Wannalancet, is the eldest
ion of old Pasaconaway, the chiefest sachem of Pawtuckett
He is a sober and grave person, and of years, between fift?
and sixty. He hath been always loving and friendly to th«

SUNDAY. 89

English." As yet, however, they had not prevailed on him
to embrace the Christian religion. " But at this time," says
Gookin, "May 6, 1674," — "after some deliberation and
serious pause, he stood up, and made a speech to this effect :
— * I must acknowledge I have, all my days, used to pass in
an old canoe, (alluding to his frequent custom to pass in a
canoe upon the river,) and now you exhort me to change and
leave my old canoe, and embark in a new canoe, to which I
have hitherto been unwilling ; but now I yield up myself to
your advice, and enter into a new canoe, and do engage to
pray to God hereafter.' " One " Mr. Kichard Daniel, a
gentleman that lived in Billerica," who with other " persons
of quality " was present, " desired brother Eliot to tell the
sachem from him, that it may be, while he went in his old
canoe, he passed in a quiet stream ; but the end thereof was
death and destruction to soul and body. But now he went
into a new canoe, perhaps he would meet with storms and
trials, but yet he should be encouraged to persevere, for the
end of his voyage would be everlasting rest." — " Since that
time, I hear this sachem doth persevere, and is a constant
and diligent hearer of God's word, and sanctifieth the Sab
bath, though he doth travel to Wamesit meeting every Sab
bath, which is above two miles ; and though sundry of his
people have deserted him, since he subjected to the gospel,
yet he continues and persists." — Gookin' s Hist. Coll. of the
Indians in New England, 1674.

Already, as appears from the records, " At a General
Court held at Boston in New England, the 7th of the first
month, 1643-4." — " Wassamequin, Nashoonon, Kutchama-
quin, Massaconomet, and Squaw Sachem, did voluntarily
submit themselves " to the English ; and among other things
did " promise to be willing from time *o time to be instructed
in the knowledge of God." Being asked " Not to do any
unnecessary work on the Sabbath day, especially within the
gates of Christian towns," they answered, " It is easy to them •
they have not much to do on any day, and they can well take
their rest on that day." — '• So," says Winthrop, in i a Jour-

90 A WEEK.

nal, " we causing them to understand the articles, and all the
ten commandments of God, and they freely assenting to all,
they were solemnly received, and then presented the Court
with twenty-six fathom more of wampom ; and the Court gave
each of them a coat of two yards of cloth, and their dinner
p.nd to them and their men, every of them, a cup of sack a*
their departure ; BO they took leave and went away."

What journeyings on foot and on horseback through
the wilderness, to preach the Gospel to these minks and
muskrats ! who first, no doubt, listened with their red
ears out of a natural hospitality and courtesy, and after
ward from curiosity or even interest, till at length there
were " praying Indians," and, as the General Court
wrote to Cromwell, the " work is brought to this perfec
tion, that some of the Indians themselves can pray and
prophesy in a comfortable manner."

It was in fact an old battle and hunting ground
through which we had been floating, the ancient dwelling-
place of a race of hunters and warriors. Their weirs of
stone, their arrowheads and hatchets, their pestles, and
the mortars in which they pounded Indian corn before
the white man had tasted it, lay concealed in the mud
of the river bottom. Tradition still points out the spots
where they took fish in the greatest numbers, by such
arts as they possessed. It is a rapid story the historian
will have to put together. Miantonimo, — Winthrop, —
Webster. Soon he comes from Montaup to Bunker
Hill, from bear-skins, parched corn, bows and arrows, to
tiled roofs, wheat-fields, guns and swords. Pawtucket
and Wamesit, where the Indians resorted in the fishing
season, are now Lowell, the city of spindles and Man-
Chester of America, which sends its cotton cloth round
the globe. Even we youthful voyagers had spent t

SUNDAY. 91

part of our lives in the village of Chelmsford, when the
present city, whose bells we heard, was its obscure north
district only, and the giant weaver was not yet fairly
born. So old are we ; so young is it.

We were thus entering the State of New Hampshire
on the bosom of the flood formed by the tribute of it8
innumerable valleys. The river was the only key which
could unlock its maze, presenting its hills and valleys,
its lakes and streams, in their natural order and position.
The MERRIMACK, or Sturgeon River, is formed by the
confluence of the Pemigewasset, which rises near the
Notch of the White Mountains, and the Winnipiseogee,
which drains the lake of the same name, signifying " The
Smile of the Great Spirit." From their junction it runs
south seventy-eight miles to Massachusetts, and thence
east thirty-five miles to the sea. I have traced its
stream from where it bubbles out of the rocks of the
White Mountains above the clouds, to where it is lost
amid the salt billows of the ocean on Plum Island beach.
At first it comes on murmuring to itself by the base of
stately and retired mountains, through moist primitive
woods whose juices it receives, where the bear still
Brinks it, and the cabins of settlers are far between, and
there are few to cross its stream ; enjoying in solitude
its cascades still unknown to fame ; by long ranges of
mountains of Sandwich and of Squam, slumbering like
tumuli of Titans, with the peaks of Moosehillock, the
Haystack, and Kearsarge reflected in its waters ; where
the maple and the raspberry, those lovers of the hills,
flourish amid temperate dews ; — flowing long and full
%f meaning, but untranslatable a? its name Pemigewasset,
by many a pastured Pelion ?.nd Ossa, where unnamed

92 A WEi^K.

muses haunt, tended by Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, and
receiving the tribute of many an untasted Hippocrene
There are earth, air, fire, and water, — very well, this is
water, and down it comes.

Such water do the gods distil,
And pour down every hill

For their New England men ;
A draught of this wild nectar bring,
And I '11 not taste the spring

Of Helicon again.

Falling all the way, and yet not discouraged by the
lowest fall. By the law of its birth never to become
stagnant, for it has come out of the clouds, and down the
sides of precipices worn in the flood, through beaver-
dams broke loose, not splitting but splicing and mending
itself, until it found a breathing-place in this low land.
There is no danger now that the sun will steal it back
to heaven again before it reach the sea, for it has a war
rant even to recover its own dews into its bosom again
with interest at every eve.

It was already the water of Squarn and Newfound
Lake and Winnipiseogee, and White Mountain snow dis
solved, on which we were floating, and Smith's and
Baker's and Mad Rivers, and Nashua and Souhegan
and Piscataquoag, and Suncook and Soucook and Contoo-
cook, mingled in incalculable proportions, still fluid, yel
lowish, restless all, with an ancient, ineradicable inclina
tion to the sea.

So it flows on down by Lowell and Haverhill, at which
last place it first suffers a sea change, and a few masts
betray the vicinity of the ocean. Between the towns of
Amesbury and Newbury it is a broad commercial riven
from a third to half a mile in width, no longer skirted
with yellow and crumbling banks, but backed by high

SUNDAY* 98

green hills and pastures, with frequent white beaches on
which the fishermen draw up their nets. I have passed
down this portion of the river in a steamboat, and it
was a pleasant sight to watch from its deck the fisher
men dragging their seines on the distant shore, as in
pictures of a foreign strand. At intervals you may meet
with a schooner laden with lumber, standing up to
Haverhill, or else lying at anchor or aground, waiting
for wind or tide ; until, at last, you glide under the
famous Chain Bridge, and are .landed at Newburyport.
Thus she who at first was " poore of waters, naked of
renowne," having received so many fair tributaries, as
was said of the Forth,

"Doth grow the greater still, the further downe;
Till that abounding both in power and fame,
She long doth strive to give the sea her name";

or if not her name, in this case, at least the impulse
of her stream. From the steeples of Newburyport you
may review this river stretching far up into the coun
try, with many a white sail glancing over it like an
inland sea, and behold, as one wrote who was born OD
its head-waters, " Down out at its mouth, the dark inky
main blending with the blue above. Plum Island, its sand
ridges scolloping along the horizon like the sea-serpent,
and the distant outline broken by many a tall ship, lean
ing, still, against the sky."

Rising at an equal height with the Connecticut, the
Merrimack reaches the sea by a course only half as long,
and hence has no leisure to form broad and fertile mead
ows, like the former, but is hurried along rapids, and
down numerous falls, without long delay. The banks
are generally steep and high, with a narrow interval
reaching back to the hills, which is only rarely or par-

J4 i WEEK.

tially overflown at present, and is much valued by the
farmers. Between Chelmsford and Concord, in New
Hampshire, it varies from twenty to seventy-five rods in
width. It is probably wider than it was formerly, in
many places, owing to the trees having been cut down,
and the consequent wasting away of its banks. The
influence of the Pawtucket Dam is felt as far up as
Cromwell's Falls, and many think that the banks are
being abraded and the river filled up again by this
cause. Like all our rivers, it is liable to freshets, and
the Pemigewasset has been known to rise twenty-five
feet in a few hours. It is navigable for vessels of burden
about twenty miles ; for canal-boats, by means of locks,
as far as Concord in New Hampshire, about seventy-five
miles from its mouth ; and for smaller boats to Plymouth,
one hundred and thirteen miles. A small steamboat
once plied between Lowell and Nashua, before the rail
road was built, and one now runs from Newburyport to
Haverhill.

Unfitted to some extent for the purposes of commerce
by the sand-bar at its mouth, see how this river was
devoted from the first to the service of manufactures.
Issuing from the iron region of Franconia, and flowing
through still uncut forests, by inexhaustible ledges of
granite, with Squam, and Wiunipiseogee, and Newfound,
and Massabesic Lakes for its mill-ponds, it falls over a
succession of natural dams, where it has been offering its
privileges in vain for ages, until at last the Yankee race
came to improve them. Standing at its mouth, look up
its sparkling stream to its source, — a silver cascade
which falls all the way from the White Mountains to the
Bea, — and behold a city on each successive plateau, 8
busy colony of human beaver around every fall. Not

SUNDAY. 95

to mention Newburyport and Haverhill, see Lawrence,
and Lowell, and Nashua, and Manchester, and Concord,
gleaming one above the other. When at length it has
escaped from under the last of the factories, it has a
level and unmolested passage to the sea, a mere waste
water, as it were, bearing little with it but its fame ; its
pleasant course revealed by the morning fog which
hangs over it, and the sails of the few small vessels
which transact the commerce of Haverhill and New-
buryport. But its real vessels are railroad cars, and its
true and main stream, flowing by an iron channel farther
south, may be traced by a long line of vapor amid the
hills, which no morning wind ever disperses, to where
it empties into the sea at Boston. This side is the
louder murmur now. Instead of the scream of a fish-
hawk scaring the fishes, is heard the whistle of the
steam-engine, arousing a country to its progress.

This river too was at length discovered by the white
man, " trending up into the land," he knew not how far,
possibly an inlet to the South Sea. Its valley, as far
as the Winnipiseogee, was first surveyed in 1 652. The
first settlers of Massachusetts supposed that the Con
necticut, in one part of its course, ran northwest, "so
near the great lake as the Indians do pass their canoes
into it over land." From which lake and the " hideous
swamps " about it, as they supposed, came all the beaver
that was traded between Virginia and Canada, — and
the Potomac was thought to come out of or from very
near it. Afterward the Connecticut came so near the
course of the Merrimack that, with a little pains, they
expected to divert the current of the trade into the latter
river, and its profits from their Dutch neighbors into
their own pockets.

96 A WEEK.

Unlike the Concord, the Merrimack is not a dead but
a living stream, though it has less life within its waters
and on its banks. It has a swift current, and, in this
part of its course, a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and
comparatively few fishes. We looked down into its
yellow water with the more curiosity, who were accus
tomed to the Nile-like blackness of the former river.
Shad and alewives are taken here in their season, but
salmon, though at one time more numerous than shad,
are now more rare. Bass, also, are taken occasionally ;
but locks and dams have proved more or less destruc
tive to the fisheries. The shad make their appearance
early in May, at the same time with the blossoms of the
pyrus, one of the most conspicuous early flowers, which
is for this reason called the shad-blossom. An insect
called the shad-fly also appears at the same time, cover
ing the houses and fences. We are told that " their
greatest run is when the apple-trees are in full blossom.
The old shad return in August ; the young, three or
four inches long, in September. These are very fond
of flies." A rather picturesque and luxurious mode of
fishing was formerly practised on the Connecticut, at Bel
lows Falls, where a large rock divides the stream. " On
the steep sides of the island rock," says Belknap, " hang
several arm-chairs, fastened to ladders, and secured by a
counterpoise, in which fishermen sit to catch salmon and
Bhad with dipping nets." The remains of Indian weirs,
made of large stones, are still to be seen in the Winni-
piseogee, one of the head-waters of this river.

It cannot but effect our philosophy favorably to be
reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon,
iliad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and others, which pene
trate up the innumerable rivers of our coast in the

SUNDAY. 97

Bpring, even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming
in the sun ; and again, of the fry which in still greater
numbers wend their way downward to the sea. " And
is it not pretty sport," wrote Captain John Smith, who
was on this coast as early as 1614, " to pull up twopence,
sixpence, and twelvepence, as fast as you can haul and
veer a line ? " — " And what sport doth yield a more
pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling
with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to
isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea."

On the sandy shore, opposite the Glass-house village
in Chelmsford, at the Great Bend where we landed to
rest us and gather a few wild plums, we discovered the
Campanula rotundifolia, a new flower to us, the harebell
of the poets, which is common to both hemispheres,
growing close to the water. Here, in the shady branches
of an apple-tree on the sand, we took our nooning, where
there was not a zephyr to disturb the repose of this glo
rious Sabbath day, and we reflected serenely on the long
past and successful labors of Latona.

" So silent is the cessile air,
That every cry and call,
The hills, and dales, and forest fair
Again repeats them all.

" The herds beneath some leafy trees,

Amidst the flowers they lie,

The stable ships upon the seas

Tend up their saiis to dry."

As we thus rested in the shade, or rowed leisurely
along, we had recourse, frooi time .to time, to the Gazet
teer, which was our Navigator, and from its bald natural
facts extracted the pleasure of poetry. Beaver River

5 G

08 A WEEK.

comes in a little lower down, draining the meadows ol*
Pelham, Windham, and Londonderry. The Scotch-Irish
settlers of the latter town, according to this authority,
were the first to introduce the potato into New England,
as well as the manufacture of linen cloth.

Everything that is printed and bound in a book con
tains some echo at least of the best that is in literature.
Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones,
which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in
the preface, nor concluded in the appendix. Even Vir
gil's poetry serves a very different use to me to-day
from what it did to his contemporaries. It has often an
acquired and accidental value merely, proving that man
is still man in the world. It is pleasant to meet with
such still lines as,

"Jam laeto turgent in palmito gemmae " ;
Now the buds swell on the joyful stem.

" Strata Jacent passim sua quxque sub arbore poma " ;
The apples lie scattered everywhere, each under its tree.

In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of
living nature attracts us. These are such sentences as
were written while grass grew and water ran. It is no
small recommendation when a book will stand the test
of mere unobstructed sunshine and daylight.

What would we not give for some great poem to read
now, which would be in harmony with the scenery, —
for if men read aright, methinks they would never read
anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can
supply their place.

The wisest definition of poetry the poet will instantly
prove false by setting aside its requisitions. We can.
therefore, publish only our advertisement of it.

SUNDAY. 99

There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is
either rhymed, or in some way musically measured, — is,
in form as well as substance, poetry; and a volume
which should contain the condensed wisdom of mankind
need not have one rhythmless line.

Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a
natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn,
and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken
or done. It is the chief and most memorable success,
for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.
What else have the Hindoos, the Persians, the Baby
lonians, the Egyptians done, that can be told ? It is the
simplest relation of phenomena, and describes the com
monest sensations with more truth than science does,
and the latter at a distance slowly, mimics its style and
methods. The poet sings how the blood flows in his
veins. He performs his functions, and is so well that
he needs such stimulus to sing only as plants to put
forth leaves and blossoms. He would strive in vain to
modulate the remote and transient music which he
sometimes hears, since his song is a vital function like
breathing, and an integral result like weight. It is not
the overflowing of life but its subsidence rather, and is
drawn from under the feet of the poet. It is enough if
Homer but say the sun sets. He is as serene as nature,
and we can hardly detect the enthusiasm of the bard.
It is as if nature spoke. He presents to us the simplest
pictures of human life, so the child itself can understand
them, and the man must not think twice to appreciate
his naturalness. Each reader discovers for himself that^
with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeed
ing poets have done little else than copy his similes.
His more memorable passages are as naturally bright as

100 A WEEK.

gleams ot sunshine in misty weather. Nature furnishes
him not only with words, but with stereotyped lines and
sentences from her mint.

*' As from the clouds appears the full moon,
All shining, and then again it goes behind the shadowy clouds,
So Hector, at one time appeared among the foremost,
And at another in the rear, commanding; and all with brass
He shone, like to the lightning of aegis-bearing Zeus."

He conveys the least information, even the hour of the
day, with such magnificence and vast expense of natural
imagery, as if it were a message from the gods.

" While it was dawn, and sacred day was advancing,
For that space the weapons of both flew fast, and the people ^ell;
But when now the woodcutter was preparing his morning meal,
In the recesses of the mountain, and had wearied his hands
With cutting lofty trees, and satiety came to his mind,
And the desire of sweet food took possession of his thoughts;
Then the Danaans, by their valor, broke the phalanxes,
Shouting to their companions from rank to rank."

When the army of the Trojans passed the night under
arms, keeping watch lest the enemy should re-embark
under cover of the dark,

" They, thinking great things, upon the neutral ground of war
Sat all the night; and many fires burned for them.
As when in the heavens the stars round the bright moon
Appear beautiful, and the air is without wind;
And all the heights, and the extreme summits,
And the wooded sides of the mountains appear; and from the heav«

ens an infinite ether is diffused,

And all the stars are seen; and the shepherd rejoices in his heart;
So between the ships and the streams of Xanthus
Appeared the fires of the Trojans before Ilium.
A thousand fires burned on the plain; and by each
Sat fitly, in the light of the blazing fire;
And horses eating white barley and corn,
Standing by th« chariots, awaited fair-throned Aurora."

The u white-armed goddess Juno," sent by the Fathe.
uf g^'ls and men for Iris and Apollo,

SUNDAY. 101

11 Went down the Idaea.i mountains to far Olympus,
As when the mind of a man, who has come over much earth,
Sallies forth, and hs reflects with rapid thoughts,
There was I, and there, and remembers many things;
So swiftly the august Juno hastening flew through the air,
And came to high Olympus."

His scenery is always true, and not invented. He
does not leap in imagination from Asia to Greece,

through mid air,

eVeij) /iciXa TroXXa
*Qvpfd T€ (TKtoeWa, 6a\d(T(ra re

for there are very many
Shady mountains and resounding seas between.

If his messengers repair but to the tent of Achilles, we
do not wonder how they got there, but accompany them
step by step along the shore of the resounding sea.
Nestor's account of the march of the Pylians against
the Epeians is extremely lifelike : —

" Then rose up to them sweet-worded Nestor, the shrill orator of the

Pylians,
And words sweeter than honey flowed from his tongue."

This time, however, he addresses Patroclus alone : " A
certain river, Minyas by name, leaps seaward near
to Arene, where we Pylians wait the dawn, both horse
and foot. Thence with all haste we sped us on the
morrow ere 't was noonday, accoutred for the fight, even
to Alpheus's sacred source," &c. We fancy that we hear
the subdued murmuring of the Minyas discharging its
waters into the main the livelong night, and the hollow
sound of the waves breaking on the shore, — until at
length we are cheered at the close of a toilsome march
by the gurgling fountains of Alpheus.

There are few books which are fit to b^ remembered
in our wisest hours, but the Iliad is brightest in the

l02 A WKKK.

serencst days, and embodies still all the sunlight thf,t
fell on Asia Minor. No modern joy or ecstasy of ours
can lower its height or dim its lustre, but there it lies in
the east of literature, as it were the earliest and latest
production of the mind. The ruins of Egypt oppress and
stifle us with their dust, foulness preserved in cassia and
pitch, and swathed in linen ; the death of that which
never lived. But the rays of Greek poetry struggle
down to us, and mingle with the sunbeams of the recent
day. The statue of Memnon is cast down, but the shaft
of the Iliad still meets the sun in his rising.

" Homer is gone; and where is Jove ? and where
The rival cities seven? His song outlives
Time, tower, and god, — all that then was, save Heaven."

So too, no doubt, Homer had his Homer, and Orpheus
his Orpheus, in the dim antiquity which preceded them.
The mythological system of the ancients, and it is still
the mythology of the moderns, the poem of mankind, in
terwoven so wonderfully with their astronomy, and
matching in grandeur and harmony the architecture of
the heavens themselves, seems to point to a time when a
mightier genius inhabited the earth. But, after all, man
is the great poet, and not Homer nor Shakespeare ; and
our language itself, and the common arts of life, are his
work. Poetry is so universally true and independent of
experience, that it does not need any particular biography
to illustrate it, but we refer it sooner or later to some
Orpheus or Linus, and after ages to the genius of human
ity and the gods themselves.

It would be worth the while to select our reading, for
books are the society we keep ; to read only the serenely
true ; ntver statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports

SUNDAY. 103

nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they
failed, read them again, or perchance write more. In
stead of other sacrifice, we might offer up our perfect
(reXeta) thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms.
For we should be at the helm at least once a day. The
whole of the day should not be daytime ; there should
be one hour, if no more, which the day did not bring
forth. Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a
mess of learning. But is it necessary to know what the
speculator prints, or the thoughtless study, or the idle
read, the literature of the Russians and the Chinese, or
even French philosophy and much of German criticism.
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance
to read them at all. " There are the worshippers with
offerings, and the worshippers with mortifications ; and
again the- worshippers with enthusiastic devotion ; so
there are those the wisdom of whose reading is their
worship, men of subdued passions and severe manners ;
— This world is not for him who doth not worship ; and
where, O Arjoon, is there another ? " Certainly, we do
not need to be soothed and entertained always like chil
dren. He who resorts to the easy novel, because he is
.anguid, does no better than if he took a nap. The front
aspect of great thoughts can only be enjoyed by those
who stand on the side whence they arrive. Books, not
which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each
thought is of unusual daring ; such as an idle man cannot
read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which
even make us dangerous to existing institutions, — such
call I good books.

All that are printed and bound are not books ; they
do not necessarily belong to letters, but are oftener to be
•anked with the other luxuries and appendages of civil-

104 A WEEK.

ized life. Base wares are palmed off under a thousand
disguises. " The way to trade," as a pedler once told
me, " is to put it right through" no matter what it is,
anything that is agreed on.

" You grov'liug worldlings, you whose wisdom trades
Where light ne'er shot his golden ray."

By dint of able writing and pen-craft, books are cun
ningly compiled, and have their run and success even
among the learned, as if they were the result of a new
man's thinking, and their birth were attended with some
natural throes. But in a little while their covers fall
off, for no binding will avail, and it appears that they
are not Books or Bibles at all. There are new and pat
ented inventions in this shape, purporting to be for the
elevation of the race, which many a pure scholar and
genius who has learned to read is for a moment deceived
by, and finds himself reading a horse-rake, or spinning-
jenny, or wooden nutmeg, or oak-leaf cigar, or steam-
power press, or kitchen range, perchance, when he was

seeking serene and biblical truths.

" Merchants, arise,
And mingle conscience with your merchandise."

Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one
book before they write another. Instead of cultivating
the earth for wheat and potatoes, they cultivate litera
ture, and fill a place in the Republic of Letters. Or
they would fain write for fame merely, as others actually
raise crops of grain to be distilled into brandy. Books
are for the most part wilfully and hastily written, as
parts of a system, to supply a want real or imagined.
Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty
schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some
clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine vie*

SUNDAY. 105

nf nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular
method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct
the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the
professors always dwell.

*' To Athens gowned he goes, and from that school
Returns unsped, a more instructed fool."

They teach the elements really of ignorance, not of
knowledge, for, to speak deliberately and in view of the
highest truths, it is not easy to distinguish elementary
knowledge. There is a chasm between knowledge and
ignorance which the arches of science can never span,
A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra
jirma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art
of navigation by those who have never been out of sight
of land. They must not yield wheat and potatoes, but
must themselves be the unconstrained and natural har
vest of their author's lives.

" What I have learned is mine ; I 've had my thought,
And me the Muses noble truths have taught."

We do not learn much from learned books, but from
true, sincere, human books, from frank and honest biog
raphies. The life of a good man will hardly improve
us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable
laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the ob
servance, and our lives are sustained by a nearly equal
expense of virtue of some kind. The decaying tree,
while yet it lives, demands sun, wind, and rain no less
than the green one. It secretes sap and performs the
functions of health. If we choose, we may study the
alburnum only. The gnarled stump has as tender a bud
as the sapling.

At least let us have healthy books, a stout horse-rake
5*

106 A WEKK.

*r a kitchen range which is not cracked. Let not the
poet shed tears only for the public weal. He should be
as vigorous as a sugar-maple, with sap enough to main
tain his own verdure, beside what runs into the troughs,
and not like a vine, which being cut in the spring bears
no fruit, but bleeds to death in the endeavor to heal its
wounds. The poet is he that hath fat enough, like bears
and marmots, to suck his claws all winter. He hibernates
in this world, and feeds on his own marrow. We love
to think in winter, as we walk over the snowy pastures,
of those happy dreamers that lie under the sod, of dor
mice and all that race of dormant creatures, which have
such a superfluity of life enveloped in thick folds of fur,
impervious to cold. Alas, the poet too is, in one sense,
a sort of dormouse gone into winter quarters of deep and
serene thoughts, insensible to surrounding circumstances ;
his words are the relation of his oldest and finest memory,
a wisdom drawn from the remotest experience. Other
men lead a starved existence, meanwhile, like hawks,
that would fain keep on the wing, and trust to pick up a
sparrow now and then.

There are already essays and poems, the growth of
vhis land, which are not in vain, all which, however, we
could conveniently have stowed in the till of our chest.
If the gods permitted their own inspiration to be breathed
in vain, these might be overlooked in the crowd, but the
accents of truth are as sure to be heard at last on earth
as in heaven. They already seem ancient, and in some
measure have lost the traces of their modern birth. Here
are they who

" ask for that which is our whale life's light,
For the perpetual, true and cleur iusig^t"

107

I remember a few sentences which spring like the sward
in its native pasture, where its roots were never disturbed,
and not as if spread over a sandy embankment ; answer
ing to the poet's prayer,

" Let us set so just

A rate on knowledge, that the world may trust
The poet's sentence, and not still aver
Each art is to itself a flatterer."

But, above all, in our native port, did we not frequent
the peaceful games of the Lyceum, from which a new era
will be dated to New England, as from the games of
Greece. For if Herodotus carried his history to Olympia
to read, after the cestus and the race, have we not heard
such histories recited there, which since our countrymen
have read, as made Greece sometimes to be forgotten ?
— Philosophy, too, has there her grove and portico, not
wholly unfrequented in these days.

Lately the victor, whom all Pindars praised, has won
another palm, contending with

" Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so."

What earth or sea, mountain or stream, or Muses' spring
or grove, is safe from his all-searching ardent eye, who
drives off Phoebus' beaten track, visits unwonted zones,
makes the gelid Hyperboreans glow, and the old polar
serpent writhe, and many a Nile flow back and hide his
bead!

That Phaeton of our day,

Who 'd make another milky way,

And burn the world up with his ray

By us an undisputed seer, —

Who 'd drive his flaming car so near

Unto our shuddering mortal sphere,

108 A WKEK.

Disgracing all our slender worth,
And scorching up the living earth,
To prove his heavenly birth.

The silver spokes, the golden tire,
Are glowing with unwonted fire,
And ever nigher roll and nigher;

The pins and axle melted are,

The silver radii fly afar,

Ah, he will spoil his Father's car!

Who let him have the steeds he cannot steer?
Henceforth the sun will not shine for a year;
And we shall Ethiops all appear.

From his

"lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle."

And yet, sometimes,

We should not mind if on our ear there fell
Some less of cunning, more of oracle.

It is Apollo shining in your face. O rare Contempo
rary, let us have far-off heats. Give Us the subtler, the
heavenlier though fleeting beauty, which passes through
and through, and dwells not in the verse ; even pure
water, which but reflects those tints which wine wears in
its grain. Let epic trade-winds blow, and cease this
waltz of inspirations. Let us oftener feel even the gen
tle southwest wind upon our cheeks blowing from the
Indian's heaven. What though we lose a thousand me*
teors from the sky, if skyey depths, if star-dust and un-
dissolvable nebula remain ? What though we lose a
thousand wise responses of the oracle, if we may have
instead some natural acres of Ionian earth ?
Though we know well,

" That *C is not in the power of kings [or presidents! to raise
A spirit for verse that i.° "ot h/>rn thereto,
Nor are they born in every prince's days";

8' flSDAY. 1 09

yet spite of all they sang in praise of they* "Eliza's
reign," we have evidence that poets may be born and
sing in our day, in the presidency of James K. Polk,

"And that the utmost powers of English rhyme,"
Were not " within her peaceful reign confined."

The prophecy of the poet Daniel is already how much
more than fulfilled !

" And who in time knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident,
May come refined with the accents that are ours."

Enough has been said in these days of the charm of
fluent writing. We hear it complained of some works of
genius, that they have fine thoughts, but are irregular
and have no flow. But even the mountain peaks in the
horizon are, to the eye of science, parts of one range.
We should consider that the flow of thought is more like
a tidal wave than a prone river, and is the result of a
celestial influence, not of any declivity in its channel.
The river flows because it runs down hill, and flows
the faster the faster it descends. The reader who expects
to float down stream for the whole voyage, may well
complain of nauseating swells and choppings of the sea
when his frail shore-craft gets amidst the billows of the
ocean stream, which flows as much to sun and moon as
lesser streams to it. But if we would appreciate' the flow
that is in these books, we must expect to feel it rise from
the page like an exhalation, and wash away our critical
brains like burr millstones, flowing to higher levels above
and behind ourselves. There is many a book which
ripples on like a fresnet, and flows as glibly as a mill-

116 A WEEK.

itream sucking under a causeway ; and when their au
thors are in the full tide of their discourse, Pythagoras
and Plato and Jamblichus halt beside them. Their
long, stringy, eliray sentences are of that consistency that
they naturally flow and run together. They read as if
written for military men, for men of business, there is
such a despatch in them. Compared with these, the
grave thinkers and philosophers seem not to have got
their swaddling-clothes off; they are slower than a Ro
man army in its march, the rear camping to-night where
the van camped last night The wise Jamblichus eddies
and gleams like a watery slough.

" How many thousands never heard the name
Of Sidney, or of Spenser, or their books?
And yet brave fellows, and presume of fame,
And seem to bear down all the world with looks."

The ready writer seizes the pen, and shouts, Forward !
Alamo and Fanning! and after rolls the tide of war.
The very walls and fences seem to travel. But the
most rapid trot is no flow after all ; and thither, reader
you and I, at least, will not follow.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely
rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance
of the thought ; as if we could be satisfied with the dews
of the morning or evening without their colors, or the
heavens without their azure. The most attractive sen-
tences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and
roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively, as
if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if
not wise, they have at least been well learned. Sir Wal
ter Raleigh might well be studied if only for the excel
lence of his style, for he is remarkable in the midst of sc
many masters. There is a natural emphasis in his style

SUNDAY. Ill

like a man's tread, and a breathing space between the
sentences, which the best of modern writing does not
furnish. His chapters are like English parks, or say
rather like a Western forest, where the larger growth
keeps down the underwood, and one may ride on horse
back through the openings. All the distinguished writ
ers of that period possess a greater vigor and natural
ness than the more modern, — for it is allowed to slander
our own time, — and when we read a quotation from one
of them in the midst of a modern author, we seem to
have come suddenly upon a greener ground, a greater
depth and strength of soil. It is as if a green bough
were laid across the page, and we are refreshed as by
the sight of fresh grass in midwinter or early spring.
You have constantly the warrant of life and expe
rience in what you read. The little that is said is
eked out by implication of the much that was done.
The sentences are verdurous and blooming as evergreen
and flowers, because they are rooted in fact and expe
rience, but our false and florid sentence have only the
tints of flowers without their sap or roots. All men are
really most attracted by the beauty of plain speech, and
they even write in a florid style in imitation of this.
They prefer to be misunderstood rather than to come
uhort of its exuberance. Hussein EfFencli praised the
epistolary style of Ibrahim Pasha to the French travel
ler Botta, because of " the difficulty of understanding it ;
there was," he said, " but one person at Jidda, who was
capable of understanding and explaining the Pasha's
correspondence." A man's whole life is taxed for the
least thing well done. It is it.> net result. Every sen
tence is the result of a long probation. Where shall we
ook for standard English, but to the words of a stand-

112 A WEEK.

Rrd man ? The word which is best said came nearest to
not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which
the speaker could have better done. Nay, almost it
must have taken the place of a deed by some urgent
necessity, even by some misfortune, so that the truest
writer will be some captive knight, after all. And per
haps the fates had such a design, when, having stored
Raleigh so richly with the substance of life and experi
ence, they made him a fast prisoner, and compelled him
to make his words his deeds, and transfer to his expres
sion the emphasis and sincerity of his action.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning
greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly
serve. We are amused to read how Ben Jonson en
gaged, that the dull masks with which the royal family
and nobility were to be entertained should be " grounded
upon antiquity and solid learning." Can there be any
greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn to spl't
wood, at least. The necessity of labor and conversation
with many men and things, to the scholar is rarely well
remembered ; steady labor with the hands, which en
grosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best
method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of
one's style, both of speaking and writing. If he has
worked hard from morning till night, though he may
have grieved that he could not be watching the train of
his thoughts during that time, yet the few hasty lines
which at evening record his day's experience will be
more musical and true than his freest but idle fancy
could have furnished. Surely the writer is to address
a world of laborers, and such therefore must be his own
discipline. He will not idly dance at his work who has
wood to cut and cord before nightfall in the short dayg

SUNDAY. 113

of winter; but every stroke will be husbanded, and ring
poberly through the wood; and so will the strokes of
that scholar's pen, which at evening record the story of
the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the ear of the
reader, long after the echoes of his axe have died away.
The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher
truth for the calluses on his palms. They give firmness
to the sentence. Indeed, the mind never makes a great
and successful effort, without a corresponding energy of
the body. We are often struck by the force and pre
cision of style to which hard-working men, unpractised
in writing, easily attain when required to make the effort.
As if plainness, and vigor, and sincerity, the ornaments
of style, were better learned on the farm and in the
workshop, than in the schools. The sentences written
by such rude hands are nervous and tough, like hard
ened thongs, the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the
pine. As for the graces of expression, a great thought
is never found in a mean dress ; but though it proceed
from the lips of the Woloffs, the nine Muses and the
three Graces will have conspired to clothe it in fit
phrase. Its education has always been liberal, and its
implied wit can endow a college. The world, which the
Greeks called Beauty, has been made such by being
gradually divested of every ornament which was not
fitted to endure. The Sibyl, " speaking with inspired
mouth, smileless, inornate, and unperfumed, pierces
through centuries by the power of the god." The
Bcholar might frequently emulate the propriety and em
phasis of the farmer's call to his team, and confess that
if that were written it would surpass his labored sen
tences. Whose are the truly labored sentences ? From
the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary

114 A WEEK.

man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work,
t'he simple record of the month's labor in the farmer's
almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.. A sentence
should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead
of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight
to the end. The scholar requires hard and serious labor
to give an impetus to his thought. He will learn to
grasp the pen firmly so, and wield it gracefully and
effectively, as an axe or a sword. When we consider
the weak and nerveless periods of some literary men,
who perchance in feet and inches come up to the stand
ard of their race, and are not deficient in girth also, we
are amazed at the immense sacrifice of thews and sin
ews. What! these proportions, — these bones, — and
this their work ! Hands which could have felled an ox
have hewed this fragile matter which would not have
tasked a lady's fingers ! Can this be a stalwart man's
work, who has a marrow in his back and a tendon
Achilles in his heel ? They who set up the blocks of
Stonehenge did somewhat, if they only laid out their
strength for once, and stretched themselves.

Yet, after all, the truly efficient laborer will not crowd
his day with work, but will saunter to his task surround
ed by a wide halo of ease and leisure, and then do but
what he loves best. He is anxious only about the
fruitful kernels of time. Though the hen should sit all
day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would no*
have picked up materials for another. Let a man take
lime enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but
the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly,
without hurry or confusion, as if the short spring days
tvere an eternity.

Then spend an age in whetting thy desire,
Thou needs't not hatten if thon dost standfast.

SUNDAY. 115

Some hours seem not to be occasion for an} deed, but
for resolves to draw breath in. We do not directly go
about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but
shut our doors behind us and ramble with prepared
mind, as if the half were already done. Our resolution
is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first
send a shoot downward which is fed by their own albu
men, ere they send one upward to the light.

There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in
some books which is very rare to find, and yet looks
cheap enough. There may be nothing lofty in the senti
ment, or fine in the expression, but it is careless country
talk. Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book
as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is
next to beauty, and a very high art. Some have this
merit only. The scholar is not apt to make his most
familiar experience come gracefully to the aid of his ex
pression. Very few men can speak of Nature, for
instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty,
somehow or other, and confer no favor. They do not
speak a good word for her. Most cry better than they
speak, and you can get more nature out of them by
pinching than by addressing them. The surliness with
\vhich the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling
them as indifferently as his axe, is better than the mealy-
mouthed enthusiasm of the lover of nature. Better that
the primrose by the river's brim be a yellow primrose,
and nothing more, than that it be something less. Au
brey relates of Thomas Fuller that his was "a very
working head, insomuch that, walking and meditating
before dinner, he would eat up a penny loaf, not know
ing that he did it. His natural memory was very great

116 A WEEK.

to which he added the art of memory. He would repeat
to you forwards and backwards all the signs from Lud-
gate to Charing Cross." He says of Mr. John Hales,
that, " He loved Canarie," and was buried " under an

altar monument of black marble with a too

long epitaph " ; of Edmund Halley, that he " at sixteen
could make a dial, and then, he said, he thought himself
a brave fellow " ; of William Holder, who wrote a book
upon his curing one Popham who was deaf and dumb,
" he was beholding to no author ; did only consult with
nature." For the most part, an author consults only
with all who have written before him upon a subject, and
his book is but the advice of so many. But a good book
will never have been forestalled, but the topic itself will
in one sense be new, and its author, by consulting with
nature, will consult not only with those who have gone
before, but with those who may come after. There is
always room and occasion enough for a true book on any
subject; as there is room for more light the brightest
day and more rays will not interfere with the first.

We thus worked our way up this river, gradually ad
justing our thoughts to novelties,- beholding from its placid
bosom a new nature and new works of men, and, as it
were with increasing confidence, finding nature still habi
table, genial, and propitious to us ; not following any
beaten path, but the windings of the river, as ever the
nearest way for us. Fortunately we had no business in
this country. The Concord had rarely been a river, or
rivus, but barely fluvius, or between fluvius and lacus
This Merrimack was neither rivus nor fluvius nor lacus
but rather amnis here, a gently swelling and stately
rolling flood approaching the sea. We could even sym»

SUNDAY. 117

pathize with its buoyant tide, going to seek its fortune
in the ocean, and, anticipating the time when "being
received within the plain of its freer water/' it should
" beat the shores for banks," —

"campoque rccepta
Liberioris aquae, pro ripis litora pulsant."

At length we doubled a low shrubby islet, called
Rabbit Island, subjected alternately to the sun and to
the waves, as desolate as if it lay some leagues within
the icy sea, and found ourselves in a narrower part of
the river, near the sheds and yards for picking the stone
known as the Chelmsford granite, which is quarried m
Westford and the neighboring towns. We passed Wica-
suck Island, which contains seventy acres or more, on
our right, between Chelmsford and Tyngsborough. This
was a favorite residence of the Indians. According to
the History of Dunstable, "About 1663, the eldest son
of Passaconaway [Chief of the Penacooks] was thrown
into jail for a debt of £45, due to John Tinker, by one
of his tribe, and which he had promised verbally should
be paid. To relieve him from his imprisonment, his
brother Wannalancet and others, who owned Wicasuck
Island, sold it and paid the debt." It was, however, re
stored to the Indians by the General Court in 1665.
After the departure of the Indians in 1683, it was
granted to Jonathan Tyng in payment for his services
to the colony, in maintaining a garrison at his house.
Tyng's house stood not far from Wicasuck Falls. Goo-
kin, who, in his Epistle Dedicatory to Robert Boyle,
apologizes for presenting his " matter clothed in a wil
derness dress," says that on the breaking out of Philip's
war in 1675, there were taken up by the Christian
Indians and the English in Marlborough, and sent to

118 A WEEK.

Cambridge, seven " Indians belonging to Narragansett.
Long Island, and Pequod, who had all been at work
about seven weeks with one Mr. Jonathan Tyng, of
Dunstable, upon Merrimack River ; and, hearing of the
war, they reckoned with their master, and getting theif
wages, conveyed themselves away without his privity,
and, being afraid, marched secretly through the woods,
designing to go to their own country." However, they
were released soon after. Such were the hired men in
those days. Tyng was the first permanent settler of
Dunstable, which then embraced what is now Tyngs-
borough and many other towns. In the winter of
1675, in Philip's war, every other settler left the town,
but " he," says the historian of Dunstable, " fortified his
house; and, although 'obliged to send to .Boston for
his food,' sat himself down in the midst of his savage
enemies, alone, in the wilderness, to defend his home.
Deeming his position an important one for the defence of
the frontiers, in February, 1C7G, he petitioned the Colony
for aid," humbly showing, as his petition runs, that, as he
lived " in the uppermost house on Merrimac river, lying
open to ye enemy, yet being so seated that it is, as it
were, a watch-house to the neighboring towns," he could
render important service to his country if only he had
some assistance, " there being," he said, 4t never an in
habitant left in the town but myself." Wherefore he
requests that their " Honors would be pleased to order
him three or four men to help garrison his said house,"
which they did. But methinks that such a garrisot
would be weakened by the addition of a man.

" Make bandog thy scout watch to bark at a thief,
Make courage for life, to be capitain chief;
Make trap-door thy bulwark, make bell to begin,
Make gunstoue and arrow show who is within."

113

Thus he earned the title of first permanent settler. In
1694 a law was passed "that every settler who deserted
a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his rights
therein." But now, at any rate, as I have frequently
observed, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories
of truth and justice, which are the State's best lands, for
fear of far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any
of his civil rights therein. Nay, townships are granted
to deserters, and the General Court, as I am sometimes
inclined to regard it, is but a deserters' camp itself.

As we rowed along near the shore of Wicasuck Island,
which was then covered with wood, in order to avoid the
current, two men, who looked as if they had just run
out of Lowell, where they had been waylaid by the
Sabbath, meaning to go to Nashua, and who now found
themselves in the strange, natural, uncultivated, and
unsettled part of the globe which intervenes, full of walln
and barriers, a rough and uncivil place to them, seeing
our boat moving so smoothly up the stream, called out
from the high bank above our heads to know if we
would take them as passengers, as if this were the street
they had missed ; that they might sit and chat and drive
away the time, and so at last find themselves in Nashua.
This smooth way they much preferred. But our boat
was crowded with necessary furniture, and sunk low in
the water, and moreover required to be worked, for even
it did not progress against the stream without effort ; so
we were obliged to deny them passage. As we glided
away with even sweeps, while the fates scattered oil in
our course, the sun now sinking behind the alders on the
distant shore, we could still see them far off over the
water, running along the shore and climbing over the
rocks and fallen trees like insects, — for they did not

120 A WEEK.

know any better than we that they were on an island,—
the unsympathizing river ever flowing in an opposite
direction ; until, having reached the entrance of the
island brook, which they had probably crossed upon the
locks below, they found a more effectual barrier to their
progress. They seemed to be learning much in a little
time. They ran about like ants on a burning brand,
and once more they tried the river here, and once more
there, to see if water still indeed was not to be walked
on, as if a new thought inspired them, and by r-ome pecu
liar disposition of the limbs they could accomplish it
At length sober common sense seemed to have resumed
its sway, and they concluded that what they had so long
heard must be true, and resolved to ford the shallower
stream. When nearly a mile distant we could see them
stripping off their clothes and preparing for this experi •
ment ; yet it seemed likely that a new dilemma would
arise, they were so thoughtlessly throwing away their
clothes on the wrong side of the stream, as in the case
of the countryman with his corn, his fox, and his goose,
which had to be transported one at a time. Whether
they got safely through, or went round by the locks, we
never learned. We could not help being struck by the
seeming, though innocent indifference of Nature to these
men's necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serv
ing others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her
service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest met
chant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim's
shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop
Bhell.

We, too, who held the middle of the stream, came
near experiencing a pilgrim's fate, being tempted tc
pursue what seemed a sturgeon or larger fish, for we re

SUNDAY. 121

membered that this was the Sturgeon River, its dark
and monstrous back alternately rising and sinking in
mid-stream. We kept falling behind, but the fish kept
his back well out, and did not dive, and seemed to prefer
to swim against the stream, so, at any rate, he would not
escape us by going out to sea. At length, having got
as near as was convenient, and looking out not to get a
blow from his tail, now the bow-gunner delivered his
charge, while the stern-man held his ground. But the
halibut-skinned monster, in one of these swift-gliding
pregnant moments, without ever ceasing his bobbing up
and down, saw fit, without a chuckle or other prelude, to
proclaim himself a huge imprisoned spar, placed there as
a buoy, to warn sailors of sunken rocks. So, each cast
ing some blame upon the other, we withdrew quickly to
safer waters.

The Scene-shifter saw fit here to close the drama, of
this day, without regard to any unities which we mortals
prize. Whether it might have proved tragedy, or com
edy, or tragi-comedy, or pastoral, we cannot tell. This
Sunday ended by the going down of the sun, leaving us
still on the waves. But they who are on the water
enjoy a longer and brighter twilight than they who are
on the land, for here the water, as well as the atmosphere,
absorbs and reflects the light, and some of the day seems
to have sunk down into the waves. The light gradual
ly forsook the deep water, as well as the deeper air, and
the gloaming came to the fishes as well as to us, and
more dim and gloomy to them, whose day is a perpetual
twilight, though sufficiently bright for their weak and
watery eyes. Vespers had already rung in many a dim
and watery chapel down below, where the shadows of
the weeds were extended in length over the sandy floor
6

P22 A WKI-:K.

The vespertinal pout had already begun to flit on leath«
ern fin, and the finny gossips withdrew from the fluvial
street to creeks and coves, and other private haunts,
excepting a few of stronger fin, which anchored in the
stream, stemming the tide even in their dreams. Mean
while, like a dark evening cloud, we were wafted over
the cope of their sky, deepening the shadows on their
deluged fields.

Having reached a retired part of the river where it
spread out to sixty rods in width, we pitched our tent on
the east side, in Tyngsborough, just above some patches of
the beach plum, which was now nearly ripe, where the
sloping bank was a sufficient pillow, and with the bustle
of sailors making the land, we transferred such stores as
were required from boat to tent, and hung a lantern to
the tent-pole, and so our house was ready. With a buf
falo spread on the grass, and a blanket for our covering
our bed was soon made. A fire crackled merrily before
the entrance, so near that we could tend it without step
ping abroad, and when we had supped, we put out the
blaze, and closed the door, and with the semblance of
domestic comfort, sat up to read the Gazetteer, to learn
our latitude and longitude, and write the journal of the
voyage, or listened to the wind and the rippling of the
river till sleep overtook us. There we lay under an oak
on the bank of the stream, near to some farmer's corn
field, getting sleep, and forgetting where we were ; a
great blessing, that we are obliged to forget our enter
prises every twelve hours. Minks, muskrats, meadow-
mice^ woodchucks, squirrels, skunks, rabbits, foxes, and
weasels, all inhabit near, but keep very close while you
are there. The river sucking and eddying away alj
night down toward the marts and the seaboard, a great

SUNDAY. 123

wash and freshet, and no small enterprise to reflect on.
Instead of the Scythian vastness of the Billerica night,
and its wild musical sounds, we were kept awake by the
boisterous sport of some Irish laborers on the railroad,
wafted to us over the water, still unwearied and unresting
on this seventh day, who would not have done with
whirling up and down the track with ever increasing
velocity and still reviving shouts, till late in the night.

One sailor was visited in his dreams this night by the
Evil Destinies, and all those powers that are hostile to
human life, which constrain and oppress the minds of
men, and make their path seem difficult and narrow, and
beset with dangers, so that the most innocent and worthy
enterprises appear insolent and a tempting of fate, and
the gods go not with us. But the other happily passed
a serene and even ambrosial or immortal night, and his
sleep was dreamless, or only the atmosphere of pleasant
dreams remained, a happy natural sleep until the morn
ing ; and his cheerful spirit soothed and reassured his
brother, for whenever they meet, the Good Genius is
sure to prevail.

MONDAY.

SI thynke for to touche also
The worlde whiche newetii o»cri. ..Je,
So as I can, so as I male."

Gowgm.

"The bye sheryfe of Notynghame,
Hym holde in your mynde."

Robin Hood, Ballad*.

•*Ht§ shoote it was bat loosely shott,

Yet flewe not the arrowe in raine,

For it mett ^ne of the sheriffe's men,

* v* W'lliara a Trent was slaine."

Robin Hood Ballad*

on toe Heavens for what he missed on Earth."
Britania't Pa*toral»

MONDAY.

WHEN the first light dawned on the earth, and the
birds awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling
confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind
rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all men, having
reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and
cast aside doubt and fear, were invited to unattempted
adventures.

" All courageous knichtis
Agains the day dichtis
The breest-plate that bricht is,

To feght with their foue.
The stoned steed stampis
Throw curage and crampis,
Syne on the land lampis;

The night is neir gone."

One of us took the boat over to the opposite shore,
which was flat and accessible, a quarter of a mile dis
tant, to empty it of water and wash out the clay,
while the other kindled a fire and got breakfast ready.
At an early hour we were again on our way, rowing
through the fog as before, the river already awake, and
a million crisped waves come forth to meet the sun when
he should show himself. The countrymen, recruited by
their day of rest, were already stirring, and had begun
to cross the ferry on the business of the week. This
ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world

128 A WEEK.

seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at
this particular point, waiting to get set over, — children
with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke
loose and constable with warrant, travellers from distant
lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the
Merrimack River was a bar. There stands a gig in the
gray morning, in the mist, the impatient traveller pacing
the wet shore with whip in hand, and shouting through
the fog after the regardless Charon and his retreating
ark, as if he might throw that passenger overboard and
return forthwith for himself; he will compensate him.
He is to break his fast at some unseen place on the op
posite side. It may be Ledyard or the Wandering Jew.
Whence, pray, did he come out of the foggy night ? and
whither through the sunny day will he go? We observe
only his transit ; important to us, forgotten by him, tran
siting all day. There are two of them. May be, they
are Virgil and Dante. But when they crossed the Styx,
none were seen bound up or down the stream, that I
remember. It is only a transjectus, a transitory voyage,
like life itself, none but the long-lived gods bound up or
down the stream. Many of these Monday men are
ministers, no doubt, reseeking their parishes with hired
horses, with sermons in their valises all read and gutted,
the day after never with them. They cross each other's
routes all the country over like woof and warp, making
a garment of loose texture ; vacation now for six days.
They stop to pick nuts and berries, and gather apples
by the wayside at their leisure. Good religious men,
with the love of men in their hearts, and the means to
pay their toll in their pockets. We got over this ferry
chain without scraping, rowing athwart the tide of travel
— no toll for us That day.

MONDAY. 129

The fog dispersed and we rowed leisurely along
through Tyngsborough, with a clear sky and a mild at
mosphere, leaving the habitations of men behind and
.penetrating yet farther into the territory of ancient
Dunstable. It was from Dunstable, then a frontier town
that the famous Captain Lovewell, with his company,
marched in quest of the Indians on the 18th of April,
1725. He was the son of "an ensign in the army of
Oliver Cromwell, who came to this country, and settled
at Dunstable, where he died at the great age of one hun
dred and twenty years." In the words of the old nursery
tale, sung about a hundred years ago, —

" He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide,
And hardships they endured to quell the Indian's pride."

In the shaggy pine forest of Pequawket they met the
" rebel Indians," and prevailed, after a bloody fight, and
a remnant returned home to enjoy the fame of their vic
tory. A township called Lovewell's Town, but now, for
some reason, or perhaps without reason, Pembroke, wap
granted them by the State.

" Of all our valiant English, there were but thirty-four,
And of the rebel Indians, there were about four-score;
And sixteen of our English did safely home return,
The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn.

" Our worthy Capt. Lovewell among them there did die,
They killed Lieut. Bobbins, and wounded good young Frye,
Who was our English Chaplin; he many Indians slew,
And some of them he scalped while bullets round him flew."

Our brave forefathers have exterminated all the In
dians, and their degenerate children no longer dwell in
garrisoned houses nor hear any war-whoop in their path.
It wonld be well, perchance, if many an " English Chap
lin " in these days could exhibit as unquestionable tro-
6* I

130 A WEEK.

phies of his valor as did " good young Frye." We have
need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or
Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another
trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes.
What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages
as grim prowling about the clearings to-day ? —

M And braving many dangers and hardships in the way,
They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth ( ?) day of May."

But they did not all "safe arrive in Dunstable the
thirteenth," or the fifteenth, or the thirtieth "day of
May." Eleazer Davis and Josiah Jones, both of Con
cord, for our native town had seven men in this fight,
Lieutenant Farwell, of Dunstable; and Jonathan Frye,
of Andover, who were all wounded, were left behind,
creeping toward the settlements. "After travelling
several miles, Frye was left and lost," though a more
recent poet has assigned him company in his last
hours.

4 A man he was of comely form,

Polished and brave, well learned and kind;
Old Harvard's learned halls he left
Far in the wilds a grave to find.

" Ah! now his blood-red arm he lifts;

His closing lids he tries to raise;
And speak once more before he dies,
In supplication and in praise.

44 He prays kind Heaven to grant success,

Brave Lovewell' s men to guide and bless,
And when they 've shed their heart-blood true,
To raise them all to happiness."

*****

" Lieutenant Farwell took his hand,

His arm around his neck he threw,
And said, ' Brave Chaphiin, I could wish
That Heaven had made me die for you.' M

MONDAY. 131

Farwell held out eleven days. *' A tradition says," as
we .learn from the History of Concord, "that arriving at
a pond with Lieut. Farwell, Davis pulled off one of his
moccasins, cut it in strings, on which he fastened a hook,
caught some fish, fried and ate them. They refreshed
him, but were injurious to Farwell, who died soon after."
DaviB had a ball lodged in his body, and his right hand
shot off; but on the whole, he seems to have been less
damaged than his companion. He came into Berwick
after being out fourteen days. Jones also had a ball
lodged in his body, but he likewise got into Saco after
fourteen days, though not in the best condition imagin
able. " He had subsisted," says an old journal, " on the
spontaneous vegetables of the forest ; and cranberries
which he had eaten came out of wounds he had received
in his body." This was also the case with Davis.
The last two reached home at length, safe if not sound,
and lived many years in a crippled state to enjoy their
pension.

But alas ! of the crippled Indians, and their adven
tures in the woods, —

" For as we are informed, so thick and fast they fell,
Scarce twenty of their number at night did get home well," —

how many balls lodged with them, how fared their cran
berries, what Berwick or Saco they got into, and finally
what pension or township was granted them, there is no
journal to tell.

It is stated in the History of Dunstable, that just be
fore his last march, Lovewell was warned to beware of
the ambuscades of the enemy, but " he replied, * that he
did not care for them,' and bending down a small elm
beside which he was standing into a bow, declared 4 that
he would treat the In lians in the same way.' This elm

132 A WEEK.

is still standing [in Nashua], a venerable and magnifi
cent tree."

Meanwhile, having passed the Horseshoe Interval in
Tyngsborough, where the river makes a sudden bend to
the northwest, — for our reflections have anticipated our
progress somewhat, — we were advancing farther into
the country and into the day, which last proved almost
as golden as the preceding, though the slight bustle and
activity of the Monday seemed to penetrate even to this
scenery. Now and then we had to muster all our energy
to get round a point, where the river broke rippling over
rocks, and the maples trailed their branches in the
Btream, but there was generally a backwater or eddy on
the side, of which we took advantage. The river was
here about forty rods wide and fifteen feet dtep. Occa
sionally one ran along the shore, examining the country,
and visiting the nearest farm-houses, while the other fol
lowed the windings of the stream alone, to meet his
companion at some distant point, and hear the report of
his adventures ; how the farmer praised the coolness of
his well, and his wife offered the stranger a draught of
milk, or the children quarrelled for the only transparency
in the window that they might get sight of the man at
the well. For though the country seemed so new, and
no house was observed by us, shut in between the banks
that sunny day, we did not have to travel far to find
where men inhabited, like wild bees, and had sunk wells
in the loose sand and loam of the Merrimack. There
dwelt the subject of the Hebrew scriptures, and the
Esprit des Lois, where a thin vaporous smoke curled up
through the noon. All that is told of mankind, of the
inhabitants of the Upper Nib, and the Sutulerbunds

MONDAY. 133

and Timbuctoo, and the Orinoko, was experience here.
Every race and class of men was represented. Accord
ing to Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire, who
wrote sixty years ago, here too, perchance, dwelt " new
lights," and free thinking men even then. " The people
in general throughout the State," it is written, " are pro
fessors of the Christian religion in some form or other.
There is, however, a sort of wise men who pretend to
reject it ; but they have not yet been able to substitute
a better in its place."

The other voyageur, perhaps, would in the mean while
have seen a brown hawk, or a woodchuck, or a musquash
creeping under the alders.

We occasionally rested in the shade of a maple or a
willow, and drew forth a melon for our refreshment,
while we contemplated at our leisure the lapse of the
river and of human life ; and as that current, with its
floating twigs and leaves, so did all things pass in review
before us, while far away in cities and marts on this very
stream, the old routine was proceeding still. There is,
indeed, a tide in the affairs of men, as the poet says, and
yet as things flow they circulate, and the ebb always
balances the flow. All streams are but tributary to the
ocean, which itself does not stream, and the shores are
unchanged, but in longer periods than man can measure.
Go where we will, we discover infinite change in partic
ulars only, not in generals. When I go into a museum
and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages,
I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long
ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the
streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near
at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men
Uved in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable to-day.

134 A WEEK.

'* Time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble
action which ought to be performed, and is delayed iu
the execution." So says Veeshnoo Sarma ; and we per
ceive that the schemers return again and again to com
mon sense and labor. Such is the evidence of history.

" Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of th«
Suns."

There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods,
of more importance than all the rest, which the historian
can never know.

There are many skilful apprentices, but few master
workmen. On every hand we observe a truly wise prac
tice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the
embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher. Who
does not see that heresies have some time prevailed, that
reforms have already taken place ? All this worldly
wisdom might be regarded as the once unaraiable heresy
of some wise man. Some interests have got a footing
on the earth which we have not made sufficient allow
ance for. Even they who first built these barns and
cleared the land thus, had some valor. The abrupt
epochs and chasms are smoothed down in history as the
inequalities of the plain are concealed by distance.
But unless we do more than simply learn the trade of
,)ur time, we are but apprentices, and not yet masters of
the art of life.

Now that we are casting away these melon seeds, how
can we help feeling reproach? He who eats the fruit,
should at least plant the seed ; aye, if possible, a better
seed than that whose fruit he has enjoyed. Seeds
there are seeds enough which need only to be stirred ii
with the soil where they lie, by an inspired voice or pen

MONDAY. 135

to bear fruit of a divine flavor. ' O thou spendthrift !
Defray thy debt to the world ; eat not the seed of insti
tutions, as the luxurious do, but plant it rather, while
thou devourest the pulp and tuber for thy subsistence ;
that so, perchance, one variety may at last be found
worthy of preservation.

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil
are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.
All laborers must have their nooning, and at this season
of the day, we are all, more or less, Asiatics, and give
over all work and reform. While lying thus on our oars
by the side of the stream, in the heat of the day, our
boat held by an osier put through the staple in its prow,
and slicing the melons, which are a fruit of the East, our
thoughts reverted to Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan, the
lands of contemplation and dwelling-places of the rumi
nant nations. In the experience of this noontide we
could find some apology even for the instinct of the
opium, betel, and tobacco chewers. Mount Saber, ac
cording to the French traveller and naturalist, Botta, is
celebrated for producing the Kat-tree, of which " the soft
tops of the twigs and tender leaves are eaten," says his
reviewer, " and produce an agreeable soothing excite
ment, restoring from fatigue, banishing sleep, and dis
posing to the enjoyment of conversation." We thought
that we might lead a dignified Oriental life along this
stream as well, and the maple and alders would be our
Kat-trees.

It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the
restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances
exist? So do you and I. Think you that sitting hens
are troubled with ennui these long summer days, sitting
on and on in the crevice of a hay-loft, without active

136 A WEEK.

employment ? By the faint cackling in distant barns, I
judge that dame Nature is interested still to know how
many eggs her hens lay. The Universal Soul, as it is
called, has an interest in the stacking of hay, the fodder
ing of cattle, and the draining of peat-meadows. Away
in Scythia, away in India, it makes butter and cheese.
Suppose that all farms are run out, and we youths must
buy old land and bring it to, still everywhere the relent
less opponents of reform bear a strange resemblance to
ourselves ; or, perchance, they are a few old maids and
bachelors, who sit round the kitchen hearth and listen
to the singing of the kettle. " The oracles often give
victory to our choice, and not to the order alone of the
mundane periods. As, for instance, when they say that
our voluntary sorrows germinate in us as the growth of
the particular life we lead." The reform which you talk
about can be undertaken any morning before unbarring
our doors. We need not call any convention. When
two neighbors begin to eat corn bread, who before ate
wheat, then the gods smile from ear to ear, for it is very
pleasant to them. Why do you not try it ? Don't let
me hinder you.

There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all
the world over, living on anticipation. Wolff, travelling
in the deserts of Bokhara, says, " Another party of der-
veeshes came to me and observed, * The time will come
when there shall be no difference between rich and
poor, between high and low, when property will be in
common, even wives and children.' " But forever I ask
of such, What then ? The derveeshes in the deserts of
Bokhara and the reformers in Marlboro' Chapel sing thft
same song. " There 's a good time coming, boys," but^
nski'd one of the audience, in good faith, " Can you fix
the date ? " Said I, " Will you help it along ? "

MONDAY. 137

The nonchalance and dolce-far-niente air of nature
and society hint at infinite periods in the progress of
mankind. The States have leisure to laugh from Maine
to Texas at some newspaper joke, and New England
shakes at the double-entendres of Australian circles,
while the poor reformer cannot get a hearing.

Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but
for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.
What we need to know in any case is very simple. It
is but too easy to establish another durable and harmo
nious routine. Immediately all parts of nature consent
to it. Only make something to take the place of some
thing, and men will behave as if it was the very thing
they wanted. They must behave, at any rate, and will
work up any material. There is always a present and
extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to
uphold. We should be slow to mend, my friends, as
slow to require mending, "Not hurling, according to
the oracle, a transcendent foot towards piety." The
language of excitement is at best picturesque merely.
You must be calm before you can utter oracles. What
was the excitement of the Delphic priestess compared
with the calm wisdom of Socrates ? — or whoever it
was that was wise. — Enthusiasm is a supernatural
serenity.

" Men find that action is another thing

Than what they in discoursing papers read;
The world's affairs require in managing
More arts than those wherein you clerks proceed."

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover
.he causes of all past change in the present invariable
order of society. The greatest appreciable physical
revolutions are the work of the lighf-footed air, the

138 A WEEK.

Healthy-paced water, and the subterranean fire. Aris
totle said, " As time never fails, and the universe is
eternal, neither the Tanais nor the Nile can have flowed
forever." We are independent of the change we detect
The longer the lever the less perceptible its motion.
It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital.
The hero then will know how to wait, as well as to
make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth
wisely; we shall sooner overtake the dawn by remain
ing here than by hurrying over the hills of the west.
Be assured that every man's success is in proportion to
his average ability. The meadow flowers spring and
bloom where the waters annually deposit their slime, not
where they reach in some freshet only. A man is not
his hope, nor his despair, nor yet his past deed. We
know not yet what we have done, still less what we are
doing. Wait till evening, and other parts of our day's
work will shine than we had thought at noon, and we
shall discover the real purport of our toil. As when the
farmer has reached the end of the furrow and looks
back, he can tell best where the pressed earth shines
most

To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the
true state of things, the political state can hardly be said
to have any existence whatever. It is unreal, incredible,
and insignificant to him, and for him to endeavor to ex
tract the truth from such lean material is like making
sugar from linen rags, when sugar-cane may be had.
Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic
or foreign, might be written to-day for the next ten years
will) sufficient accuracy. Most revolutions in society
have not power to interest, still less alarm us ; but tel»

MONDAY. 139

me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine
dying out in the country, and I might attend. Most
events recorded in history are more remarkable than
important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which
all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the
trouble to calculate.

But will the government never be so well adminis
tered, inquired one, that we private men shall hear
nothing about it ? " The king answered : At all events,
I require a prudent and able man, who is capable of
managing the state affairs of my kingdom. The ex-
minister said : The criterion, O Sire ! of a wise and
competent man is, that he will not meddle with such
like matters." Alas that the ex-minister should have
been so nearly right !

In my short experience of human life, the outward
obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living
men, but the institutions of the dead. It is grateful to
make one's way through this latest generation as through
dewy grass. Men are as innocent as the morning to the
unsuspicious.

" And round about good morrows fly,
As if day taught humanity."

Not being Reve of this Shire,

u The early pilgrim blithe he hailed,

That o'er the hills did stray,

And many an early husbandman,

That he met on the way " ; —

thieves and robbers all, nevertheless. I have not so
Burely foreseen that any Cossack or Chippeway would
come to disturb the honest and simple commonwealth, ad
that some monster institution would at length embrace
and crush its free members in its scaly folds ; for it is

140 A WEEK.

not to be forgotten, that while the law holds fast the
thief and murderer, it lets itself go loose. When I have
not paid the tax which the State demanded for that pro
tection which I did not want, itself has robbed me ; when
I have asserted the liberty it presumed to declare, itself
has imprisoned me. Poor creature ! if it knows no
better I will not blame it. If it cannot live but by these
means, I can. I do not wish, it happens, to be asso
ciated with Massachusetts, either in holding slaves or in
conquering Mexico. I am a little better than herself in
these respects. — As for Massachusetts, that huge she
Briareus, Argus and Colchian Dragon conjoined, set to
watch the Heifer of the Constitution and the Golden
Fleece, we would not warrant our respect for her, like
Borne compositions, to preserve its qualities through all
weathers. — Thus it has happened, that not the Arch
Fiend himself has been in my way, but these toils which
tradition says were originally spun to obstruct him.
They are cobwebs and trifling obstacles in an earnest
man's path, it is true, and at length one even becomes
attached to his unswept and undusted garret. I love
man — kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead un
kind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of
the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this
world, and the living are but their executors. Such
foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, com
monly. They are all Dudleian ; and piety derives its
origin still from that exploit of pius ^Eneas, who bore
his father, Anchises, on his shoulders from the ruins of
Troy. Or rather, like some Indian tribes, we bear about
with us the mouldering relics of our ancestors on our
shoulders. If, for instance, a man asserts the value of
individual liberty over the merely political commonweal

MONDAY. 141

his neighbor still tolerates him, that he who is living
near him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the
State. Its officer, as a living man, may have human
virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an
institution, a jailer or constable it may be, he is not a
whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the
tragedy ; that men doing outrage to their proper natures,
even those called wise and good, lend themselves to
perform the office of inferior and brutal ones. Hence
come war and slavery in ; and what else may not come
in by this opening? But certainly there are modes by
which a man may put bread into his mouth which will
not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.

" Now turn again, turn again, said the pinder,

For a wrong way you have gone,
For you have forsaken the king's highway,
And made a path over the corn."

Undoubtedly, countless reforms are called for, because
society is not animated, or instinct enough with life, but
in the condition of some snakes which I have seen in
early spring, with alternate portions of their bodies torpid
and flexible, so that they could wriggle neither way. All
men are partially buried in the grave of custom, and of
some we see only the crown of the head above ground.
Better are the physically dead, for they more lively rot
Even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man's
life should be constantly as fresh as this river. It should
be the same channel, but a new water every instant.

" Virtues as rivers pass,
But still remains that virtuous man there was."

Most men have no inclination, no rapids, no cascades,
but marshes, arid alligators, and miasma instead. We

142 A WEEK.

read that when in the expedition of Alexander, Onesich-
tus was sent forward to meet certain of the Indian sect
of Gymnosophists, and he had told them of those new
philosophers of the West, Pythagoras, Socrates, and
Diogenes, and their doctrines, one of them named Dan-
damis answered, that " They appeared to him to have
been men of genius, but to have lived with too passive a
regard for the laws." The philosophers of the West are
liable to this rebuke still. " They say that Lieou-hia-
hoei, and Chao-lien did not sustain to the end their
resolutions, and that they dishonored their character.
Their language was in harmony with reason and justice ;
while their acts were in harmony with the sentiments of
men."

Chateaubriand said: "There are two things which
grow stronger in the breast of man, in proportion as he
advances in years : the love of country and religion. Let
them be never so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or
later present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms,
and excite in the recesses of our hearts an attachment
justly due to their beauty." It may be so. But even
this infirmity of noble minds marks the gradual decay of
youthful hope and faith. It is the allowed infidelity oi
age. There is a saying of the Yoloffs, " He who wa&
born first has the greatest number of old clothes," conse
quently M. Chateaubriand has more old clothes than 7
have. It is comparatively a faint and .reflected beauty
that is admired, not an essential and intrinsic one. It is
because the old are weak, feel their mortality, and think
that they have measured the strength of man. They
will not boast ; they will be frank and humble. Well,
let them have the few poor comforts they can keep
Humility is still a very human virtue. Thev look back

MONDAY. 1 43

on life, and so see not into the future. The prospect of
the young is forward and unbounded, mingling the future
with the present. In the declining day the thoughts
make haste to rest in darkness, and hardly look forward
to the ensuing morning. The thoughts of the old pre
pare for night and slumber. The same hopes and pros
pects are not for him who stands upon the rosy mountain
tops of life, and him who expects the setting of his earthly
day.

I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name
of it, was not given us for no purpose, or for a hinderance.
However flattering order and expediency may Jook, it is
but the repose of a lethargy, and we will choose rather
to be awake, though it be stormy, and maintain ourselves
on this earth and in this life, as we may, without signing
our death-warrant. Let us see if we cannot stay here,
where He has put us, on his own conditions. Does not
his law reach as far as his light ? The expedients of
the nations clash with one another, only the absolutely
right is expe-dient for all.

There are some passages in the Antigone of Sophocles,
well known to scholars, of which I am reminded in this
connection. Antigone has resolved to sprinkle sand on
the dead body of her brother Polynices, notwithstanding
the edict of King Creon condemning . to death that one
who should perform this service, which the Greeks
deemed so important, for the enemy of his country ; but
Ismene. who is of a less resolute and noble spirit, de
clines taking part with her sister in this work, and
Bays, —

" I, therefore, asking those under the earth to consider me,
khat I am compelled to do thus, will obey those who are
placed in office ; for to do extreme things is not wise.1'

144 A WEEK.

ANTIGONE.

" I would not ask you, nor would you, if you still wished,
do it joyfully with me. Be such as seems good to you. But
I will bury him. It is glorious for me doing this to die. I
beloved will lie with him beloved, having, like a criminal,
done what is holy ; since the time is longer which it is neces
sary for me to please those below, than those here, for there
I shall always lie. But if it seems good to you, hold in dis
honor things which are honored by the gods."

I8MENE.

** I indeed do not hold them in dishonor ; but to act in op
position to the citizens I am by nature unable."

Antigone being at length brought before King Creon,
he asks, —

** Did you then dare to transgress these laws ? "

ANTIGONE.

" For it was not Zeus who proclaimed these to me, nor
Justice who dwells with the gods below; it was not they
who established these laws among men. Nor did I think
tfiat your proclamations were so strong, as, being a mortal,
to be able to transcend the unwritten and immovable laws of
the gods. For not something now and yesterday, but for
ever these live, and no one knows from what time they ap
peared. I was not about to pay the penalty of violating
these to the gods, fearing the presumption of any man. For
I well knew that I should die, and why not ? even if you had
not proclaimed it."

This was concerning the burial of a dead body.

The wisest conservatism is that of the Hindoos. " Im
memorial cnstom is transcendent law," says Menu.
That i.«, it was the custom of the gods before men used
it. The fault of our New England custom is that it ia

MONDAY, 145

memorial. What is morality but immemorial custom ?
Conscience is the chief of conservatives. " Perform the
settled functions," says Kreeshna in the Bhagvat-Geeta ;
" action is preferable to inaction. The journey of thy
mortal frame may not succeed from inaction." — "A
man's own calling with all its faults, ought not to be for
saken. Every undertaking is involved in its faults as
the fire in its smoke." — " The man who is acquainted
with the whole, should not drive those from their works
who are slow of comprehension, and less experienced
than himself." — " Wherefore, O Arjoon, resolve to
fight," is the advice of the God to the irresolute sol
dier who fears to slay his best friends. It is a sublime
conservatism ; as wide as the world, and as unwearied as
time ; preserving the universe with Asiatic anxiety, in
that state in which it appeared to their minds. These
philosophers dwell on the inevitability and unchangeable-
ness of laws, on the power of temperament and constitu
tion, the three goon or qualities, and the circumstances
Dr birth and affinity. The end is an immense consola
tion ; eternal absorption in Brahma. Their speculations
never venture beyond their own table-lands, though
they are high and vast as they. Buoyancy, freedom,
flexibility, variety, possibility, which also are qualities
of the Unnamed, they deal not with. The undeserved
reward is to be earned by an everlasting moral drudg
ery; the incalculable promise of the morrow is, as it
were, weighed. And who will say that their conserva
tism has not been effectual? "Assuredly," says a
French translator, speaking of the antiquity and du
rability of the Chinese and Indian nations, and of the
wisdom of their legislators, " there are there some ves
tiges of the eternal laws which govern tte world."
7

146 A WEEK.

Christianity, on the other hand, is humane, practical,
and, in a large sense, radical. So many years and ages
of the gods those Eastern sages sat contemplating
Brahm, uttering in silence the mystic " Om," being ab
sorbed into the essence of the Supreme Being, never
going out of themselves, but subsiding farther and
deeper within ; so infinitely wise, yet infinitely stag
nant ; until, at last, in that same Asia, but in the western
part of it, appeared a youth, wholly unforetokl by them,
— not being absorbed into Bnihm, but bringing Brahm
down to earth and to mankind; in whom Bruhm had
awaked from his long sleep, and exerted himself, and
the day began, — a new avatar. The Brahman had
never thought to be a brother of mankind as well as a
child of God. Christ is the prince of Reformers and
Radicals. Many expressions in the New Testament
come naturally to the lips of all Protestants, and it fur
nishes the most pregnant and practical texts. There is
no harmless dreaming, no wise speculation in it, but
everywhere a substratum of good sense. It never re
flects, but it repents. There is no poetry in it, we may
say, nothing regarded in the light of beauty merely, but
moral truth is its object. All mortals are convicted by
its conscience.

The New Testament is remarkable for its pure mo
rality ; the best of the Hindo Scripture, for its pure in
tellectuality. The reader is nowhere raised into and
sustained in a higher, purer, or rarer region of thought
than in the Bhagvat-Geeta. Warren Hastings, in his
sensible letter recommending the translation of this book
to the Chairman of the East India Company, declares
the original to be " of a sublimity of conception, reason
ing, and diction almost unequalled," and that the writ

MONDAY. 147

ings of the Indian philosophers " will survive when the
British dominion in India shall have long ceased to
exist, and when the sources which it once yielded of
wealth and power are lost to remembrance." It is un
questionably one of the noblest and most sacred scrip
tures which have come down to us. Books are to be
distinguished by the grandeur of their topics, even more
than by the manner in which they are treated. The
Oriental philosophy approaches, easily loftier themes
than the modern aspires to ; and no wonder if it some
times prattle about them. It only assigns their due
rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or
rather does full justice to the latter. Western philoso
phers have not conceived of the significance of Contem
plation in their sense. Speaking of the spiritual dis
cipline to which the Brahmans subjected themselves,
and the wonderful power of abstraction to which they
attained, instances of which had come under his notice,
Hastings says : —

" To those who have never been accustomed to the separa
tion of the mind from the notices of the senses, it may not be
easy to conceive by what means such a power is to be at
tained ; since even the most studious men of our hemisphere
will find it difficult so to restrain their attention, but that it
will wander to some object of present sense or recollection ;
and even the buzzing of a fly will sometimes have the power
to disturb it. But if we are told that there have been men
«vho were successively, for ages past, in the daily habit of ab
stracted contemplation, begun in the earliest period of youth,
and continued in many to the maturity of age, each adding
Borne portion of knowledge to the store accumulated by his
predecessors ; it is not assuming too much to eonclude, that
as the mind ever gathers strength, like che body, by exercise,
»o in such an exercise it may in each have acquired the fac-

148 A WEEK.

ulty to which they aspired, and that their collective studies
may have led them to the discovery of new tracts and com
binations of sentiment, totally different from the doctrines
with which the learned of other nations are acquainted ; doc
trines which, however speculative and subtle, still as they
possess the advantage of being derived from a source so free
from every adventitious mixture, may be equally founded in
truth with the most simple of our own."

" The forsaking of works " was taught by Kreeshna
to the most ancient of men, and banded down from age
to age,

" until at length, in the course of time, the mighty art was
lost.

" In wisdom is to be found every work without exception,*
a ays Kreeshna.

" Although thou wert the greatest of all offenders, thou
shalt be able to cross the gulf of sin with the bark of wis
dom."

" There is not anything in this world to be compared with
wisdom for purity."

" The action stands at a distance inferior to the application
of wisdom."

The wisdom of a Moonee " is confirmed, when, like the tor
toise, he can draw in all his members, and restrain them from
their wonted purposes."

u Children only, and not the learned, speak of the specula
tive and the practical doctrines as two. They are but one.
For both obtain the selfsame end, and the place which is
gained by the followers of the one is gained by the followers
of the other."

" The man enjoyeth not freedom from action, from the
non-commencement of that which he hath to do ; nor dotb
he obtain happiness from a total inactivity. No one ever
resteth a moment inactive. Every man is involuntarily urged
to act by those principle! which are inherent in his nature;

MONDAY. 149

The man who restraineth his active faculties, and sitteth
down with his mind attentive to the objects of his senses, is
called one of an astrayed soul, and the practiser of deceit.
So the man is praised, who, having subdued all his passions,
performeth with his active faculties all the functions of life,
unconcerned about the event."

" Let the motive be in the deed and not in the event. Be
not one whose motive for action is the hope of reward. Let
not thy life be spent in inaction."

" For the man who doeth that which he hath to do, without
affection, obtaineth the Supreme."

" He who may behold, as it were inaction in action, and
action in inaction, is wise amongst mankind. He is a perfect
performer of all duty."

" Wise men call him a Pandeet, whose every undertaking
is free from the idea of desire, and whose actions are con-
Burned by the fire of wisdom. He abandoneth the desire of a
reward of his actions ; he is always contented and indepen
dent ; and although he may be engaged in a work, he, as it
were, doeth nothing."

" He is both a Yogce and a Sannyasee who performeth
that which he hath to do independent of the fruit thereof;
ittot he who liveth without the sacrificial fire and without
action."

" He who enjoyeth but the Amreota which is left of hie of
ferings, obtaineth the eternal spirit of Brahm, the Supreme."

What, after all, does the practicalness of life amount
10? The things immediate to be done are very trivial.
I could postpone them all to hear this locust sing. The
mosfc glorious fact in my experience is not anything that
I have done or may hope to do, but a transient thought,
or vision, or dream, which I have had. I would give
all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the
neroes, for one true vision. But hjw can I vcommuni-
cate with the gods who am a pencil- maker on the earth,
And not be insane ?

150 A WEEK.

44 1 am the same to all mankind," says Kreeshna ; " there ii
not one who is worthy of my love or hatred."

This teaching is not practical in the sense in which
the New Testament is. It is not always sound sense in
practice. The Brahman never proposes courageously
to assault evil, but patiently to starve it out. His active
faculties are paralyzed by the idea of cast, of impassable
limits, of destiny and the tyranny of time. Kreeshna'a
argument, it must be allowed, is defective. No sufficient
reason is given why Arjoon should fight. Arjoon may
be convinced, but the reader is not, for his judgment is
not "formed upon the speculative doctrines of the
Sankhya Sastra" " Seek an asylum in wisdom alone " ;
but what is wisdom to a Western mind ? The duty
of which he speaks is an arbitrary one. When was it
established ? The Brahman's virtue consists in doing,
not right, but arbitrary things. What is that which a
man "hath to do"? What is "action"? What are
the " settled functions " ? What is " a man's own re
ligion," which is so much better than another's ? What
is " a man's own particular calling " ? What are the
duties which are appointed by one's birth ? It is a de
fence of the institution of casts, of what is called the
" natural duty " of the Kshetree, or soldier, " to attach
himself to the discipline,'1 " not to flee from the field,"
and the like. But they who are unconcerned about the
consequences of their actions are not therefore uncon
cerned about their actions.

Behold the difference between the Oriental and the
Occidental. The former has nothing to do in this world
the Litter is full of activity. The one looks in the sun
till his eyes are put out ; the other follows him prone in
his westward course. There is such a thin? as caste,

MONDAY. 151

even in the West ; I. it it is comparatively faint ; it is
conservatism here. It says, forsake not your calling,
outrage no institution, use no violence, rend no bonds ;
the State is thy parent. Its rirtue or manhood is wholly
filial. There is a struggle between the Oriental and Oc
cidental in every nation ; some who would be forever
contemplating the sun, and some who are hastening to
ward the sunset. The former class says to the latter,
When you have reached the sunset, you will be no
nearer to the sun. To which the latter replies, But we
BO prolong the day. The former " walketh but in that
night, when all things go to rest the night of time. The
contemplative Moonee sleepeth but in the day of time,
when all things wake."

To conclude these extracts, I can say, in the words of
Sanjay, " As, O mighty Prince ! I recollect again and
again this holy and wonderful dialogue of Kreeshna and
Arjoon, I continue more and more to rejoice ; and as I
recall to my memory the more than miraculous form of
Haree, my astonishment is great, and I marvel and re
joice again and again ! Wherever Kreeshna the God
of devotion may be, wherever Arjoon the mighty bow
man may be, there too, without doubt, are fortune, riches,
victory, and good conduct. This is my firm belief."

I would say to the readers of Scriptures, if they wish
for a good book, read the Bhagvat-Geeta, an episode to
the Mahabharat, said to have been written by Kreeshna
Dwypayen Veias, — known to have been written by

, more than four thousand years ago, — it matters

not whether three or four, or when, — translated by
Charles Wilkins. It deserves to Le read with reverence
even by Yankees, as a part of the sacred writings of a
devout people ; and the intelligent Hebrew will rejoice

152 A WEEK.

to find in it a moral grandeur and sublimity akin to those
of his own Scriptures.

To an American reader, who, by the advantage of his
position, can see over that strip of Atlantic coast to Asia
and the Pacific, who, as it were, sees the shore slope up
ward over the Alps to the Himmaleh Mountains, the
comparatively recent literature of Europe often appears
partial and clannish, and, notwithstanding the limited
range of his own sympathies and studies, the European
writer who presumes that he is speaking for the world,
is perceived by him to speak only for that corner of it
which he inhabits. One of the rarest of England's
scholars and critics, in his classification of the worthies
of the world, betrays the narrowness of his European
culture and the exclusiveness of his reading. None of
her children has done justice to the poets and philoso
phers of Persia or of India. They have even been bet
ter known to her merchant scholars than to her poets
and thinkers by profession. You may look in vain
through English poetry for a single memorable verse
inspired by these themes. Nor is Germany to be ex-
cepted, though her philological industry is indirectly
serving the cause of philosophy and poetry. Even
Goethe wanted that universality of genius which could
have appreciated the philosophy of India, if he had more
nearly approached it His genius was more practical,
dwelling much more in the regions of the understanding,
and was less native to contemplation than the genius of
those sages. It is remarkable that Homer and a few
Hebrews are the most Oriental names which modern
Europe, whose literature has taken its rise since the de-
iline of the Persian, has admitted into her list of Wor
thies, and perhaps the worthiest of mankind, and the

. MONDAY. 153

fiithers of modern thinking, — for the contemplations of
those Indian sages have influenced, and still influence,
the intellectual development of mankind, — whose works
even yet survive in wonderful completeness, are, for the
most part, not recognized as ever having existed. If the
lions had been the painters it would have been other
wise. In every one's youthful dreams philosophy is still
vaguely but inseparably, and with singular truth, associ
ated with the East, nor do after years discover its local
habitation in the Western world. In comparison with
the philosophers of the East, we may say that modern
Europe has yet given birth to none. Beside the vast
and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat-Geeta, even
our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green and
practical merely. Some of these sublime sentences, as
the Chaldoean oracles of Zoroaster, still surviving after
a thousand revolutions and translations, alone make us
doubt if the poetic form and dress are not transitory, and
not essential to the most effective and enduring expres
sion of thought. Ex oriente lux may still be the motto
of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived
from the East all the light which it is destined to receive
thence.

It would be worthy of the age to print together the
collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several
nations, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the
Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture of mankind. The
New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips
and in the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this
sense. Such a juxtaposition and comparison might help
to liberalize the faith of men. This is a work which
Time will surely edit, reserved to crown the labors of the
crinting-press. This would be the Bible, or Book of
7*

104 A WEEK.

Books, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost
parts of the earth.

While engaged in these reflections, thinking ourselves
the only navigators of these waters, suddenly a canal-
boat, with its sail set, glided round a point before us,
like some huge river beast, and changed the scene in an
instant ; and then another and another glided into sight,
and we found ourselves in the current of commerce once
more. So we threw our rinds in the water for the fishes
to nibble, and added our breath to the life of living men.
Little did we think, in the distant garden in which we
had planted the seed and reared this fruit, where it
would be eaten. Our melons lay at home on the sandy
bottom of the Merrimack, and our potatoes in the sun
and water at the bottom of the boat looked like a fruit
of the country. Soon, however, we were delivered from
this fleet of junks, and possessed the river in solitude,
once more rowing steadily upward through the noon,
between the territories of Nashua on the one hand, and
Hudson, once Nottingham, on the other. From time to
time we scared up a kingfisher or a summer duck, the
former flying rather by vigorous impulses than by steady
and patient steering with that short rudder of his, sound
ing his rattle along the fluvial street.

Erelong another scow hove in sight, creeping down
the river ; and hailing it, we attached ourselves to ita
side, and floated back in company, chatting with the
boatmen, and obtaining a draught of cooler water from
their jug. They appeared to be green hands from far
among the hills, who had taken this means to get to the
seaboard, and see the world; and would possibly visi
the Falkland Isles, and the China seas, before they ngaia

MONDAY. l,r)5

saw the waters of the Merrimack, or, perchance, they
would not return this way forever. They had already
embarked the private interests of the landsman in the
larger venture of the race, and were ready to mess with
mankind, reserving only the till of a chest to themselves.
But they too were soon lost behind a point, and we went
croaking on our way alone. What grievance has its
root among the New Hampshire hills ? we asked ; what
is wanting to human life here, that these men should
make such haste to the antipodes? We prayed that
their bright anticipations might not be rudely disap
pointed.

Though all tho fates should prove unkind,

Leave not your native land behind.

The ship, becalmed, at length stands still; '

Tho steed must rest beneath the hill;

But swiftly still our fortunes pace

To find us out in every place.

The vessel, though her masts be firm,
Beneath her copper bears a worm ;
Around the cape, across the line,
Till fields of ice her course confine;
It matters not how smooth the breeze,
How shallow or how deep the seas,
Whether she bears Manilla twine,
Or in her hold Madeira wine,
Or China teas, or Spanish hides,
In port or quarantine she rides ;
Far from New England's blustering shore,
New England's worm her hulk shall bore,
And sink her in the Indian seas,
Twine, wine, and hides, and China teas.

We passed a small desert here on the east bank,
between Tyngsborough and Hudson, which was interest
ing and even refreshing to our eyes in the midst of
.he almost universal greenness. This sand was indeed

156 A WEEK.

somewhat impressive and beautiful to us. A very old
inhabitant, who was at work in a field on I he Nashua
side, told us that he remembered when corn and grain
grew there, and it was a cultivated field. But at length
the fishermen, for this was a fishing place, pulled up the
bushes on the shore, for greater convenience in hauling
their seines, and when the bank was thus broken, the
wind began to blow up the sand from the shore, until at
length it had covered about fifteen acres several feet
deep. We saw near the river, where the sand was
blown off down to some ancient surface, the foundation
of an Indian wigwam exposed, a perfect circle of burnt
stones, four or five feet in diameter, mingled with fine
charcoal, and the bones of small animals which had been
preserved in the sand. The surrounding sand was
Bprinkled with other burnt stones on which their fires
had been built, as well as with flakes of arrow-head
etone, and we found one perfect arrow-head. In one
place we noticed where an Indian had sat to manufacture
arrow-heads out of quartz, and the sand was sprinkled
with a quart of small glass-like chips about as big as a
fourpence, which he had broken off in his work. Here,
then, the Indians must have fished before the whites
arrived. There was another similar sandy tract about
half a mile above this.

Still the noon prevailed, and we turned the prow
aside to bathe, and recline ourselves under some button-
woods, by a ledge of rocks, in a retired pasture sloping
to the water's edge, and skirted with pines and hazels,
in the town of Hudson. Still had India, and that old
noontide philosophy, the better part of our thoughts.

It is always singular, but encouraging, to meet with

MONl'AY 157

common sense in very old books, as the Heetopades of
Veeshnoo Sarma; a playful wisdom which has eyes
behind as well as before, and oversees itself. It asserts
their health and independence of the experience of later
times. This pledge of sanity cannot be spared in a
book, that it sometimes pleasantly reflect upon itself.
The story and fabulous portion of this book winds
loosely from sentence to sentence as so many oases in a
desert, and is as indistinct as a camel's track between
Mourzouk and Darfour. It is a comment on the flow
and freshet of modern books. The reader leaps from
sentence to sentence, as from one stepping-stone to
another, while the stream of the story rushes past unre
garded. The Bhagvat-Geeta is less sententious and
poetic, perhaps, but still more wonderfully sustained and
developed. Its sanity and sublimity have impressed the
minds even of soldiers and merchants. It is the charac
teristic of great poems that they will yield of their sense
in due proportion to the hasty and the deliberate reader.
To the practical they will be common sense, and to the
wise wisdom ; as either the traveller may wet his lips,
or an army may fill its water-casks at a full stream.

One of the most attractive of those ancient books that
I have met with is the Laws of Menu. According to
Sir William Jones, "Vyasa, the son of Parasara, has
decided that the Veda, with its An gas, or the six compo
sitions deduced from it, the revealed system of medicine,
the Puranas or sacred histories, and the code of Menu,
were four works of supreme authority, which ought
never to be shaken by arguments merely human." The
»ast is believed by the Hindoos " to have been promulged
in the beginning of time, by Menu, son or grandson of
Brahma," and " first of created beings " ; and Brahma b

158 A WEEK.

laid to have "taught his laws to Menu in a hundred
thousand verses, which Menu explained to the primitive
world in the very words of the book now translated."
Others affirm that they have undergone successive abridg
ments for the convenience of mortals, " while the goda
of the lower heaven and the band of celestial musicians
are engaged in studying the primary code." — u A num
ber of glosses or comments on Menu were composed by
the Munis, or old philosophers, whose treatises, together
with that before us, constitute the Dherma Sastra, in a
collective sense, or Body of Law." Culluca Bhatta was
one of the more modern of these.

Every sacred book, successively, has been accepted in
the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the
sojourning soul ; but after all, it was but a caravansary
which supplied refreshment to the traveller, and directed
him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank
God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the
world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sen
tenced to any caste.

I know of no book which has come down to us with
grander pretensions than this, and it is so impersonal and
sincere that it is never offensive nor ridiculous. Compare
the modes in which modern literature is advertised with
the prospectus of this book, and think what a reading
public it addresses, what criticism it expects. It seems
to have been uttered from some eastern summit, with a
sober morning prescience in the dawn of time, and you
cannot read a sentence without being elevated as upon
the table-land of the Ghauts. It has such a rhythm as
the winds of the desert, such a tide as the Ganges, and
is as superior to criticism as the Himmaleh Mountains,
Its tone is of such univluxed fibie, that even at this Jat«

MONDAY. 159

iay, unborn by time, it wears the English and the San
scrit dress indifferently ; and its fixed sentences keep up
their distant fires still, like the stars, by whose dissipated
rays this lower world is illumined. The whole book by
noble gestures and inclinations renders many words
unnecessary. English sense has toiled, but Hindoo
wisdom never perspired. Though the sentences open R3
we read them, unexpensively, and at first almost un
meaningly, as the petals of a flower, they sometimes
startle us with that rare kind of wisdom which could
only have been learned from the most trivial experience ;
but it comes to us as refined as the porcelain earth which
subsides to the bottom of the ocean. They are clean and
dry as fossil truths, which have been exposed to the
elements for thousands of years, so impersonally and
scientifically true that they are the ornament of the
parlor and the cabinet. Any moral philosophy is ex
ceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy
more than most. It is a more private and familiar, and,
at the same time, a more public and universal word,
than is spoken in parlor or pulpit now-a-days. As our
domestic fowls are said to have their original in the
wild pheasant of India, so our domestic thoughts have
their prototypes in the thoughts of her philosophers.
We are dabbling in the very elements of our present
conventional and actual life ; as if it were the primeval
conventicle where how to eat, and to drink, and to sleep,
and maintain life with adequate dignity and sincerity,
were the questions to be decided. It is later and more
intimate with us even t'nan the advice of our nearest
friends. And yet it is true for the widest horizon, and
read out of doors has relation to the dim mountain line,
tod is native and aboriginal there. Most books belong

160 A WEEK.

to the house and street only, and in the fields their
leaves feel very thin. They are bare and obvious, and
have no halo nor haze about them. Nature lies far and
lair behind them all. But this, as it proceeds from, so
it addresses, what is deepest and most abiding in man.
It belongs to the noontide of the day, the midsummer of
the year, and after the snows have melted, and the
waters evaporated in the spring, still its truth speaks
freshly to our experience. It helps the sun to shine,
and his rays fall on its page to illustrate it. It spends
the mornings and the evenings, and makes such an
impression on us overnight as to awaken us before
dawn, and its influence lingers around us like a fragrance
late into the day. It conveys a new gloss to the mead
ows and the depths of the wood, and its spirit, like a
more subtile ether, sweeps along with the prevailing
winds of a country. The very locusts and crickets of a
summer day are but later or earlier glosses on the
Dherma Sastra of the Hindoos, a continuation of the
sacred code. As we have said, there is an orientalism
in the most restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but
the farthest east. While we are reading these sentences,
this fair modern world seems only a reprint of the Laws
of Menu with the gloss of Culluca. Tried by a New
England eye, or the mere practical wisdom of modern
times, they are the oracles of a race already in its dotage,
but held up to the sky, which is the only impartial and
incorruptible ordeal, they are of a piece with its depth
and serenity, and I am assured that they will have a
place and significance as long as there is a sky to test
them by.

Give me a sentence which no intelligence can under
itaiid. There must be a kind of life and palpitation ta

MONDAY. 161

it, and under its words a kind of blood must circulate
forever. It is wonderful that this sound should have
come down to us from so far, when the voice of man can
be heard so little way, and we are not now within ear
shot of any contemporary. The woodcutters have here
felled an ancient pine forest, and brought to light to
these distant hills a fair lake in the southwest ; and
now in an instant it is distinctly shown to these woods
as if its image had travelled hither from eternity.
Perhaps these old stumps upon the knoll remember
when anciently this lake gleamed in the horizon. One
wonders if the bare earth itself did not experience emo
tion at beholding again so fair a prospect. That fair
water lies there in the sun thus revealed, so much the
prouder and fairer because its beauty needed not to be
seen. It seems yet lonely, sufficient to itself, and su
perior to observation. — So are these old sentences like
serene lakes in the southwest, at length revealed to us,
which have so long been reflecting our own sky in their
bosom.

The great plain of India lies as in a cup between the
Himmaleh and the ocean on the north and south, and
die Brahmapootra and Indus, on the east and west,
wherein the primeval race was received. We will not
dispute the story. We are pleased to read in the nat
ural history of the country, of the " pine, larch, spruce,
and silver fir," which cover the southern face of the
Himmaleh range ; of the " gooseberry, raspberry, straw
berry," which from an imminent temperate zone over
look the torrid plains. So did this active modern life
have even then a foothold and lurking-place in the
midst of the stateliness and contemplativeness of those
Eastern plains. In another era the " lily of the valley,

152 A WEEK.

cowslip, dandelion," were to work their way down into
the plain, and bloom in a level zone of their own reach
ing round the earth. Already has the era of the tem
perate zone arrived, the era of the pine and the oak, for
the palm and the banian do not supply the wants of this
age. The lichens on the summits of the rocks will per
chance find their level erelong.

•As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so
much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as
that they were held by any. We can tolerate all phi
losophies, Atomists, Pneumatologists, Atheists, Theists,
— Plato, Aristotle, Leucippus, Democritus, Pythagoras,
Zoroaster, and Confucius. It is the attitude of these
men, more than any communication which they make,
that attracts us. Between them and their commentators,
it is true, there is an endless dispute. But if it comes to
tin?, that you compare notes, then you are all wrong.
As it is, each takes us up into the serene heavens,
whither the smallest bubble rises as surely as the
largest, and paints earth and sky for us. Any sincere
thought is irresistible. The very austerity of the Brah
mans is tempting to the devotional soul, as a more re
fined and nobler luxury. Wants so easily and gracefully
satisfied seem like a more refined pleasure. Their con
ception of creation is peaceful as a dream. *' When
that power awakes, then has this world its full expan
sion ; but when he slumbers with a tranquil spirit, then
the whole system fades away." In the very indistinctness
of their theogony a sublime truth is implied. It hardly
aJlows the reader to rest in any supreme first cause, but
directly it hints at a supremer still which created the
last, and the Creator is still behind increate.

Nor will we disturb the antiquity of this Scripture

MONDAY. 163

" From fire, from air, and from the sun," it was " milked
out." One might as well investigate the chronology of
light and heat. Let the sun shine. Menu understood
this matter best, when he said, " Those best know the
divisions of days and nights who understand that the day
of Brahma, which endures to the end of a thousand such
ages, [infinite ages, nevertheless, according to mortal
reckoning,] gives rise to virtuous exertions ; and that his
night endures as long as his day." Indeed, the Mussul
man and Tartar dynasties are beyond all dating. Me-
thinks I have lived under them myself. In every man's
brain is the Sanscrit. The Vedas and their Angas are
not so ancient as serene contemplation. Why will we be
imposed on by antiquity ? Is the babe young ? When I
behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man ;
it is more ancient than Nestor or the Sibyls, and bears
the wrinkles of father Saturn himself. And do we live
but in the present ? How broad a line is that ? I sit
now on a stump whose rings number centuries of growth.
If I look around I see that the soil is composed of the re
mains of just such stumps, ancestors to this. The earth
is covered with mould. I thrust this stick many aeons
deep into its surface, and with my heel make a deeper
furrow than the elements have ploughed here for a thou
sand years. If I listen, I hear the peep of frogs which
is older than the slime of Egypt, and the distant drum
ming of a partridge on a log, as if it were the pulse-beat
of the summer air. I raise my fairest and freshest
flowers in the old mould. Why, what we would fain
call new is not skin deep ; the earth is not yet stained
by it. It is not the fertile ground which we walk on,
but the leaves which flutter over our heads. The newest
is but the oldest made visible to our senses. When we

1C4 A WEEK.

dig up the soil from a thousand feet below the surface,
we call it new, and the plants which spring from it
and when our vision pierces deeper into space, and de
tects a remoter star, we call that new also. The place
where we sit is called Hudson, — once it was Notting
ham, — once —

We should read history as little critically as we con
sider the landscape, and be more interested by the at
mospheric tints and various lights and shades which the
intervening spaces create, than by its groundwork and
composition. It is the morning now turned evening and
seen in the west, — the same sun, but a new light and
atmosphere. Its beauty is like the sunset ; not a fresco
painting on a wall, flat and bounded, but atmospheric
and roving or free. In reality, history fluctuates as the
face of the landscape from morning to evening. What
is of moment is its hue and color. Time hides no
treasures ; we want not its then, but its now. We do
not complain that the mountains in the horizon are blue
and indistinct ; they are the more like the heavens.

Of what moment are facts that can be lost, — which
need to be commemorated ? The monument of death
will outlast the memory of the dead. The pyramids do
not tell the tale which was confided to them ; the living
fact commemorates itself. Why look in the dark for
light? Strictly speaking, the historical societies have
not recovered one fact from oblivion, but are themselves,
instead of the fact, that is lost. The researcher is more
memorable than the researched. The crowd stood ad
miring the mist and the dim outlines of the trees seen
through it, when one of their number advanced to ex
plore the phenomenon, and with fresh admiration all eyei

MONDAY. 165

wero turned on his dimly retreating figure. It is as
tonishing with how little co-operation of the societies the
past is remembered. Its story has indeed had another
muse than has been assigned it. There is a good in
stance of the manner in which all history began, in
Alwakidis' Arabian Chronicle : " I was informed by
Ahmed Almatin Aljorhami, who had it from Rephda
Ebn Kais Aldmiri, who had it from Saiph Ebn Fab-
alah Alcliatquarmi, who had it from Thabet Ebn Al-
kamah, who said he was present at the action." These
fathers of history were not anxious ID preserve, but to
learn the fact ; and hence it was not forgotten. Critical
acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past ; the past
cannot be presented ; we cannot know what we are not.
But one veil hangs over past, present, and future, and it
is the province of the historian to find out, not what
was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought, you
will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts ;
where a battle is being fought, there are hearts beating.
We will sit on a mound and muse, and not try to make
these skeletons stand on their legs again. Does Nature
remember, think you, that they were men, or not rather
that they are bones ?

Ancient history has an air of antiquity. It should be
more modern. It is written as if the spectator should
be thinking of the backside of the picture on the wall,
or as if the author expected that the dead would be his
readers, and wished to detail to them their own expe
dience. Men seem anxious to accomplish an orderly
retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the
works behind, as they are battered down by the en
croachments of time ; but while they loiter, they and
their works both fall a prey to the arch enemy. His-

166 A WEEK.

tory has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the
freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to
the beginning of things, which natural history might
with reason assume to do ; but consider the Universal
History, and then tell us, — when did burdock and
plantain sprout first? It has been so written for the
most part, that the times it describes are with remark
able propriety called dark ages. They are dark, as one
has observed, because we are so in the dark about them.
The sun rarely shines in history, what with the dust and
confusion; and when we meet with any cheering fact
which implies the presence of this luminary, we excerpt
and modernize it. As when we read in the history of
the Saxons that Edwin of Northumbria " caused stakes
to be fixed in the highways where he had seen a clear
spring," and " brazen dishes were chained to them to
refresh the weary sojourner, whose fatigues Edwin had
himself experienced." This is worth all Arthur's twelve
battles.

" Through the shadow of the world we sweep into the younger day :
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."
Than fifty years of Europe better one New England ray!

Biography, too, is liable to the same objection ; it
should be autobiography. Let us not, as the Germans
advise, endeavor to go abroad and vex our bowels that
we may be somebody else to explain him. If I am not
I, who will be ?

But it is fit that the Past should be dark ; though the
darkness is not so much a quality of the past as of tra«
dition. It is not a distance of time, but a distance of
relation, which makes thus dusky its memorials. What
is near to the heart of this generation is lair arid bright
still. Greece lies outspread fair and sunshiny in floodi

MONDAY. 167

of light, for there is the sun and daylight in her litera
ture and art. Homer does not allow us to forget that
the sun shone, — nor Phidias, nor the Parthenon. Yet
no era has been wholly dark, nor will we too hastily sub
mit to the historian, and congratulate ourselves on a
blaze of light. If we could pierce the obscurity of those
remote years, we should find it light enough ; only there
is not our day. Some creatures are made to see in the
dark. There has always been the same amount of light
in the world. The new and missing stars, the comets
and eclipses, do not affect the general illumination, for
only our glasses appreciate them. The eyes of the old
est fossil remains, they tell us, indicate that the same
laws of light prevailed then as now. Always the laws
of light are the same, but the modes and degrees of see
ing vary. The gods are partial to no era, but steadily
shines their light in the heavens, while the eye of the
beholder is turned to stone. There was but the sun and
the eye from the first. The ages have not added a new
ray to the one, nor altered a fibre of the other.

If we will admit time into our thoughts at all, the
mythologies, those vestiges of ancient poems, wrecks of
poems, so to speak, the world's inheritance, still reflect
ing some of their original splendor, like the fragments of
clouds tinted by the rays of the departed sun ; reaching
into the latest summer day, and allying this hour to the
morning of creation ; as the poet sings : —

" Fragments of the lofty strain

Float down the tide of years,
As buoyant on the stormy main
A parted wreck appears."

These are the materials and hints for a history of the
rise and progress of the race ; how, from the condition

168 A WEEK.

of ants, it arrived at the condition of men, and arts were
gradually invented. Let a thousand surmises shed some
light on this story. We will not be confined by histori
cal, even geological periods which would allow us to
doubt of a progress in human affairs. If we rise above
this wisdom for the day, we shall expect that this morn
ing of 'the race, in which it has been supplied with the
simplest necessaries, with corn, and wine, and honey,
and oil, and fire, and articulate speech, and agricultural
and other arts, reared up by degrees from the condition
of ants to men, will be succeeded by a day of equally
progressive splendor ; that, in the lapse of the divine
periods, other divine agents and godlike men will assist
to elevate the race as much above its present condition.
But we do not know much about it.

Thus did one voyageur waking dream, while his com
panion slumbered on the bank. Suddenly a boatman's
horn was heard echoing from shore to shore, to give no
tice of his approach to the farmers wife with whom he
was to take his dinner, though in that place only musk-
rats and kingfishers seemed to hear. The current of our
reflections and our slumbers being thus disturbed, we
weighed anchor once more.

As we proceeded on our way in the afternoon, the
western bank became lower, or receded farther from the
channel in some places, leaving a few trees only to fringe
the water's edge ; while the eastern rose abruptly here
and there into wooded hills fifty or sixty feet high. The
bass, Tilia Americana, also called the lime or linden,
which was a new tree to us, overhung the water with
its broad and rounded leaf, interspersed with clusters of
email hard berries now nearly ripe, and made an agree*

MONDAY. 1G9

able shade for us sailors. The inner bark of this genus
is the bast, the material of the fisherman's matting, and
the ropes and peasant's shoes of which the Russians
make so much use, and also of nets and a coarse cloth
in some places. According to poets, this was once
Philyra, one of the Oceanides. The ancients are said
to have used its bark for the roofs of cottages, for bas
kets, and for a kind of paper called Philyra. They also
made bucklers of its wood, " on account of its flexibility,
lightness, and resiliency." It was once much used for
carving, and is still in demand for sounding-boards of
piano-fortes and panels of carriages, and for various uses
for which toughness and flexibility are required. Baskets
and cradles are made of the twigs. Its sap affords
sugar, and the honey made from its flowers is said to be
preferred to any other. Its leaves are in some coun
tries given to cattle, a kind of chocolate has been made
of its fruit, a medicine has been prepared from an infu
sion of its flowers, and finally, the charcoal made of its
wood is greatly valued for gunpowder.

The sight of this tree reminded us that we had
reached a strange land to us. As we sailed under this
canopy of leaves we saw the sky through its chinks, and,
as it were, the meaning and idea of the tree stamped in
a thousand hieroglyphics on the heavens. The universe
is so aptly fitted to our organization that the eye wan
ders and reposes at the same time. On every side there
is something to soothe and refresh this sense. Look up
at the tree-tops and see how finely Nature finishes off
her work there. See how the pines spire without end
higher and higher, and make a graceful fringe to the
earth. And who shall count the finer cobwebs that soar
and float away from their utmost top>, and the myriad

170 A WEKK.

insects that dodge between them. Leaves are of more
various forms than the alphabets of all languages put
together ; of the oaks alone there are hardly two alike,
md each expresses its own character.

In all her products Nature only develops her simplest
germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of
invention to create birds. The hawk, which now takes
his flight over the top of the wood, was at first, per
chance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From
rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the
loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.

Salmon Brook comes in from the west under the rail
road, a mile and a half below the village of Nashua.
We rowed up far enough into the meadows which bor
der it to learn its piscatorial history from a haymaker
on its banks. He told us that the silver eel was for
merly abundant here, and pointed to some sunken creels
at its mouth. This man's memory and imagination were
fertile in fishermen's tales of floating isles in bottomless
ponds, and of lakes mysteriously stocked with fishes, and
would have kept us till nightfall to listen, but we could
not afford to loiter in this roadstead, and so stood out to
our sea again. Though we never trod in those mead
ows, but only touched their margin with our hands, we
still retain a pleasant memory of them.

Salmon Brook, whose name is said to be a translation
from the Indian, was a favorite haunt of the aborigines.
Here, too, the first white settlers of Nashua planted, and
Borne dents in the earth where their houses stood and
the wrecks of ancient apple-trees are still visible. About
one mile up this stream stood the house of old John
Lovewell, who was an ensign in the army of Oliver
Cromwell, and the father of "famous Captain Lovo

MONDAY. 171

tvell." He settled here before 1690, and died about
1754, at the age of one hundred and twenty years. He
is thought to have been engaged in the famous Narra-
gansett swamp fight, which took place in 1675, before
he came here. The Indians are said to have spared him
in succeeding wars on account of his kindness to them.
Even in 1700 he was so old and gray-headed that his
scalp was worth nothing, since the French Governor
offered no bounty for such. I have stood in the dent of
his cellar on the bank of the brook, and talked there
with one whose grandfather had, whose father might
have, talked with Lovewell. Here also he had a mill in
his old age, and kept a small store. He was remem
bered by some who were recently living, as a hale old
man who drove the boys out of his orchard with his
cane. Consider the triumphs of the mortal man, and
what poor trophies it would have to show, to wit : , — He
cobbled shoes without glasses at a hundred, and cut a
handsome swath at a hundred and five ! Lovewell's
house is said to have been the first which Mrs. Dustan
reached on her escape from the Indians. Here proba
bly the hero of Pequawket was born and bred. Close
by may be seen the cellar and the gravestone of Joseph
Hassell, who, as is elsewhere recorded, with his wife
Anna, and son Benjamin, and Mary Marks, " were slain
by our Indian enemies on September 2d, [1691,] in the
evening." As Gookin observed on a previous occasion,
" The Indian rod upon the English backs had not yet
done God's errand." Salmon Brook near its mouth is
Btill a solitary stream, meandering through woods and
meadows, while the then uninhabited mouth of the
Nashua now resounds with the din of a manufacturing
town.

172 A WEEK.

A stream from Otternic Pond in Hudson comes in just
nbove Salmon Brook, on the opposite side. There was
a good view of Uncannunuc, the most conspicuous moun
tain in these parts, from the bank here, seen rising over
the west end of the bridge above. We soon after passed
the village of Nashua, on the river of the same name,
where there is a covered bridge over the Merrimack.
The Nashua, which is one of the largest tributaries, flows
from Wachusett Mountain, through Lancaster, Groton,
and other towns, where it has formed well-known elm-
shaded meadows, but near its mouth it is obstructed by
falls and factories, and did not tempt us to explore it.

Far away from here, in Lancaster, with another com
panion, I have crossed the broad valley of the Nashua,
over which we had so long looked westward from the
Concord hills without seeing it to the blue mountains in
the horizon. So many streams, so many meadows and
woods and quiet dwellings of men had lain concealed
between us and those Delectable Mountains ; — from yon
der hill on the road to Tyngsborough you may get a good
view of them. There where it seemed uninterrupted
forest to our youthful eyes, between two neighboring
pines in the horizon, lay the valley of the Nashua, and
this very stream was even then winding at its bottom,
and then, as now, it was here silently mingling its waters
with the Merrimack. The clouds which floated over its
meadows and were born there, seen far in the west,
gilded by the rays of the setting sun, had adorned a
thousand evening skies for us. But as it were, by a
turf wall this valley was concealed, and in our journey
;o those hills it was first gradually revealed to us
Summer and winter our eyes had rested on the dim out
line of the mountains, to which distance and indistinct*

MONDAY. 173

ness lent a grandeur not their own, so that they served
to interpret all the allusions of poets and travellers.
Standing on the Concord Cliffs we thus spoke our mind
to them : —

With frontier strength ye stand your ground,

With grand content ye circle round,

Tumultuous silence for all sound,

Ye distant nursery of rills,

Monadnock and the Peterborough Hills j —

Firm argument that never stirs,

Outcircling the philosophers, —

Like some vast fleet,

Sailing through rain and sleet,

Through winter's cold and summer's heat;

Still holding on upon your high emprise,

Until ye find a shore amid the skies;

Not skulking close to land,

With cargo contraband,

For they who sent a venture out by ye

Have set the Sun to see

Their honesty.

Ships of the line, each one,

Ye westward run,

Convoying clouds,

Which cluster in your shrouds,

Always before the gale,

Under a press of sail,

With weight of metal all untold, —

3<>em to feel ye in my firm seat here,
Immeasurable depth of hold,
And breadth of beam, and length of running gear

Methinks ye take luxurious pleasure

In your novel western leisure ;

So cool your brows and freshly blue,

As Time had naught for ye to dc;

For ye lie at your length,

An unappropriated strength,

Unhewn primeval timber,

For knees so stiff, for masts so limber;

The stock of which new earths are made,

174 A WEEK.

One day to be our western trade,
Fit for the stanchions of a world
Which through the seas of space is tramd.

While we enjoy a lingering ray,

Ye still o'ertop the western day,

Reposing yonder on God's croft

Like solid stacks of hay j

So bold a line as ne'er was writ

On any page by human wit;

The forest glows as if

An enemy's camp-fires shone

Along the horizon,

Or the day's funeral pyre

Were lighted there ;

Edged with silver and with gold,

The clouds hang o'er in damask fold,

And with such depth of amber light

The west is dight,

Where still a few rays slant,

That even Heaven seems extravagant

Watatic Hill

Lies on the horizon's sill

Like a child's toy left overnight,

And other duds to left and right,

On the earth's edge, mountains and trees

Stand as they were on air graven,

Or as the vessels in a haven

Await the morning breeze.

I fancy even

Through your defiles windeth the way

And yonder still, in spite of history's page,

Linger the golden and the silver age;

Upon the laboring gale

The news of future centuries is brought,

And of new dynasties of thought,

From your remotest vaie.

But special I remember thee,
Wachusett, who like me
Standest alone without society.
Thy far blue eye,
A remnant of the sky,

MONDAY. 175

Seen through the clearing or the gorge,

Or from the windows of hie forge,

Doth leaven all it passes by.

Nothing is true

But stands 'tween me and you,

Thou western pioneer,

Who know'st not shame nor fear,

By venturous spirit driven

Under the eaves of heaven ;

And canst expand thee there,

And breathe enough of air?

Even beyond the West

Thou migratest,

Into unclouded tracts,

Without a pilgrim's axe,

Cleaving thy road on high

With thy well-tempered brow,

And mak'st thyself a clearing in the sky.

Upholding heaven, holding down earth,

Thy pastime from thy birth;

Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other,

May I approve myself thy worthy brother!

At length, like Rasselas and other inhabitants of happy
valleys, we had resolved to scale the blue wall which
bounded the western horizon, though not without mis
givings that thereafter no visible fairy-land would exist
for us. But it would be long to tell of our adventures,
and we have no time this afternoon, transporting our
selves in imagination up this hazy Nashua valley, to go
over again that pilgrimage. We have since made many
similar excursions to the principal mountains of New
England and New York, and even far in the wilderness,
and have passed a night on the summit of many of them.
And now, when we look again westward from our native
bills, Wachusett and Monadnock have retreated once
more among the blue and fabulous mountains in the ho
rizon, though our eyes rest on the very rocks on both of

176 A WEEK.

them, where we have pitched our tent for a night, and
boiled our hasty-pudding amid the clouds.

As late as 1724 there was no house on the north side
of the Nashua, but only scattered wigwams and grisly
forests between this frontier and Canada. In September
of that year, two men who were engaged in making tur
pentine on that side, for such were the first enterprises
in the wilderness, were taken captive and carried to
Canada by a party of thirty Indians. Ten of the inhab
itants of Dunstable, going to look for them, found the
hoops of their barrel cut, and the turpentine spread on
the ground. I have been told by an inhabitant of
Tyngsborough, who had the story from his ancestors, that
one of these captives, when the Indians were about to
upset his barrel of turpentine, seized a pine knot and
flourishing it, swore so resolutely that he would kill the
first who touched it, that they refrained, and when at
length he returned from Canada he found it still stand
ing. Perhaps there was more than one barrel. How
ever this may have been, the scouts knew by marks on
the trees, made with coal mixed with grease, that the
men were not killed, but taken prisoners. One of the
company, named Farwell, perceiving that the turpentine
had not done spreading, concluded that the Indians had
been gone but a short time, and they accordingly went
in instant pursuit. Contrary to the advice of Farwell,
following directly on their trail up the Merrimack, they
fell into an ambuscade near Thornton's Ferry, in the
present town of Merrimack, and nine were killed, only
one, Farwell, escaping after a vigorous pursuit. The
men of Dunstable went out and picked up their bodies,
and carried them all down to Dunstable and buried

MONDAY. 177

them. It is almost word for word as in the Robin Hood
ballad: —

M They carried these foresters into fair Nottingham,

As many there did know,
They digged them graves in their churchyard,
And they buried them all a-row."

Nottingham is only the other side of the river, and they
were not exactly all a-row. You may read in the church
yard at Dunstable, under the " Memento Mori," and the
name of one of them, how they " departed this life," and

" This man with seven more that lies in
this grave was slew all in a day by
the Indians."

The stones of some others of the company stand around
the common grave with their separate inscriptions.
Eight were buried here, but nine were killed, according
to the best authorities.

" Gentle river, gentle river,

Lo, thy streams are stained with gore,
Many a brave and noble captain
Floats along thy willowed shore.

*' All beside thy limpid waters,

All beside thy sands so bright,
Indian Chiefs and Christian warriors
Joined in fierce and mortal fight."

It is related in the History of Dunstable, that on the
return of Farwell the Indians were engaged by a fresh
party which they compelled to retreat, and pursued as
far as the Nashua, where they fought across the stream
at its mouth. After the departure of the Indians, the
figure of an Indian's head was found carved by them on
3 large tree by the shore, which circumstance has given
its name to this part of the village of Nashville, — the
u Indian Head." " It was observed by some judicious,"

8* L

178 A WEEK.

says Gookin, referring to Philip's war, " that at the be
ginning of the war the English soldiers made a nothing
of the Indians, and many spake words to this effect
that one Englishman was sufficient to chase ten Indians ;
many reckoned it was no other but Veni, vidi, vici.'
But we may conclude that the judicious would by this
time have made a different observation.

Farwell appears to have been the only one who had
studied his profession, and understood the business of
hunting Indians. He lived to fight another day, for the
next year he was Lovewell's lieutenant at Pequawket,
but that time, as we have related, he left his bones in the
wilderness. His name still reminds us of twilight days
and forest scouts on Indian trails, with an uneasy scalp ;
— an indispensable hero to New England. As the
more recent poet of Lovewell's fight has sung, halting a
little but bravely still : —

" Then did the crimson streams that flowed

Seem like the waters of the brook,

That brightly shine, that loudly dash,

Far down the cliffs of Agiochook."

These battles sound incredible to us. I think that
posterity will doubt if such things ever were ; if our
bold ancestors who settled this land were not struggling
rather with the forest shadows, and not with a copper-
colored race of men. They were vapors, fever and
ague of the unsettled woods. Now, only a few arrow
heads are turned up by the plough. In the Pelasgic,
the Etruscan, or the British story, there is nothing so
shadowy and unreal.

It is a wild and antiquated looking graveyard, ovei
grown with bushes, on the high-road, about a quarter of

MONDAY, 179

ft mile from and overlooking the Merrimack, with a
deserted mill-stream bounding it on one side, where lie
the earthly remains of the ancient inhabitants of Duu-
Btable. We passed it three or four miles below hen.
You may read there the names of Lovewell, Farwell,
and many others whose families were distinguished in
Indian warfare. We noticed there two large masses
of granite more than a foot thick and rudely squared,
lying flat on the ground over the remains of the first
pastor and his wife.

It is remarkable that the dead lie everywhere under
stones, —

" Strata jacent passim SIM quaeque sub" lapide —
corpora, we might say, if the measure allowed. When
the stone is a slight one, it does not oppress the spirits
of the traveller to meditate by it ; but these did seem a
little heathenish to us ; and so are all large monuments
over men's bodies, from the pyramids down. A monu
ment should at least be " star-y-pointing," to indicate
whither the spirit is gone, and not prostrate, like the body
it has deserted. There have been some nations who could
do nothing but construct tombs, and these are the only
traces which they have left. They are the heathen.
But why these stones, so upright and emphatic, like
exclamation-points? What was there so remarkable
that lived? Why should the monument be so much
more enduring than the fame which it is designed to per
petuate, — a stone to a bone ? " Here lies," — " Here
lies " ; — why do they not sometimes write, There rises ?
Is it a monument to the body only that is intended?
"Having reached the term of his natural life"; —
arould it not be truer te say, Having reached the term

180 A WEEK.

of his unnatural life ? The rarest quality in an epitaph
is truth. If any character is given, it should be aa
severely true as the decision of the three judges below
and not the partial testimony of friends. Friends and
contemporaries should supply only the name and date
and leave it to posterity to write the epitaph.

Here lies an honest man,
Rear-Admiral Van.

Faith, then ye have

Two in one grave,

For in his favor,

Here too lies the Engraver.

Fame itself is but an epitaph ; as late, as false, as true.
But they only are the true epitaphs which Old Mortal
ity retouches.

A man might well pray that he may not taboo or
curse any portion of nature by being buried in it. For
the most part, the best man's spirit makes a fearful
sprite to haunt his grave, and it is therefore much to the
credit of Little John, the famous follower of Robin Hood,
and reflecting favorably on his character, that his grave
was " long celebrous for the yielding of excellent whet
stones." I confess that I have but little love for such
collections as they have at the Catacombs, Pere la
Chaise, Mount Auburn, and even this Dunstable grave
yard. At any rate, nothing but great antiquity can
make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends
there. It may be that I am not competent to write the
poetry of the grave. The farmer who has skimmed
his farm might perchance leave his body to Nature tf
be ploughed in, and in some measure restore its fertility
We should not retard but forward her economies.

MONDAY. 181

Soon the village of Nashua was out of sight, and the
Broods were gained again, and we rowed slowly on be
fore sunset, looking for a solitary place in which to spend
the night. A few evening clouds began to be reflected
in the water and the surface was dimpled only here and
there by a muskrat crossing the stream. We camped at
length near Penichook Brook, on the confines of what
is now Nashville, by a deep ravine, under the skirts of
a pine wood, where the dead pine-leaves were our car
pet, and their tawny boughs stretched overhead. But
fire and smoke soon tamed the scene ; the rocks con
sented to be our walls, and the pines our roof. A wood-
side was already the fittest locality for us.

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man.
Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of
wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gar
dens of men. There is something indescribably inspirit
ing and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and
occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which,
like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung
up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines
and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of na
ture. Our lives need the relief of such a background,
where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

We had found a safe harbor for our boat, and as the
sun was setting carried up our furniture, arid soon ar
ranged our house upon the bank, and while the kettle
steamed at the tent door, we chatted of distant friends
and of the* sights which we were to behold, and won
dered which way the towns lay from us. Our cocoa was
Boon boiled, and supper set upon our chest, and we
lengthened out this meal, like old vovageurs, with our
talk. Meanwhile we spread the ma}, on the ground^

182

A WKKK.

and read in the Gazetteer when the first settlers came
here and got a township granted. Then, when supper
was done and we had written the journal of our voyage,
w 2 wrapped our buffaloes about us and lay down with
our heads pillowed on our arms listening awhile to the
distant baying of a dog, or the murmurs of the river, or
to the wind, which had not gone to rest : —

The western wind came lumbering in,
Bearing a faint Pacific din,
Our evening mail, swift at the call
Of its Postmaster General ;
Laden with news from Californ',
Whate'er transpired hath since morn,
How wags the world by brier and brake
From hence to Athabasca Lake ; —

or half awake and half asleep, dreaming of a star which
glimmered through our cotton roof. Perhaps at mid
night one was awakened by a cricket shrilly singing on
his shoulder, or by a hunting spider in his eye, and was
lulled asleep again by some streamlet purling its way
along at the bottom of a wooded and rocky ravine in our
neighborhood. It was pleasant to lie with our heads so
low in the grass, and hear what a tinkling ever-busy
laboratory it was. A thousand little artisans beat on
their anvils all night long.

Far in the night as we were falling asleep on the bank
of the Merrimack, we heard some tyro beating a drum
incessantly, in preparation for a country muster, as we

learned, and we thought of the line, —

•

" When the drum beat at dead of night."

We could have assured him that his beat would be
answered, and the forces be mustered. Fear not, thou
drummer of the night, we too will be there. Arid stil

MONDAY. 183

he drummed on in the silence and the dark. This stray
Bound from a far-off sphere came to our ears from time
to time, far, sweet, and significant, and we listened with
such an unprejudiced sense as if for the first time we
heard at all. No doubt he was an insignificant drum
mer enough, but his music afforded us a prime and leis
ure hour, and we felt that we were in season wholly.
These simple sounds related us to the stars. Ay, there
was a logic in them so convincing that the combined
sense of mankind could never make me doubt their con
clusions. I stop my habitual thinking, as if the plough
had suddenly run deeper in its furrow through the crust
of the world. How can I go on, who have just stepped
over such a bottomless skylight in the bog of my life.
Suddenly old Time winked at me, — Ah, you know me,
you rogue, — and news had come that IT was well.
That ancient universe is in such capital health, I think
undoubtedly it will never die. Heal yourselves, doctors ;
by God, I live.

Then idle Time ran gadding by

And left me with Eternity alone;
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the verge of sight, —

I see, smell, taste, hear, feel, that everlasting Something
to which we are allied, at once our maker, our abode, our
destiny, our very Selves ; the one historic truth, the
mosc remarkable fact which can become the distinct and
uninvited subject of our thought, the actual glory of the
universe ; the only fact which a human being cannot
avoid recognizing, or in some way forget or dispense with.

It doth expand my privacies
To all, and leave me single in the crowd.

I have seen how the foundations of tlv world are laid,

184 A WEEK.

and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good
while.

Now chiefly is my natal hour,

And only now my prime of life.

I will not doubt the love untold,

Which not my worth nor want hath bought,

Which wooed me young and wooes me old,

And to this evening hath me brought.

What are ears? what is Time? that this particular
series of sounds called a strain of music, an invisible and
fairy troop which never brushed the dew from any mead,
can be wafted down through the centuries from Homer
to me, and he have been conversant with that same
aerial and mysterious charm which now so tingles my
ears ? What a fine communication from age to age, of
the fairest and noblest thoughts, the aspirations of an
cient men, even such as were never communicated by
speech, is music ! It is the flower of language, thought
colored and curved, fluent and flexible, its crystal foun
tain tinged with the sun's rays, and its purling rippleg
reflecting the grass and the clouds. A strain of music
Teminds me of a passage of the Vedas, and I associate
with it the idea of infinite remoteness, as well as of
beauty and serenity, for to the senses that is farthest
from us which addresses the greatest depth within us.
It teaches us again and again to trust the remotest and
finest as the divinest instinct, and makes a dream our
only real experience. We feel a sad cheer when we
hear it, perchance because we that hear are not one with
that which is heard.

Therefore a torrent of sadness deep,

Through the strains of thy triumph is heard to sweep.

The sadness is ours. The Indian poet Calidas says 14
the Sacontala : " Perhaps the sadness of men on seeing

MONDAY. 185

beautiful forms and* hearing sweet music arises from
some faint remembrance of past joys, and the traces of
connections in a former state of existence." As polish
ing expresses the vein in marble, and grain in wood, so
music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The
hero is the sole patron of music. That harmony which
exists naturally between the hero's moods and the uni
verse the soldier would fain imitate with drum and
trumpet. When we are in health all sounds fife and
drum for us ; we hear the notes of music in the air, or
catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the
dawn. Marching is when the pulse of the hero beats in
unison with the pulse of Nature, and he steps to the
measure of the universe ; then there is true courage and
invincible strength.

Plutarch says that " Plato thinks the gods never gave
men music, the science of melody and harmony, for
mere delectation or to tickle the ear ; but that the dis
cordant parts of the circulations and beauteous fabric of
the soul, and that of it that roves about the body, and
many times, for want of tune and air, breaks forth into
many extravagances and excesses, might be sweetly re
called and artfully wound up to their former consent and
agreement."

Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated.
It is the only assured tone. -There are in it such strains
as far surpass any man's faith in the loftiness of his des
tiny. Things are to be learned which it will be worth
the while to learn. Formerly I heard these

RUMORS FROM AN ^EOLIAN HARP.

There is a vale whv^h none hath seen,
Where foot of man has never been,
Such as here lives with toil acd strife,
An anxious and a sinful life.

186 A WEEK.

There every virtue has its birth,*
Ere it descends upon the earth,
And thither every deed returns,
Which in the generous bosom burns.

There love is warm, and youth is young,
And poetry is yet unsung,
For Virtue still adventures there,
And freely breathes her native air.

And ever, if you hearken well,
You still may hear its vesper bell,
And tread of high-souled men go by,
Their thoughts conversing with the sky.

According to Jarablichus, " Pythagoras did not pro
cure for himself a thing of this kind through instruments
or the voice, but employing a certain ineffable divinity,
and which it is difficult to apprehend, he extended hia
ears and fixed his intellect in the sublime symphonies
of the world, he alone hearing and understanding, as it
appears, the universal harmony and consonance of the
spheres, and the stars that are moved through them,
and which produce a fuller and more intense melody
than anything effected by mortal sounds."

Travelling on foot very early one morning due east
from here about twenty miles, from Caleb Harriman's
tavern in Hampstead toward Ilaverhill, when I reached
the railroad in Plaistow, I heard at some distance a
faint music in the air like an jEolian harp, which I
immediately suspected to proceed from the cord of the
telegraph vibrating in the just awakening morning wind,
and applying my ear to one of the posts I was convinced
that it was so. It was the telegraph harp singing its
message through the country, its message sent not by
men, but by gods. Perchance, like the statue of Mem-
non, it resounds only in the morning, when the first rayi

MONDAY. 18?

of the sun fall on it. It was like the first lyre or shell
heard on the sea-shore, — that vibrating cord high in the
air over the shores of earth. So have all things their
higher and their lower uses. I heard a fairer news
than the journals ever print. It told of things worthy
to hear, and worthy of the electric fluid to carry the news
of, not of the price of cotton and flour, but it hinted at
the price of the world itself and of things which are
priceless, of absolute truth and beauty.

Still the drum rolled on, and stirred our blood to fresh
extravagance that night. The clarion sound and clang
of corselet and buckler were heard from many a hamlet
of the soul, and many a knight was arming for the fight
behind the encamped stars.

" Before each van

Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their ry**ra
Till thickest legions close ; with feats of arms
From either end of Heaven the welkin burns.'"

Away! away! away! away
Ye have not kept your secret well,

I will abide that other day,
Those other lands ye tell.

Has time no leisure left for these,

The acts that ye rehearse ?
Is not eternity a lease

For better deeds than verse /

'T is sweet to hear of heroes dead,

To know them still alive,
But sweeter if we earn their bread,

And in us they survive.

Our life should feed the springs of fam«

With a perennial wave,
As ocean feeds the babbling fount*

WUWi. UUu ./L> .. .4*0^ 6u Vb

188 A WEEK.

Ye skies drop gently round my breast.

And be my corselet blue,
Ye earth receive my lance in rest,

My faithful charger you;

Ye stars my spear-heads in the sky,

My arrow-tips ye are;
I see the routed foemen fly,

My bright spears fixed are.

Give me an angel for a foe,

Fix now the place and time,
And straight to meet him I will go

Above the starry chime.

And with our clashing bucklers' clang

The heavenly spheres shall ring,
While bright the northern lights shall hang

Beside our tourneying.

And if she lose her champion true,

Tell Heaven not despair,
For I will be her champion new,

Her fame I will repair.

There was a high wind this night, which we after
wards learned had been still more violent elsewhere, and
had done much injury to the cornfields far and near;
but we only heard it sigh from time to time, as if it had
no license to shake the foundations of our tent; the
pines murmured, the water rippled, and the tent rocked
a little, but we only laid our ears closer to the ground,
while the blast swept on to alarm other men, and long
before sunrise we were ready to pursue our voyage aa
usual.

TUESDAY.

«On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky ;
And through the fields the road runs by
To many-towered Camelot"

Taamom

TUESDAY.

LONG before daylight we ranged abroad, hatchet in
hand, in search of fuel, and made the yet slumbering and
dreaming wood resound with our blows. Then with our
fire we burned up a portion of the loitering night, while
the kettle sang its homely strain to the morning star.
We tramped about the shore, waked all the muskrats,
and scared up the bittern and birds that were asleep
upon their roosts ; we hauled up and upset our boat and
washed it and rinsed out the clay, talking aloud as if it
were broad day, until at length, by three o'clock, we had
completed our preparations and were ready to pursue
our voyage as usual ; so, shaking the clay from our feet,
we pushed into the fog.

Though we were enveloped in mist as usual, we
trusted that there was a bright day behind it.

Ply the oars ! away ! away !
In each dew-drop of the morning
Lies the promise of a day.

Rivers from the sunrise flow,

Springing with the dewy morn;

Voyageurs 'gainst time do row,

Idle noon nor sunset know,
Ever even with the dawn.

Belknap, the historian of this State, says that, " In the
neighborhood of fresh rivers and ponds, a whitish fog in

192 A WEEK.

the morning lying over the water is a sure indication of
fair weather for that day ; aud when no fog is seen, rain
is expected before night." That which seemed to us to
invest the world was only a narrow and shallow wreath
of vapor stretched over the channel of the Merrimack
from the seaboard to the mountains. More extensive
fogs, however, have their own limits. I once saw the
day break from the top of Saddle-back Mountain in
Massachusetts, above the clouds. As we cannot distin
guish objects through this dense fog, let me tell this story
more at length.

I had come over the hills on foot and alone in serene
summer days, plucking the raspberries by the wayside,
and occasionally buying a loaf of bread at a farmer's
house, with a knapsack on my back which held a few
traveller's books and a change of clothing, and a staff in
my hand. I had that morning looked down from the
Hoosack Mountain, where the road crosses it, on the vil
lage of North Adams in the valley three miles away
under my feet, showing how uneven the earth may
sometimes be, and making it seem an accident that it
should ever be level and convenient for the feet of man.
Putting a little rice and sugar and a tin cup into my
knapsack at this village, I began in the afternoon to as
cend the mountain, whose summit is three thousand six
hundred feet above the level of the sea, and was seven
or eight miles distant by the path. My route lay up a
long and spacious valley called the Bellows, because the
winds rush up or down it with violence in storms, slop
ing up to the very clouds between the principal range
and a lower mountain. There were a few farms scat
tered along at different elevations, each commanding a

TUESDAY. 193

fine prospect of the mountains to the north, and a stream
ran down the middle of the valley on which near the
head there was a mill. It seemed a road for the pil
grim to enter upon who would climb to the gates of
heaven. Now I crossed a hay-field, and now over the
brook on a slight bridge, still gradually ascending all the
while with a sort of awe, and filled with indefinite ex
pectations ns to what kind of inhabitants and what kind
of nature I should come to at last. It now seemed
some advantage that the earth was uneven, for one
could not imagine a more noble position for a farm
house than this vale afforded, farther from or nearer
to its head, from a glen-like seclusion overlooking the
country at a great elevation between these two mountain
walls.

It reminded me of the homesteads of the Huguenots,
en Staten Island, off the coast of New Jersey. The
hills in the interior of this island, though comparatively
low, are penetrated in various directions by similar slop
ing valleys on a humble scale, gradually narrowing and
rising to the centre, and at the head of these the Hu
guenots, who were the first settlers, placed their houses
quite within the land, in rural and sheltered places, in
leafy recesses where the breeze played with the poplar
and the gurn-tree, from which, with equal security in
calm and storm, they looked out through a widening
vista, over miles of forest and stretching salt marsh, to
the Huguenot's Tree, an old elm on the shore at whose
root they had landed, and across the spacious outer bay
of New York to Sandy Hook and the Highlands of
Neversink, and thence over leagues of the Atlantic, per-
thance to some faint vessel in the horizon, almost a day's
Bail on her voyage to thai Europe whence they had
d M

1(J4 A WEEK.

come. When walking in the interior there, in the midst
of rural scenery, where there was as little to remind me
of the ocean as amid the New Hampshire hills, I have
suddenly, through a gap, a cleft or " clove road," as the
Dutch settlers called it, caught sight of a ship under full
sail, over a field of corn, twenty or thirty miles at sea.
The effect was similar, since I had no means of meas
uring distances, to seeing a painted ship passed back
wards and forwards through a magic-lantern.

But to return to the mountain. It seemed as if he
must be the most singular and heavenly minded man
whose dwelling stood highest up the valley. The thun
der had rumbled at my heels all the way, but the shower
passed off in another direction, though if it had not, I
half believed that I should get above it. I at length
reached the last house but one, where the path to the
summit diverged to the right, while the summit itself rose
directly in front. But I determined to follow up the val
ley to its head, and then find my own route up the steep
as the shorter and more adventurous way. I had
thoughts of returning to this house, which was well kept
and so nobly placed, the next day, and perhaps remain
ing a week there, if I could have entertainment. Its
mistress was a frank and hospitable young woman, who
stood before me in a dishabille, busily and unconcern
edly combing her long black hair while she talked, giv
ing her head the necessary toss with each sweep of the
comb, with lively, sparkling eyes, and full of interest in
that lower world from which I had come, talking all the
while as familiarly as if she had known me for years,
and reminding me of a cousin of mine. She at first had
taken me for a student from Williamstown, for they
went by in parties, she said, either riding or walking

TUESDAY. 19,3

almost every pleasant day, and were a pretty wild set
of fellows ; but they never went by the way I was go
ing. As I passed the last house, a man culled out to
know what I had to sell, for seeing my knapsack, he
thought that I might be a pedler who was taking this un
usual route over the ridge of the valley into South Adams.
He told me that it was still four or five miles to the summit
by the path which I had left, though not more than two
in a straight line from where I was, but that nobody ever
went this way ; there was no path, and I should find it
as steep as the roof of a house. But I knew that I was
more used to woods and mountains than he, and went
along through his cow-yard, while he, looking at the sun,
shouted after me that I should not get to the top that
night. I soon reached the head of the valley, but as I
could not see the summit from this point, I ascended a
low mountain on the opposite side, and took its bearing
with my compass. I at once entered the woods, and be
gan to climb the steep side of the mountain in a diagonal
direction, taking the bearing of a tree every dozen rods.
The ascent was by no means difficult or unpleasant, and
occupied much less time than it would have taken to fol
low the path. Even country people, I have observed,
magnify the difficulty of travelling in the forest, and
-especially among mountains. They seem to lack their
usual common sense in this. I have climbed several
higher mountains without guide or path, and have found,
as might be expected, that it takes only more time and
patience commonly than to travel the smoothest high
way. It is very rare that you meet with obstacles in
this world which the humblest man has not faculties to
(surmount. It is true we may come to a perpendicular
precipice, but we need not jump off nor run our headi

196 A WEEK.

Rgainst it. A man may jump down his own cellar stairs
or dash his brains out against his chimney, if he is mad.
So far as my experience goes, travellers generally ex
aggerate the difficulties of the way. Like most evil, the
difficulty is imaginary ; for what's the hurry? Ifaper-
Bon lost would conclude that after all he is not lost, he is
not beside himself, but standing in his own old shoes on
the very spot where he is, and that for the time being
he will live there ; but the places that have known him,
they are lost, — how much anxiety and danger would
vanish. I am not alone if I stand by myself. Who
knows where in space this globe is rolling? Yet we
will not give ourselves up for lost, let it go where it
will.

I made my way steadily upward in a .straight line
through a dense undergrowth of mountain laurel, until
the trees began to have a scraggy and infernal look, as
if contending with frost goblins, and at length I reached
:he summit, just as the sun was setting. Several acres
here had been cleared, and were covered with rocks and
stumps, and there was a rude observatory in the middle
which overlooked the woods. I had one fair view of the
country before the sun went down, but I was too thirsty
to waste any light in viewing the prospect, and set out
directly to find water. First, going down a well-beaten
path for half a mile through the low scrubby wood, till I
came to where the water stood in the tracks of the horses
which had carried travellers up, I lay down flat, and
drank these dry, one after another, a pure, cold, spring
like water, but yet I could not fill my dipper, though I
contrived little siphons of grass-stems, and ingenious
aqueducts on a small scale ; it was too slow a process,
Then remembering that T had passed a moist place neal

TUESDAY. 1U7

the top. on my way up, I returned to find it again, and
here, with sharp stones and my hands, in the twilight, I
made a well about two feet deep, which was soon filled
with pure cold water, and the birds too came and drank
at it. So I filled my dipper, and, making my way back
to the observatory, collected some dry sticks, and made
a fire on some flat stones which had been placed on the
floor for that purpose, and so I soon cooked my supper
of rice, having already whittled a wooden spoon to eat
it with.

I sat up during the evening, reading by the light of
the fire the scraps of newspapers in which some party
had wrapped their luncheon ; the prices current in New
York and Boston, the advertisements, and the singular
editorials which some had seen fit to publish, not fore
seeing under what critical circumstances they would be
read. I read these things at a vast advantage there,
and it seemed to me that the advertisements, or what is
called the business part of a paper, were greatly the
best, the most useful, natural, and respectable. Almost
all the opinions and sentiments expressed were so little
considered, so shallow and flimsy, that I thought the
very texture of the paper must be weaker in that part
and tear the more easily. The advertisements and the
prices current were more closely allied to nature, and
were respectable in some measure as tide and meteoro
logical tables are ; but the reading-matter, which I
remembered was most prized down below, unless it was
Borne humble record of science, or an extract from some
old classic, struck' me as strangely whimsical, and crude,
and one-idea'd, like a school-boy's theme, such as youths
write and after burn The opinions were of that kind
that are dcomed to wear a different aspect to-morrow

198

A WKKK.

like last year's fashions ; as if mankind were very green
indeed, and would be ashamed of themselves in a few
years, when they had outgrown this verdant period.
There was, moreover, a singular disposition to wit and
humor, but rarely the slightest real success ; and the
apparent success was a terrible satire on the attempt;
the Evil Genius of man laughed the loudest at his best
jokes. The advertisements, as I have said, such as were
serious, and not of the modern quack kind, suggested
pleasing and poetic thoughts ; for commerce is really as
interesting as nature. The very names of the commodi
ties were poetic, and as suggestive as if they had been
inserted in a pleasing poem, — Lumber, Cotton, Sugar,
Hides, Guano, Logwood. Some sober, private, and
original thought would have been grateful to read there,
and as much in harmony with the circumstances as if it
hud been written on a mountain-top ; for it is of a fashion
which never changes, and as respectable as hides and
logwood, or any natural product. What an inestimable
companion such a scrap of paper would have been, con
taining some fruit of a mature life. What a relic!
What a recipe! It seemed a divine invention, by which
not mere shining coin, but shining and current thoughts,
could be brought up and left there.

As it was cold, I collected quite a pile of wood and
lay down on a board against the side of the building, not
having any blanket to cover me, with my head to the
fire, that I might look after it, which is not the Indian
rule. But as it grew colder towards midnight, I at
length encased myself completely in boards, managing
even to put a board on top of me, with a large stone on
it, to keop it down, and so slept comfortably. I was
reminded, it is true, of the Irish children, who inquires

TUESDAY 199

•vhat their neighbors did who had no door to put over
them in winter nights as they had ; but I am convinced
that there was nothing very strange in the inquiry.
Those who have never tried it can have no idea how far
a door, which keeps the single blanket down, may go
toward making one comfortable. We are constituted a
good deal like chickens, which taken from the hen, and
put in a basket of cotton in the chimney-corner, will
often peep till they die, nevertheless, but if you put in
a book, or anything heavy, which will press down the
cotton, and feel like the hen, they go to sleep directly.
My only companions were the mice, which came to pick
up the crumbs that had been left in those scraps of
paper ; still, as everywhere, pensioners on man, and not
unwisely improving this elevated tract for their habita
tion. They nibbled what was for them ; I nibbled what
was for me. Once or twice in the night, when I looked
up, I saw a white cloud drifting through the windows,
and filling the whole upper story.

This observatory was a building of considerable size,
erected by the students of William&town College, whose
buildings might be seen by da}1 light gleaming far down
in the valley. It would be no small advantage if every
college were thus located at the base of a mountain, as
good at least as one well-endowed professorship. It
were as well to be educated in the shadow of a mountain
as in more classical shades. Some will remember, no
doubt, not only that they went to the college, but that
ihey went to the mountain. Every visit to its summit
would, as it were, generalize the particular information
gained below, and subject it TO more catholic tests.

1 was up early and perched upon the top of this tower
to see th J daybreak, for some time reading the name*

200 A WEEK.

that had been engraved there, before I could distinguish
more distant objects. An "untamable fly" buzzed at
my elbow with the same nonchalance as on a molasses
hogshead at the end of Long Wharf. Even there I
must attend to his stale humdrum. But now I come to
the pith of this long digression. — As the light increased
I discovered around me an ocean of mist, which by
chance reached up exactly to the base of the tower, and
shut out every vestige of the earth, while I was left
floating on this fragment of the wreck of a world, on my
carved plank, in cloudland ; a situation which required
no aid from the imagination to render it impressive. As
the light in the east steadily increased, it revealed to me
more clearly the new world into which I had risen in
the night, the new terra Jirma perchance of my future
life. There was not a crevice left through which the
trivial places we name Massachusetts or Vermont or
New York could be seen, while I still inhaled the clear
atmosphere of a July morning, — if it were July there.
All around beneath me was spread for a hundred miles
on every side, as far as the eye could reach, an undulat
ing country of clouds, answering in the varied swell of
its surface to the terrestrial world it veiled. It was
such a country as we might see in dreams, with all the
delights of paradise. There were immense snowy pas
tures, apparently smooth-shaven and firm, and shady
vales between the vaporous mountains ; and far in the
horizon I could see where some luxurious misty timber
tutted into the prairie, and trace the windings of a water
course, some unimagined Amazon or Orinoko, by the
misty trees on its brink. As there was wanting thf
symbol, so there was not the substance of impurity, no
spot nor stain. It was a favor for which to be forevet

TUESDAY. 201

silent to be shown this vision. The earth beneath had
become such a flitting thing of lights and shadows as the
clouds had been before. It was not merely veiled to
me, but it had passed away like the phantom of a shadow,
arKias ovap, and this new platform was gained. As I had
climbed above storm and cloud, so by successive days'
journeys I might reach the region of eternal day, beyond
the tapering shadow of the earth ; ay,

" Heaven itself shall slide,
And roll away, like melting stars that glide
Along their oily threads."

But when its own sun began to rise on this pure world,
I found myself a dweller in the dazzling halls of Aurcra,
into which poets have had but a partial glance over the
eastern hills, drifting amid the saffron -colored cloud*,
and playing with the rosy fingers of the Dawn, in the
very path of the Sun's chariot, and sprinkled with its
dewy dust, enjoying the benignant smile, and near at
hand the far-darting glances of the god. The inhabi
tant of earth behold commonly but the dark and shadowy
under-side of heaven's pavement ; it is only when seen
at a favorable angle in the horizon, morning or evening,
that some faint streaks of the rich lining of the clouds
are revealed. But my muse would fail to convey an
impression of the gorgeous tapestry by which I was sur
rounded, such as men see faintly reflected afar off in the
chambers of the east. Here, as on earth, I saw the
gracious god

" Flatter the mountain-tons with sovereign eye,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy."

$ut never here did " Heaven's sun " stain himself.
But, alas, owing, as I tlrnk, to some unworthiness in
9*

202 A \VKKK.

myself, my private sun did stain himself, and

" Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly wrack on his celestial face," —

for before the god had reached the zenith the heavenly
pavement rose and embraced my wavering virtue, 01
rather I sank down again into that " forlorn world," from
which the celestial sun had hid his visage, —

" How may a worm that crawls along the dust,
Clamber the azure mountains, thrown so high,
And fetch from thence thy fair idea just,
That in those sunny courts doth hidden lie,
Clothed with such light as blinds the angel's eye V
How may weak mortal ever hope to file
His unsmooth tongue, and his deprostrate style?
0, raise thou from his corse thy now entombed exile ! "

In the preceding evening I had seen the summits of
new and yet higher mountains, the Catskills, by which
I might hope to climb to heaven again, and had set my
compass for a fair lake in the southwest, which lay in my
way, for which I now steered, descending the mountain
by my own route, on the side opposite to that by wUieh
I had ascended, and soon found myself in the region of
cloud and drizzling rain, and the inhabitants affirmed
that it had been a cloudy and drizzling day wholly.

But now we must make haste back before the fog dis
perses to the blithe Merrimack water.

Since that first " Away ! away ! "

Many a lengthy reach we 've rowed,

Still the sparrow on the spray

Hastes to usher in the day

With her simple stanza'd ode.

We passed a canal-boat before sunrise, groping its
way to the seaboard, and, though we could not see it 01

TUESDAY. 203

account of the fog, the few dull, thumping, stertorous
sounds which we heard, impressed us with a sense of
weight and irresistible motion. One little rill*of com-

O

inerce already awake on this distant New Hampshire
river. The fog, as it required more skill in the steer
ing, enhanced the interest of our early voyage, and made
the river seern indefinitely broad. A slight mist,
through which objects are faintly visible, has the effect
of expanding even ordinary streams, by a singular mirage,
into arms of the sea or inland lakes. In the present in
stance it was even fragrant and invigorating, and we
enjoyed it as a sort of earlier sunshine, or dewy and
pmbryo light.

Low-anchored cloud,

Newfoundland air,

Fountain-head and source of rivers,

Dew-cloth, dream drapery,

And napkin spread by fays;

Drifting meadow of the air,

Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,

And in whose fenny labyrinth

The bittern booms and heron wades;

Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,

Bear only perfumes and the scent

Of healing herbs to just men's fields!

The same pleasant and observant historian whom we
quoted above says, that, " In the mountainous parts of
the country, the ascent of vapors, and their formation
into clouds, is a curious and entertaining object. The
vapors are seen ~isrng in small columns like smoke from
many chimneys. When riset: to a certain height, they
-pread, meet, condense, and are attracted to the moun-
ains. where they either distil in gentle dews, and re
plenish the springs, or descend in showers, accompanied

A WEEK.

with thunder. After short intermissions, the process is
repeated many times in the course of a summer day
affording to travellers a lively illustration of what is ob
served in the Book of Job, ' They are wet with the
showers of the mountains.' "

Fogs and clouds which conceal the overshadowing
mountains lend the breadth of the plains to mountain
vales. Even a small-featured country acquires some
grandeur in stormy weather when clouds are seen drift
ing between the beholder and the neighboring hills.
When, in travelling toward Haverhill through ITamp-
Btead in this State, on the height of land between the
Merrimack and the Piscataqua or the sea, you commence
the descent eastward, the view toward the coast is so
distant and unexpected, though the sea is invisible, that
you at first suppose the unobstructed atmosphere to be a
fog in the lowlands concealing hills of corresponding ele
vation to that you are upon ; but it is the mist of preju
dice alone, which the winds will not disperse. The most
stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it becomes
distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagination
is no longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual
height and breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are al*
ways ridiculously small ; they are the imagined only
that content us Nature is not made after such a fashion
RS we would have her. We piously exaggerate her
wonders, as the scenery around our home.

Such was the heaviness of the dews along this rivei
that we were generally obliged to leave our tent spread
over the bows of the boat till the sun had dried it, to
nvoid mildew. We passed the mouth of Penichook
Brook, a wild salmon-stream, in the fog, without seeing
it. At length the sun's rays struggled through the mis)

TUESDAY. 205

and showed us the pmes on shore dripping with dew,
and springs trickling from the moist banks, —

" And now the taller sons, whom Titan warms,
Of unshorn mountains blown with easy winds,
Dandle the morning's childhood in their arms,
And, if they chanced to slip the prouder pines,
The under corylets did catch their shines,
To gild their leaves."

We rowed for some hours between glistening banks
before the sun had dried the grass and leaves, or the day
had established its character. Its serenity at last seemed
the more profound and secure for the denseness of the
morning's fog. The river became swifter, and the scen
ery more pleasing than before. The banks were steep
and clayey for the most part, and trickling with water,
and where a spring oozed out a few feet above the river
the boatmen had cut a trough out of a slab with their
axes, and placed it so as to receive the water and fill
their jugs conveniently. Sometimes this purer and
cooler water, bursting out from under a pine or a rock,
was collected into a basin close to the edge of and level
with the river, a fountain-head of the Merrimack. So
near along life's stream are the fountains of innocence
and youth making fertile its sandy margin ; and the
voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at
these uncontaminated sources. Some youthful spring,
perchance, still empties with tinkling music into the old
est river, even when it is falling into the sea, and we
imagine that its music is distinguished by the river-gods
from the general lapse of the stream, and falls sweeter
on their ears in proportion as it is nearer to the ocean.
As the evaporations of the river feed thus these unsus
pected springs which filter through its banks, so, per-

206 A WEEK.

chance, our aspirations fall back again in springs on the
margin of life's stream to refresh and purify it. The
yellow and tepid river may float his scow, and cheer
his eye with its reflections and its ripples, but the
boatman quenches his thirst at this small rill alone.
It is this purer and cooler element that chiefly sus
tains his life. The race will long survive that is thus
discreet.

Our course this morning lay between the territories of
Merrimack, on the west, and Litchfield, once called
Brenton's Farm, on the east, which townships were an
ciently the Indian Naticook. Brenton was a fur-trader
among the Indians, and these lands were granted to him
in 1656. The latter township contains about five hun
dred inhabitants, of whom, however, we saw none, and
but few of their dwellings. Being on the river, whose
banks are always high and generally conceal the few
houses, the country appeared much more wild and primi
tive than to the traveller on the neighboring roads. The
river is by far the most attractive highway, and those
boatmen who have spent twenty or twenty-five years on
it must have had a much fairer, more wild, and memora
ble experience than the dusty and jarring one of the
teamster who has driven, during the same time, on the
roads which run parallel with the stream. As one as
cends the Merrimack he rarely sees a village, but for the
most part alternate wood and pasture lands, and some
times a field of corn or potatoes, of rye or oats or Eng
lish grass, with a few straggling apple-trees, and, at still
longer intervals, a farmer's house. The soil, excepting
»ne best of the interval, is commonly as light and sandy
*s a patriot could desire. Sometimes this forenoon the
country appeared in its primitive state, and as if the

TUESDAY. 207

Indian still inhabited it, and, again, as if many free, new
Bettlers occupied it, their slight fences straggling down
to the water's edge ; and the barking of dogs, and even
the prattle of children, were heard, and smoke Avas seen
to go up from some hearthstone, and the banks were di
vided into patches of pasture, mowing, tillage, and wood
land. But when the river spread out broader, with an
uninhabited islet, or a long, low sandy shore which ran
on single and devious, not answering to its opposite, but
far off as if it were sea-shore or single coast, and the land
no longer nursed the river in its bosom, but they con
versed as equals, the rustling leaves with rippling waves,
and few fences were seen, but high oak woods on one
side, and large herds of cattle, and all tracks seemed a
point to one centre behind some statelier grove, — we
imagined that the river flowed through an extensive
manor, and that the few inhabitants were retainers to a
lord, and a feudal state of things prevailed.

When there was a suitable reach, we caught sight of
the Goffstown mountain, the Indian Uncannunuc, rising
before us on the west side. It was a calm and beautiful
lay, with only a slight zephyr to ripple the surface of the
water, and rustle the woods on shore, and just warmth
enough to prove the kindly disposition of Nature to her
children. With buoyant spirits and vigorous impulses we
tossed our boat rapidly along into the very middle of this
forenoon. The fish-hawk sailed and screamed overhead.
The chipping or striped squirrel, Sciurus striatus ( Tamias
Lysteri, And.), sat upon the end of some Virginia fence
or rider reaching over the stream, twirling a green nut
with one paw, as in a lathe, while the other held it fast
against its incisors as chisels. Like an independent
leaf, with a will of its own, rustling whither it

208 A WEKK.

could ; now under the fence, now over it, now peeping
at the voyageurs through a crack with only its tail visi
ble, now at its lunch deep in the toothsome kernel, and
now a rod off playing at hide-and-seek, with the nut
stowed away in its chops, where were half a dozen more
besides, extending its cheeks to a ludicrous breadth, — as
if it were devising through what safe valve of frisk or
somerset to let its superfluous life escape ; the stream
passing harmlessly off, even while it sits, in constant
electric flashes through its tail. And now with a chuck
ling squeak it dives into the root of a hazel, and we see
no more of it. Or the larger red squirrel or chickaree,
sometimes called the Hudson Bay squirrel (Scriunu
Ifudsonius),gi\ve warning of our approach by that pecu
liar alarum of his, like the winding up of some strong
clock, in the top of a pine-tree, and dodged behind its
stem, or leaped from tree to tree with such caution and
adroitness, as if much depended on the fidelity of his
scout, running along the \vhitc-pine boughs sometimes
twenty rods by our side, with such speed, and by such
unerring routes, as if it were some well-worn familiar
path to him ; and presently, when we have passed, he
returns to his work of cutting off the pine-cones, and
letting them fall to the ground.

We passed Cromwell's Falls, the first we met with on
this river, this forenoon, by means of locks, without using
our wheels. These falls are the Nesenkeag of the
Indians. Great Nesenkeag Stream comes in on the
right just above, and Little Nesenkeag some distance
below, both in Litchfield. We read in the Gazetteer
under the head of Merrimack, that " The first house in
this town was erected on the margin of the river ["soon
1GG5] for a house of traffic with the Indians. Foi

TUESDAY. 20U

*ome time one Cromwell carried on a lucrative trade
with them, weighing their furs with his foot, till, enraged
at his supposed or real deception, they formed the reso
lution to murder him. This intention being communicated
to Cromwell, he buried his wealth and made his escape.
Within a few hours after his flight, a party of the Pena-
cook tribe arrived, and, not finding the object of their
resentment, burnt his habitation." Upon the top of the
high bank here, close to the river, was still to be seen
his cellar, now overgrown with trees. It was a con
venient spot for such a traffic, at the foot of the first falls
above the settlements, and commanding a pleasant view
up the river, where he could see the Indians coming
down with their furs. The lock-man told us that his
shovel and tongs had been ploughed up here, and also a
stone with his name on it. But we will not vouch for
the truth of this story. In the New Hampshire His
torical Collections for 1815 it says, "Some time after
pewter was found in the well, and an iron pot and
trammel in the sand ; the latter are preserved." These
were the traces of the white trader. On the opposite
bank, where it jutted over the stream cape-wise, we
picked up four arrow-heads and a small Indian tool
made of stone, as soon as we had climbed it, where
plainly there had once stood a wigwam of the Indians
with whom Cromwell traded, and who fished and hunted
here before he came.

As usual the gossips have not been silent respecting
Cromwell's buried wealth, and it is said that some years
ago a farmer's plough, not far from here, slid over a flat
Btone which emitted a hollow sound, and, on its being
raised, a small hole six inches in diameter was discov
ered, stoned about, from which a sum of money was

210 A WKEK.

taken. The lock-man told us another similar story about
a farmer in a neighboring town, who had been a poor
man, but who suddenly bought a good farm, and was
well to do in the world, and, when he was questioned,
did not give a satisfactory account of the matter ; how
few, alas, could ! This caused his hired man to remem
ber that one day, as they were ploughing together, the
plough struck something, and his employer, going back
to look, concluded not to go round again, saying that the
sky looked rather lowering, and so put up his team. The
like urgency has caused many things to be remembered
which never transpired. The truth is, there is money
buried everywhere, and you have only to go to work to
find it.

Not far from these falls stands an oak-tree, on the
interval, about a quarter of a mile from the river, on the
farm of a Mr. Lund, which was pointed out to us as the
spot where French, the leader of the party which went
in pursuit of the Indians from Dunstable, was killed.
Farwell dodged them in the thick woods near. It did
not look as if men had ever had to run for their lives on
this now open and peaceful interval.

Here too was another extensive desert by the side of
the road in Litchfield, visible from the bank of the river.
The sand was blown off in some places to the depth of
en or twelve feet, leaving small grotesque hillocks of
that height, where there was a clump of bushes firmly
looted. Thirty or forty years ago, as we were told, it
was a sheep-pasture, but the sheep, being worried by the
fleas, began to paw the ground, till they broke the sod,
and so the sand began to blow, till now it had extended
over forty or fifty acres. This evil might easily have
been remedied, at first, by spreading birches with theif

TUESDAY. 211

leaves on over the sand, and fastening them down with
stakes, to break the wind. The fleas bit the sheep, and
the sheep bit the ground, and the sore had spread to
this extent. It is astonishing what a great sore a little
scratch breedeth. Who knows but Sahara, where cara
vans and cities are buried, began with the bite of an
African flea ? This poor globe, how it must itch in many
places ! Will no god be kind enough to spread a salve
of birches over its sores ? Here too we noticed where
the Indians had gathered a heap of stones, perhaps for
their council-fire, which, by their weight having pre
vented the sand under them from blowing away, were
left on the summit of a mound. They told us that
arrow-heads, and also bullets of lead and iron, had been
found here. We noticed several other sandy tracts in
our voyage ; and the course of the Merrimack can be
traced from the nearest mountain by its yellow sand
banks, though the river itself is for the most part
invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases
grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made
through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and
so have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted
fertile farms into deserts, and the company has had to
pay the damages.

This sand seemed to us the connecting link between
land and water. It was a kind of water on which you
;ould walk, and you could see the ripple-marks on its
Mrface, produced by the winds, precisely like those at
the bottom of a brook or lake. We had read that Mus-
sulmen are permitted by the Koran to perform their
ablutions in sand when they cannot get water, a necessary
indulgence in Arabia, and we now understood the pro
priety of this provision.

212 A WEEK.

Plum Island, at the mouth of this river, to whose
formation, perhaps, these very banks have sent their
contribution, is a similar desert of drifting sand, of
various colors, blown into graceful curves by the wind.
It is a mere sand-bar exposed, stretching nine miles par
allel to the coast, and, exclusive of the marsh on the
inside, rarely more than half a mile wide. There are
but half a dozen houses on it, and it is almost without a
tree, or a sod, or any green thing with which a country
man is familiar. The thin vegetation stands half buried
in sand, as in drifting snow. The only shrub, the beach-
plum, which gives the island its name, grows but a few
feet high ; but this is so abundant that parties of a hun
dred at once come from the main-land and down the
Merrimat'k, in September, pitch their tents, and gather
the plums, which are good to eat raw and to preserve.
The graceful and delicate beach-pea, too, grows abun
dantly amid the sand, and several strange, moss-like and
succulent plants. The island for its whole length is
scolloped into low hills, not more than twenty feet high,
by the wind, and, excepting a faint trail on the edge of
the marsh, is as trackless as Sahara. There are dreary
bluffs of sand and valleys ploughed by the wind, where
you might expect to discover the bones of a caravan.
Schooners come from Boston to load Avith the sand for
masons' uses, and in a few hours the wind obliterates all
traces of their work. Yet you have only to dig a foot
or two anywhere to come to fresh water ; and you are
surprised to learn that woodchucks abound here, and
foxes are found, though you see not where they car
burrow or hide themselves. I have walked down the
whole length of its broad beach at low tide, at which
time alone you can find a firm ground to walk on. and

TUESDAY. 213

probably Massachusetts does not furnish a more grand
and dreary walk. On the seaside there are only a
distant sail and a few coots to break the grand monot
ony. A solitary stake stuck up, or a sharper sand-hill
than usual, is remarkable as a landmark for miles ;
while for music you hear only the ceaseless sound of the
surf, and the dreary peep of the beach-birds.

There were several canal-boats at Cromwell's Falls
passing through the locks, for which we waited. In the
forward part of one stood a brawny New Hampshire
man, leaning on his pole, bareheaded and in shirt and
trousers only, a rude Apollo of a man, coming down
from that "vast uplandish country" to the main; of
nameless age, with flaxen hair, and vigorous, weather-
bleached countenance, in whose wrinkles the sun still
lodged, as little touched by the heats and frosts and
withering cares of life as a maple of the mountain ; an
undressed, unkempt, uncivil man, with whom we par
leyed awhile, and parted not without a sincere interest
in one another. His humanity was genuine and in
stinctive, and his rudeness only a manner. He in
quired, just as we were passing out of earshot, if we had
killed anything, and we shouted after him that we had
shot a buoy, and could see him for a long while scratch
ing his head in vain to know if he had heard aright.

There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil.
The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we
doubt whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all.
We sometimes meet uncivil men, children of Amazons,
who dwell by mountain paths, and are said to be inhos
pitable to strangers ; whose salutation is as rude as the
grasp of their brawny hands, and who deal with men as

214 A WKI-:K.

unceremoniously as they are wont to deal with the ele
ments. They need only to extend their clearings, and
let in more sunlight, to seek out the southern slopes of
the hills, from which they may look down on the civil
plain or ocean, and temper their diet duly with the ce
real fruits, consuming less wild meat and acorns, to be
come like the inhabitants of cities. A true politeness
does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing,
it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the right
grain and quality, through a long fronting of men and
events, and rubbing on good and bad fortune. Perhaps
I can tell a tale to the purpose while the lock is filling,
— for our voyage this forenoon furnishes but few inci
dents of importance.

Early one summer morning I had left the shores of
the Connecticut, and for the livelong day travelled up
the bank of a river, which came in from the west ;
now looking down on the stream, foaming and rippling
through the forest a mile off, from the hills over which
the road led, and now sitting on its rocky brink and
dipping my feet in its rapids, or bathing adventurously
in mid-channel. The hills grew more and more fre
quent, and gradually swelled into mountains as I ad
vanced, hemming in the course of the river, so that at
last I could not see where it came from, and was at
liberty to imagine the most wonderful meanderings and
descents. At noon I slept on the grass in the shade
of a maple, where the river had found a broader chan
nel than usual, and was spread out shallow, with fre
quent sand-bars exposed. In the names of the towns
I recognized some which I had long ago read on team
sters' wagons, that had come from far up country ; quiet

TUESDAY. 215

uplandish towns, of mountainous fame. I walked
along, musing and enchanted, by rows of sugar-maples,
through the small and uninquisitive villages, and some
times was pleased with the sight of a boat drawn up on
a sand-bar, where there appeared no inhabitants to use
it. It seemed, however, as essential to the river as a
fish, and to lend a certain dignity to it. It was like the
trout of mountain streams to the fishes of the sea, or
like the young of the land-crab born far in the interior,
who have never yet heard the sound of the ocean's surf.
The hills approached nearer and nearer to the stream,
until at last they closed behind me, and I found myself
just before nightfall in a romantic and retired valley,
about half a mile in length, and barely wide enough for
the stream at its bottom. I thought that there could be
no finer site for a cottage among mountains. You could
anywhere run across the stream on the rocks, and its
constant murmuring would quiet the passions of mankind
forever. Suddenly the road, which seemed aiming for
the mountain-side, turned short to the left, and another
valley opened, concealing the former, and of the same
character with it. It was the most remarkable and
pleasing scenery I had ever seen. I found here a few
mild and hospitable inhabitants, who, as the day was not
quite spent, and I was anxious to improve the light,
directed me four or five miles farther on my way to the
dwelling of a man whose name was Rice, who occupied
'lie last and highest of the valleys that lay in my path,
and who, they said, was a rather rude and uncivil man.
But "what is a fjreign country to those who have,
science ? Who is a stranger to those who have the
habit of speaking kindly ? "

At length, as the sun was setting behind the moun

1 A WEEK.

tains in a still darker and more solitary vale, I reached
the dwelling of this man. Except for the narrowness
of the plain, and that the stones were solid granite, it was
the counterpart of that retreat to which Belphcebe bore
the wounded Timias, —

" In a pleasant glade,
With mountains round about environed,
And mighty woods, which did the valley shade,
And like a stately theatre it made,
Spreading itself into a spacious plain ;
And in the midst a little river played
Amongst the pumy stones which seemed to plain,
With gentle murmur, that his course they did restrain."

I observed, as I drew near, that he was not so rude as 1
had anticipated, for he kept many cattle, and dogs to watch
them, and I saw where he had made maple-sugar on the
sides of the mountains, and above all distinguished the
voices of children mingling with the murmur of the tor
rent before the door. As I passed his stable I met one
whom I supposed to be a hired man, attending to his
cattle, and I inquired if they entertained travellers at
that house. u Sometimes we do," he answered, gruffly,
and immediately went to the farthest stall from me, and
I perceived that it was Rice himself whom I had ad
dressed. But pardoning this incivility to the wildness of
the scenery, I bent my steps to the house. There was
no sign-post before it, nor any of the usual invitations
to the traveller, though I saw by the road that many
went and camo there, but the owner's name only was fa>t-
ened to the outside; a sort of implied and sullen invita-
tiDn, as I thought. I passed from room to room without
meeting any one, till I came to what seemed the guests
apartment, which was neat, and even had an air of re
finement about it, and I was glad to find a map again§/

TUESDAY. 217

the wall which would direct me on my journey on the
morrow. At length I heard a step in a distant apart
ment, which was the first I had entered, and went to
see if the landlord had come in ; but it proved to be
only a child, one of those whose voices I had heard,
probably his son, and between him and me stood in the
doorway a large watch-dog, which growled at me, and
looked as if he would presently spring, but the boy did not
speak to him ; and when I asked for a glass of water,
he briefly said, " It runs in the corner." So I took a
mug from the counter and went out of doors, and
searched round the corner of the house, but could find
neither well nor spring, nor any water but the stream
which ran all along the front. I came back, therefore,
and, setting down the mug, asked the child if the stream
was good to drink ; whereupon he seized the mug, and,
going to the corner of the room, where a cool spring
which issued from the mountain behind trickled through
a pipe into the apartment, filled it, and drank, and gave
it to me empty again, and, calling to the dog, rushed out
of doors. Erelong some of the hired men made their
appearance, and drank at the spring, and lazily washed
themselves and combed their hair in silence, and some
sat down as if weary, and fell asleep in their seats.
But all the while I saw no women, though I sometimes
heard a bustle in that part of the house from which the
spring came.

At length Rice himself came in, for it was now dark,
with an ox-whip in his hand, breathing hard, and he too
BOOH settled down into his seat not far from me, as if, now
that his day's work was done, he had no farther to travel,
but only to digest his supper at his leisure. When I
asked him if he could give me a bed, he said there waa

10

218 A WKEK.

one ready, in such a tone as implied that 1 ought to have
known it, and the less said about that the better. So far
BO good. And yet he continued to look at me as if he
would fain have me say something further like a trav
eller. I remarked, that it was a wild and rugged coun
try he inhabited, and worth coming many miles to see.
" Not so very rough neither," said he, and appealed to his
men to bear witness to the breadth and smoothness of
his fields, which consisted in all of one small interval,
and to the size of his crops; "and if we have some
hills," added he, "there's no better pasturage any
where." I then asked if this place was the one I had
heard of, calling it by a name I had seen on the map,
or if it was a certain other ; and he answered, grufily,
that it was neither the one nor the other ; that he had
settled it and cultivated it, and made it what it was,
and I could know nothing about it. Observing some
gtwis and other implements of hunting hanging on
brackets around the room, and his hounds now sleeping
on the floor, I took occasion to change the discourse,
and inquired if there was much game in that country,
and he answered this question more graciously, having
pome glimmering of my drift; but when I inquired if
there were any bears, he answered impatiently that he
was no more in danger of losing his sheep than his
neighbors; he had tamed and civilized that region.
After a pause, thinking of my journey on the morrow,
and the few hours of daylight in that hollow and moun
tainous country, which would require me to be on my
way betimes, I remarked that the day must be shorter
by an hour there than on the neighboring plains ; a/
which he gruffly asked what I knew about it, and af
firmed that he had as much daylight as his neighbors

TUESDAY. 219

he ventured to say, the days were longer there than
where I lived, as I should find if I stayed ; that in some
way, I could not be expected to understand how, the
Bun came over the mountains half an hour earlier, and
stayed half an hour later there than on the neighboring
plains. And more of like sort he said. He was, in
deed, as rude as a fabled satyr. But I suffered him to
pass for what he was, — for why should I quarrel with
nature? — and was even pleased at the discovery of such
a singular natural phenomenon. I dealt with him as
if to me all manners were indifferent, and he had a
sweet, wild way with him. I would not question na
ture, and I would rather have him as he was than as I
would have him. For I had come up here not for sym
pathy, or kindness, or society, but for novelty and ad
venture, and to see what nature had produced here. I
therefore did not repel his rudeness, but quite innocently
welcomed it all, and knew how to appreciate it, as if I
were reading in an old drama a part well sustained.
He was indeed a coarse and sensual man, and, as I
have said, uncivil, but he had his just quarrel with na
ture and mankind, I have no doubt, only he had no
artificial covering to his ill-humors. He was earthy
enough, but yet there was good soil in him, and even a
long-suffering Saxon probity at bottom. If you could
represent the case to him, he would not let the race die
out in him, like a red Indian.

At length I told him that he was a fortunate man, and
I trusted that he was grateful for so much light ; and,
rising, said I would take a lamp, and that I would pay
him then for my lodging, for I expected to recommence
my journey even as early as the sun rose in his country ;
but he answered in haste, and this time civilly, that I

<>20 A WEEK.

should not f;iil to find some of his household stirring,
however early, for they were no sluggards, and I could
take my breakfast with them before I started, if I chose ;
nnd as he lighted the lamp I detected a gleam of true
hospitality and ancient civility, a beam of pure and even
gentle humanity, from his bleared and moist eyes. It
was a look more intimate with me, and more explana
tory, than any words of his could have been if he had
tried to his dying day. It was more significant than
any Rice of those parts could even comprehend, and
long anticipated this man's culture, — a glance of his
pure genius, which did not much enlighten him, bpt did
impress and rule him for the moment, and faintly con
strain his voice and manner. He cheerfully led the way
to my apartment, stepping over the limbs of his men,
who were asleep on the floor in an intervening chamber,
and showed me a clean and comfortable bed. For man}''
pleasant hours after the household was asleep I sat at
the open window, for it was a sultry night, and heard
the little river

" Amongst the pumy stones, which seemed to plain,
With gentle murmur, that his course they did restrain."

But I arose as usual by starlight the next morning, be
fore my host, or his men, or even his dogs, were awake ;
and, having left a ninepence on the counter, was already
half-way over the mountain with the sun before they
had broken their fast.

Before I had left the country of my host, while the
first rays of the sun slanted over the mountains, as I
stopped by the wayside to gather some raspberries, a
very old man, not far from a hundred, came along with
A milking-pail in his hand, and turning aside tesran tc
pluck the berries near me • —

TUESDAY. 221

" His reverend locks
In comelye curies did wave;
And on his aged temples grew
The blossoms of the grave."

But when I inquired the way, he answered in a low,
rough voice, without looking up or seeming to regard my
presence, which I imputed to his years ; and presently,
muttering to himself, he proceeded to collect his cows in
a neighboring pasture ; and when he had again returned
near to the wayside, he suddenly stopped, while his cows
went on before, and, uncovering his head, prayed aloud
in the cool morning air, as if he had forgotten this ex
ercise before, for his daily bread, and also that He who
letteth his rain fall on the just and on the unjust, and
without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground,
would not neglect the stranger (meaning me), and with
even more direct and personal applications, though
mainly according to the long-established formula com
mon to lowlanders and the inhabitants of mountains.
When he had done praying, I made bold to ask him if
he had any cheese in his hut which he would sell me,
but he answered without looking up, and in the same
low and repulsive voice as before, that they did not
make any, and went to milking. It is written, "The
stranger who turneth away from a house with disap
pointed hopes, leaveth there his own offences, and de-
parteth, taking with him all the good actions of the

Being now fairly in the stream of this week's com
merce, we began to meet with boats more frequently,
And hailed them from time to tims with the freedom of
Bailors. The boatmen appeared to lead an easy and

222 A WEKK.

contented life, and we thought that we should prefer
their employment ourselves to many professions which
are much more sought after. They suggested how
few circumstances are necessary to the well-being and
serenity of man, how indifferent all employments are,
and that any may seem noble and poetic to the eyes
of men, if pursued with sufficient buoyancy and free
dom. With liberty and pleasant weather, the simplest
occupation, any unquestioned country mode of life which
detains us in the open air, is alluring. The man who
picks peas steadily for a living is more than respectable
he is even envied by his shop-worn neighbors. We are
as happy as the birds when our Good Genius permita
us to pursue any out-door work, without a sense of dis
sipation. Our penknife glitters in the sun ; our voice is
echoed by yonder wood ; if an oar drops, we are fain to
let it drop again.

The canal-boat is of very simple construction, requir
ing but little ship-timber, and, as we were told, costs about
two hundred dollars. They are managed by two men.
In ascending the stream they use poles fourteen or fif
teen feet long, pointed with iron, walking about one
third the length of the boat from the forward end.
Going down, they commonly keep in the middle of the
stream, using an oar at each end ; or if the wind is fa
vorable they raise their broad sail, and have only to
steer. They commonly carry down wood or bricks,-—
fifteen or sixteen cords of wood, and as many thousand
bricks, at a time, — and bring back stores for the coun
try, consuming two or three days each way between Con
cord and Chariestown. They sometimes pile the wood
BO as to leave a shelter in one part where they may retire
from the rain. One can hardly imagine a more health.

TUESDAY. 223

fill employment, or one more favorable to contemplation
and the observation of nature. Unlike the mariner,
they have the constantly varying panorama of the shore
to relieve the monotony of their labor, and it seemed to
us that as they thus glided noiselessly from town to
town, with all their furniture about them, for their very
homestead is a movable, they could comment on the
character of the inhabitants with greater advantage and
security to themselves than the traveller in a coach, who
would be unable to indulge in such broadsides of wit
and humor in so small a vessel for fear of the recoil.
They are not subject to great exposure, like the lumber
ers of Maine, in any weather, but inhale the healthful-
lest breezes, being slightly encumbered with clothing,
frequently with the head and feet bare. When we met
them at noon as they were leisurely descending the
stream, their busy commerce did not look like toil, but
rather like some ancient Oriental game still played on a
large scale, as the game of chess, for instance, handed
down to this generation. From morning till night, un
less the wind is so fair that his single sail will suffice
without other labor than steering, the boatman walks
backwards and forwards on the side of his boat, now
stooping with his shoulder to the pole, then drawing it
back slowly to set it again, meanwhile moving steadily
forward through an endless valley and an everchanging
scenery, now distinguishing his course for a mile or two,
and now shut in by a sudden turn of the river in a small
woodland lake. All the phenomena which surround him
are simple and grand, and there is something impressive,
even majestic, in the very motion he causes, which will
naturally be communicated to his own character, and he
feels the slow, irresistible movement under him with
pride, as if it were his own energy.

224 A WEEK.

The news spread like wildfire among us youths, when
formerly, once in a year or two, one of these boats came
op the Concord River, and was seen stealing mysteri
ously through the meadows and past the village. It
came and departed as silently as a cloud, without noise
or dust, and was witnessed by few. One summer day
this huge traveller might be seen moored at some mead
ow's wharf, and another summer day it was not there.
Where precisely it came from, or who these men were
who knew the rocks and soundings better than we who
bathed there, we could never tell. We knew some
river's bay only, but they took rivers from end to end.
They were a sort of fabulous river-men to us. It was
inconceivable by what sort of mediation any mere lands
man could hold communication with them. Would they
heave to, to gratify his wishes ? No, it was favor enough
to know faintly of their destination, or the time of their
possible return. I have seen them in the summer when
the stream ran low, mowing the weeds in mid-channel,
and with hayers' jests cutting broad swaths in three
feet of water, that they might make a passage for their
scow, while the grass in long windrows was carried
down the stream, undried by the rarest hay-weather.
We admired unweariedly how their vessel would float,
like a huge chip, sustaining so many casks of lime,
and thousands of bricks, and such heaps of iron ore,
with wheelbarrows aboard, and that, when we stepped
on it, it did not yield to the pressure of our feet. It
gave us confidence in the prevalence of the law of buoy
ancy, and we imagined to what infinite uses it might be
put. The men appeared to lead a kind of life on it, and
it was whispered that they slept aboard. Some affirmed
*hat it carried sail, and that such winds blew here ai

TUESDAY. 225

filled the sails of vessels on the ocean ; which again
others much doubted. They had been seen to sail across
our Fair Haven bay by lucky fishers who were out, but
unfortunately others were not there to see. We might
then say that our river was navigable, — why not ? In
after-years I read in print, with no little satisfaction, that
it was thought by some that, with a little expense in re
moving rocks and deepening the channel, " there might
be a profitable inland navigation." /then lived some
where to tell of.

Such is Commerce, which shakes the cocoa-nut and
bread-fruit tree in the remotest isle, and sooner or later
dawns on the duskiest and most simple-minded savage.
If we may be pardoned the digression, who can help
being affected at the thought of the very fine and slight,
but positive relation, in which the savage inhabitants of
some remote isle stand to the mysterious white mariner,
the child of the sun ? — as if we were to have dealings
with an animal higher in the scale of being than our
selves. It is a barely recognized fact to the natives that
he exists, and has his home far away somewhere, and is
glad to buy their fresh fruits with his superfluous com
modities. Under the same catholic sun glances hia
white ship over Pacific waves into their smooth bays,
and the poor savage's paddle gleams in the air.

Man's little acts are grand,
Beheld from land to land,
There as they lie in time,
Within their native clime.

Ships with the noontide weigh,

And glide before its ray

To some retired bay,

Their haunt,

Whence, under tropfo \un,

10* •

22G A WEEK.

Again they run,

Bearing gum Senegal and Tragicant.
For this was ocean meant,
For this the suu was sent,
And moon was lent,
And winds in distant caverns pent.

Since our voyage the railroad on the bank has been
extended, and there is now but little boating on the
Merrimack. All kinds of produce and stores were
formerly conveyed by water, but now nothing is carried
up the stream, and almost wood and bricks alone are
carried down, and these are also carried on the railroad.
The locks are fast wearing out, and will soon be impas
sable, since the tolls will not pay the expense of repair
ing them, and so in a few years there will be an end
of boating on this river. The boating at present is
principally between Merrimack and Lowell, or Ilook-
tfett and Manchester. They make two or three trips
in a week, according to wind and weather, from Mer
rimack to Lowell and back, about twenty-five miles
each way. The boatman comes singing in to shore late
at night, and moors his empty boat, and gets his supper
and lodging in some house near at hand, and again
early in the morning, by starlight perhaps, he pushes
away up stream, and, by a shout, or the fragment of a
song, gives notice of his approach to the lock-man, with
whom he is to take his breakfast. If he gets up to his
wood-pile before noon he proceeds to load his boat, with
the help of his single " hand," and is on his way down
again before night. When he gets to Lowell he un
loads his boat, and gets his receipt for his cargo, and,
having heard the news at the public house at Middlesex
or elsewhere, goes back with his empty boat and his re
eeipt in his pocket, to the owner, and to get a new load

TUESDAY. 227

We were frequently advertised of their approach by
some faint sound behind us, and looking round saw them
a mile off, creeping stealthily up the side of the stream
like alligators. It was pleasant to hail these sailors of
the Merrimack from time to time, and learn the news
which circulated with them. We imagined that the sun
shining on their bare heads had stamped a liberal and
public character on their most private thoughts.

The open and sunny interval still stretched awaj
from the river sometimes by two or more terraces, to
the distant hill-country, and when we climbed the bank
we commonly found an irregular copse-wood skirting
the river, the primitive having floated down-stream long

ago to the " King's navy." Sometimes we saw the

river-road a quarter or half a mile distant, and the par
ticolored Concord stage, with its cloud of dust, its van
of earnest travelling faces, and its rear of dusty trunks,
reminding us that the country had its places of rendez
vous for restless Yankee men. There dwelt along at
considerable distances on this interval a quiet agricul
tural and pastoral people, with every house its well, as
we sometimes proved, and every household, though
never so still and remote it appeared in the noontide, its
dinner about these times. There they lived on, those
New England people, farmer lives, father and grand
father and great-grandfather, on and on without noise,
keeping up tradition, and expecting, beside fair weather
and abundant harvests, we did not learn what. They
were contented to live, since it was so contrived for
them, and where their lines had fallen.

Our uninquiring corpses lie more low
Than our life's curositf doth go.

Yet these men had no need to travel to be as wise aa

228 A WEEK.

Solomon in all his glory, so similar are the lives of men
in all countries, and fraught with the same homely ex
periences. One half the world knows how the other
half lives.

About noon we passed a small village in Merrimack
at Thornton's Ferry, and tasted of the waters of Nati-
cook Brook on the same side, where French and his
companions, whose grave we saw in D unstable, were am
buscaded by the Indians. The humble village of Litch-
field, witlr its steepleless meeting-house, stood on the
opposite or east bank, near where a dense grove of wil
lows backed by maples skilled the shore. There also
we noticed some shagbark-trees, which, as they do not
grow in Concord, were as strange a sight to us as the
palm would be, whose fruit only we have seen. Our
course now curved gracefully to the north, leaving a low,
flat shore on the Merrimack side, which forms a sort of
harbor for canal-boats. We observed some fair elms
and particularly large and handsome white-maples stand
ing conspicuously on this interval ; and the opposite shore,
a quarter of a mile below, was covered with young elms
and maples six inches high, which had probably sprung
from the seeds which had been washed across.

Some carpenters were at work here mending a scow
on the green and sloping bank. The strokes of their
mallets echoed from shore to shore, and up and down the
river, and their tools gleamed in the sun a quarter of a
mile from us, and we realized that boat-building was as
ancient and honorable an art as agriculture, and that
there might be a naval as well as a pastoral life. The
whole history of commerce was made manifest in that
scow turned bottom upward on the shore. Thus did
men begin to go down upon the sea in ships ; quceque din

TUESDAY. 229

tteterunt in tnontibus altis, Fluctibus ignotis insultavere
zarince ; " and keels which had long stood on high
mountains careered insultingly (insultavere) over un
known waves." (Ovid, Met. I. 133.) We thought that it
would be well for the traveller to build his boat on the
bank of a stream, instead of finding a ferry or a bridge.
In the Adventures of Henry the fur-trader, it is pleasant
to read that when with hit. Indians he reached the shore
of Ontario, they consumed two days in making two
canoes of the bark of the elm-tree, in which to transport
themselves to Fort Niagara. It is a worthy incident in
a journey, a delay as good as much rapid travelling. A
good share of our interest in Xenophon's story of his re
treat is in the manoeuvres to get the army safely over
the rivers, whether on rafts of logs or fagots, or sheep
skins blown up. And where could they better afford to
tarry meanwhile than on the banks of a river ?

As we glided past at a distance, these out-door work
men appeared to have added some dignity to their labor
by its very publicness. It was a part of the industry of
nature, like the work of hornets and mud-wasps.

The waves slowly beat,
Just to keep the noon sweet,
And no sound is flouted o'er,
Save the mallet on shore,
Which echoing on high
Seems a-calking the sky.

The haze, the sun's dust of travel, had a Lethean influ
ence on the land and its inhabitants, and all creatures
resigned themselves to float upon the inappreciable tides
of nature.

Woof of the sun, ethe-eal gauze,
Woven of Nature's richest stuffs,
Visible heat, air-wafer, and dry sea,

230 A WEEK.

Last conquest of the eye ;

Toil of the day displayed, sun-dnst,

Aerial surf upon the shores of earth,

Ethereal estuary, frith of light,

Breakers of air, billows of heat,

Fine summer spray on inland seas ;

Bird of the sun, transparent-winged

Owlet of noon, soft-pinioned,

From heath or stubble rising without sonjr :

Establish thy serenity o'er the fields.

The routine which is in the sunshine and the finest
days, as that which has conquered and prevailed, com
mends itself to us by its very antiquity and apparent
solidity and necessity. Our weakness needs it, and our
strength uses it. We cannot draw on our boots without
bracing ourselves against it. If there were but one
erect and solid standing tree in the woods, all creatures
would go to rub against it and make sure of their footing.
During the many hours which we spend in this waking
sleep, the hand stands still on the face of the clock, and
we grow like corn in the night. Men are as busy as the
brooks or bees, and postpone everything to their busi
ness ; as carpenters discuss politics between the strokes
of the hammer while they are shingling a roof.

This noontide was a fit occasion to make some pleasant
harbor, and there read the journal of some voyageur like
ourselves, not too moral nor inquisitive, and which would
not disturb the noon ; or else some old classic, the very
flower of all reading, which we had postponed to such a
season

" Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure."

But, alas, our chest, like the cabin of a coaster, contained
only its well-thumbed "Navigator" for all literature,

TUESDAY. 231

and we were obliged to draw on our memory for these
things.

We naturally remembered Alexander Henry's Adven
tures here, as a sort of classic among books of American
travel. It contains scenery and rough sketching of men
and incidents enough to inspire poets for many years,
and to my fancy is as full of sounding names as any
page of history, — Lake Winnipeg, Hudson Bay, Otta-
way, and portages innumerable ; Chipeways, Gens de
Terres, Les Pilleurs, The Weepers ; with reminiscences
of Hearne's journey, and the like ; an immense and
shaggy but sincere country, summer and winter, adorned
with chains of lakes and rivers, covered with snows,
with hemlocks, and fir-trees. There is a naturalness, an
unpretending and cold life in this traveller, as in a
Canadian winter, what life was preserved through low
temperatures and frontier dangers by furs within a stout
heart. He has truth and moderation worthy of the
father of history, which belong only to an intimate ex
perience, and he does not defer too much to literature.
The unlearned traveller may quote his single line from
the poets with as good right as the scholar. He too
may speak of the stars, for he sees them shoot perhaps
when the astronomer does not. The good sense of this
author is very conspicuous. He is a traveller who does
not exaggerate, but writes for the information of his
readers, for science, and for history. His story is told
with as much good faith and directness as if it were a
report to his brother traders, or the Directors of the
Hudson Bay Company, and is fitly dedicated to Sir Jo
seph Banks. It reads like the argument to a great poem
on the primitive state of the country and its inhabitants,
and the reader imagines what in each case, with the in-

232 A WEEK.

vocation of the Muse, might be sung, and leaves off with
suspended interest, as if the full account were to follow
In what school was this fur-trader educated ? He seems
to travel the immense snowy country with such purpose
only as the reader who accompanies him, and to the
latter's imagination, it is, as it were, momentarily created
to be the scene of his adventures. What is most inter
esting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials
for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the North
west, which it furnishes ; not the annals of the country,
but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever with
out date. When out of history the truth shall be ex
tracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.

The Souhegan, or Crooked River, as some translate
it, comes in from the west about a mile and a half above
Thornton's Ferry. Babboosuck Brook empties into it
near its mouth. There are said to be some of the finest
water privileges in the country still unimproved on the
former stream, at a short distance from the Merrimack.
One spring morninjr, March 22, in the year 1677, an in
cident occurred on the banks of the river here, which is
interesting to us as a slight memorial of an interview
between two ancient tribes of men, one of which is now
extinct, while the other, though it is still represented by
a miserable remnant, has long since disappeared from
its ancient hunting-grounds. A Mr. James Parker, at
w Mr. Hinchmanne's farme ner Meremack," wrote thus
"to the Honred Governer and Council at Bostown,
Hast, Post Hast " : —

" Sagamore Wanalancet come this morning to informe me
and then went to Mr. Tyng's to informe him, that his son b&
fog on ye other sid of Meremack river over against Souhegar

TUESDAY. 233

upon the 22 day of this instant, about tene of the clock in
the morning, he discovered 15 Indians on this sid the river,
which he soposed to b^ Mohokes by ther spech. He called
to them ; they answered but he could not understand ther
spech ; and he having a eonow ther in the river, he went to
breck his conow that they might not have ani ues of it. In
the mean time they shot about thirty guns at him, and he
being much frighted fled, and come home forthwith to Na-
hamcock [Pawtucket Falls or Lowell], wher ther wigowames
now stand."

Penacooks and Mohawks ! ubique gentium sunt ? In
the year 1670, a Mohawk warrior scalped a Naamkeak
or else a Wamesit Indian maiden near where Lowell
now stands. She, however, recovered. Even as late as
1685, John Hogkins, a Penacook Indian, who describes
his grandfather as having lived " at place called Mala-
make rever, other name chef Natukkog and Panukkog,
that one rever great many names," wrote thus to the
governor : —

"May 15th, 1685.
" Honor governor my friend, —

" You my friend I desire your worship and your power,
because I hope you can do som great matters this one. I am
poor and naked and I have no men at my place because I
afraid allwayes Mohogs he will kill me every day and night.
If your worship when please pray help me you no let Mohogs
kill me at my place at Malamake river called Pannukkog
and Natukkog, I will submit your worship and your power.
And now I want pouder and such alminishon shatt and guns,
because I have forth at my horn and I plant theare.

" This all Indian hand, but pray you do consider your
humble servant, JOHN HOGKINS."

Signed also by Simon Detogkom, King Hary, Sam Lin is,
Mr. Jorge Rodunnonukgus, John Owamcsimmin, and nin«
other Indians, with their ma"ks against their names.

234 A WEEK.

But now, one hundred and fifty-four years having
elapsed since the date of this letter, we went unalarmed
on our way without *' breaking" our u conow," reading
the New England Gazetteer, and seeing no traces of
" Mohogs " on the banks.

The Soubegan, though a rapid river, seemed to-day to
have borrowed its character from the noon.

Where gleaming fields of haze
Meet the voyageur's gaze,
And above, the heated air
Seems to make a river there,
The pines stand up with pride
By the Souhegan's side,
And the hemlock and the larch
With their triumphal arch
Are waving o'er its march

To the sea.

No wind stirs its waves,
But the spirits of the braves

Hov'ring o'er,
Whose antiquated graves
Its still water laves
On the shore.

With an Indian's stealthy tread
It goes sleeping in its bed,

Without joy or grief,

Or the rustle of a leaf,

Without a ripple or a billow,

Or the sigh of a willow,

From the Lyndeboro1 hills

To the Merrimack mills.

With a louder din

jUid its current begin,

When melted the snow

On the far mountain's brow.

And the drops came together

In that rainy weathsr.

Experienced river,

Ha«t thou flowed forever ?

Souhegan soundeth old,

TUKSDAY. 233

But the half is not told,

What names hast thou bort.e,

In the ages far gone,

When the Xanthus and Meander

Commenced to wander,

Ere the black bear haunted

Thy red forest-floor,
Or Nature had planted

The pines by thy shore ?

During the heat of the day, we rested on a large
island a mile above the mouth of this river, pastured by
a herd of cattle, with steep banks and scattered elms and
oaks, and a sufficient channel for canal-boats on each
side. When we made a fire to boil some rice for our
dinner, the flames spreading amid the dry grass, and the
smoke curling silently upward and casting grotesque
shadows on the ground, seemed phenomena of the noon,
and we fancied that we progressed up the stream with
out effort, and as naturally as the wind and tide went
down, not outraging the calm days by unworthy bustle
or impatience. The woods on the neighboring shore
were alive with pigeons, which were moving south, look
ing for mast, but now, like ourselves, spending their
noon in the shade. We could hear the slight, wiry, win
nowing sound of their wings as they changed their roosts
from time to time, and their gentle and tremulous cooing.
They sojourned with us during the noontide, greater
travellers far than we. You may frequently discover a
single pair sitting upon the lower branches of the white-
pine in the depths of the wood, at this hour of the day,
BO silent and solitary, ai.d with such a hermit-like ap
pearance, as if they had never strayed beyond its skirts,
while the icorn which was gathered In the forests of
Maine is still undigested in their crops. We obtained

236 A WEEK.

one of the:se handsome birds, which lingered too long
upon its perch, and plucked and broiled it here with
some other game, to be carried along for our supper ,
for, beside the provisions which we carried with us, we
depended mainly on the river and forest for our supply.
It is true, it did not seem to be putting this bird to its
right use to pluck off its feathers, and extract its entrails,
and broil its carcass on the coals ; but we heroically per
severed, nevertheless, waiting for further information.
The same regard for Nature which excited our sympa
thy for her creatures nerved our hands to carry through
what we had begun. For we would be honorable to
the party we deserted ; we would fulfil fate, and so at
length, perhaps, detect the secret innocence of these
incessant tragedies which Heaven allows.

"Too quick resolves do resolution wrong,
What, part so soon to be divorced so long?
Things to be done are long to be debated;
Heaven is not day'd, Repentance is not dated."

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet
our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is
the skilful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and
not rip up his work with the other edge ?

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful
end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds
that people the air and forest for our solacement ? The
sparrows seem always chipper, never infirm. We do
not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at
the end of each one of their lives. They must perish
miserably ; not one of them is translated. True, '" not a
sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenlt
Father's knowledge," but they do fall, nevertheless.

TUESDAY. 237

The carcasses of some poor squirrels, however, the
eame that frisked so merrily in the morning, which we
had skinned and embowelled for our dinner, we aban
doned in disgust, with tardy humanity, as too wretched a
resource for any but starving men. It was to perpetuate
the practice of a barbarous era. If they had been larger,
our crime had been less. Their small red bodies, little
bundles of red tissue, mere gobbets of venison, would
not have " fattened fire." With a sudden impulse we
threw them away, and washed our hands, and boiled
some rice for our dinner. " Behold the difference be
tween the one who eateth flesh, and him to whom it
belonged ! The first hath a momentary enjoyment, whilst
the latter is deprived of existence ! " " Who would com
mit so great a crime against a poor animal, who is fed
only by the herbs which grow wild in the woods, and
whose belly is burnt up with hunger ? " We remem
bered a picture of mankind in the hunter age, chasing
hares down the mountains ; 0 me miserable ! Yet sheep
and oxen are but larger squirrels, whose hides are save^
and meat is salted, whose souls perchance are not so
large in proportion to their bodies.

There should always be some flowering and maturing
of the fruits of nature in the cooking process. Some
simple dishes recommend themselves to our imaginations
as well as palates. In parched corn, for instance, there is
a manifest sympathy between the bursting seed and the
more perfect developments of vegetable life. It is a per
fect flower with its petals, like the houstonia or anemone.
On my warm hearth these cerealian blossoms expanded ;
here is the bank whereon they grew. Perhaps some
such visible blessing would always attend the simple and
wholesome repast.

238 A WEEK.

Here was that *' pleasant harbor " which we had
sighed for, where the weary voyageur could read the
journal of some other sailor, whose bark had ploughed,
perchance, more famous and classic seas. At the tables
of the gods, after feasting follow music and song ; we
will recline now under these island trees, and for our
minstrel call on

ANACREON.

" Nor has he ceased his charming song, for still that lyre,
Though he is dead, sleeps not in Hades."

Simonides' Ejrigram on Anacreon.

I lately met with an old volume from a London book
shop, containing the Greek Minor Poets, and it was a
pleasure to read once more only the words, Orpheus,
Linus, Musaeus, — those faint poetic sounds and echoes
of a name, dying away on the ears of us modern
men ; and those hardly more substantial sounds, Mini-
nermus, Ibycus, Alcseus, Stesichorus, Menander. They
Jived not in vain. We can converse with thes.e bodi
less fames without reserve or personality.

I know of no studies so composing as those of the clas
sical scholar. When we have sat down to them, life
seems as still and serene as if it were very far off, and I
believe it is not habitually seen from any common plat
form so truly and unexaggerated as in the light of liter
ature. In serene hours we contemplate the tour of the
Greek and Latin authors with more pleasure than the
traveller does the fairest scenery of Greece or Italy
Where shall we find a more refined society ? That high
way down from Homer and Hesiod to Horace and Ju
venal is more attractive than the Appian. Reading the
classics, or conversing with those old Greeks and Latins

TUESDAY. 239

in their surviving works, is like walking amid the stars
and constellations, a high and by way serene to travel.
Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an astrono
mer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be allowed
to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher regions
of literature, like astronomy, are above storm and dark
ness.

But passing by these rumors of bards, let us pause foi
a moment at the Teian poet.

There is something strangely modern about him. He
is very easily turned into English. Is it that our lyric
poets have resounded but that lyre, which would sound
only light subjects, and which Simonides tells us does
not sleep in Hades ? His odes are like gems of pure
ivory. They possess an ethereal and evanescent beauty
like summer evenings, o xph °"f VOf~lv v°°v avfat, — which
you must perceive with the flower of the mind, — and show
how slight a beauty could be expressed. You have to
consider them, as the stars of lesser magnitude, with the
side of the eye, and look aside from them to behold
tnem. They charm us by their serenity and freedom
from exaggeration and passion, and by a certain flower-
like beauty, which does not propose itself, but must be
approached and studied like a natural object. But per
haps their chief merit consists in the lightness and yet
security of their tread ;

" The young and tender stalk
Ne'er bends when they do walk."

True, our nerves are never strung by them ; it is
too constantly the sound of the lyre, and never the note
of the trumpet ; but they are not gross, as has been pre
sumed, but always elevated above the sensual.

These are some of the best that have come down to ua»

240 A WEEK.

ON HIS LYRE.

I wish to sing the Atridae,
And Cadmus I wish to sing;
But my lyre sounds
Only love with its chords.
Lately I changed the strings
And all the lyre ;
And I began to sing the labor*
Of Hercules; but my lyre
Resounded loves.
Farewell, henceforth, for me,
Heroes ! for my lyre
Sings only loves.

TO A SWALLOW.

Thou indeed, dear swallow,
Yearly going and coming,
In summer weavest thy nest,
And in winter go'st disappearing
Either to Nile or to Memphis.
But Love always weaveth
His nest in my heart

ON A SILVER CUP.

Turning the silver,

Vulcan, make for me,

Not indeed a panoply,

For what are battles to me?

But a hollow cup,

As deep as thou canst.

And make for me in it

Neither stars, nor wagons,

Nor sad Orion;

What are the Pleiades to me?

What the shining Bootes?

Make vines for me,

And clusters of grapes in it,

And of gold Love and Bathylh*

Treading the grapes

With the fair Lyaeus.

TUESDAY. 241

ON HIMSELF.

Thou sing'st the affairs of Thebce,

And he the battles of Troy,

But I of ray own defeats.

No horse have wasted me,

Nor foot, nor ships;

But a new and different boat,

From eyes smiting me.

TO A DOVE.

Lovely dove,

Whence, whence dost thou fly?

Whence, running on air,

Dost thou waft and diffuse

So many sweet ointments?

Who art ? What thy errand ? —

Anacreon sent me

To a boy, to Bathyllus,

Who lately is ruler and tyrant of i

Cythere has sold me

For one little song,

And I 'in doing this service

For Anacreon.

And now, as you see,

I bear letters from him.

And he says that directly

He '11 make me free,

But though he release me,

His slave I will tarry with him.

For why should I fly

Over mountains and fields,

And perch upon trees,

Eating some wild thing?

Now indeed I eat bread,

Plucking it from the handf

Of Anacreon himself;

And he gives me to drink

The wine which he tastes

And drinking, I dance,

And shadow my master's

11

|42 A WEEK.

Face with my wings;

And, going to rest,

On the lyre itself I sleep.

That is all ; get thee gone.

Thou hast made me more talkatire,

Man, than a crow.

ON LOVE.

Love walking swiftly,

With hyacinthine staff,

Bade me to take a run with him;

And hastening through swift torrents,

And woody places, and over precipice*,

A water-snake stung me.

And my heart leaped up to

My mouth, and I should have fainted;

But Love fanning my brows

With his soft wings, said,

Surely, thou art not able to love.

ON WOMEN.

Nature has given horns

To bulls, and hoofs to horses,

Swiftness to hares,

To lions yawning teeth,

To fishes swimming,

To birds flight,

To men, wisdom.

For woman she had nothing beside;

What th.en does she give? Beauty, -

Instead of all shields,

Instead of all spears;

And she conquers even iron

And fire, who is beautiful.

ON LOVERS.

Horses have the mark
Of fire on their »ide»,

TUESDAY. 243

And some have distinguished

The Parthian men by their crests;

So I, seeing lovers,

Know them at once,

For they have a certain slight

Brand on their hearts.

TO A SWALLOW.

What dost thou wish me to do to thee,

What, thou loquacious swallow?

Dost thou wish me taking thee

Thy light pinions to clip?

Or rather to pluck out

Thy tongue from within,

As that Tereus did ?

Why with thy notes in the dawn

Hast thou plundered Bathyllus

From my beautiful dreams?

TO A COLT.

Thracian colt, why at me
Looking aslant with thy eyes,
Dost thou cruelly flee,
And think that I know nothing wise?
Know I could well
Put the bridle on thee,
And holding the reins, turn
Bound the bounds of the course.
But now thou browsest the meads,
And gambolling lightly dost play,
For thou hast no skilful horseman
Mounted upon thy oack.

CUPID WOUNDED.

Love once among roses

Saw not

A sleeping bee, but was stung;

And being wotaded in the finger

A WEEK.

Of his hand, cried for pain.

Running as well as flying

To the beautiful Venus,

I am killed, mother, said he,

I am killed, and I die.

A little serpent 1ms stung me,

Winged, which they call

A bee, — the husbandmen.

And she said, If the sting

Of a bee afflicts you,

How, think you, are they afflicted,

Love, whom you smite?

Late in the afternoon, for we had lingered long on the
island, we raised our sail for the first time, and for a
short hour the southwest wind was our ally ; but it did
not please Heaven to abet us along. With one sail
raised we swept slowly up the eastern side of the stream,
steering clear of the rocks, while, from the top of a hill
which formed the opposite bank, some lumberers were
rolling down timber to be rafted down the stream. We
could see their axes and levers gleaming in the sun, and
the logs carne down with a dust and a rumbling sound,
which was reverberated through the woods beyond us on
uur side, like the roar of artillery. But Zephyr soon
took us out of sight and hearing of this commerce. Hav
ing passed Read's Ferry, and another island called Mc-
Gaw's Island, we reached some rapids called Moore's
Falls, and entered on "that section of the river, nine
miles in extent, converted, by law, into the Union Canal,
comprehending in that space six distinct falls ; at each
of which, and at several intermediate places, work hai
been done." After passing Moore's Falls by means of
locks, we again had recourse to our oars, and went mer

TUESDAY.

245

rily on our way, driving the small sandpiper from rock
to rock before us, and sometimes rowing near enough to
a cottage on the bank, though they were few and far be
tween, to see the sunflowers, and the seed vessels of the
poppy, like small goblets filled with the water of Lethe,
before the door, but without disturbing the sluggish
household behind. Thus we held on, sailing or dipping
our way along with the paddle up this broad river,
smooth and placid, flowing over concealed rocks, where
we could see the pickerel lying low in the transparent
water, eager to double some distant cape, to make some
great bend as in the life of man, and see what new per
spective would open ; looking far into a new country,
broad and serene, the cottages of settlers seen afar for
the first time, yet with the moss of a century on their
roofs, and the third or fourth generation in their shadows.
Strange was it to consider how the sun and the summer,
the buds of spring and the seared leaves of autumn,
were related to these cabins along the shore ; how all the
rays which paint the landscape radiate from them, and
the flight of the crow and the gyrations of the hawk
have reference to their roofs. Still the ever rich and
fertile shores accompanied us, fringed with vines and
alive with small birds and frisking squirrels, the edge of
tome farmer's field or widow's wood-lot, or wilder, per
chance, where the rnuskrat, the little medicine of the
river, drags itself alocg stealthily over the alder-leaves
and muscle-shells, and man and the memory of man are
banished far.

At length the unwearied, never-sinking shore, still
folding on without break, wi.h its cool copses and serene
pasture-grounds., temp'.od us to disembark ; and we ad
venturously landed on this remote coast, to survey it.

246 A WEKK.

without the knowledge of any human inhabitant probably
to this day. But we still remember the gnarled and
hospitable oaks which grew even there for our entertain
ment, and were no strangers to ns, the lonely horse in
his pasture, and the patient cows, whose path to the
river, so judiciously chosen to overcome the difficulties
of the way, we followed, and disturbed their ruminations
in the shade ; and, above all, the cool, free aspect of the
wild apple-trees, generously proffering their fruit to us,
though still green and crude, — the hard, round, glossy
fruit, which, if not ripe, still was not poison, but New-
English too, brought hither its ancestors by ours once.
These gentler trees imparted a half-civilized and twi
light aspect to the otherwise barbarian land. Still far
ther on we scrambled up the rocky channel of a brook,
which had long served nature for a ^luice there, leaping
like it from rock to rock through tangled woods, at the
bottom of a ravine, which grew darker and darker, and
more and more hoarse the murmurs of the stream, until
we reached the ruins of a mill, where now the ivy grew,
and the trout glanced through the crumbling flume ; am1
there we imagined what had been the dreams and spec-
ilatior.s of some early settler. But the waning day
compelled us to embark once more, and redeem this
wasted time with long and vigorous sweeps over the
rippling stream.

It was still wild and solitary, except that at intervals
of a mile or two the roof of a cottage might be seen over
the bank. This region, as we read, was once famous for
the manufacture of straw bonnets of the Leghorn kind,
of which it claims the invention in these parts ; and oc
casionally some industrious damsel tripped down to the
water's edge, to put her straw a-soak, as it appeared, and

TUESDAY. 247

itood awhile to watch the retreating voyageurs, and
catch the fragment of a boat-song which we had made,
wafted over the water.

Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter,

Many a lagging jrear agone,
Gliding o'er thy rippling waters,

Lowly hummed a natural song.

Now the sun 's behind the willows,

Now he gleams along the waves,
Faintly o'er the wearied billows

Come the spirits of the braves.

Just before sundown we reached some more falls in
the town of Bedford, where some stone-masons were em
ployed repairing the locks in a solitary part of the river.
They were interested in our adventure, especially one
young man of our own age, who inquired at first if we
were bound up to " 'Skeag " ; and when he had heard
our story, and examined our outfit, asked us other ques
tions, but temperately still, and always turning to his
work again, though as if it were become his duty. It
was plain that he would like to go with us, and, as he
looked up the river, many a distant cape and wooded
shore were reflected in his eye, as well as in his
thoughts. When we were ready he left his work, and
aelped us through the locks with a sort of quiet enthu
siasm, telling us that we were at Coos Falls, and we could
still distinguish the strokes of his chisel for many sweeps
after we had left him.

We wished to camp this night on a large rock in the
middle of the stream, just above these falls, but the
want of fuel, and the difficulty of fixing our tent firmly,
prevented us ; so we made our bed on the main-land
opposite, on the west bank, in the town of Bedford, in a
retired place, as we supposed, there being no house
in sight.

WEDNESDAY

<* Man is num'i foe and destiny."

Comae

WEDNESDAY.

EARLY this morning, as we were rolling up our buffa
loes and loading our boat amid the dew, while our em
bers were still smoking, the masons who worked at the
locks, and whom we had seen crossing the river in their
boat the evening before while we were examining the
rock, came upon us as they were going to their work, and
we found that we had pitched our tent directly in the
path to their boat. This was the only time that we were
observed on our camping-ground. Thus, far from the
beaten highways and the dust and din of travel, we be
held the country privately, yet freely, and at our leisure.
Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the
traveller to stare at her, but the river steals into the
scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently creating
and adorning it, and is as free to come and go as the
zephyr.

As we shoved away from this rocky coast, before sun
rise, the smaller bittern, the genius of the shore, was
moping along its edge, or stood probing the mud for its
food, with ever an eye on us, though so demurely at
work, or else he ran along over the wet stones like a
wrecker in his storm-ooat, looking out for wrecks of
snails and cockles. Now away he goes, with a limping
Might, uncertain where he will alight, until a rod of clear
sand amid the alders mrites his feet; and now our

t')*l A WEEK.

steady approach compels him to seek a new retreat. It
is a bird of the oldest Thalesian school, and no doubt
believes in the priority of water to the other elements ;
the relic of a twilight antediluvian age which yet in
habits these bright American rivers with us Yankees
There is something venerable in this melancholy and
contemplative race of birds, which may have trodden
the earth while it was yet in a slimy and imperfect state.
Perchance their tracks too are still visible on the stones.
It still lingers into our glaring summers, bravely sup
porting its fate without sympathy from man, as if it
looked forward to some second advent of which he haf
no assurance. One wonders if, by its patient study by
rocks and sandy capes, it has wrested the whole of her
secret from Nature yet. What a rich experience it
must have gained, standing on one leg and looking out
from its dull eye so long on sunshine and rain, moon
and stars ! What could it tell of stagnant pools and
reeds and dank night-fogs ! It would be worth the
while to look closely into the eye which has been open
and seeing at such hours, and in such solitudes, its dull,
yellowish, greenish eye. Methinks my own soul must
be a bright invisible green. I have seen these birds
stand by the half-dozen together in the shallower water
along the shore, with their bills thrust into the mud at
the bottom, probing for food, the whole head being con
cealed, while the neck and body formed an arch above
the water.

Cohass Brook, the outlet of Massabesic Pond, —
which last is five or six miles distant, and contains fif
teen hundred acres, being the largest body of fresh
water in Rockingham Cour^y, — comes in near here
from the east. Rowing between Manchester and Bed-

WEDNESDAY. 253

ford, we passed, at an early hour, a ferry and some falls,
called GofTs Falls, the Indian Cohasset, where there is
a small village, arid a handsome green islet in the mid
die of the stream. From Bedford and Merrimack have
been boated the bricks of which Lowell is made.
About twenty years before, as they told us, one Moore,
of Bedford, having clay on his farm, contracted to fur-
aish eight millions of bricks to the founders of that city
within two years. He fulfilled his contract in one year,
and since then bricks have been the principal export
from these towns. The farmers found thus a market for
their wood, and when they had brought a load to the
kilns, they could cart a load of bricks to the shore, and
so make a profitable day's work of it. Thus all parties
were benefited. It was worth the while to see the
place where Lowell was " dug out." So likewise Man
chester is being built of bricks made still higher up the
river at Hooksett.

There might be seen here on the bank of the Merri
mack, near GofPs Falls, in what is now the town of Bed
ford, famous " for hops and for its fine domestic manu
factures," some graves of the aborigines. The land still
bears this scar here, and time is slowly crumbling the
bones of a race. Yet, without fail, every spring, since
they first fished and hunted here, the brown thrasher
has heralded the morning from a birch or alder spray,
and the undying race of reed-birds still rustles through
the withering grass. But these bones rustle not. These
mouldering elements are slowly preparing for another
metamorphosis, to serve new masters, and what was the
Indian's will erelong be the white man's sinew.

We learned that Bedford was not so famous for hops
&q formerly, since the price is fluctuating, ar d poles are

254 A WEEK.

now scarce. Yet if the traveller goes back a few miles
from the river, the hop-kilns will still excite his 2uri-
osity.

There were few incidents in our voyage this forenoon,
though the river was now more rocky and the falls more
frequent than before. It was a pleasant change, after
rowing incessantly for many hours, to lock ourselves
through in some retired place, — for commonly there
was no lock-man at hand, — one sitting in the boat,
while the other, sometimes with no little labor and
heave-yo-ing, opened and shut the gates, waiting patient
ly to see the locks fill. We did not once usetthe wheels
which we had provided. Taking advantage of the
eddy, we were sometimes floated up to the locks almost
in the face of the falls ; and, by the same cause, any
floating timber was carried round in a circle and repeat
edly drawn into the rapids before it finally went down
the stream. These old gray structures, with their quiet
arms stretched over the river in the sun, appeared like
natural objects in the scenery, and the kingfisher an^
sandpiper alighted on them as readily as on stakes or
rocks.

We rowed leisurely up the stream for several hours,
until the sun had got high in the sky, our thoughts mo
notonously beating time to our oars. For outward va
riety there was only the river and the receding shores, a
rista continually opening behind and closing before us,
as we sat with our backs up-stream ; and, for inward, such
thoughts as the muses grudgingly lent us. We were
always passing some low, inviting shore, or some over
banging bank, on which, however, we never landed.

Such uear aspects had we
Of our life's scenery.

WEDNESDAY. 255

It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth.
The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller
ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by
their farm-bounds and cottage-lights. For my own part,
but for the geographers, I should hardly have known
how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has
chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have some
times ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Har
bor. From an old ruined fort on Staten Island, I have
loved to watch all day some vessel whose name I had
read in the morning through the telegraph-glass, when
she first came upon the coast, and her hull heaved up
and glistened in the sun, from the moment when the
pilot and most adventurous news-boats met her, past the
Hook, and up the narrow channel of the wide outer bay,
till she was boarded by the health-officer, and took her
station at Quarantine, or held on her unquestioned
course to the wharves of New York. It was interest
ing, too, to watch the less adventurous newsman, who
made his assault as the vessel swept through the Nar
rows, defying plague and quarantine law, and, fastening
his little cockboat to her huge side, clambered up and
disappeared in the cabin. And then I could imagine
what momentous news was being imparted by the cap
tain, which no American ear had ever heard, that Asia,
Africa, Europe — were all sunk ; for which at length
be pays the price, and is seen descending the ship's side
with his bundle of newspapers, but not where he first
got up, for these arrivers do not stand still to gossip ;
and he hastes away with steady sweeps to dispose of his
wares to the highest bidder, and we shall erelong read
something startling, — " By the latest arrival," — " by
the good ship ." On Sunday I beheld, from some

256 A WEEK.

interior hill, the long procession of vessels getting to sea,
reaching from the city wharves through the Narrows,
and past the Hook, quite to the ocean stream, far as the
eye could reach, with stately march and silken sails, all
counting on lucky voyages, but each time some of the
number, no doubt, destined to go to Davy's locker, and
never come on this coast again. And, again, in the
evening of a pleasant day, it was my amusement to
count the sails in sight. But as the setting sun continu
ally brought more and more to light, still farther in the
horizon, the last count always had the advantage, till, by
the time the last rays streamed over the sea, I had
doubled and trebled my first number; though I could
no longer class them all under the several heads of
ships, barks, brigs, schooners, and sloops, but most
were faint generic vessels only. And then the temper
ate twilight light, perchance, revealed the floating home
of some sailor whose thoughts were already alienated
from this American coast, and directed towards the Eu
rope of our dreams. I have stood upon the same hill
top when a thunder-shower, rolling down from the Cats-
kills and Highlands, passed over the island, deluging the
land ; and, when it had suddenly left us in sunshine, have
seen it overtake successively, with its huge shadow and
dark, descending wall of rain, the vessels in the bay.
Their bright sails were suddenly drooping and dark, like
the sides of barns, and they seemed to shrink before the
gtorm ; while still far beyond them on the sea, through
this dark veil, gleamed the sunny sails of those vessels
which the storm had not yet reached. And at mid
night, when all around and overhead was darkness, I
have seen a field of trembling, silvery light far out on
the sea, the reflection of the moonlight from the ocean,

WEDNESDAY. /

as if beyond the precincts of our night, where the moon
traversed a cloudless heaven, — and sometimes a dark
speck in its midst, where some fortunate vessel was pur
suing its happy voyage by night.

But to us river sailors the sun never rose out of ocean
waves, but from some green coppice, and went down
behind some dark mountain line. We, too, were but
dwellers on the shore, like the bittern of the morning ;
and our pursuit, the wrecks of snails and cockles. Nev
ertheless, we were contented to know the better one fair
particular shore.

My life is like a stroll upon the beach,

As near the ocean's edge as I can go,
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o'erreach,

Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.

My sole employment 't is, and scrupulous care,
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides,

Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,
Which ocean kindly to my hand confides.

I have but few companions on the shore,

Thev scorn the strand who sail upon the sea,

Yet oft I think the ocean they 've sailed o'er
Is deeper known upon the strand to me.

The middle sea contains no crimson dulse,
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view,

Along the shore my hand is on its pulse,

And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew.

The small houses which were scattered along the
river at intervals of a mile or more were commonly out
of sight to us, but sometimes, when we rowed near the
ghore, we heard the peevish note of a hen, or some
slight domestic sound, which Detrayed them. The lock-
men's houses were particularly well placed, retired, and
high, always at falls or rapids, and commanding tbtf

Q

258 A WKKK.

pleasantest reaches of the river, — for it is generally
.wider and more lake-like just above a fall, — and there
they wait for boats. These humble dwellings, homely
and sincere, in which a hearth was still the essential
part, were more pleasing to our eyes than palaces or
castles would have been. In the noon of these days, as
we have said, we occasionally climbed the banks and
approached these houses, to get a glass of water and
make acquaintance with their inhabitants. High in the
leafy bank, surrounded commonly by a small patch of
corn and beans, squashes and melons, with sometimes a
graceful hop-yard on one side, and some running vine
over the windows, they appeared like beehives set to
gather honey for a summer. I have not read of any
Arcadian life which surpasses tire actual luxury and
serenity of these New England dwellings. For the out
ward gilding, at least, the age is golden enough. As
you approach the sunny doorway, awakening the echoes
by your steps, still no sound from these barracks of
repose, and you fear that the gentlest knock may seem
rude to the Oriental dreamers. The door is opened, per
chance, by some Yankee-Hindoo woman, whose small-
voiced but sincere hospitality, out of the bottomless
depths of a quiet nature, has travelled quite round to the
opposite side, and fears only to obtrude its kindness.
You step over the white-scoured floor to the bright
" dresser " lightly, as if afraid to disturb the devotions
of the household, — for Oriental dynasties appear to have
passed away since the dinner-table was last spread here,
—and thence to the frequented curb, where you see
your long-forgotten, unshaven face at the bottom, i&
juxtaposition with new-made bu.tter and the trout in
the well. " Perhaps you would like some molasses and

WEDNESDAY. 259

ginger," suggests the faint noon voice. Sometimes
there sits the brother who follows the sea, their repre
sentative man ; who knows only how far it is to the
nearest port, no more distances, all the rest is sea and
distant capes, — patting the dog, or dandling the kitten
in arms that were stretched by the cable and the oar,
pulling against Boreas or the trade- winds. He looks
up at the stranger, half pleased, half astonished, with a
mariner's eye, as if he were a dolphin within cast. If
men will believe it, sua si bona norint, there are no more
quiet Tempes, nor more poetic and Arcadian lives, than
may be lived in these New England dwellings. We
thought that the employment of their inhabitants by day
would be to tend the flowers and herds, and at night,
like the shepherds of old, to cluster and give names to
the stars from the river banks.

We passed a large and densely wooded island this
forenoon, between Short's and Griffith's Falls, the fair
est which we had met with, with a handsome grove of
elms at its-head. If it had been evening we should have
been glad to camp there. Not long after, one or two
more were passed. The boatmen told us that the cur
rent had recently made important changes here. An
island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest,
as a small continent and integra1 portion of the globe.
I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a
bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a
glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for
me. There is commonly such a one at the junction of
two rivers, whose currents bring down and deposit their
respective sands in the eddy at their confluence, as it
were the womb of a continent. By what a delicate and
far-stretched contribution every island is made ! What

260 A WEEK.

an enterprise of Nature thus to lay the foundations of
and to build up the future continent, of golden and silver
sands and the ruins of forests, with ant-like industry
Pindar gives the following account of the origin of
Thera, whence, in after times, Libyan Gyrene was set
tled by Battus. Triton, in the form of Eurypylus, pre
sents a clod to Euphemus, one of the Argonauts, as they
are about to return home.

" He knew of our haste,
And immediately seizing a clod
With his right hand, strove to give it
As a chance stranger's gift.

Nor did the hero disregard him, but leaping on the shore,
Stretching hand to hand,
Keceived the mystic clod.
Bat I hear it sinking from the deck,
Go with the sea brine
At evening, accompanying the watery sea.
Often indeed I urged the careless
Menials to guard it, but their minds forgot.
And now in this island the imperishable seed of spacious Libya
Is spilled before its hour."

It is a beautiful fable, also related by Pindar, how
Helius, or the Sun, looked down into the sea one day,—
when perchance his rays were first reflected from some
increasing glittering sandbar, — and saw the fair and
fruitful island of Rhodes

" springing up from the bottom,
Capable of feeding many men, and suitable for flocks;

and at the nod of Zeus,

44 The island sprang from the watery
Sea ; and the genial Father of penetrating beams,
Ruler of fire-breathing horses, has it."

The shifting islands ! who would not be willing that
hi* house should be undermined by such a foe! Thf

WEDNESDAY. 21

inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the
land which he cultivates ; and his earth is still being
created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance,
still empties the stream which brought down the mate
rial of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down
or washing it away, — the graceful, gentle robber!

Not long after this we saw the Piscataquoag, or
Sparkling Water, emptying in on our left, and heard the
Falls of Arnoskeag above. Large quantities of lumber,
as we read in the Gazetteer, were still annually floated
down the Piscataquoag to the Merrimack, and there are
many fine mill privileges on it. Just above the mouth
of this river we passed the artificial falls where the
canals of the Manchester Manufacturing Company dis
charge themselves into the Merrimack. They are strik
ing enough to have a name, and, with the scenery of a
Bashpish, would be visited from far and near. The
water falls thirty or forty feet over seven or eight steep
and narrow terraces of stone, probably to break its force,
and is converted into one mass of foam. This canal-
water did not seem to be the worse for the wear, but
foamed and fumed as purely, and boomed as savagely
and impressively, as a mountain torrent, and, though it
came from under a factory, we saw a rainbow here.
These are now the Amoskeag Falls, removed a mile
down-stream. But we did not tarry to examine them
minutely, making haste to get past the village here col
lected, and out of hearing of the hammer which was
laying the foundation of another Lowell on the banks.
A-t the time of our voyage Manchester was a village of
about two thousand inhabitants, where we landed for a
moment to get some nool water, and where an inhabitant
told us that he was accustomed to go across the river

262 A WEKK.

into GofiV-own for his water. But now, as I have been
told, and indeed have witnessed, it contains fourteen
thousand inhabitants. From a hill on the road betweefc
Goffstown and Hooksett, four miles distant, I have seen
a thunder-shower pass over, and the sun break out and
shine on a city there, where I had landed nine years
before in the fields; and there was waving the flag of its
Museum, where " the only perfect skeleton of a Green
land or river whale in the United States" was to be
seen, and I also read in its directory of a " Manchester
Athenaeum and Gallery of the Fine Arts."

According to the Gazetteer, the descent of Amoskeag
Falls, which are the most considerable in the Merrimack,
is fifty-four feet in half a mile. We locked ourselves
through here with much ado, surmounting the successive
watery steps of this river's staircase in the midst of a
crowd of villagers, jumping into the canal to their amuse
ment, to save our boat from upsetting, and consuming
much river-water in our service. Amoskeag, or Namas-
keak, is said to mean " great fishing-place." It was
hereabouts that the Sachem Wannalancet resided. Tra
dition says that his tribe, when at war with the Mo
hawks, concealed their provisions in the cavities of the
rocks in the upper part of these falls. The Indians, who
hid their provisions in these holes, and affirmed " that
God had cut them out for that purpose," understood
their origin and use better than the Royal Society, who
in their Transactions, in the last century, speaking of
these very holes, declare that " they seem plainly to be
artificial." Similar " pot-holes " may be seen at the
Stone Flume on this river, on the Ottaway, at Bellows
Falls on the Connecticut, and in the limestone rock at
^helburne Falls on Deerfield River in Massachusetts

WEDNESDAl. 263

and more or less generally about all falls. Perhaps the
most remarkable curiosity of this kind in New England
is the well-known Basin on the Pemigewasset, one of
the head-waters of this river, twenty by thirty feet in
extent and proportionably deep, with a smooth and
rounded brim, and filled with a cold, pellucid, and green
ish water. At Amoskeag the river is divided into many
separate torrents and trickling rills by the rocks, and its
volume is so much reduced by the drain of the canals
that it does not fill its bed. There are many pot-holes
here on a rocky island which the river washes over in
high freshets. As at Shelburne Falls, where I first ob
served them, they are from one foot to four or five in
diameter, and as many in depth, perfectly round and
regular, with smooth and gracefully curved brims, like
goblets. Their origin is apparent to the most careless
observer. A stone which the current has washed down,
meeting with obstacles, revolves as on a pivot where it
lies, gradually sinking in the course of centuries deeper
and deeper into the rock, and in new freshets receiving
the aid of fresh stones, which are drawn into this trap
and doomed to revolve there for an indefinite period,
doing Sisyphus-like penance for stony sins, until they
either wear out, or wear through the bottom of their
prison, or else are released by some revolution of na
ture. There lie the stones of various sizes, from a peb
ble to a foot or two in diameter, some of which have
rested from their labor only since the spring, and some
higher up which have lain still and dry for ages, — we
noticed some here at least sixteen feet above the present
level of the water, — while others are still revolving,
and enjoy no respite at any season. In one instance, at
Shelburne Falls, they Lave worn quite through the rock,

264 A WKEK.

BO that a portion of the river leaks through in anticipa
tion of the fall. Some of these pot-poles at Amoskeag,
in a very hard brown-stone, had an oblong, cylindrical
stone of the same material loosely fitting them. One, as
much as fifteen feet deep and seven or eight in diameter,
which was worn quite through to the water, had a huge
rock of the same material, smooth but of irregular form,
lodged in it. Everywhere there were the rudiments or
the wrecks of a dimple in the rock; the rocky shells of
whirlpools. As if by force of example and sympathy
after so many lessons, the rocks, the hardest material,
had been endeavoring to whirl or flow into the forms of
the most fluid. The finest workers in stone are not cop
per or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water
working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
Not only have some of these basins been forming for
countless ages, but others exist which must have been
completed in a former geological period. In deepening.
the Pawtucket Canal, in 1822, the workmen came to
ledges with pot-holes in them, where probably was once
the bed of the river, and there are some, we are told, in
the town of Canaan in this State, with the stones still in
them, on the height of land between the Merrimack and
Connecticut, and nearly a thousand feet above these
rivers, proving that the mountains and the rivers have
changed places. There lie the stones which completed
their revolutions perhaps before thoughts began to re
volve in the brain of man. The periods of Hindoo and
Chinese history, though they reach back to the time
when the race of mortals is confounded with the race of
gods, are as nothing compared with the periods which
these stones have inscribed. That which commenced 9
rock when time was young, shall conclude a pebble in

WEDNESDAY. 265

the unequal contest. With such expense of time and
natural forces are our very paving-stones produced.
They teach us lessons, these dumb workers ; verily there
are " sermons in stones, and books in the running
streams." In these very holes the Indians hid their
provisions ; but now there is no bread, but only its old
neighbor stones at the bottom Who knows how many
races they have served thus ? By as simple a law, some
accidental by-law, perchance, our system itself was made
ready for its inhabitants.

These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for
lack of human vestiges. The monuments of heroes and
the temples of the gods which may once have stood on
the banks of this river are now, at any rate, returned to
dust and primitive soil. The murmur of unchronicled
nations has died away along these shores, and once
more Lowell and Manchester are on the trail of the
Indian.

The fact that Romans once inhabited her reflects no
little dignity on Nature herself; that from some particu
lar hill the Roman once looked out on the sea. She
need not be ashamed of the vestiges of her children.
How gladly the antiquary informs us that their vessels
penetrated into this frith, or up that river of some re
mote isle! Their military monuments still remain on
the hills and under the sod of the valleys. The oft-
repeated Roman story is written in still legible charac
ters in every quarter of the Old World, and but to-day,
perchance, a new coin is dug up whose inscription re
peats and confirms their fame. Some " Judaea Capta"
with a woman mourning under a palm-tree, with silent
argument and demonstration confirms the pages of his
tory.

12

2G(> A WEEK.

" Rome living was the world's sole ornament;
And dead is now the world's sole monument.

With her own weight down pressed now she lies,
And by her heaps her hugeness testifies."

If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism
are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and
see still upon the walls of the temple of Minerva the cir
cular marks made by the shields taken from the enemy
in the Persian war, which were suspended there. We
have not far to seek for living and unquestionable evi
dence. The very dust takes shape and confirms some
story which we had read. As Fuller said, commenting
on the zeal of Camden, " A broken urn is a whole evi
dence; or an old gate still surviving out of which the
city is run out." When Solon endeavored to prove that
Salamis had formerly belonged to the Athenians, and
not to the Megareans, he caused the tombs to be opened,
and showed that the inhabitants of Salamis turned the
faces of their dead to the same side with the Athenians,
but the Megareans to the opposite side. There they
were to be interrogated.

Some minds are as little logical or argumentative as
nature ; they can offer no reason or " guess," but they
exhibit the solemn and incontrovertible fact. If a his
torical question arises, they cause the tombs to be
opened. Their silent and practical logic convinces the
reason and the understanding at the same time. Of
euch sort is always the only pertinent question and the
only satisfactory reply.

Our own country furnishes antiquities as ancient and
durable, and as useful, as any ; rocks at least as weLr
covered with lichens, and a soil which, if it is virgin, is
but virgin mould, the very dust of nature. What if wt

WEDNESDAY. 267

.•sinnot read Rome, or Greece. Etruria, or Carthage, or
\£gypt, or Babylon, on these ; are our cliffs bare ? The
\ichen on the rocks is a rude and simple shield which
beginning and imperfect Nature suspended there. Still
hangs her wrinkled trophy. And here too the poet's
^ye may still detect the brazen nails which fastened
Time's inscriptions, and if he has the gift, decipher them
n)y this clew. The walls that fence our fields, as well as
modern Rome, and not less the Parthenon itself, are all
built of ruins. Here may be heard the din of rivers,
*nd ancient winds which have long since lost their
L\8Miaes sough through our woods; — the first faint sounds
of spring, older than the summer of Athenian glory, the
iitraouse lisping in the wood, the jay's scream, and blue
bird's warble, and the hum of

" bees that fly
About the laughing blossoms of sallowy."

Here ifl the gray dawn for antiquity, and our to-mor-
ro'v's future should be at least paulo-post to theirs which
wo bjive put behind us. There are the red-maple and
biroV.u leaves, old runes which are not yet deciphered ;
catkin \ pine-cones, vines, oak-leaves, and acorns ; the
very tUnga themselves, and not their forms in stone, —
so mu?h the more ancient and venerable. And even to
the current summer there has come down tradition of a
hoary-heMod master of all art, who once filled every
field and ^rove with statues and god \i\x architecture,
of every dc&igo which Greece has late"} rv?:*«id ; whose
ruins are novr mingle 1 with the dast, and r.c v one block
remains upo:i mjcthei. TLe century sun and IT wearied
rain have wart-yl them, till rot one fragment firva that
quarry now exiru ; and poe^ perchance will feij'o that
gods sent down the*

268 A. WtiKK.

What though the traveller tell us of the ruins of
Egypt, are we so sick or idle, that we must sacrifice our
America and to-day to some man's ill-remembered and
indolent story? Carnac and Luxor are but names, or if
their skeletons remain, still more desert sand, and at
length a wave of the Mediterranean Sea are needed to
wash away the filth that attaches to their grandeur.
Carnac ! Carnac ! here is Carnac for me. I behold the
columns of a larger and purer temple.

This is my Carnnc, whose unmeasured dome
Shelters the measuring art and measurer's home.
Behold these flowers, let us be up with time,
Not dreaming of three thousand years ago,
Erect ourselves and let those columns lie,
Not stoop to raise a foil against the sky.
Where is the spirit of that time but in
This present day, perchance the present line?
Three thousand years ago are not agone,
They are still lingering in this summer morn,
And Memnon's Mother sprightly greets us now,
Wearing her youthful radiance on her brow.
If Carnac's columns still stand on the plain,
To enjoy our opportunities they remain.

In these parts dwelt the famous Sachem Pasacona-
way, who was seen by Gookin " at Pawtucket, when he
was about one hundred and twenty years old." He was
reputed a wise man and a powwow, and restrained his
people from going to war with the English. They be
lieved " that he could make water burn, rocks move, and
trees dance, and metamorphose himself into a flaming
man ; that in winter he could raise a green leaf out of
the ashes of a dry one, and produce a living snake from
the skin of a dead one, and many similar miracles." Ir
1G60, according to Gookin, at a great feast and danc^
he made his farewell speech to his people, in which he

WEDNESDAY. 269

laid, that as he was not likely to see them met together
again, he would leave them this word of advice, to take
heed how they quarrelled with their English neighbors,
for though they might do them much mischief at first, it
would prove the means of their own destruction. He
himself, he said, had been as much an enemy to the
English at their first coming as any, and had used all
his arts to destroy them, or at least to prevent their
settlement, but could by no means effect it. Gookin
thought that he " possibly might have such a kind of
spirit upon him as was upon Balaam, who in xxiii.
Numbers, 23, said ' Surely, there is no enchantment
against Jacob, neither is there any divination against
Israel.'" His son Wannalancet carefully followed his
advice, and when Philip's War broke out, he withdrew
his followers to Penacook, now Concord in New Hamp
shire, from the scene of the war. On his return after
wards, he visited the minister of Chelmsford, and, as is
stated in the history of that town, "wished to know
whether Chelmsford had suffered much during the war ;
and being informed that it had not, and that God should
be thanked for it, Wannalancet replied, ' Me next.' "

Manchester was the residence of John Stark, a hero
of two wars, and survivor of a third, and at his death
the last but one of the American generals of the Revo
lution. He was born in the adjoining town of London-
lerry, then Nutfield, in 1728. As early as 1752, he
was taken prisoner by the Indians while hunting in the
wilderness near Baker's River; he performed notable
service as a captain of rangers in the French war ; com
manded a regiment of the New Hampshire militia at the
battle of Bunker Hill ; and fought and won the battle of
Bennington in 1777. He was past service in the last

270 A WEEK.

war, and died here in 1822, at the age of ', **& mon
ument stands upon the second bank of the river, about a
mile and a half above the falls, and commands a pros
pect several miles up and down the Merrimack. It sug
gested how much more impressive in the landscape is
the tomb of a hero than the dwellings of the inglorious
living. Who is most dead, — a hero by whose monu
ment you stand, or his descendants of whom you have
never heard?

The graves of Ptsaconaway and Wannalancet are
marked by no monument on the bank of their native
river.

Every town which we passed, if we may believe the
Gazetteer, had been the residence of some great man.
But though we knocked at many doors, and even made
particular inquiries, we could not find that there were
any now living. Under the head of Litchfield we
read : —

" The Hon. Wyseman Clagett closed his life in this town."
According to another, " He was a classical scholar, a good
lawyer, a wit, and a poet." We saw his old gray house just
below Great Nesenkeag Brook. — Under the head of Merri
mack : "Hon. Mathew Thornton, one of the signers of the
Declaration of American Independence, resided many years
m this town." His house too we saw from the river. — " Dr.
Jonathan Gove, a man distinguished for his urbanity, his tal
ents and professional skill, resided in this town [Goffstown].
He was one of the oldest practitioners of medicine in the
county. He was many years an active member of the legis
lature." — "Hon. Robert Means, who died Jan. 24, 1823, at
the age of 80, was for a long period a resident in Amherst
He was a native of Ireland. In 1764 he came to this coun
try, where, by his industry and application to business, h«
acquired a large property, and great respect." — " Willian

WEDNESDAY. 271

Stinson [0113 of the first settlers of Dunbarton], born in Ire
land, came to Londonderry with his father. He was much
respected and was a useful man. James Rogers was from
Ireland, and father to Major Robert Rogers. He was shot
in the woods, being mistaken for a bear." — " Rev. Matthew
Clark, second minister of Londonderry, was a native of Ire
land, who had in early life been an officer in the army, and
distinguished himself in the defence of the city of London
derry, when besieged by the army of King James II. A. D.
1688-9. He afterwards relinquished a military nfe for the
clerical profession. He possessed a strong mind, marked by
a considerable degree of eccentricity. He died Jan. 25,
1 735, and was borne to the grave, at his particular request, by
his former companions in arms, of whom there were a consid
erable number among the early settlers of this town ; several
of them had been made free from taxes throughout the Brit
ish dominions by King William, for their bravery in that
memorable siege." — Col. George Reid and Capt. David
M'Clary, also citizens of Londonderry, were " distinguished
and brave " officers. — " Major Andrew M'Clary, a native
of this town [Epsom], fell at the battle of Breed's Hill." —
Many of these heroes, like the illustrious Roman, were plough
ing when the news of the massacre at Lexington arrived, and
straightway left their ploughs in the furrow, and repaired to
the scene of action. Some miles from where we now were,
there once stood a guide-post on which were the words, " 3
miles to Squire MacGaw's."

But generally speaking, the land is now, at any rate,
very barren of men, and we doubt if there are as many
hundreds as we read of. It may be that we stood too
near.

Uucannunuc Mountain in Goffstown was visible from
Amoskeag, five or six miles westward. It is the north-
easternmost in the horizon, which we see from our na
tive town, but seen from there is too ethereally blue to

J A WEEK.

I>e the same which the like of us have ever climbed
Its name is said to mean " The Two Breasts," there be
ing two eminences some distance apart. The highe&i,
which is about fourteen hundred feet above the sea,
probably affords a more extensive view of the Merri-
mack valley and the adjacent country than any other
hill, though it is somewhat obstructed by woods. Only
a few short reaches of the river are visible, but you can
trace its course far down stream by the sandy tracts on
its banks.

A little south of Uncannunuc, about sixty years ago,
as the story goes, an old woman who went out to gather
^pennyroyal, tript her foot in the bail of a small brass,
kettle in the dead grass and bushes. Some say that
flints and charcoal and some traces of a camp were also
found. This kettle, holding about four quarts, is still
preserved and used to dye thread in. It is supposed to
have belonged to some old French or Indian hunter, who
was killed in one of his hunting or scouting excursions,
and so never returned to look after his kettle.

But we were most interested to hear of the penny
royal, it is soothing to be reminded that wild nature pro
duces anything ready for the use of man. Men know
that something is good. One says that it is yellow-dock,
another that it is bitter-sweet, another that it is slippery-
elm bark, burdock, catnip, calamint, elicampane, thor
ough wort, or pennyroyal. A man may esteem himself
happy when that which is his food is also his medicine.
There is no kind of herb, but somebody or other says
that it is good. I am very glad to hear it. It reminds
me of the first chapter of Genesis. But how should they
know that, it is good? That is the mystery to me. 1
%m always agreeably disappointed ; it is incredible thaf

WEDNESDAY. 273

they should have found it out. Since all things are
good, men fail at last to distinguish which is the bane,
and which the antidote. There are sure to be two pre
scriptions diametrically opposite. Stuff a cold and starve
a cold are but two ways. They are the two practices
both always in full blast. Yet you must take advice of
the one school as if there was no other. In respect to
religion and the healing art, all nations are still in a
state of barbarism. In the most civilized countries the
priest is still but a Powwow, and the physician a Great
Medicine. Consider the deference which is everywhere
paid to a doctor's opinion. Nothing more strikingly be
trays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quack
ery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In
this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is
too great for the credulity of men. Priests and physi
cians should never look one another in the face. They
have no common ground, nor is there any to mediate
between them. When the one comes, the other goes.
They could not come together without laughter, or a sig
nificant silence, for the one's profession is a satire on the
other's, and cither's success would be the other's ijilure.
It is wonderful that the physician should ever die, and
that the priest should ever live. Why is it that the priest
is never called to consult with the physician ? Is it be-
oause men believe practically that matter is independent
of spirit. But what is quackery ? It is commonly an
attempt to cure the diseases of a man by addressing hia
body alone. There is need of a physician who shall
\ninister to both soul and body at once, that is, to man.
Now he falls between two douls.

After passing through the locks, we had poled our
selves through the canal here, ahoat half a mile in length,

JS>* R

274 A WEEK.

to the boatable part of the river. Above Amoskeag the
river spreads out into a lake reaching a mile or two with
out a bend. There were many canal-boats here bound
up to Hooksett, about eight miles, and as they were going
up empty with a fair wind, one boatman offered to take
us in tow if we would wait. But when we came along
side, we found that they meant to take us on board, since
otherwise we should clog their motions too much ; but
as our boat was too heavy to be lifted aboard, we pur
sued our way up the stream, as before, while the boat
men were at their dinner, and came to anchor at length
under some alders on the opposite shore, where we could
take our lunch. Though far on one side, every sound was
wafted over to us from the opposite bank, and from the
harbor of the canal, and we could see everything that
passed. By and by came several canal-boats, at inter
vals of a quarter of a mile, standing up to Hooksett with
a light breeze, and one by one disappeared round a point
above. With their broad sails set, they moved slowly
np the stream in the sluggish and fitful breeze, like one-
winged antediluvian birds, and as if impelled by some
mysterious counter-current. It was a grand motion, so
slow and stately, this u standing out," as the phrase is,
expressing the gradual and steady progress of a vessel, as
if it were by mere rectitude and disposition, without shuf
fling. Their sails, which stood so still, were like chips
cast into the current of the air to show which way it set.
At length the boat which we had spoken came along,
keeping the middle of the stream, and when within
speaking distance the steersman called out ironically to
say, that if we would come alongside now he would take
us in tow; but not heeding his taunt, we still loitered
in the shade till we had finished our lunch, and whet

WEDNESDAY. 275

the last boa* h:»d disappeared round the point with flap
ping sail, for the breeze had now sunk to a zephyr, with
our own sails set, and plying our oars, we shot rapidly
up the stream in pursuit, and as we glided close along
side, while they were vainly invoking ^Eolus to their
aid, we returned their compliment by proposing, if they
would throw us a rope, to " take them in tow," to which
these Merrimack sailors had no suitable answer ready.
Thus we gradually overtook and passed each boat in
succession until we had the river to ourselves again.

Our course this afternoon was between Manchester
and Goffstown.

While we float here, far from that tributary stream
un whose banks our Friends and kindred dwell, our
thoughts, like the stars, come out of their horizon still ;
for there circulates a finer blood than Lavoisier has dis
covered the laws of, — the blood, not of kindred merely,
but of kindness, whose pulse still beats at any distance
and forever.

True kindness is a pure divine affinity,
Not founded upon human consanguinity.
It is a spirit, not a blood relation,
Superior to family and station.

After years of vain familiarity, some distant gesture or
unconscious behavior, which we remember, speaks to us
with more emphasis than the wisest or kindest words.
We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long
passed, and realize that there have been times when our
Friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a
character that they passed over us like the winds of
heaven unnoticed ; when th?y treated us not as what

276 A WKEK.

we were, but as what we aspired to be. There has just
reached us, it may be, the nobleness of some such silent
behavior, not to be forgotten, not to be remembered,
and we shudder to think how it fell on us cold, though
in some true but tardy hour we endeavor to wipe off
these scores.

In my experience, persons, when they are made the
subject of conversation, though with a Friend, are com
monly the most prosaic and trivial of facts. The uni
verse seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss
the character of individuals. Our discourse all runs to
Blander, and our limits grow narrower as wre advance.
How is it tiiat we are impelled to treat our old Friends
BO ill when we obtain new ones? The housekeeper
says, I never had any new crockery in my life but I
began to break the old. I say, let us speak of mush
rooms and forest trees rather. Yet we can sometimes
afford to remember them in private.

Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy,

Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mould,

As one she had designed for Beauty's toy,

But after manned him for her own strong-hold.

On every side he open was as day,
That you might see no lack of strength within,

For walls and ports do only serve alway
For a pretence to feebleness and sin.

Say not that C«sar was victorious,

With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame,
In other sense this youth was glorious,

Himself a kingdom wheresoe'er he came.

No strength went out to get him victory,

When all was income of its own accord;
For where he went none other was to see,

But all were nurcel of their noble lord.

WEDNESDAY. 277

He forayed like the subtile haze of summer,
That stilly snows fresh landscapes to our eye*,

And revolutions works without a murmur,
Or rustling of a leaf beneath the skies.

So was I taken unawares by this,

I quite forgot my homage to confess;
Yet now am forced to know, though hard it is,

I might have loved him had 1 loved him les«.

Each moment as we nearer drew to each,

A stern respect withheld us farther yet,
So that we seemed beyond each other's reach,

And less acquainted than when first we met.

We two were one while we did sympathize,
So could we not the simplest bargain drive j

And what avails it now that we are wise,
If absence doth this doubleness contrive?

Eternity may not the chance repeat,

But I must tread my single way alone,
In sad remembrance that we once did meet,

And know that bliss irrevocably gone.

The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing,

For elegy has other subject none;
Each strain of music in my ears shall ring

Knell of departure from that other one.

Make haste and celebrate my tragedy;

With fitting strain resound ye woods and fields;
Sorrow is dearer in such case to me

Than all the joys other occasion yields.

Is't then too late the damage to repair?

Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath raft
The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare,

But in my hands the wheat and kernel left.

If I but love that virtue which he is,

Though it be scented in the morning air,

Still shall we be truest acquaintances,
Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare.

278 A WEEK.

Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience,
and remembered like heat lightning in past summers.
Fair and flitting like a summer cloud ; — there is always
Borne vapor in the air, no matter how long the drought
there are even April showers. Surely from time to
time, for its vestiges never depart, it floats through our
atmosphere. It takes place, like vegetation in so many
materials, because there is such a law, but always with
out permanent form, though ancient and familiar as the
Bun and moon, and as sure to come again. The heart
is forever inexperienced. They silently gather as by
magic, these never failing, never quite deceiving visions,
like the bright and fleecy clouds in the calmest and
clearest days. The Friend is some fair floating isle of
palms eluding the mariner in Pacific seas. Many are
the dangers to be encountered, equinoctial gales and
coral reefs, ere he may sail before the constant trades.
But who would not sail through mutiny and storm, even
over Atlantic waves, to reach the fabulous retreating
shores of some continent man? The imagination still
clings to the faintest tradition of

THE ATLANTIDES.

The smothered streams of love, which flow

More bright than Phlegethon, more low,

Island us ever, like the sea,

In an Atlantic mystery.

Our fabled shores none ever reach,

No mariner has found our beach,

Scarcely our mirage now is seen,

And neighboring waves with floating green,

Yet still the oldest charts contain

Some dotted outline of our main;

In ancient times midsummer days

Unto the western islands' gaze,

WEDNESDAY.

To Teneriffe and tlie Azores,

Have shown our faint and cloud-like shores.

But sink not yet, ye desolate isles,
Anon your coast with commerce smiles,
And richer freights ye '11 furnish far
Than Africa or Malabar.
Be fair, be fertile evermore,
Ye rumored but untrodden shore,
Princes and monarchs will contend
Who first unto your land shall send,
And pawn the jewels of the crown
To call your distant soil their own.

Columbus has sailed westward of these isles by tin
mariner's compass, but neither he nor his successors
have found them. We are no nearer than Plato was.
The earnest seeker and hopeful discoverer of this New
World always haunts the outskirts of his time, and walks
through the densest crowd uninterrupted, and as it were
in a straight line.

Sea and land are but his neighbors,

And companions in his labors,

Who on the ocean's verge and firm land's end

Doth long and truly seek his Friend.

Many men dwell far inland,

But he alone sits on the strand.

Whether he ponders men or books

Always still he seaward looks,

Marine news he ever reads,

And the slightest glances heeds,

Feels the sea breeze on his cheek,

At each word the landsmen speak

In every companion's eye

A sailing vessel doth descry;

In the ocean's sullen roar

From some distant port he hears,

Of wrecks upon a distant shore,

And the ventures of past jears

280 A WEEK.

Who does not walk on the plain as amid the columns
of Tadmore of the desert? There is on the earth no
institution which Friendship has established; it is not
taught by any religion ; no scripture contains its maxims.
It has no temple, nor even a solitary column. There
goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited, but the ship
wrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the shore.
The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the
monuments of inhabitants.

However, our fates at least are social. Our courses
do not diverge ; but as the web of destiny is woven it is
fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre.
Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and
their actions faintly foretell it. We are inclined to lay
the chief stress on likeness and not on difference, and in
foreign bodies we admit that there are many degrees of
warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it.

Mencius says: "If one loses a fowl or a dog, he
knows well how to seek them again ; if one loses the
sentiments of his heart, he does not know how to seek

them again The duties of practical philosophy

consist only in seeking after those sentiments of the heart
which we have lost ; that is all."

One or two persons come to my house from time to
time, there being proposed to them the faint possibility
of intercourse. They are as full as they are silent, and
wait foi my plectrum to stir the strings of their lyre.
If they could ever come to the length of a sentence, 01
hear one, on that ground they are dreaming of! They
speak faintly, and do not obtrude themselves. They
have heard some news, which none, not even they them
selves, can impart. It is a wealth they can bear abou*

WEDNESDAY. 281

them which can be expended in various ways. What
came they out to seek?

No word is oftener on the lips of men than Friend
ship, and indeed no thought is more familiar to their
aspirations. All men are dreaming of it, and its drama,
which is always a tragedy, is enacted daily. It is the
secret of the universe. You may thread the town, you
may wander the country, and none shall ever speak of
it, yet thought is everywhere busy about it, and the
idea of what is possible in this respect affects our be
havior toward all new men and women, and a great
many old ones. Nevertheless, I can remember only
two or three essays on this subject in all literature. No
wonder that the Mythology, and Arabian Nights, and
Shakespeare, and Scott's novels entertain us, — we are
poets and fablers and dramatists and novelists ourselves.
We are continually acting a part in a more interesting
drama than any written. We are dreaming that our
Friends are our Friends, and that we are our Friends'
Friends. Our actual Friends are but distant relations
of those to whom we are pledged. We never exchange
more than three words with a Friend in our lives on
that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost
habitually rise. One goes forth prepared to say, " Sweet
Friends ! " and the salutation is, " Damn your eyes ! "
But never mind ; faint heart never won true Friend.
O my Friend, may it come to pass once, that when you
are my Friend I may be yours.

-Of what use the friendliest dispositions even, if there
>re no hours given to Friendship, if it is forever post
poned to unimportant duties and relations ? Friendship
J9 first, Friendship last. But it is equally impossible to
forget our Friends, and to make them answer to oni

A WEEK.

ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin
to keep them company. How often we find ourselves
turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go
and meet their ideal cousins. I would that I were wor
thy to be any man's Friend.

What is commonly honored with the name of Friend
ship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do
not, after all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often
see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of in
sanity by their Friendship for one another. They are
not often transfigured and translated by love in each
other's presence. I do not observe them purified, re-
lined, and elevated by the love of a man. If one abates
a little the price of his wood, or gives a neighbor his
vote at town-meeting, or a barrel of apples, or lends him
his wagon frequently, it is esteemed a rare instance of
Friendship. Nor do the farmers' wives lead lives con
secrated to Friendship. I do not see the pair of farmer
Friends of either sex prepared to stand against the
world. There are only two or three couples in historv.
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no
more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most con
template only what would be the accidental and trifling
advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist
in time of need, by his substance, or his influence, or
his counsel ; but he who foresees such advantages in this
relation proves himself blind to its real advantage, or in
deed wholly inexperienced in the relation itself. Such
services are particular and menial, compared with the
perpetual and all-embracing service which it is. Even
the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness
are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live
ai harmony merely, as some say, bat in melody. W*i

WUDNK8DAY. 283

do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies, —
neighbors are kini enough for that, — but to do the like
office to our spirits. For this few are rich enough, how
ever well disposed they may be. For the most part we
stupidly confound one man with another. The dull dis
tinguish only races or nations, or at most classes, but the
wise man, individuals. To his Friend a man's peculiar
character appears in every feature and in every action,
and it is thus drawn out and improved by him.

Think of the importance of Friendship in the educa
tion of men.

" He that hath love and judgment too,
Sees more than any other doe."

It will make a man honest ; it will make him a hero ;
it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just deal
ing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnani
mous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.

And it is well said by another poet,

" Why love among the virtues is not known,
Is that love is them all contract in one."

All the abuses which are the object of reform with the
philanthropist, the statesman, and the housekeeper are
unconsciously amended in the intercourse of Friends.
A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compli
ment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can
appreciate them in us. It takes two to speak the truth,
— one to speak, and another to hear. How can one
treat with magnanimity mere wood and stone ? If we
dealt only with the false and dishonest, we should at last
forget how to speak truth. Only lovers know the value
and magnanimity of truth, while traders prize a cheap
honesty, and neighbors and acquaintance a cheap civility,

284 A WE UK.

In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler faculties
are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the
compliment to expect noblene<« from us. Though we
have gold to give, they demand only copper. We ask
our neighbor to suffer himself to be dealt with truly, sin
cerely, nobly ; but he answers no by his deafness. He
does not even hear this prayer. He says practically,
I will be content if you treat me as " no better than I
should be," as deceitful, mean, dishonest, and selfish.
For the most part, we are contented so to deal and to be
dealt with, and we do not think that for the mass of men
there is any truer and nobler relation possible. A man
may have good neighbors, so called, and acquaintances,
and even companions, wife, parents, brothers, sisters,
children, who meet himself and one another on this
ground only. The State does not demand justice of its
members, but thinks that it succeeds very well with the
least degree of it, hardly more than rogues practise ; and
so do the neighborhood and the family. What is com
monly called Friendship even is only a little more
honor among rogues.

But sometimes we are said to love another, that is, to
stand in a true relation to him, so that we give the best
to, and receive the best from, him. Between whom
there is hearty truth, there is love ; and in proportion to
our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives
are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal.
There are passages of affection in our intercourse with
mortal men and women, such as no prophecy had taught
us to expect, which transcend our earthly life, and anti
cipate Heaven for us. What is this Love that may come
right into the middle of a prosaic Goffstown day, equa,
to any of the gods? that discovers a new world, fair an/1

WEDNESDAY. 285

fi*3sh and eternal, occupying the place of the old one,
when to the common eye a dust has settled on the uni
verse ? which world cannot else be reached, and does
not exist. What other words, we may almost ask, are
memorable and worthy to be repeated than those which
love has inspired ? It is wonderful that they were ever
uttered. They are few and rare, indeed, but, like a
strain of music, they are incessantly repeated and modu
lated by the memory. All other words crumble off with
the stucco which overlies the heart. We should not
dare to repeat these now aloud. We are not competent
to hear them at all times.

The books for young people say a great deal about
the selection of Friends ; it is because they really have
nothing to say about Friends. They mean associates and
confidants merely. " Know that the contrariety of foe
and Friend proceeds from God." Friendship takes
place between those who have an affinity for one anoth
er, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No
professions nor advances will avail. Even speech, at
first, necessarily has nothing to do with it ; but it follows
after silence, as the buds in the graft do not put forth into
leaves till long after the graft has taken. It is a drama
in which the parties have no part to act. We are all
Mussulmen and fatalists in this respect. Impatient and
uncertain lovers think that they must say or do some
thing kind whenever they meet; they must never be
, old. But they who are Friends do not do what they
think they must, but what they must. Even their Friend
ship is to some extent but a sublime phenomenon to
them.

The true and not despairing Friend will address hii
Friend in some such terms as these.

286 A WEEK.

•' I never asked thy leave to let me love thee, — I
have a right. I love thee not as something private and
personal, which is your own, but as something universal
and worthy of love, whiih I have found. O, how I think
of you ! You are purely good, — you are infinitely good.
I can trust you forever. I did not think that humanity
was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live."

" You are the fact in a fiction, — you are the truth
more strange and admirable than fiction. Consent only to
be what you are. I alone will never stand in your way."

"This is what I would like, — to be as intimate with
you as our spirits are intimate, — respecting you as I
respect my ideal. Never to profane one another by
word or action, even by a thought. Between us, if ne
cessary, let there be no acquaintance."

"I have discovered you; how can you be concealed
from me ? "

The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will
religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apothe
osis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They
are kind to each other's dreams.

Though the poet says, "' 'T is the pre-eminence of
Friendship to impute excellence," yet we can never
praise our Friend, nor esteem him praiseworthy, nor let
him think that he can please us by any behavior, or ever
treat us well enough. That kindness which has so good
a reputation elsewhere can least of all consist with this
relation, and no such affront can be offered to a Friend,
as a conscious good-will, a Tiendliness which is not a
necessity of the Friend's nature.

The sexes are naturally most strongly attracted to one
mother, by constant constitutional differences, and ar«

WEDNESDAY. 287

most commonly and surely the complements of each
other. How natural and easy it is for man to secure the
attention of woman to what interests himself. Men and
women of equal culture, thrown together, are sure to be
of a certain value to one another, more than men to men.
There exists already a natural disinterestedness and
liberality in such society, and I think that any man will
more confidently carry his favorite books to read to some
circle of intelligent women, than to one of his own sex.
The visit of man to man is wont to be an interruption,
but the sexes naturally expect one another. Yet Friend
ship is no respecter of sex ; arid perhaps it is more rare
between the sexes than between two of the same sex.

Friendship is, at any rate, a relation of perfect equal
ity. It cannot well spare any outward sign of equal
obligation and advantage. The nobleman can never
have a Friend among his retainers, nor the king among
his subjects. Not that the parties to it are in all re
spects equal, but they are equal in all that respects or
affects their Friendship. The one's love is exactly
balanced and represented by the other's. Persons are
only the vessels which contain the nectar, and the
hydrostatic paradox is the symbol of love's law. It
finds its level and rises to its fountain-head in all breasts,
and its slenderest column balances the ocean.

" And love as well the shepherd can
As can the mighty nobleman."

The one sex is not, in this respect, more tender than the
other. A hero's love is as delicate as a maiden's.

Confucius said, " Never contract Friendship with a
aian who is not better than thyself" It is the merit
and preservation of Friendship, tha/ it takes place on a

288 A WEEK.

level higher than the actual characters of the parties
would seem to warrant. The rays of light come to us
in such a curve that every man whom we meet appears
to be taller than he actually is. Such foundation has
civility. My Friend is that one whom I can associate
with my choicest thought. I always assign to him a
nobler employment in my absence than I ever find
liim engaged in ; and I imagine that the hours which he
dbvotes to me were snatched from a higher society.
The sorest insult which I ever received from a Friend
was, when he behaved with the license which only long
and cheap acquaintance allows to one's faults, in my
presence, without shame, -and still addressed me in
friendly accents. Beware, lest thy Friend learn at last
to tolerate one frailty of thine, and so an obstacle be
raised to the progress of thy love. There are times
when we have had enough even of our Friends, when
we begin inevitably to profane one another, and must
withdraw religiously into softude and silence, the better
to prepare ourselves for a loftier intimacy. Silence is
the ambrosial night in the intercourse of Friends, in
which their sincerity is recruited and takes deeper root
Friendship is never established as an understood re
lation. Do you demand that I be less your Friend that
you may know it? Yet what right have I to think
that another cherishes so rare a sentiment for me ? It
is a miracle which requires constant proofs. It is an
exercise of the purest imagination and the rarest faith.
tt says by a silent but eloquent behavior, — "I will be
so related to thee as thou canst imagine ; even so thou
mayest believe. I will spend truth, — all my wealth on
thee," — and the Friend responds silently through his
nature and life, and treats his Friend with the same

WEDNESDAY, 289

divine courtesy. He knows us literally through thick
and thin. He never asks for a sign of love, but can dis
tinguish it by the features which it naturally wears.
We never need to stand upon ceremony with him with
regard to his visits. Wait not till I invite thee, but
observe that I am glad to see thee when thou comest.
It would be paying too dear for thy visit to ask for it.
Where my Friend lives there are all riches and every
attraction, and no slight obstacle can keep me from him.
Let me never have to tell thee what I have not to tell.
Let our intercourse be wholly above ourselves, and draw
us up to it.

The language of Friendship is not words, but mean
ings. It is an intelligence above language. One im
agines endless conversations with his Friend, in which
the tongue shall be loosed, and thoughts be spoken with
out hesitancy or end ; but the experience is commonly
far otherwise. Acquaintances may come and go, and
have a word ready for every occasion ; but what puny
word shall he utter whose very breath is thought and
meaning? Suppose you go to bid farewell to your
Friend who is setting out on a journey ; what other
outward sign do you know than to shake his hand ?
Have you any palaver ready for him then ? any box of
salve to commit to his pocket ? any particular message
to send by him ? any statement which you had forgotten
to make ? — as If you could forget anything. — No, it is
much that you take his hand and say Farewell ; that
you could easily omit ; so far custom has prevailed. It
is even painful, if he is to go, that he should linger so
long. If he must go, let him go quickly. Have you
any last words? Alas, it is o.ily the word of words,
which you have so long sought and found not ; you have
13 «

290 A WEEK.

not a first word yet. There are few even whom 1
should venture to call earnestly by their most proper
names. A name pronounced is the recognition of the
individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce
my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my
love and service. Yet reserve is the freedom and aban
donment of lovers. It is the reserve of what is hostile
or indifferent in their natures, to give place to what is
kindred and harmonious.

The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that
of hate. When it is durable it is serene and equable.
Even its famous pains begin only with the ebb of love,
for few are indeed lovers, though all would fain be. It
is one proof of a man's fitness for Friendship that he is
able to do without that which is cheap and passionate.
A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The par
ties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love,
and know no other law nor kindness. It is not extrav
agant and insane, but what it says is something estab
lished henceforth, and will bear to be stereotyped. It is
a truer truth, it is better and fairer news, and no time
will ever shame it, or prove it false. This is a plant
which thrives best in a temperate zone, where summer
and winter alternate with one another. The Friend is
a necessarius, and meets his Friend on homely ground ;
not on carpets and cushions, but on the ground and on
rocks they will sit, obeying the natural and primitive
laws. They will meet without any outcry, and j»art
without loud sorrow. Their relation implies such quali
ties as the warrior prizes ; for it takes a valor to open
the hearts of men as well as the gates of castles. It if
not an idle sympathy and mutual consolation merely, bu*
a heroic sympathy of aspiration and endeavor.

WEDNESDAY. 291

tt When manhood shall be matched so

That fear can take no place,
Then weary works make warriors
Each other to embrace."

The Friendship which Wawatam testified for Henry
the fur-trader, as described in the latter's " Adventures,"
so almost bare and leafless, yet not blossomless nor fruit
less, is remembered with satisfaction and security. The
stern, imperturbable warrior, after fasting, solitude, and
mortification of body, comes to the white man's lodge,
and affirms that he is the white brother whom he saw in
his dream, and adopts him henceforth. He buries the
hatchet as it regards his friend, and they hunt and feast
and make maple-sugar together. " Metals unite from
fluxility ; birds and beasts from motives of convenience ;
fools from fear and stupidity ; and just men at sight."
If Wawatam would taste the "white man's milk" with
his tribe, or take his bowl of human broth made of the
trader's fellow-countrymen, he first finds a place of safe
ty for his Friend, whom he has rescued from a similar
fate. At length, after a long winter of undisturbed and
happy intercourse in the family of the chieftain in the
wilderness, hunting and fishing, they return in the
spring to Michilimackinac to dispose of their furs ; and
it becomes necessary for Wawatam to take leave of his
Friend at the Isle aux Outardes, when the latter, to
avoid his enemies, proceeded to the Sault de Sainte
Marie, supposing that they were to be separated for a
short time only. " We now exchanged farewells," saya
Henry, " with an emotion entirely reciprocal. I did not
quit the lodge without the most grateful sense of the
many acts of goodness which I had experienced in it,
nor without the sincerest respect for the virtues which I

292 A WEKK.

had witnessed among its members. All the family ac
companied me to the beach ; and the canoe had no
sooner put off than Wawatam commenced an address to
the Kichi Manito, beseeching him to take care of me,
his brother, till we should next meet. We had pro
ceeded to too great a distance to allow of our hearing
his voice, before Wawatam had ceased to offer up his
prayers." We never hear of him again.

Friendship is not so kind as is imagined ; it has not
much human blood in it, but consists with a certain dis
regard for men and their erections, the Christian duties
and humanities, while it purifies the air like electricity.
There may be the sternest tragedy in the relation of two
more than usually innocent and true to their highest in
stincts. We may call it an essentially heathenish inter
course, free and irresponsible in its nature, and practis
ing all the virtues gratuitously. It is not the highest
sympathy merely, but a pure and lofty society, a frag
mentary and godlike intercourse of ancient date, still
kept up at intervals, which, remembering itself, does not
hesitate to disregard the humbler rights and duties of
humanity. It requires immaculate and godlike qualities
full-grown, and exists at all only by condescension and
anticipation of the remotest future. We love nothing
which is merely good and not fair, if such a thing is pos
sible. Nature puts some kind of blossom before every
fruit, not simply a calyx behind it. When the Friend
comes out of his heathenism and superstition, and breaks
his idols, being converted by the precepts of a newer
testament ; when he forgets his mythology, and treats
his Friend like a Christian, or as he can afford ; theu
Friendship ceases to be Friendship, and becomes char
it v ; that principle which established the almshouse if

WEDNESDAY. 293

ROW beginning with its charity at home, and establishing
an almshouse and pauper relations there.

As for the number which this society admits, it is at
any rate to be begun with one, the noblest and greatest
that we know, and whether the world will ever carry it
further, whether, as Chaucer affirms,

" There be mo sterres in the skie than a pair,"
remains to be proved ;

" And certaine he is well begone
Among a thousand that findeth one."

We shall not surrender ourselves heartily to any while
we are conscious that another is more deserving of our
love. Yet Friendship does not stand for numbers ; the
Friend does not count his Friends on his fingers ; they
are not numerable. The more there are included by
this bond, if they are indeed included, the rarer and
diviner the quality of the love that binds them. I am
ready to believe that as private and intimate a relation
may exist by which three are embraced, as between two.
Indeed, we cannot have too many friends ; the virtue
which we appreciate we to some extent appropriate, so
that thus we are made at last more fit for every relation
of life. A base Friendship is of a narrowing and exclu
sive tendency, but a noble one is not exclusive ; its very
superfluity and dispersed love is the humanity which
sweetens society, and sympathizes with foreign nations ;
for though its foundations are private, it is, in effect, a
public affair and a public advantage, and the Friend
more than the father of a family, deserves well of the
state.

294

A WKKK.

The only danger in Friendship is that i' will end. It
is a delicate plant, though a native. The least unworthi-
ness, even if it be unknown to one's self, vitiates it. Let
the Friend know that those faults which he observes in
his Friend his own faults attract. There is no rule
more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions
by finding what we suspected. By our narrowness and
prejudices we say, I will have so much and such of you,
my Friend, no more. Perhaps there are none charita
ble, none disinterested, none wise, noble, and heroic
enough, for a true and lasting Friendship.

I sometimes hear my Friends complain finely that I
do not appreciate their fineness. I shall not tell them
whether I do or not. As if they expected a vote of
thanks for every fine thing which they uttered or did.
Who knows but it was finely appreciated. It may be
that your silence was the finest thing of the two. There
are some things which a man never speaks of, which are
much finer kept silent about. To the highest communi
cations we only lend a silent ear. Our finest relations
are not simply kept silent about, but buried under a pos
itive depth of silence never to be revealed. It may be
that we are not even yet acquainted. In human inter
course the tragedy begins, not when there is misunder
standing about words, but when silence is not under
stood. Then there can never be an explanation. What
avails it that another loves you, if he does not under
stand you ? Such love is a curse. What sort of com
panions are they who are presuming always that their
silence is more expressive than yours ? How foolish,
and inconsiderate, and unjust, to conduct as if you were
the only party aggrieved ! Has not your Friend always
equal ground of complaint ? No doubt my Friend?

WEDNESDAY. 295

pometimes speak to me in vain, but they do not know
what things I hear which they are not aware that they
have spoken. I know that I have frequently disap
pointed them by not giving them words when they ex
pected them, or such as they expected. Whenever I
see my Friend I speak to him; but the expecter, the
man with the ears, is not he. They will complain too
that you are hard. 0 ye that would have the cocoa-nut
wrong side outwards, when next I weep I will let you
know. They ask for words and deeds, when a true re
lation is word and deed. If they know not of these
things, how can they be informed ? We often forbear
to confess our feelings, not from pride, but for fear that
we could not continue to love the one who required us
to give such proof of our affection.

I know a woman who possesses a restless and intelli
gent mind, interested in her own culture, and earnest tc
enjoy the highest possible advantages, and I meet her
with pleasure as a natural person who not a little pro
vokes me, and I suppose is stimulated in turn by myself.
Yet our acquaintance plainly does not attain to that de
gree of confidence and sentiment which women, which
all, in fact, covet. I am glad to help her, as I am helped
by her; I like very well to know her with a sort of
Btranger's privilege, and hesitate to visit her often, like
her other Friends. My nature pauses here, I do not
well know why. Perhaps she does not make the high
est demand on me, a religious demand. Some, with
whose prejudices or peculiar bias I have no sympathy,
yet inspire me with confidence, and I trust that they
confide in me also as a religious heathen at least, — a
good Greek. I, too, have principles as well founded as

296 A WEEK.

their own If this person could conceive that, without
wilfulness, I associate with her as far as our destinies
are coincident, as far as our Good Geniuses permit, and
still value such intercourse, it would be a grateful assur
ance to me. I feel as if I appeared careless, indifferent,
and without principle to her, not expecting more, and
yet not content with less. If she could know that I
make an infinite demand on myself, as well as on all
others, she would see that this true though incomplete
intercourse, is infinitely better than a more unreserved
but falsely grounded one, without the principle of growth
in it. For a companion, I require one who will make
an equal demand on me with my own genius. Such a
one will always be rightly tolerant. It is suicide, and
corrupts good manners to welcome any less than this.
I value and trust those who love and praise my aspira
tion rather than my performance. If you would not
stop to look at me, but look whither I am looking, and
farther, then my education could not dispense with you?
company.

My love must be as free

As is the eagle's wing,
Hovering o'er land and sea

And everything.

I must not dim my eye

In thy saloon,
I must not leave my sky

And nightly moon.

Be not the fowler's net

Which stays my flight,
And craftily is set

T allure the sight.

But be the favoring gale
That bears me on,

WEDNKSDAT. 297

And still doth fill my sail
When thou art gone.

I cannot leave my sky

For thy caprice,
True love would soar as high

As heaven is.

The eagle would not brook

Her mate thus won,

. Who trained his eye to look

Beneath the sun.

Few things are more difficult than to help a Friend
in matters which do not require the aid of Friendship,
but only a cheap and trivial service, if your Friendship
wants the basis of a thorough practical acquaintance.
I stand in the friendliest relation, on social and spiritual
grounds, to one who does not perceive what practical skill
I have, but when he seeks my assistance in such matters,
is wholly ignorant of that one with whom he deals ; does
not use my skill, which in such matters is much greater
than his, but only my hands. I know another, who, on
the contrary, is remarkable for his discrimination in this
respect ; who knows how to make use of the talents of
others when he does not possess the same ; knows when
not to look after or oversee, and stops short at his man.
It is a rare pleasure to serve him, which all laborers
know. I am not a little pained by the other kind of
treatment. It is as if, after the friendliest and most en
nobling intercourse, your Friend should use you as a
hammer, and drive a nail with your head, all in good
faith ; notwithstanding that you are a tolerable carpen
ter, as well as his good Friend, and would use a hammer
heerfully in his service. This want of perception is a
iefect which all the virtues of the heart cannot sup
ply:—

13 «

298 A WEEK.

The Good how can we trust?

Only the Wise are just.

The Good we use.

The Wise we cannot choose.

These there are none above ;

The Good they know and love,

But are not known again

By those of lesser ken.

They do not charm us with their eyes,

But they transfix with their advice;

No partial sympathy they feel,

With private woe or private weal,

But with the universe joy and sigh,

Whose knowledge is their sympathy.

Confucius said : " To contract ties of Friendship with
any one, is to contract Friendship with his virtue.
There ought not to be any other motive in Friendship."
But men wish us to contract Friendship with their vice
also. I have a Friend who wishes me to see that to be
right which I know to be wrong. But if Friendship is
to rob me of my eyes, if it is to darken the day, I will
have none of it. It should be expansive and inconceiv
ably liberalizing in its effects. True Friendship can af
ford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness
and ignorance. A want of discernment cannot be an
ingredient in it. If I can see my Friend's virtues more
distinctly than another's, his faults too are made more
conspicuous by contrast. We have not so good a right
to hate any as our Friend. Faults are not the less faults
because they are invariably balanced by corresponding
virtues, and for a fault there is no excuse, though it may
appear greater than it is in many ways. I have never
known one who could bear criticism, who could not be
flattered, who would not bribe his judge, or was contenf
that the truth should be loved always better than him
self.

WEDNESDAY. 299

If two travellers would go their way harmoniously to
gether, the one must take as true and just a view of
things as the other, else their path will not be strewn
with roses. Yet you can travel profitably and pleas
antly even with a blind man, if he practises common
courtesy, and when you converse about the scenery will
remember that he is blind but that you can see; and
you will not forget that his sense of hearing is probably
quickened by his want of sight. Otherwise you will
not long keep company. A blind man, and a man in
whose eyes there was no defect, were walking together,
when they came to the edge of a precipice. " Take
care ! my friend," said the latter, " here is a steep pre
cipice ; go no farther this way." — "I know better,"
said the other, and stepped off.

It is impossible to say all that we think, even to our
truest Friend. We may bid him farewell forever soon
er than complain, for our complaint is too well grounded
to be uttered. There is not so good an understanding
between any two, but the exposure by the one of a se
rious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in
proportion to its heinousness. The constitutional differ
ences which always exist, and are obstacles to a perfect
Friendship, are forever a forbidden theme to the lips of
Friends. They advise by their whole behavior. Noth
ing can reconcile them but love. They are fatally late
when they undertake to explain and treat with one
another like foes. Who will take an apology for a
Friend ? They must apologize like dew and frost, which
ure off again with the sun, and which all men know in
their hearts to be beneficent. The necessity itself for
explanation, — what explanation will atone for that ?

True love does not quarrel for slight reasons, such

300 A WEEK.

mistakes as mutual acquaintances can explain away, but,
alas, however slight the apparent cause, only for ade
quate and fatal and everlasting reasons, which can never
be set aside. Its quarrel, if there is any, is ever recur
ring, notwithstanding the beams of affection which inva
riably come to gild its tears ; as the rainbow, however
beautiful and unerring a sign, does not promise fair
weather forever, but only for a season. I have known
two or three persons pretty well, and yet I have never
known advice to be of use but in trivial and transient
matters. One may know what another does not, but the
utmost kindness cannot impart what is requisite to make
the advice useful. We must accept or refuse one another
as we are. I could tame a hyena more easily than my
Friend. He is a material which no tool of mine will
work. A naked savage will fell an oak with a firebrand,
and wear a hatchet out of a rock by friction, but I can
not hew the smallest chip out of the character of my
Friend, either to beautify or deform it.

The lover learns at last that there is no person quite
transparent and trustworthy, but every one has a devil
in him that is capable of any crime in the long run. Yet,
as an Oriental philosopher has said, " Although Friend
ship between good men is interrupted, their principles
remain unaltered. The stalk of the lotus may be broken,
und the fibres remain connected."

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wis
dom and skill without. There may be courtesy, there
may be even temper, and wit, and talent, and sparkling
conversation, there may be good-will even, — and yet the
humanest and divinest faculties pine for exercise. Our
life without love is like coke and ashes. Men may be

WEDNESDAY. 801

pure as alabaster and Parian marble, elegant as a Tus
can villa, sublime as Niagara, and yet if there is no milk
mingled with the wine at their entertainments, better is
the hospitality of Goths and Vandals.

My Friend is not of some other race or family of men,
but flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. He is my real
brother. I see his nature groping yonder so like mine.
We do not live far apart. Have not the fates associated
us in many ways? It says, in the Vishnu Purana:
" Seven paces together is sufficient for the friendship of
the virtuous, but thou and I have dwelt together." Is it
of no significance that we have so long partaken of the
same loaf, drank at the same fountain, breathed the same
air summer and winter, felt the same heat and cold;
that the same fruits have been pleased to refresh us
both, and we have never had a thought of different fibre
the one from the other !

Nature doth have tier dawn each day,

But mine are far between ;
Content, 1 cry, for sooth to say,

Mine brightest are I ween.

For when my sun doth deign to rise,

Though it be her noontide,
Her fairest field in shadow lies

Nor can my light abide.

Sometimes I bask me in her day,

Conversing with my mate,
But if we interchange one ray,

Forthwith her heats abate.

Through his discourse I climb and se«

As from some eastern hill,
A brighter morrow rise to me

Than lieth in her skilL

As 't were two summer days in one,

Two Sundays come together,
Our rays united make one suu,

With fairest summer weather.

302 A WEEK.

As surely as the sunset in my latest November shall
translate me to the ethereal world, and remind me of the
ruddy morning of youth ; as surely as the last strain of
music which falls on my decaying ear shall make age to
be forgotten, or, in short, the manifold influences of na
ture survive during the term of our natural life, so sure
ly my Friend shall forever be my Friend, and reflect a
ray of God to me, and time shall foster and adorn and
consecrate our Friendship, no less than the ruins of tem
ples. As I love nature, as I love singing birds, and
gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and
evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my
Friend.

But all that can be said of Friendship, is like botany
to flowers. How can the understanding take account of
its friendliness?

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as
their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourn
ers, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of
their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over
with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of
other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends
have no place in the graveyard.

This to our cis- Alpine and cis-Atlantic Friends.

Also this other word of entreaty and advice to the
large and respectable nation of Acquaintances, beyond
the mountains ; — Greeting.

My most serene and irresponsible neighbors, let us see
that we have the whole advantage of each other; we
will be useful, at least, if not admirable, to one another
t know that the mountains which separate us are high,

WEDNESDAY. 303

and covered with perpetual snow, but despair not. Im
prove the serene winter weather to scale them. If need
be, soften the rocks with vinegar. For here lie the ver
dant plains ot Italy ready to receive you. Nor shall I
be slow on my side to penetrate to your Provence.
Strike then boldly at head or heart or any vital part.
Depend upon it, the timber is well seasoned and tough,
and will bear rough usage ; and if it should crack, there
is plenty more where it came from. I am no piece of
crockery that cannot be jostled against my neighbor with
out danger of being broken by the collision, and must
needs ring false and jarringly to the ead of my days,
when once I am cracked ; but rather one of the old-fash
ioned wooden trenchers, which one while stands at the
head of the table, and at another is a milking-stool, and
at another a seat for children, and final'.y goes down to
its grave not unadorned with honorable scars, and does
not die till it is worn out. Nothing can shock a brave
man but dulness. Think how many rebuffs every man
has experienced in his day ; perhaps has fallen into a
horse-pond, eaten fresh-water clams, or worn one shirt
for a week without washing. Indeed, you cannot receive
a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that
which shocks you. Use me, then, for I am useful in my
way, and stand as one of many petitioners, from toad
stool and henbane up to dahlia and violet, supplicating
to be put to my use, if by any means ye may find me
serviceable ; whether for a medicated drink or bath, as
balm and lavender ; or for fragrance, as verbena and
geranium ; or for sight, as cactus ; or for thoughts, as
pansy. These humbler, at least, if not those higher
uses.

Ah, my dear Strangers and Enemies, I would not for-

804 A WEEK.

get you. I can well afford to welcome you. Let me
subscribe myself Yours ever and truly, — your much
obliged servant. We have nothing to fear from our
foes ; God keeps a standing army for that service ; but
we have no ally against our Friends, those ruthless
Vandals.

Once more to one and all,

" Friends, Bomana, Countrymen, and I/oven."

Let such pure hate still underprop
Our love, that we may be
Each other's conscience.
And have our sympathy
Mainly from thence.

We Ml one another treat like gods.
And all the faith we have
In virtue and in truth, bestow
On either, and suspicion leave
To gods below.

Two solitary stars, —
Unmeasured systems far
Between us roll,

But by our conscious light we arc
Determined to one pole.

What need confound the sphere, —

Love can afford to wait,

For it no hour 's too late

That witnesseth one duty's end,

Or to another doth beginning lend.

It will subserve no use,
More than the tints of flowers,
Only the independent guest
Frequents its bowers,
Inherits its bequest.

No speech though kind ha§ it,
But kinder silence dole*

WEDNESDAY. 805

Unto its mates,
By night consoles,
By day congratulates.

What saith the tongue to tongue?
What heareth ear of ear?
By the decrees of fate
From year to year,
Does it communicate.

Pathless the gulf of feeling yawns, —
No trivial bridge of words,
Or arch of boldest span,
Can leap the moat that girds
The sincere man.

No show of bolts and bars
Can keep the foeman out,
Or 'scape his secret mine
Who entered with the doubt
That drew the line.

No warder at the gate
Can let the friendly in,
But, like the sun, o'er all
He will the castle win,
And shine along the wall.

There 's nothing in the world I know
That can escape from love,
For every depth it goes below,
Aiid every height above.

It waits as waits the sky,
Until the clouds go by,
Yet shines serenely on
With an eternal day,
Alike when they are gone,
And when they stay.

Implacable is Love, —
Foes may be bought or teased
From their hostile intent,
But he goes unappeased
Who is on kindness bent.

30C A WEEK.

Having rowed five or six miles above Amoskeag be
fore sunset, and reached a pleasant part of the river, one
of us landed to look for a farm-house, where we might
replenish our stores, while the other remained cruising
about the stream, and exploring the opposite shores to
find a suitable harbor for the night. In the mean while
the canal-boats began to come round a point in our rear,
poling their way along close to the shore, the breeze
having quite died away. This time there was no offer
of assistance, but one of the boatmen only called out to
say, as the truest revenge for having been the losers in
the race, that he had seen a wood-duck, which we had
scared up, sitting on a tall white-pine, half a mile down
stream ; and he repeated the assertion several times, and
seemed really chagrined at the apparent suspicion with
which this information was received. But there sat the
summer duck still, undisturbed by us.

By and by the other voyageur returned from his inland
expedition, bringing one of the natives with him, a little
flaxen-headed boy, with some tradition, or small edition,
of Robinson Crusoe in his head, who had been charmed
by the account of our adventures, and asked his father's
leave to join us. He examined, at first from the top of
the bank, our boat and furniture, with sparkling eyes,
and wished himself already his own man. He was a
lively and interesting boy, and we should have been
glad to ship him ; but Nathan was still his father's boy,
and had not come to years of discretion.

We had got a loaf of home-made bread, and musk
and water melons for dessert. For this farmer, a clever
and well-disposed man, cultivated a large patch of mel
ons for the Hooksett and Concord markets. He hospit
ably entertained us the next day, exhibiting his hop

WEDNESDAY. 307

fields and kiln and melon-patch, warning us to step over
the tight rope which surrounded the latter at a foot from
the ground, while he pointed to a little bower at one
corner, where it connected with the lock of a gun rang
ing with the line, and where, as he informed us, he
(sometimes sat in pleasant nights to defend his premises
against thieves. We stepped high over the line, and
sympathized with our host's on the whole quite human,
if not humane, interest in the success or his experiment.
That night especially thieves were to be expected, from
rumors in the atmosphere, and the priming was not wet.
He was a Methodist man, who had his dwelling between
the river and Uncannunuc Mountain ; who there be
longed, and stayed at home there, and by the encourage
ment of distant political organizations, and by his own
tenacity, held a property in his melons, and continued
to plant. We suggested melon-seeds of new varieties
and fruit of foreign flavor to be added to his stock. We
had come away up here among the hills to learn the im
partial and unbribable beneficence of Nature. Straw
berries and melons grow as well in one man's garden as
another's, and the sun lodges as kindly under his hill
side, — when we had imagined that she inclined rather
to some few earnest and faithful souls whom we know.

We found a convenient harbor for our boat on the op
posite or east shore, still in Hooksett, at the mouth of a
small brook which emptied into the Merrimack, where
it would be out of the way of any passing boat in the
night — for they commonly hug the shore if bound up
stream, either to avoid the current, or touch the bottom
with their poles, — and where it would be accessible
without stepping on the clayey shore. We set one of
our largest melons to cool in the still water among the

308 A WEEK.

alders at the mouth of this creek, but when our tent was
pitched and ready, and we went to get it, it had floated
oui into the stream, and was nowhere to be seen. So
taking the boat in the twilight, we went in pursuit of
this property, and at length, after long straining of the
eyes, its green disk was discovered far down the river,
gently floating seaward with many twigs and leaves from
the mountains that evening, and so perfectly balanced
that it had not keeled at all, and no water had run in at
the tap which had been taken out to hasten its cooling.

As we sat on the bank eating our supper, the clear
light of the western sky fell on the eastern trees, and
was reflected in the water, and we enjoyed so serene an
evening as left nothing to describe. For the most part
we think that there are few degrees of sublimity, and
that the highest is but little higher than that which we
now behold ; but we are always deceived. Sublimer
visions appear, and the former pale and fade away.
We are grateful when we are reminded by interior evi
dence of the permanence of universal laws ; for our faith
is but faintly remembered, indeed, is not a remembered
assurance, but a use and enjoyment of knowledge. It
is when we do not have to believe, but come into actual
contact with Truth, and are related to her in the most
direct and intimate way. Waves of serener life pass
over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over
the fields in cloudy weather. In some happier moment,
when more sap flows in the withered stalk of our life,
Syria and India stretch away from our present as they
do in history. All the events which make the annals
of the nations are but the shadows of our private expe
riences. Suddenly and silently the eras which we call
history awake and glimmer in us, and there is room for

WEDNESDAY. 309

Alexander and Hannibal to march and conquer. In
short, the history which we read is only a fainter mem
ory of events which have happened in our own experi
ence. Tradition is a more interrupted and feebler
memory.

This world is but canvas to our imaginations. I
see men with infinite pains endeavoring to realize to
their bodies, what I, with at least equal pains, would
realize to my imagination, — its capacities ; for certainly
there is a life of the mind above the wants of the body,
and independent of it. Often the body is warmed, but
the imagination is torpid ; the body is fat, but the imagi
nation is lean and shrunk. But what avails all other
wealth if this is wanting ? " Imagination is the air of
mind," in which it lives and breathes. All things are as
I am. Where is the House of Change ? The past is
only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which
our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, the
dim prospectus of our future field. Our circumstances
answer to our expectations and the demand of our na
tures. I have noticed that if a man thinks that he needs
a thousand dollars, and cannot be convinced that he does
not, he will commonly be found to have them ; if he
lives and thinks a thousand dollars will be forthcoming,
though it be to buy shoe-strings with. A thousand mills
will be just as slow to come to one who finds it equally
hard to convince himself that he needs them.

Men are by birth equal in this, that given
Themselves and their condition, they are even.

I am astonished at the singular pertinacity and endur
ance of our lives. The miracle is, that what is is, when
it ie so difficult, if not impossible, for anything else to

310 A WEEK.

be ; that we walk on in our particular paths so far, bo-
fore we fall on death and fate, merely because we must
walk in some path ; that every man can get a living, and
so few can do anything more. So much only can I ac
complish ere health and strength are gone, and yet this
Buffices. The bird now sits just out of gunshot. I am
never rich in money, and I am never meanly poor. If
debts are incurred, why, debts are in the course of events
cancelled, as it were by the same law by which they
were incurred. I heard that an engagement was entered
into between a certain youth and a maiden, and then I
heard that it was broken off, but I did not know the
reason in either case. We are hedged about, we think,
by accident and circumstance, now we creep as in a
dream, and now again we run, as if there were a fate in
it, and all things thwarted or assisted. I cannot change
my clothes but when I do, and yet I do change them,
and soil the new ones. It is wonderful that this gets
done, when some admirable deeds which I could men
tion do not get done. Our particular lives seem of such
fortune and confident strength and durability as piers
of solid rock thrown forward into the tide of circum
stance. When every other path would fail, with singu
lar and unerring confidence we advance on our particu
lar course. What risks we run ! famine and fire afid
pestilence, and the thousand forms of a cruel fate, —
and yet every man lives till he — dies. How did he
manage that ? Is there no immediate danger ? We
wonder superfluously when we hear of a somnambulist
walking a plank securely, — we have walked a plank all
our lives up to this particular string-piece where we are
My life will wait for nobody, but is being matured stiL
without delay, while I go about the streets, and chaflfe?

WEDNESDAY. 311

with this man and that to secure it a living. It is as
indifferent and easy meanwhile as a poor man's dog, and
making acquaintance with its kind. It will cut its own
channel like a mountain stream, and by the longest ridge
is not kept from the sea at last. I have found all things
thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and
seasons, strangely adapted to my resources. No matter
what imprudent haste in my career ; I am permitted to
be rash. Gulfs are bridged in a twinkling, as if some
unseen baggage-train carried pontoons for my conven
ience, and while from the heights I scan the tempting
but unexplored Pacific Ocean of Futurity, the ship is
being carried over the mountains piecemeal on the
backs of mules and lamas, whose keel shall .plough its
waves, and bear me to the Indies. Day would not dawn
if it were not for

THE INWARD MORNING.

Packed in my mind lie all the clothes

Which outward nature wears,
And iu its fashion's hourly change

It all things else repairs.

In vain I look for change abroad,

And can no difference find,
Till some new ray of peace uncalled

Illumes my inmost mind.

What is it gilds the trees and clouds,

And paints the heavens so gay,
But yonder fast-abiding light

With its unchanging ray V

Lo, when the sun streams tnrough the wood,

Upon a winter's morn,
Where'er his silent beams intrude

The murky night is gone.

812 A WEEK.

How could the patient pine have knows
The morning breeze would come,

Or humble flowers anticipate
The insect's noonday hum, —

Till the new light with morning cheer
From far streamed through the aisles,

And nimbly told the forest trees
For many stretching miles ?

I've beard within my inmost soul
Such cheerful morning news,

In the horizon of my mind
Have seen such orient hues,

As in the twilight of the dawn,
When the first birds awake,

Are heard within some silent wood,
Where they the small twigs break,

Or in the eastern skies are
Before the sun appears,
The harbingers of summer heats
Which from afar he bears.

Whole weeks and months of my summer life slide
away in thin volumes like mist and smoke, till at length,
Borne warm morning, perchance, I see a sheet of mist
blown down the brook to the swamp, and I float as high
above the fields with it. I can recall to mind the stillest
summer hours, in which the grasshopper sings over the
mulleins, and there is a valor in that time the bare
memory of which is armor that can laugh at any blow
of fortune. For our lifetime the strains of a harp are
heard to swell and die alternately, and death is but " the
pause when the blast is recollecting itself."

We lay awake a long while, listening to the murmurs
of the brook, in the angle formed by whose bank witk

WEDNESDAY. 313

che river our tent was pitched, and there was a sort of
man interest in its story, which ceases not in freshet or
in drought the livelong summer, and the profounder
lapse of the river was quite drowned by its din. But
the rill, whose

" Silver sands and pebbles sing
Eternal ditties with the spring,"

is silenced by the first frosts of winter, while mightier
streams, on whose bottom the sun never shines, clogged
with sunken rocks and the ruins of forests, from whose
surface comes up no murmur, are strangers to the icy
fetters which bind fast a thousand contributary rills.

I dreamed this night of an event which had occurred
long before. It was a difference with a Friend, which
had not ceased to give me pain, though I had no cause
to blame myself. But in my dream ideal justice was at
length done me for his suspicions, and I received that
compensation which I had never obtained in my waking
hours. I was unspeakably soothed and rejoiced, even
after I awoke, because in dreams we never deceive our
selves, nor are deceived, and this seemed to have the
authority of a final judgment.

We bless and curse ourselves. Some dreams are di
vine, as well as some waking thoughts. Donne sings of
one

" Who dreamt devoutlier than most use to pray."

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are
scarcely less afflicted when we remember some unworthi-
ness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had been
actual, and the intensity of our grief, which is our atone
ment, measures the degree by which this is separated
from an actual unworthiness. For in dreams we but

14

314 A WEEK.

act a part which must have been learned and rehearsed
in our waking hours, and no doubt could discover some
waking consent thereto. If this meanness had not ita
foundation in us, why are we grieved at it? In dreams
we see ourselves naked and acting out our real charac
ters, even more clearly than we see others awake. But
an unwavering and commanding virtue would compel
even its most fantastic and faintest dreams to respect its
ever-wakeful authority; as we are accustomed to say
carelessly, we should never have dreamed of such a
thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

** And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
A trickling streams from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft,
Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sown*
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor people's troublous cryes,
As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne,
Might there be heard; but careless Quiet lye§

Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enemyat."

THURSDAY.

"He trode the implanted forest floor, whereon
The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone,
Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear,
And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker.

Where darkness found him he lay glad at night 5
There the red morning touched him with its light.

Go where he will, the wise man is at home,
His hearth the earth, —his hall the azure dome ;
Where his clear spirit leads him, there 's his road,
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed."

THUESDAY.

WHEN we awoke this morning, we heard the faint,
deliberate, and ominous sound of rain-drops on our cot
ton roof. The rain had pattered all night, and now the
whole country wept, the drops falling in the river, and
on the alders, and in the pastures, and instead of any
bow in the heavens, there was the trill of the hair-bird
all the morning. The cheery faith of this little bird
atoned for the silence of the whole woodland choir be
side. When we first stepped abroad, a flock of sheep,
led by their rams, came rushing down a ravine in our
rear, with heedless haste and unreserved frisking, as if
unobserved by man, from some higher pasture where
they had spent the night, to taste the herbage by the
river-side ; but when their leaders caught sight of our
white tent through the mist, struck with sudden astonish
ment, with their fore-feet braced, they sustained the
rushing torrent in their rear, and the whole flock stood
stock-still, endeavoring to solve the mystery in their
sheepish brains. At length, concluding that it boded no
mischief to them, they spread themselves out quietly
over the field. We learned afterward that we had
pitched our tent on the very spot which a few summers
before had been occupied by a party of Penobscots.
We could see rising before us through the mist a dark
conical eminence called Hooksett Pinnacle, a landmark

518 A WEEK.

to boatmen, and also Uncannunuc Mountain, broad off
on the west side of the river.

This was the limit of our voyage, for a few hours more
in the rain would have taken us to the last of the locks,
and our boat was too heavy to be dragged around the
long and numerous rapids which would occur. On foot,
however, we continued up along the bank, feeling oui
way with a stick through the showery and foggy day,
and climbing over the slippery logs in our path with as
much pleasure and buoyancy as in brightest sunshine;
scenting the fragrance of the pines and the wet clay
under our feet, and cheered by the tones of invisible
waterfalls ; with visions of toadstools, and wandering
frogs, and festoons of moss hanging from the spruce-
trees, and thrushes flitting silent under the leaves ; our
road still holding together through that wettest of weath
er, like faith, while we confidently followed its lead.
We managed to keep our thoughts dry, however, and
only our clothes were wet. It was altogether a cloudy
and drizzling day, with occasional brightenings in the
mist, when the trill of the tree-sparrow seemed to be
ushering in sunny hours.

"Nothing that naturally happens to man can hurt
him, earthquakes and thunder-storms not excepted," said
a man of genius, who at this time lived a few miles
farther on our road. When compelled by a shower to
take shelter under a tree, we may improve that oppor
tunity for a more minute inspection of some of Nature's
works. I have stood under a tree in the woods half a
day at a time, during a heavy rain in the summer, and
yet employed myself happily and profitably there prying
with microscopic eye into the crevices of the bark or
the leaves of the fungi at my feet. " Riches are the

THURSDAY. 319

attendants of the miser ; and the heavens rain plen-
teously upon the mountains." I can fancy that it would
be a luxury to stand up to one's chin in some retired
swamp a whole summer day, scenting the wild honey
suckle and bilberry blows, and lulled by the minstrelsy
of gnats and mosquitoes ! A day passed in the society
of those Greek sages, such as described in the Banquet
cf Xenophon, would not be comparable with the dry
wit of decayed cranberry vines, and the fresh Attic salt
of the moss-beds. Say twelve hours of genial and
familiar converse with the leopard frog ; the sun to rise
behind alder and dogwood, and climb buoyantly to his
meridian of two hands' breadth, and finally sink to rest
behind some bold western hummock. To hear the even
ing chant of the mosquito from a thousand green chapels,
and the bittern begin to boom from some concealed fort
like a sunset gun ! — Surely one may as profitably be
soaked in the juices of a swamp for one day as pick
his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and damp, —
are they not as rich experience as warmth and dry-
ness ?

At present, the drops come trickling down the stubble
while we lie drenched on a bed of withered wild oats,
by the side of a bushy hill, and the gathering in of the
clouds, with the last rush and dying breath of the wind,
and then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the
country over, enhance the sense of inward comfort and
sociableness. The birds draw closer and are more
familiar under the thick foliage, seemingly composing
new strains upon their roosts against the sunshine.
What were the amusements of the drawing-room and
the library in comparison, if we had them here ? We
should still sing as of old, —

820 A WEEK.

My books I 'd fain cast off, I cannot read,
'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,
And will not mind to hit their proper targe.

Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too,
Our Shakespeare's life were rich to live again,
What Plutarch read, that was not good nor true,
Nor Shakespeare's books, unless his books were meo

Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,
What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town,
If juster battles are enacted now
Between the ants upon this hummock's crown?

Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn,
If red or black the gods will favor most,
Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn,
Struggling to heave some rock against the host.

Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour,
For now I 've business with this drop of dew,
And see vou not, the clouds prepare a shower,—
I '11 meet him shortly when the sky is blue.

This bed of herd's-grass and wild oats was spread
Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use,
A clover tuft is pillow for my head,
And violets quite overtop my shoes.

And now the cordial clouds have shut all in
And gently swells the wind to say all 's well
The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,
Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell.

I am well drenched upon my bed of oats ;
But see that globe come rolling down its stem
Now like a lonely planet there it floats,
And now it sinks into my garment's hem.

Drip drip the trees for all the country round,
And richness rare distils from every bough,
The wind alone it is makes every soutid,
Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.

THURSDAY. 321

For shame the sun will never show himself,
Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so,
My dripping locks, — they would become an elf,
Who in a beaded coat does gayly go.

The Pinnacle is a small wooded hill which rises very
abruptly to the height of about two hundred feet, near
the shore at Hooksett Fails. As Uncannunuc Moun
tain is perhaps the best point from which to view the
valley of the Merrimack, so this hill affords the best
view of the river itself. I have sat upon its summit, a
precipitous rock only a few rods long, in fairer weather,
when the sun was setting and filling the river valley
with a flood of light. You can see up and down the
Merrimack several miles each way. The broad and
straight river, full of light and life, with its sparkling
and foaming falls, the islet which divides the stream, the
village of Hooksett on the shore almost directly under
your feet, so near that you can converse with its inhab
itants or throw a stone into its yards, the woodland lake
at its western base, and the mountains in the north and
northeast, make a scene of rare beauty and complete
ness, which the traveller should take pains to behold.

We were hospitably entertained in Concord, New
Hampshire, which we persisted in calling New Concord,
as we had been wont, to distinguish it from our native
town, from which we had been told that it was named
and in part originally settled. This would have been
the proper place to conclude our voyage, uniting Con
cord with Concord by these meandering rivers, but our
boat was moored some miles below its port.

The richness of the intervals at Penacook, now Con
cord, New Hampshire, bad been observed by explorers,
and, according to the historian of Haverhill, in the
14* u

322 A WEEK.

u year 1726, considerable progress was made in the settle
ment, and a road was cut through the wilderness from Ha-
verhill to Penacook. In the fall of 1727, the first family, that
of Captain Ebenezer Eastman, moved into the place. Hia
team was driven by Jacob Shute, who was by birth a French
man, and he is said to have been the first person who drove
a team through the wilderness. Soon after, says tradition,
one Ayer, a lad of 18, drove a team consisting often yoke of
oxen to Penacook, swam the river, and ploughed a portion of
the interval. He is supposed to have been the first person
who ploughed land in that place. After he had completed his
work, he started on his return at sunrise, drowned a yoke of
oxen while recrossing the river, and arrived at Haverhill
about midnight. The crank of the first saw-mill was man
ufactured in Haverhill, and carried to Penacook on a
horse."

But we found that the frontiers were not this way any
longer. This generation has come into the world fatally
late for some enterprises. Go where we will on the
surface of things, men have been there before us. We
cannot now have the pleasure of erecting the last house;
that was long ago set up in the suburbs of Astoria City,
and our boundaries have literally been run to the South
Sea, according to the old patents. But the lives of men,
though more extended laterally in their range, are still
as shallow as ever. Undoubtedly, as a Western orator
said, " Men generally live over about the same surface ;
some live long and narrow, and others live broad and
short " ; but it is all superficial living. A worm is as
good a traveller as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a
much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not
hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We
do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising
above or diving below its plane ; as the wwm escapei

THURSDAY. 323

drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper. The
frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wher
ever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be his neigh
bor, there is an unsettled wilderness between him and
Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther
still, between him and it. Let him build himself a log-
house with the bark on where he is, fronting IT, and
wage there an Old French war for seven or seventy
years, with Indians and Rangers, or whatever else may
come between him and the reality, and save his scalp if
he can.

We now no longer sailed or floated on the river, but
trod the unyielding land like pilgrims. Sadi tells who
may travel ; among others, " A common mechanic,
who can earn a subsistence by the industry of his hand,
and shall not have to stake his reputation for every
morsel of bread* as philosophers have said." He may
travel who can subsist on the wild fruits and game of
the most cultivated country. A man may travel fast
enough and earn his living on the road. I have at
times been applied to to do work when on a journey ; to
do tinkering and repair clocks, when I had a knapsack
on my back. A man once applied to me to go into a
factory, stating conditions and wages, observing that I
lucceeded in shutting the window of a railroad car in
which we were travelling, when the other passengers
had failed. " Hast thou not heard of a Sufi, who was
hammering some nails into the sole of his sandal ; an
officer of cavalry took him by the sleeve, saying, Come
along and shoe my horse." Farmers have asked me to
assist them in haying, when I was passing their fields.
A man once applied to me to mend his umbrella, taking

324 A WEEK.

ine for an umbrella-mender, because, being on a jour
ney, I carried an umbrella in my hand while the sun
shone. Another wished to buy a tin cup of me, observ
ing that I had one strapped to my belt, and a sauce-pan
on my back. The cheapest way to travel, and the way
to travel the farthest in the shortest distance, is to go
afoot, carrying a dipper, a spoon, and a fish-line, some
Indian meal, some salt, and some sugar. When you
come to a brook or pond, you can catch fish and cook
them ; or you can boil a hasty-pudding ; or you can buy
a loaf of bread at a farmer's house for fourpence, moisten
it in the next brook that crosses the road, and dip into
it your sugar, — this alone will last you a whole day ; —
or, if you are accustomed to heartier living, you can buy
a quart of milk for two cents, crumb your bread or cold
pudding into it, and eat it with your own spoon out of
your own dish. Any one of these things I mean, not
all together. I have travelled thus some hundreds of
miles without taking any meal in a house, sleeping on
the ground when convenient, and found it cheaper, and
in many respects more profitable, than staying at home.
So that some have inquired why it would not be best to
travel always. But I never thought of travelling simply
as a means of getting a livelihood. A simple woman
down in Tyngsborough, at whose house I once stopped to
get a draught of water, when I said, recognizing the
bucket, that I had stopped there nine years before for
the same purpose, asked if I was not a traveller, suppos
ing that I had been travelling ever since, and had now
coma rcund again ; that travelling was one of the pro
fessions, more or less productive, which her husband did
not follow. But continued travelling is far from pro
d active. It begins with wearing away the soles of th«

THURSDAY. 525

Fhoes, and making the feet sore, and erelong it will
wear a man clean up, after making his heart sore into
the bargain. I have observed that the after-life of those
who have travelled much is very pathetic. True and
sincere travelling is no pastime, but it is as serious as
the grave, or any part of the human journey, and it re
quires a long probation to be broken into it. I do not
speak of those that travel sitting, the sedentary trav
ellers whose legs hang dangling the while, mere idle
symbols of the fact, any more than when we speak of
sitting hens we mean those that sit standing, but I mean
those to whom travelling is life for the legs, and death
too, at last. The traveller must be born again on the
road, and earn a passport from the elements, the princi
pal powers that be for him. He shall experience at last
that old threat of his mother fulfilled, that he shall be
skinned alive. His sores shall gradually deepen them
selves that they may heal inwardly, while he gives no
rest to the sole of his foot, and at night weariness must
be his pillow, that so he may acquire experience against
his rainy days. — So was it with us.

Sometimes we lodged at an inn in the woods, where
trout-fishers from distant cities had arrived before UP,
and where, to 'our astonishment, the settlers dropped in
at nightfall to have a chat and hear the news, though
there was but one road, and no other house was visible,
— as if they had come out of the earth. There we
sometimes read old newspapers, who never before read
new ones, and in the rustle of their leaves heard the
dashing of the surf along the Atlantic shore, instead of
the sough of the wind among the pines. But then walk
ing had given us an appetite even for the least palatable
und nutritious food.

326 A WEKK.

Some hard and dry book in a dead language, which
you have found it impossible to read at home, but for
which you have still a lingering regard, is the best to
carry with you on a journey. At a country inn, in the
barren society of ostlers and travellers, I could under
take the writers of the silver or the brazen age with
confidence. Almost the last regular service which I
performed in the cause of literature was to read the
works of

AULUS PERSICS FLACCCS.

If you have imagined what a divine work is spread
out for the poet, and approach this author too, in the
hope of finding the field at length fairly entered on, you
will hardly dissent from the words of the prologue,

" Ipse semipaganus
Ad sacra Vatum carmen affero nostrum."

I half pagan
Bring my verses to the shrine of the poets.

Here is none of the interior dignity of Virgil, nor
the elegance and vivacity of Horace, nor will any sibyl
be needed to remind you, that from those older Greek
poets there is a sad descent to Persius. You can scarce
ly distinguish one harmonious sound amid this unmusical
bickering with the follies of men.

One sees that music has its place in thought, but hard-
iy as yet in language. When the Muse arrives, we
wait for her to remould language, and impart to it her
own rhythm. Hitherto the verse groans and labors
with its load, and goes not forward blithely, singing by
the way. The best ode may be parodied, indeed is it
self a parody, and has a poor and trivial sound, like a

THURSDAY. 327

man stepping on the rounds of a ladder. Homer and
Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell arid Wordsworth
are but the rustling of leaves and crackling of twigs in
the forest, and there is not yet the sound of any bird,
The Muse has never lifted up her voice to sing. Most
of all, satire will not be sung. A Juvenal or Persius do
not marry music to their verse, but are measured fault
finders at best; stand but just outside the faults they
condemn, and so are concerned rather about the mon
ster which they have escaped, than the Fair prospect
before them. Let them live on an age, and they will
have travelled out of his shadow and reach, and found
other objects to ponder.

As long as there is satire, the poet is, as it were, par-
ticeps criminis. One sees not but he had best let bad
take care of itself, and have to do only with what is be
yond suspicion. If you light on the least vestige of
truth, and it is the weight of the whole body still which
stamps the faintest trace, an eternity will not suffice to
extol it, while no evil is so huge, but you grudge to
bestow on it a moment of hate. Truth, never turns to
rebuke falsehood ; her own straightforwardness is the
severest correction. Horace would not have written
satire so well if he had not been inspired by it, as by a
passion, and fondly cherished his vein. In his odes, the
love always exceeds the hate, so that the severest satire
still sings itself, and the poet is satisfied, though the folly
be not corrected.

A sort of necessary order in the development of
Genius is, first, Complaint ; second, Plaint ; third, Love.
Complaint, which is the condition of Persius, lies not in
the province of poetry. Erelong the enjoyment of a
superior gooc. would have changed his disgust into re

S26 A WEEK.

gret. We can never have much sympathy with the
complainer ; for after searching nature through, we con
clude that he must be both plaintiff and defendant too.
and so had best come to a settlement without a hear ing.
He who receives an injury is to some extent an accom
plice of the wrong-doer.

Perhaps it would be truer to say, that the highest
strain of the muse is essentially plaintive. The saint's
are still tears of joy. Who has ever heard the Innocent
sing?

But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is
the severest satire ; as impersonal as Nature herself, and
like the sighs of her winds in the woods, which convey
ever a slight reproof to the hearer. The greater the
genius, the keener the edge of the satire.

Hence we have to do only with the rare and fragmen
tary traits, which least belong to Persius, or shall we
say, are the properest utterances of his muse ; since that
which he says best at any time is what he can best say
at all times. The Spectators and Ramblers have not
failed to cull some quotable sentences from this garden
too, so pleasant is it to meet even the most familiar truth
in a new dress, when, if our neighbor had said it, we
should have passed it by as hackneyed. Out of these
six satires, you may perhaps select some twenty lines,
which fit so well as many thoughts, that they will recur
to the scholar almost as readily as a natural image ;
though when translated into familiar language, they lose
that insular emphasis, which fitted them for quotatioa
Such lines as the following, translation cannot render
commonplace. Contrasting the man of true religion
with those who, with jealous privacy, would fain carry
on a secret commerce with the gods, he says: —

THURSDAY. 329

" Baud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque susurros
Tollere de templis; et aperto vivere voto."

It is not easy for every one to take murmurs and low
Whispers out of the temples, and live with open vow.

To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum
tanctorum, and the penetralia of the temple are the
broad noon of his existence. Why should he betake
himself to a subterranean crypt, as if it were the only
holy ground in all the world which he had left un pro
faned ? The obedient soul would only the more discover
and familiarize things, and escape more and more into
light and air, as having henceforth done with secrecy, so
that the universe shall not seem open enough for it. At
length, it is neglectful even of that silence which is con
sistent with true modesty, but by its independence of all
confidence in its disclosures, makes that which it imparts
so private to the hearer, that it becomes the care of the
whole world that modesty be not infringed.

To the man who cherishes a secret in his breast, there
is a still greater secret unexplored. Our most indifferent
acts may be matter for secrecy, but whatever we do with
the utmost truthfulness and integrity, by virtue of its
pureness, must be transparent as light.

In the third satire, he asks : —

"Est aliquid qub tendis, et in quod dirigis arcum?
An passim sequeris corvos, testave, lutove,
Securus quo pes ferat, atque ex tempore vivis? "

Is there anything to which thou tendest, and against which thou

directest thy bow?

Or dost thou pursue crows, at random, with pottery or clay,
Careless whither thy feet bear thee> and live ex tempore f

The bad sense is always a secondary one. Language
not appear to har^ justice done it, but is obviously

830 A WKKK.

cramped and narrowed in its significance, when any
meanness is described. The truest construction is not
put upon it. What may readily be fashioned into a
rule of wisdom, is here thrown in the teeth of the slug
gard, and constitutes the front of his offence. Univer
sally, the innocent man will come forth from the sharp
est inquisition and lecturing, the combined din of reproof
and commendation, with a faint sound of eulogy in his
ears. Our vices always lie in the direction of our
virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imita
tions of the latter. Falsehood never attains to the
dignity of entire falseness, but is only an inferior sort of
truth ; if it were more thoroughly false, it would incur
danger of becoming true.

" Securus quo pes ferat, atque ex tempore vivil"

is then the motto of a wise man. For first, as the subtle
discernment of the language would have taught us, with
all his negligence he is still secure; but the sluggard,
notwithstanding his heedlessness, is insecure.

The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous,
for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.
The cunning mind travels further back than Zoroaster
each instant, and comes quite down to the present with
its revelation. The utmost thrift and industry of think
ing give no man any stock in life ; his credit with the
inner world is no better, his capital no larger. He must
try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. All questions
rely on the present for their solution. Time measures
nothing but itself. The word that is written may bfc
postponed, but not that on the lip. If this is what the
•jccusion says, let the occasion say it. All the world is
forward to prompt him who gets up to live without his
creed iu his pocket.

THURSDAY. 331

In the fifth satire, which is the best, I find, —

" Stat contra ratio, et secretam garrit in aurem,
Ne liceat facere id, quod quis vitiabit agendo."

Reason opposes, and whispers in the secret ear,

That it is not lawful to do that which one will spoil by doing.

Only they who do not see how anything might be better
done are forward to try their hand on it. Even the
master workman must be encouraged by the reflection,
that his awkwardness will be incompetent to do that thing
harm, to which his skill may fail to do justice. Here is
no apology for neglecting to do many things from a sense
of our incapacity, — for what deed does not fall maimed
and imperfect from our hands ? — but only a warning to
bungle less.

The satires of Persius are the furthest possible from
inspired ; evidently a chosen, not imposed subject. Per
haps I have given him credit for more earnestness than
is apparent ; but it is certain, that that which alone we
can call Persius, which is forever independent and con
sistent, was in earnest, and so sanctions the sober con
sideration of all. The artist and his work are not to be
separated. The mo>t wilfully foolish man cannot stand
aloof from his folly, but the deed and the doer together
make ever one sober fact. There is but one stage for
the peasant and the actor. The buffoon cannot bribe
you to laugh always at his grimaces ; they shall sculpture
themselves in Egyptian granite, to stand heavy as the
pyramids on the ground of his character.

Suns rose and set and found us still on the dank forest
path which meanders up thi Pemigewasset, now more

A \VEEK.

like an otter's or a marten's trail, or where a beaver had
iragged his trap, than where the wheels of travel raise
a dust; where towns begin to serve as gores, only to
hold the earth together. The wild pigeon sat secure
above our heads, high on the dead limbs of naval pines,
reduced to a robin's size. The very yards of our hostel-
ries inclined upon the skirts of mountains, and, as we
passed, we looked up at a steep angle at the stems of
maples waving in the clouds.

Far up in the country, — for we would be faithful to
our experience, — in Thornton, perhaps, we met a soldier
lad in the woods, going to muster in full regimentals,
and holding the middle of the road ; deep in the forest,
with shouldered musket and military step, and thoughts
of war and glory all to himself. It was a sore trial to
the youth, tougher than many a battle, to get by us
creditably and with soldierlike bearing. Poor man!
He actually shivered like a reed in his thin military
pants, and by the time we had got up with him, all the
sternness that becomes the soldier had forsaken his face,
and he skulked past as if he were driving his father's
sheep under a sword-proof helmet. It was too much
for him to carry any extra armor then, who could not
easily dispose of his natural arms. And for his legs,
they were like heavy artillery in boggy places; better
to cut the traces and forsake them. His greaves chafed
and wrestled one with another for want of other foes.
But he did get by and get off with all his munitions,
and lived to fight another day ; and I do not record this
as casting any suspicion on his honor and real bravery
in the field

Wandering on through notches which the streams had
made, by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and

THURSDAY. 333

mountains, across the stumpy, rocky, forested, and bepas-
tured country, we at length crossed on prostrate trees
over the Amonoosuck, and breathed the free air of Un
appropriated Land. Thus, in fair days as well as foul,
we had traced up the river to which our native stream
is a tributary, until from Merrimack it became the
Pemigewasset that leaped by our side, and when we had
passed its fountain-head, the Wild Amonoosuck, whose
puny channel was crossed at a stride, guiding us toward
its distant source among the mountains, and at length,
without its guidance, we were enabled to reach the sum
mit of AGIOCOCHOOK.

44 Sweet days, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die."

HERBERT.

When we returned to Hooksett, a week afterward, the
melon man, in whose corn-barn we had hung our tent
and buffaloes and other things to dry, was already picking
his hops, with many women and children to help him.
We bought one watermelon, the largest in his patch, to
carry with us for ballast. It was Nathan's, which he
might sell if he wished, having been conveyed to him in
the green state, and owned daily by his eyes. After due
consultation with " Father," the bargain was concluded,
— we to buy it at a venture on the vine, green or ripe,
our risk, and pay "what the gentlemen pleased." It
proved to be ripe ; for we nad had honest experience in
lelecting this fvuit.

Finding; our boat safe in its harbor, under Uncannunuc

384 A WEEK.

Mountain, with a fair wind and the current in our favor,
we commenced our return voyage at noon, sitting at our
ease and conversing, or in silence watching for the last
trace of each reach in the river as a bend concealed it
from our view. As the season was further advanced, the
wind now blew steadily from the north, and with our sail
set we could occasionally lie on our oars without loss of
time. The lumbermen throwing down wood from the top
of the high bank, thirty or forty feet above the water,
that it might be sent down stream, paused in their work
to watch our retreating sail. By this time, indeed, we
were well known to the boatmen, and were hailed as the
Revenue Cutter of the stream. As we sailed rapidly
down the river, shut in between two mounds of earth, the
sounds of this timber rolled down the bank enhanced the
silence and vastness of the noon, and we fancied that
only the primeval echoes were awakened. The vision
of a distant scow just heaving in sight round a headland
also increased by contrast the solitude.

Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in
the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive
and savage nature, in whicli Scythians and Ethiopians
and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and
shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and
eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swal
lowed up in the immensity of Nature. The JEgean Sea
is but Lake Huron still to the Indian. Also there is all
the refinement of civilized life in the woods under a sylvan
garb. The wildest scenes have an air of domesticity and
homeliness even to the citizen, and when the flicker's
cackle is heard in the clearing, he is reminded that civ
ilization has wrought but little change there. Science '19
welcome to the deepest recesses of the forest, for there

THURSDAY. 335

o nature obeys the same old civil laws. The little red
L ig on the stump of a pine, — for it the wind shifts and
tbe sun breaks through the clouds. In the wildest na
ture, there is not only the material of the most cultivated
life, and a sort of anticipation of the last result, but a
greater refinement alreadj' than is ever attained by man.
There is papyrus by the river-side, and rushes for light,
and the goose only flies overhead, ages before the studi
ous are born or letters invented, and that literature
which the former suggest, and even from the first have
rudely served, it may be man does not yet use them to
express. Nature is prepared to welcome into her scen
ery the finest work of human art, for she is herself an
art so cunning that the artist never appears in his work.
Art is not tame, and Nature is not wild, in the ordi
nary sense. A perfect work of man's art would also be
wild or natural in a good sense. Man tames Nature
only that he may at last make her more free even than
he found her, though he may never yet have succeeded.

With this propitious breeze, and the help of our oars,
we soon reached the Falls of Amoskeag, and the mouth
of the Piscataquoag, and recognized, as we swept rapidly
by, many a fair bank and islet on which our eyes had
rested in the upward passage. Our boat was like that
which Chaucer describes in his Dream, in which the
knight took his departure from the island,

" To journey for his marriage,
And return with such an host,
That wedded might be least and most. ...
Which barge was as a mar's thought,
After his pleasure to him brought,
The queene herself accustomed aye
In the same barge to play,

336 4 WEEK.

It needed neither mast ne rother,

I have not heard of such another,

No master for the governance,

Hie sayled by thought and pleasaunce,

Without labor east and west,

All was one, calme or tempest."

So we sailed this afternoon, thinking of the saying of
Pythagoras, though we had no peculiar right to remem
ber it, " It is beautiful when prosperity is present with
intellect, and when sailing as it were with a prosperous
wind, actions are performed looking to virtue ; just as a
pilot looks to the motions of the stars." All the world
reposes in beauty to him who preserves equipoise in his
life, and moves serenely on his path without secret vio
lence ; as he who sails down a stream, he has only to
steer, keeping his bark in the middle, and carry it round
the falls. The ripples curled away in our wake, like
ringlets from the head of a child, while we steadily held
on our course, and under the bows we watched

" The swaying soft,

Made by the delicate wave parted in front,
As through the gentle element we move
Like shadows gliding through untroubled dreams."

The forms of beauty fall naturally around the path of
him who is in the performance of his proper work ; as
the curled shavings drop from the plane, and borings
cluster round the auger. Undulation is the gentlest and
most ideal of motions, produced by one fluid falling on
another. Rippling is a more graceful flight. From a
hill-top you may detect in it the wings of birds endlessly
repeated. The two waving lines which represent tha
flight of birds appear to have been copied from the rip
Ule.

THURSDAY. 337

The trees made an admirable fence to the landscape,
skirting the horizon on every side. The single trees and
the groves left standing on the interval appeared nat
urally disposed, though the farmer had consulted only his
convenience, for he too falls into the scheme of Nature.
Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Na
ture. In the former all is seen; it cannot affcrd con
cealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison ; but Na
ture, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies
us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the
roots. In swamps, where there is only here and there
an evergreen tree amid the quaking moss and cran
berry beds, the bareness does not suggest poverty. The
single-spruce, which I had hardly noticed in gardens,
attracts me in such places, and now first I understand
why men try to make them grow about their houses.
But though there may be very perfect specimens in
front-yard plots, their beauty is for the most part inef
fectual there, for there is no such assurance of kindred
wealth beneath and around them, to make them show to
advantage. As we have said, Nature is a greater and
more perfect art. the art of God ; though, referred to
herself, she is genius ; and there is a similarity between
her operations and man's art even in the details and tri
fles. When the overhanging pine drops into the water,
by the sun and water, and the wind rubbing it against
the shore, its boughs are worn into fantastic shapes, and
white and smooth, as if turned in a lathe. Man's art has
wisely imitated those forms into which all matter is most
inclined to run, as foliage and fruit. A hammock swung
in a grove assumes the exact form of a canoe, broader
or narrower, and higher or Jower at the ends, as more
»r fewer persons are in it, and it rolls in the air with
15 r

338 A WEEK.

the motion of the body, like a canoe in the water. Our
art leaves its shavings and its dust about ; her art ex
hibits itself even in the shavings and the dust which we
make. She has perfected herself by an eternity of prac
tice. The world is well kept; no rubbish accumulates;
the morning air is clear even at this day, and no dust
has settled on the grass. Behold how the evening now
steals over the fields, the shadows of the trees creeping
iirther and farther into the meadow, and erelong the
stars will come to bathe in these retired waters. Her
undertakings are secure and never fail. If I were awak
ened from a deep sleep, I should know which side of the
meridian the sun might be by the aspect of nature, and
by the chirp of the crickets, and yet no painter can paint
this difference. The landscape contains a thousand dials
which indicate the natural divisions of time, the shadows
of a thousand styles point to the hour.

44 Not only o'er the dial's face,

This silent phantom day by day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace

Steals moments, months, and years away;
From hoary rock and aged tree,

From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls,
From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea,

From every blade of grass it falls."

It is almost the only game which the trees play at, this
tit-for-tat, now this side in the sun, now that, the drama
of the day. In deep ravines under the eastern sides of
cliffs, Night forwardly plants her foot even at noonday,
and as Day retreats she steps into his trenches, skulking
from tree to tree, from fence to fence, until at last she
sits in his citadel and draws out her forces into the
plain. It may be that the forenoon is brighter than the
afternoon, not only because of the greater transparency

THURSDAY. 339

of its atmosphere, but because we naturally look most
into the west, as forward into the day, and so in the
forenoon see the sunny side of things, but in the after
noon the shadow of every tree.

The afternoon is now far advanced, and a fresh and
leisurely wind is blowing over the river, making long
reaches of bright ripples. The river has done its stint,
and appears not to flow, but lie at its length reflecting
the light, and the haze over the woods is like the inau
dible panting, or rather the gentle perspiration of resting
nature, rising from a myriad of pores into the attenuated
atmosphere.

On the thirty-first day of March, one hundred arid
forty-two years before this, probably about this time in
the afternoon, there were hurriedly paddling down this
part of the river, between the pine woods which then
fringed these banks, two white women and a boy, who
had left an island at the mouth of the Contoocook before
daybreak. They were slightly clad for the season, in
the English fashion, and handled their paddles unskil
fully, but with nervous energy and determination, and
at the bottom of their canoe lay the still bleeding scalps
of ten of the aborigines. They were Hannah Dustan,
and her nurse, Mary Neff, both of Haverhill, eighteen
miles from the mouth of this river, and an English boy,
named Samuel Lennardson, escaping from captivity
among the Indians. On the 15th of March previous,
Hannah Dustan had been compelled to rise from child-
oed, and half dressed, witn one foot bare, accompanied
by her nurse, commence an uncertain march, in stilJ
inclement weather, through the snow and the wilder
She had seen h«jr seven elder children flee witlr

340 A WEEK.

their father, but knew not of their fate. She had seen
her infant's brains dashed out against an apple-tree, and
had left her own and her neighbors' dwellings in ashes.
When she reached the wigwam of her captor, situated
on an island in the Merrimack, more than twenty miles
above where we now are, she had been told that she
and her nurse were soon to be taken to a distant Indian
settlement, and there made to run the gauntlet naked.
The family of this Indian consisted of two men, three
women, and seven children, beside an English boy,
whom she found a prisoner among them. Having de
termined to attempt her escape, she instructed the boy
to inquire of one of the men, how he should despatch an
enemy in the quickest manner, and take his scalp.
" Strike 'em there," said he, placing his finger on his
temple, and he also showed him how to -take off the
scalp. On the morning of the 31st she arose before
daybreak, and awoke her nurse and the boy, and taking
the Indians' tomahawks, they killed them all in their
sle^p, excepting one favorite boy, and one squaw who
fled wounded with him to the woods. The English boy
struck the Indian who had given him the information,
on the temple, as he had been directed. They then
collected all the provision they could find, and took their
master's tomahawk and gun, and scuttling all the canoes
but one, commenced their flight to Haverhill, distant
about sixty miles by the river. But after having pro
ceeded a short distance, fearing that her story would not
be believed if she should escape to tell it, they returned
to the silent wigwam, and taking off the scalps of the
dead, put them into a bag as proofs of what they had
done, and then retracing their steps to the shore in the
twilight, recommenced their voyage.

THURSDAY. 341

Early this morning this deed was performed, and
now, perchance, these tired women and this boy, their
clothes stained with blood, and their minds racked with
alternate resolution and fear, are making a hasty meal
of parched corn and moose-meat, while their canoe glides
under these pine roots whose stumps are still standing
on the bank. They are thinking of the dead whom they
have left behind on that solitary isle far up the stream,
and of the relentless living warriors who are in pursuit.
Every withered leaf which the winter has left seems to
know their story, and in its rustling to repeat it and be
tray them. An Indian lurks behind every rock and
pine, and their nerves cannot bear the tapping of a
woodpecker. Or they forget their own dangers and
their deeds in conjecturing the fate of their kindred, and
whether, if they escape the Indians, they shall find the
former still alive. They do not stop to cook their meals
upon the bank, nor land, except to carry their canoe
about the falls. The stolen birch forgets its master and
does them good service, and the swollen current bears
them swiftly along with little need of the paddle, except
to steer and keep them warm by exercise. For ice is
floating in the river ; the spring is opening ; the musk-
rat and the beaver are driven out of their holes by the
flood ; deer gaze at them from the bank ; a few faint-
singing forest birds, perchance, fly across the river to
the northernmost shore ; the fish-hawk sails and screams
overhead, and geese fly over with a startling clangor ;
but they do not observe these things, or they speedily
forget them. They do not smile or chat all day.
Sometimes they pass an Indian grave surrounded by its
paling on the bank, or the frame of a wigwam, with a
few coals left behind, or the withered stalks still rustling

£42 A WEKK.

in the Indian's solitary cornfield on the interval. The
birch stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a
tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe,
these are the only traces of man, — a fabulous wild man
to us. On either side, the primeval forest stretches
away uninterrupted to Canada, or to the " South Sea";
to the white man a drear and howling wilderness, but to
the Indian a home, adapted to his nature, and cheerful
as the smile of the Great Spirit.

While we loiter here this autumn evening, looking for
a spot retired enough, where we shall quietly rest to
night, they thus, in that chilly March evening, one hun
dred and forty-two years before us, with wind and cur
rent favoring, have already glided out of sight, not to
camp, as we shall, at night, but while two sleep one will
manage the canoe, and the swift stream bear them on
ward to the settlements, it may be, even to old John
LovewelPs house on Salmon Brook to-night.

According to the historian, they escaped as by a mir
acle all roving bands of Indians, and reached their
homes in safety, with their trophies, for which the Gen
eral Court paid them fifty pounds. The family of Han
nah Dustan all assembled alive once more, except the
infant whose brains were dashed out against the apple-
tree, and there have been many who in later times have
lived to say that they had eaten of the fruit of that apple-
tree.

This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened
«ince Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity
is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our
historical time by the English standard, nor did the
English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek

THURSDAY. 43

" We must look a long way back," says Raleigh, " to
find the Romans giving laws to nations, and their con
suls bringing king.* and princes bound in chains to Rome
in triumph ; to see men go to Greece for wisdom, or
Ophir for gold ; when now nothing remains but a poor
paper remembrance of their former condition." And
yet, in one sense, not so far back as to find the Pena-
cooks and Pawtuckets using bows and arrows and
hatchets of stone, on the banks of the Merrimack. From
this September afternoon, and from between these now
cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than
the dark ages. On beholding an old picture of Concord,
as it appeared but seventy-five years ago, with a fair
open prospect and a light on trees and river, as if it
were broad noon, I find that I had not thought the sun
shone in those days, or that men lived in broad daylight
then. Still less do we imagine the sun shining on hill
and valley during Philip's war, on the war-path of
Church or Philip, or later of Lovewell or Paugus, with
serene summer weather, but they must have lived and
fought in a dim twilight or night.

The age of the world is great enough for our imagi
nations, even according to the Mosaic account, without
borrowing any years from the geologist. From Adam
find Eve at one leap sheer down to the deluge, and then
through the ancient monarchies, through Babylon and
Thebes, Brahma and Abraham, to Greece and the Ar
gonauts; whence we might start again with Orpheus
and the Trojan war, the Pyramids and the Olympic
game and Homer and Athens, for our stages ; and af
ter a breathing space at the building of Rome, continue
our journey down through Odin and Christ to — Amer
ica. It is a wearisome while. And yet the lives of but

844 A WEEK.

sixty old women, such as live under the hill, say of a
century each, strung together, are sufficient to reach
over the whole ground. Taking hold of hands they
would span the interval from Eve to my own mother.
A respectable tea-party merely, — whose gossip would
be Universal History. The fourth old woman from
myself suckled Columbus, — the ninth was nurse to the
Norman Conqueror, — the nineteenth was the Virgin
Mary, — the twenty-fourth the Cumcean Sibyl, — the
thirtieth was at the Trojan war and Helen her name, —
the thirty-eighth was Queen Semiramis, — the sixtieth
was Eve the mother of mankind. So much for the

" Old woman that lives under the hill,
And if she 's not gone she lives there still."

It will not take a very great-granddaughter of hers to
be in at the death of Time.

We can never safely exceed the actual facts in our
narratives. Of pure invention, such as some suppose,
there is no instance. To write a true work of fiction
even, is only to take leisure and liberty to describe some
things more exactly as they are. A true account of the
actual is the rarest poetry, for common sense always
takes a hasty and superficial view. Though I am not
much acquainted with the works of Goethe, I should say
that it was one of his chief excellences as a writer, that
he was satisfied with giving an exact description of
things as they appeared to him, and their effect upon
him. Most travellers have not self-respect enough to do
this simply, and make objects and events stand around
them as the centre, but still imagine more favorable
positions and relations than the actual ones, and so we
get no valuable report from them at all. In his Italian

THURSDAY. 345

Travels Goethe jogs along at a snail's pace, but always
mindful that the earth is beneath and the heavens are
above him. His Italy is not merely the fatherland of
lazzaroni and virtuosi, and scene of splendid ruins, but a
solid turf-clad soil, daily shined on by the sun, and
nightly by the moon. Even the few showers are faith
fully recorded. He speaks as an unconcerned spectator,
whose object is faithfully to describe what he sees, and
that, for the most part, in the order in which he sees it.
Even his reflections do not interfere with his descrip
tions. In one place he speaks of himself as giving so
glowing and truthful a description of an old tower to the
peasants who had gathered around him, that they who
had been born and brought up in the neighborhood must
needs look over their shoulders, " that," to use his own
words, " they might behold with their eyes, what I had
praised to their ears," — " and I added nothing, not
even the ivy which for centuries had decorated the
walls." It would thus be possible for inferior minds to
produce invaluable books, if this very moderation were
not the evidence of superiority ; for the wise are not so
much wiser than others as respecters of their own wis
dom. S6me, poor in spirit, re-cord plaintively only what
has happened to them ; but others how they have hap
pened to the universe, and the judgment which they
have awarded to circumstances. Above all, he possessed
a hearty good-will to all men, and never wrote a cross
or even careless word. On one occasion the post-boy
snivelling, " Signer perdonate, questa e la mia patria,"
he confesses that " to me poor northerner came some
thing tear-like into the eyes."

Goethe's whole education and life were those of the
Vtist. He lacks the unconsciousness of the poet. ID
15*

340 A WEEK.

his autobiography lie describes accurately the life of the
author of Wilhelm Meister. For as there is in that
book, mingled with a rare and serene wisdom, a certain
pettiness or exaggeration of trifles, wisdom applied to
produce a constrained and partial and merely well-bred
man, — a magnifying of the theatre till life itself is
turned into a stage, for which it is our duty to study our
parts well, and conduct with propriety and precision, —
so in the autobiography, the fault of his education is, so
to speak, its merely artistic completeness. Nature is
hindered, though she prevails at last in making an un
usually catholic impression on the boy. It is the life of a
city boy, whose toys are pictures and works of art, whose
wonders are the theatre and kingly processions and
crownings. As the youth studied minutely the order
and the degrees in the imperial procession, and suffered
none of its effect to be lost on him, so the man aimed
to secure a rank in society which would satisfy his no
tion of fitness aad respectability. He was defrauded of
much which the savage boy enjoys. Indeed, he himself
has occasion to say in this very autobiography, when at
last he escapes into the woods without the gates:
" Thus much is certain, that only the undefinaMe, wide-
expanding feelings of youth and of uncultivated nations
are adapted to the sublime, which, whenever it may be
excited in us through external objects, since it is either
formless, or else moulded into forms which are incom
prehensible, must surround us with a grandeur which
we find above our reach." He further says of himself:
u I had lived among painters from my childhood, and
had accustomed myself to look at objects, as they did,
with reference lo art." And this was his practice to the
last. lie was even too well-bred to be thoroughly bred

TiirubDAY. 347

He says that he had had no intercourse with the lowest
class of his towns-boys. The child should have the ad
vantage of ignorance as well as of knowledge, and is for
tunate if he gets his share of neglect and exposure.

" The laws of Nature break the rules of Art."

The Man of Genius may at the same time be, indeed
is commonly, an Artist, but the two are not to be con
founded. The Man of Genius, referred to mankind, is
an originator, an inspired or demonic man, who pro
duces a perfect work in obedience to laws yet unex
plored. The Artist is he who detects and applies the
law from observation of the works of Genius, whether
of man or nature. The Artisan is he who merely ap
plies the rules which others have detected. There has
been no man of pure Genius ; as there has been none
wholly destitute of Genius.

Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

The expressions of the poet cannot be analyzed ; his
sentence is one word, whose syllables are words.
There are indeed no words quite worthy to be set to his
music. But what matter if we do not hear the words
always, if we hear the music?

Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not
written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have
been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle
that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable
thought, but a hup caught from a vaster receding
thought.

A poem is one undivided unimpeded expression fallen
ripe into literature, and it is undividedly and unim-
pededly received by those for whom it was matured.

If you can speak what yo i will ne^er hear, if you

318 A WKRK.

can write what you will never read, you have done ran
things.

The work we choose should be our own,
God lets alone.

The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of
God.

Deep are the foundations of sincerity. Even stone
walls have their foundation below the frost.

What is produced by a free stroke charms us, like the
forms of lichens and leaves. There is a certain perfec
tion in accident which we never consciously attain.
Draw a blunt quill filled with ink over a sheet of paper,
and fold the paper before the ink is dry, transversely to
this line, and a delicately shaded and regular figure will
be produced, in some respects more pleasing than an
elaborate drawing.

The talent of composition is very dangerous, — the
striking out the heart of life at a blow, as the Indian
takes off a scalp. I feel as if my life had grown more
outward when I can express it.

On his journey from Brenner to Verona, Goethe
writes : " The Tees flows now more gently, and makes in
many places broad sands. On the land, near to the
water, upon the hillsides, everything is so closely
planted one to another, that you think they must choke
one another, — vineyards, maize, mulberry-trees, apples,
pears, quinces, and nuts. The dwarf elder throws itself
vigorously over the walls. Ivy grows with strong stems
up the rocks, and spreads itself wide over them, the
lizard glides through the intervals, and everything that
wanders to and fro reminds one of the loveliest pictures
of art. The worne.i's tufts of hair bound up, the men*

THURSDAY. 349

bare breasts and light jackets, the excellent oxen which
they drive home from market, the little asses with their
loads, — everything forms a living, animated Heinrich
Roos. And now that it is evening, in the mild air a
few clouds rest upon the mountains, in the heavens more
stand still than move, and immediately after sunset the
chirping of crickets begins to grow more loud ; then one
feels for once at home in the world, and not as concealed
or in exile. I am contented as though I had been born
and brought up here, and were now returning from a
Greenland or whaling voyage. Even the dust of my
Fatherland, which is often whirled about the wagon,
and which for so long a time I had not seen, is greeted.
The clock-and-bell jingling of the crickets is altogether
lovely, penetrating, and agreeable. It sounds bravely
when roguish boys whistle in emulation of a field of
such songstresses. One fancies that they really enhance
one another. Also the evening is perfectly mild as the
day."

" If one who dwelt in the south, and came hither from
the south, should hear of my rapture hereupon, he would
deem me very childish. Alas ! what I here express I
have long known while I suffered under an unpropitious
heaven, and now may I joyful feel this joy as an excep
tion, which we should enjoy everforth as an eternal ne
cessity of our nature."

Thus we "sayled by thought and pleasaunce," as
Chaucer says, and all things seemed with us to flow;
the shore itself, and the distant cliffs, were dissolved by
the undiluted air. The hardest material seemed to obey
.he same law with the most fluid, and so indeed in the
long run it does. Trees were buf rivers of sap and

850 A WEEK.

woody fibre, flowing from the atmosphere, and emp
tying into the earth by their trunks, as their roots
flowed upward to the surface. And in the heavens
there were rivers of stars, and milky-ways, already be
ginning to gleam and ripple over our heads. There
were rivers of rock on the surface of the earth, and riv
ers of ore in its bowels, and our thoughts flowed and
circulated, and this portion of time was but the current
hour. Let us wander where we will, the universe is
built round about us, and we are central still. If we
look into the heavens they are concave, and if we were to
look into a gulf as bottomless, it would be concave also.
The sky is curved downward to the earth in the hori
zon, because we stand on the plain. I draw down its
skirts. The stars so low there seem loath to depart, but
by a circuitous path to be remembering me, and return
ing on their steps.

We had already passed by broad daylight the scene
of our encampment at Coos Falls, and at length we
pitched our camp on the west bank, in the northern part
of Merrimack, nearly opposite to the large island on
which we had spent the noon in our way up the river.

There we went to bed that summer evening, on a
sloping shelf in the bank, a couple of rods from our boat,
which was drawn up on the sand, and just behind a thin
fringe of oaks which bordered the river ; without having
disturbed any inhabitants but the spiders in the grass,
which came out by the light of our lamp, and crawled
over our buffaloes. When we looked out from under
the tent, the trees were seen dimly through the mist,
and a cool dew hung upon the grass, which seemed to
rejoice in the night, and with the damp air we inhaled a
solid ^ragrance. Having eaten our supper of hot cocoa

THURSDAY. 351

and bread and watermelon, we soon grew weary of con
versing, and writing in our journals, and, putting out the
lantern which hung from the tent-pole, fell asleep.

Unfortunately, many things have been omitted which
should have been recorded in our journal ; for though we
made it a rule to set down all our experiences therein,
yet such a resolution is very hard to keep, for the im
portant experience rarely allows us to remember such
obligations, and so indifferent things get recorded, while
that is frequently neglected. It is not easy to write in
a journal what interests us at any time, because to write
U is not what interests us.

Whenever we awoke in the night, still eking out our
dreams with half-awakened thoughts, it was not till after
an interval, when the wind breathed harder than usual,
flapping the curtains of the tent, and causing its cords to
vibrate, that we remembered that we lay on the bank of
the Merrimack, and not in our chamber at home. With
our heads so low in the grass, we heard the river whirl
ing and sucking, and lapsing downward, kissing the
shore as it went, sometimes rippling louder than usual,
and again its mighty current making only a slight lim
pid, trickling sound, as if our water-pail had sprung a
leak, and the water were flowing into the grass by our
side. The wind, rustling the oaks and hazels, impressed
us like a wakeful and inconsiderate person up at mid
night, moving about, and putting things to rights, occa
sionally stirring up whole drawers full of leaves at a
^uff. There seemed to be a great haste and preparation
throughout Nature, as for a distinguished visitor ; all her
aisles had to be swept in the night, by a thousand hand
maidens, and a thousand pots to be boiled for the next
day's feasting ; — such a whispering bustle, as if ten

352 A WEEK.

thousand fairies made their fingers fly, silently sewing
ut the new carpet with which the earth was to be clothed,
and the new drapery which was to adorn the trees.
And then the wind would lull and die away, and we
like it fell asleep again.

FRIDAY.

" The Boteman ptrayft

Held on his course with stayed stedfastnesse,
Ne ever shroncke, ne ever sought to bayt
His tryed armes for toylesome wearinesse ;
But with his oares did sweepe the watry wilderness."

Branm

« Bummer's robe groin
, and li*e an oft-dyed garment shows.*

FEIDAY.

As we lay awake long before daybreak, listening to
the rippling of the river, and the rustling of the leaves,
in suspense whether the wind blew up or down the
stream, was favorable or unfavorable to our voyage, we
already suspected that there was a change in the
weather, from a freshness as of autumn in these sounds.
The wind in the woods sounded like an incessant water
fall dashing and roaring amid rocks, and we even felt
encouraged by the unusual activity of the elements. He
who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate
days will not utterly despair. That night was the turn
ing-point in the season. We had gone to bed in sum
mer, and we awoke in autumn ; for summer passes into
autumn in some unimaginable point of time, like the
turning of a leaf.

We found our boat in the dawn just as we had left it,
and as if waiting for us, there on the shore, in autumn,
all cool and dripping with dew, and our tracks still fresh
in the wet sand around it, the fairies all gone or con
cealed. Before five o'clock we pushed it into the fog,
and, leaping in, at one shove were out of sight of the
shores, and began to sweep downward with the rushing
river, keeping a sharp lookout for rocks. We could
^ee only the yellow gurgling water, and a solid bank of
fog on every side, forming a small yard around us. We

356 A WEEK.

Boon passed the mouth of the Souhegan, and the village
of Merrimack, and as the mist gradually rolled away,
and we were relieved from the trouble of watching for
rocks, we saw by the flitting clouds, by the first russet
tinge on the hills, by the rushing river, the cottages on
shore, and the shore itself, so coolly fresh and shining
with dew, and later in the day, by the hue of the grape
vine, the goldfinch on the willow, the flickers flying in
flocks, and when we passed near enough to the shore, as
we fancied, by the faces of men, that the Fall had com
menced. The cottages looked more snug and comfort
able, and their inhabitants were seen only for a moment,
and then went quietly in and shut the door, retreating
inward to the haunts of summer.

" And now the cold autumnal dews are seen

To cobweb ev'ry green;
And by the low-shorn rowens doth appear
The fast-declining year."

We heard the sigh of the first autumnal wind, and
even the water had acquired a grayer hue. The su
mach, grape, and maple were already changed, and the
milkweed had turned to a deep rich yellow. In all
woods the leaves were fast ripening for their fall ; for
their full veins and lively gloss mark the ripe leaf, and
not the sered one of the poets ; and we knew that the
maples, stripped of their leaves among the earliest, would
soon stand like a wreath of smoke along the edge of the
meadow. Already the cattle were heard to low wildly
in the pastures and along the highways, restlessly run
ning to and fro, as if in apprehension of the withering of
the grass and of the approach of winter. Our thoughts,
too, began to rustle.

FKiDAi. 357

As I pass along the streets of our village of Concord
on the day of our annual Cattle-Show, when it usually
happens that the leaves of the elms and buttonwoods
begin first to strew the ground under the breath of the
October wind, the lively spirits in their sap seem lo
mount as high as any plough-boy's let loose that day ;
and they lead my thoughts away to the rustling woods,
where the trees are preparing for their winter campaign.
This autumnal festival, when men are gathered in
crowds in the streets as regularly and by as natural a
law as the leaves cluster and "rustle by the wayside, is
naturally associated in my mind with the fall of the year.
The low of cattle in the streets sounds like a hoarse
symphony or running bass to the rustling of the leaves.
The wind goes hurrying down the country, gleaning
every loose straw that is left in the fields, while every
farmer lad too appears to scud before it, — having
donned his best pea-jacket and pepper-and-salt waist
coat, his unbent trousers, outstanding rigging of duck or
kerseymere or corduroy, and his furry hat withal, — to
country fairs and cattle-shows, to that Rome among the
villages where the treasures of the year are gathered.
All the land over they go leaping the fences with their
tough, idle palms, which have never learned to hang by
their sides, amid the low of calves and the bleating of
sheep, — Amos, Abner, Elnathan, Elbridge, —

" From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain-"

I love these sons of earth every mother's son of them,
with their great hearty hearts rushing tumultuously in
herds from spectacle to spectacle, as if fearful lest there
should not be time between sun and sun to see them
all, and the sun does not wait more than in haying-time.

358 A WEEK.

" Wise Nature's darlings, they live in the world
Perplexing not themselves how it is hurled."

Running hither and thither with appetite for the coarse
pastimes of the day, now with boisterous speed at the
heels of the inspired negro from whose larynx the melo
dies of ^all Congo and Guinea Coast have broke loose
into our streets ; now to see the procession of a hundred
yoke of oxen, all as august and grave as Osiris, or the
droves of neat cattle and milch cows as unspotted as
Isis or lo. Such as had no love for Nature

" at all,
Came lovers home from this great festival."

They may bring their fattest cattle and richest fruits to
the fair, but they are all eclipsed by the show of men.
These are stirring autumn days, when men sweep by in
crowds, amid the rustle of leaves, like migrating finches ;
this is the true harvest of the year, when the air is but
the breath of men, and the rustling of leaves is as the
trampling of the crowd. We read now-a-days of the
ancient festivals, games, and processions of the Greeks
and Etruscans, with a little incredulity, or at least with
little sympathy ; but how natural and irrepressible in
every people is some hearty and palpable greeting of
Nature. The Corybantes, the Bacchantes, the rude
primitive tragedians with their procession and goat-song,
and the whole paraphernalia of the Panathenaea, which
appear so antiquated and peculiar, have their parallel
now. The husbandman is always a better Greek than
the scholar is prepared to appreciate, and the old cus-
torn still survives, while antiquarians and scholars grow
gray in commemorating it. The farmers crowd to th«
fair to-day in obedience to the same ancient law, which

FRIDAY. 359

Solon or Lycurgus did not enact, as naturally as beea
swarm and follow their queen.

It is worth the while to see the country's people, how
they pour into the town, the sober farmer folk, now all
agDg, their very shirt and coat-collars pointing forward,
— collars so broad as if they had put their shirts on
wrong end upward, for the fashions always tend to su
perfluity, — and with an unusual springiness in their
gait, jabbering earnestly to one another. The more
supple vagabond, too, is sure to appear on the least ru
mor of such a gathering, and the next day to disappear,
and go into his hole like the seventeen-year locust, in an
ever-shabby coat, though finer than the farmer's best,
yet never dressed ; come to see the sport, and have a
hand in what is going, — to know " what 's the row," if
there is any ; to be where some men are drunk, some
horses race, some cockerels fight ; anxious to be shaking
props under a table, and above all to see the u striped
pig." He especially is the creature of the occasion.
He empties both his pockets and his character into the
stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the
social slush. There is no reserve of soberness in him.

I love to see the herd of men feeding heartily on
coarse and succulent pleasures, as cattle on the husks
and stalks of vegetables. Though there are many
crooked and Grabbled specimens of humanity among
them, run all to thorn and rind, and crowded out of
shape by adverse circumstances, like the third chestnut
in the burr, so that you wonder to see some heads wear
a whole hat, yet fear not that the race will fail or waver
in them ; like the crabs which grow in hedges, they fur
nish the stocks of sweet and thrifty fruits still. Thus is
nature recruited from age to age, while the fair and pal

860 A. WEKA.

atable varieties die out, and have their peiiod. This
is that mankind. How cheap must be the material of
which so many men are made.

The wind blew steadily down the stream, so that we
kept our sails set, and lost not a moment of the forenoon
by delays, but from early morning until noon were con
tinually dropping downward. With our hands on the
steering-paddle, which was thrust deep into the river, or
bending to the oar, which indeed we rarely relinquished,
we felt each palpitation in the veins of our steed, and
each impulse of the wings which drew us above. The
current of our thoughts made as sudden bends as the
river, which was continually opening new prospects to
the east or south, but we are aware that rivers flow most
rapidly and shallowest at these points. The steadfast
shores never once turned aside for us, but still trended
as they were made ; why then should we always turn
aside for them?

A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It
requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the
world demands or can appreciate. These winged
thoughts are like birds, and will not be handled ; even
hens will not let you touch them like quadrupeds.
Nothing was ever so unfamiliar and startling to a man
as his own thoughts.

To the rarest genius it is the most expensive to suc
cumb and conform to the ways of the world. Genius
is the worst of lumber, if the poet would float upon the
breeze of popularity. The bird of paradise is obliged
constantly to fly against the wind, lest its gay trappings,
pressing close to its body, impede its free movements.

He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewe»'

FRIDAY. 361

points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the
greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon
as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics
it does not blow from all points of the compass, there
are some harbors which they can never reach.

The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires
peculiar institutions and edicts for his defence, but the
toughest son of earth and of Heaven, and by his greater
strength and endurance his fainting companions will rec
ognize the God in him. It is the worshippers of beau
ty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the
world.

The poet will prevail to be popular in spite of his
faults, and in spite of his beauties too. He will hit the
nail on the head, and we shall not know the shape of his
hammer. He makes us free of his hearth and heart,
which is greater than to oifer one the freedom of a city.

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their
fame among the great who have preceded them, and all
true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate be
yond the stars.

Orpheus does not hear the strains which issue from his
lyre, but only those which are breathed into it ; for the
original strain precedes the sound, by as much as the
echo follows after. The rest is the perquisite of the
rocks and trees and beasts.

When I stand in a library where is all the recorded
wit of the world, but none of the recording, a mere accu
mulated, and not truly cumulative treasure, where im
mortal works stand side by side with anthologies which
did not survive their month, and cobweb and mildew
tiave already spread from these to the binding of those ;
»nd happily I am reminded of what poetry is, — T per-
'6

<) A WEKK.

ceive that Shakespeare and Milton did not foresee into
what company they were to fall. Alas ! that so soon
the work of a true poet should be swept into such a dust-
hole!

The poet will write for his peers alone. He will re
member only that he saw truth and beauty from his posi
tion, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall
overlook the same field as freely.

We are often prompted to speak our thoughts to our
nei^nbors, or the single travellers whom we meet on the
road, but poetry is a communication from our home and
solitude addressed to all Intelligence. It never whis
pers in a private ear. Knowing this, we may under
stand those sonnets said to be addressed to particular
persons, or " To a Mistress's Eyebrow." Let none feel
flattered by them. For poetry write love, and it will be
equally true.

No doubt it is an important difference between men
of genius or poets, and men not of genius, that the latter
are unable to grasp and confront the thought which visits
them. But it is because it is too faint for expression, or
even conscious impression. What merely quickens or
retards the blood in their veins and fills their afternoons
with pleasure they know not whence, conveys a distinct
assurance to the finer organization of the poet.

We talk of genius as if it were a mere knack, and the
poet could only express what other men conceived. But
in comparison with his task, the poet is the least talent
ed of any ; the writer of prose has more skill. See what
talent the smith has. His material is pliant in his hands.
When the poet is most inspired, is stimulated by an aura
which never even colors the afternoons of common men
then his talent is all gone, and he is no longer a poet

FRIDAY. 363

The gods do not grant him any skill more than another
They never put their gifts into his hands, but they en-
compass and sustain him with their breath.

To say that God has given a man many and great
talents, frequently means that he has brought his heav-
f is down within reach of his hands.

When the poetic frenzy seizes us, we run and scratch
with our pen, intent only on worms, calling our mates
around us, like the cock, and delighting in the dust we
make, but do not detect where the jewel lies, which, per
haps, we have in the mean time cast to a distance, or
quite covered up again.

The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but
he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of
the gods, and lives a divine life. By the healthful and
invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to
a serene old age.

Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished
and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such
as toil gives to sour bread. The breath with which the
poet utters his verse must be that by which he lives.

Great prose, of equal elevation, commands our respect
more than great verse, since it implies a more perma
nent and level height, a life more pervaded with the
grandeur of the thought. The poet often only makes an
irruption, like a Parthian, and is off again, shooting while
he retreats ; but the prose writer has conquered like a
Roman, and settled colonies.

The true poem is not that which the public read.
There is always a poem not printed on paper, coincident
with the production of this, stereotyped in the poet's life.
It is what he has become through his work. Not how is
tfae idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, if

(Jb4 A WEEK.

the question, but how far it has obtained form and er
pression in the life of the artist. His true work will not
stand in any prince's gallery.

My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.

THE POET'S DELAY.

In vain I see the morning rise,

In vain observe the western blaze,
Who idly look to other skies,

Expecting life by other ways.

Amidst such boundless wealth without,

I only still am poor within,
The birds have sung their summer out,

But still my spring does not begin.

Shall I then wait the autumn wind,

Compelled to seek a milder day,
And leave no curious nest behind,

No woods still echoing to my lay ?

This raw and gusty day, and the creaking of the oaks
and pines on shore, reminded us of more northern climes
than Greece, and more wintry seas than the .^Egean.

The genuine remains of Ossian, or those ancient
poems which bear his name, though of less fame and
extent, are, in many respects, of the same stamp with
the Iliad itself. He asserts the dignity of the bard no
less than Homer, and in his era we hear of no other
priest than he. It will not avail to call him a heathen,
because he personifies the sun and addresses it; and
what if his heroes did " worship the ghosts of their fa
thers," their thin, airy, and unsubstantial forms? we
worship but the ghosts of our fathers in more substantial'
loirnn. We cannot but respect the vigorous faith of

FRIDAY. 365

those htathen, who sternly believed somewhat, arid are
inclined to say to the critics, who are offended by their
superstitious rites, — Don't interrupt these men's prayers.
As if we knew more about human life and a God, than
the heathen and ancients. Does English theology con
tain the recent discoveries !

Ossian reminds us of the most refined and rudest eras,
of Homer, Pindar, Isaiah, and the American Indian. In
his poetry, as in Homer's, only the simplest and most en
during features of humanity are seen, such essential parts
of a man as Stonehenge exhibits of a temple ; we see
the circles of stone, and the upright shaft alone. The
phenomena of life acquire almost an unreal and gigantic
size seen through his mists. Like all older and grander
poetry, it is distinguished by the few elements in the
lives of its heroes. They stand on the heath, between
the stars and the earth, shrunk to the bones and sinews.
The earth is a boundless plain for their deeds. They
lead such a simple, dry, and everlasting life, as hardly
needs depart with the flesh, but is transmitted entire from
age to age. There are but few objects to distract their
sight, and their life is as unencumbered as the course of
the stars they gaze at.

" The wrathful kings, on cairns apart,
Look forward from behind their shields,
And mark the wandering stars,
That brilliant westward move."

It does not cost much for these heroes to live ; they do
not want much furniture. They are such forms of men
only as can be seen afar through the mist, and have no
costume nor dialect, but for language there is the tongue
itself, and for costume there are always the skins of
oeasts and the bark of trees to be had. They Mve out

8f>f) A WEEK.

their years by the vigor of their constitutions. They
survive storms and the spears of their foes, and perform
a few heroic deeds, and then

" Mounds will answer questions of them,
For many future years."

Blind and infirm, they spend the remnant of their days
listening to the lays of the bards, and feeling the weap
ons which laid their enemies low, and when at length
they die, by a convulsion of nature, the bard allows us
a short and misty glance into futurity, yet as clear, per
chance, as their lives had been. When Mac-Roine was
slain,

" His soul departed to his warlike sires,

To follow misty forms of boars,

In tempestuous islands bleak."

The hero's cairn is erected, and the bard sings a brief
significant strain, which will suffice for epitaph and biog
raphy.

" The weak will find his bow in the dwelling,
The feeble will attempt to bend it."

Compared with this simple, fibrous life, our civilized
history appears the chronicle of debility, of fashion, and
the arts of luxury. But the civilized man misses no real
refinement in the poetry of the rudest era. It reminds
him that civilization does but dress men. It makes shoes,
but it does not toughen the soles of the feet. It makes
cloth of finer texture, but it does not touch the skin.
Insid3 the civilized man stand the savage still in the
place of honor. We are those blue-eyed, yellow-haired
Saxons, those slender, dark-haired Normans.

The profession of the bard attracted more respect ic
those days from the importance attached to fame. It

FRIDAY. 367

was his province to record the deeds of heroes. When
Ossian hears the traditions of inferior bards, he ex
claims, —

"I straightway seize the unfutile tales,
And send them down in faithful verse."

His philosophy of life is expressed in the opening of the
third Duan of Ca-Lodin.

" Whence have sprung the things that are ?
And whither roll the passing years?
Where does Time conceal its two heads,
In dense impenetrable gloom,
Its surface marked with heroes' deeds alone?
I view the generations gone ;
The past appears but dim ;
As objects by the moon's faint beams,
Reflected from a distant lake.
I see, indeed, the thunderbolts of war,
But there the nnmighty joyless dwell,
All those who send not down their deeds
To far, succeeding times."

The ignoble warriors die and are forgotten ;

u Strangers come to build a tower,
And throw their ashes overhand ;
Some rusted swords appear in dust $
One, bending forward, says,
4 The arms belonged to heroes gone ;
We never heard their praise in song.' "

The grandeur of the similes is another feature which
characterizes great poetry. Ossian seems to speak a
gigantic and universal language. The images and pic
tures >ccupy even much space in the landscape, as if
they could be seen only from the sides of mountains, and
olains with a wide horizon, or across arms of the sea.
The machinery is so massive that it cannot be less than

368 A WEEK.

natural. Oivana says to the spirit of her father, " Gray-
haired Torkil of Torne," seen in the skies,

" Thou glidest away like receding ships."

So when the hosts of Fingal and 'Starne approach to

battle,

" With murmurs loud, like rivers far,
The race of Torne hither moved."

And when compelled to retire,

" dragging his spear behind,
Cudulin sank in the distant wood,
Like a fire upblazing ere it dies."

Nor did Fingal want a proper audience when he spoke

"A thousand orators inclined
To hear the lay of Fingal."

The threats too would have deterred a man. Vengeance
and terror were real. Trenmore threatens the young
warrior whom he meets on a foreign strand,

" Thy mother shall find thee pale on the shore,
While lessening on the waves she spies
The sails of him who slew her son."

If Ossian's heroes weep, it is from excess of strength,
and not from weakness, a sacrifice or libation of fertile
natures, like the perspiration of stone in summer's heat.
We hardly know that tears have been shed, and it seems
as if weeping were proper only for babes and heroes.
Their joy and their sorrow are made of one stuff, like
rain and snow, the rainbow and the mist. When Fillan
was worsted in fight, and ashamed in the presence of
Fingal,

FRIDAY. 369

" He strode away forthwith,
And bent in grief above a stream,
His cheeks bedewed with tears.
From time to time the thistles gray
He lopped with his inverted lance."

Crodar, blind and old, receives Ossian, son >f Fingal,
who comes to aid him in war; —

441 My eyes have failed,' says he, ' Crodar is blind,
Is thy strength like that of thy fathers ?
Stretch, Ossian, thine arm to the hoary-haired.'

I gave my arm to the king.
The aged hero seized my hand;
He heaved a heavy sigh;
Tears flowed incessant down his cheek.
4 Strong art thou, son of the mighty,
Though not so dreadful as Morven's prince.

Let my feast be spread in the hall,
Let every sweet- voiced minstrel sing;
Great is he who is within my walls,
Sons of wave-echoing Croma.' "

Even Ossian himself, the hero-bard, pays tribute to the
superior strength of his father Fingal.

44 How beauteous, mighty man, was thy mind,
Why succeeded Ossian without its strength?"

While we sailed fleetly before the wind, with the river
gurgling under our stern, the thoughts of autumn coursed
as steadily through our minds, and we observed less what
was passing on the shore, than the dateless associations
and impressions which the season awakened, anticipating
in some measure the progress of the year.

I hearing get, who had but ears,

And sight, who had but eyes before,
I moments live, who lived but years,

And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.
16* x

370 A WEEK.

Sitting with our faces now up stream, we studied the
landscape by degrees, as one unrolls a map, rock, tree,
house, hill, and meadow, assuming new and varying posi
tions as wind and water shifted the scene, and there was
variety enough for our entertainment in the metamor
phoses of the simplest objects. Viewed from this side
the scenery appeared new to us.

The most familiar sheet of water viewed from a new
hill-top, yields a novel and unexpected pleasure. When
we have travelled a few miles, we do not recognize the
profiles even of the hills which overlook our native vil
lage, and perhaps no man is quite familiar with the
horizon as seen from the hill nearest to his house, and
can recall its outline distinctly when in the valley. We
do not commonly know, beyond a short distance, which
way the hills range which take in our houses and farms
in their sweep. As if our birth had at first sundered
things, and we had been thrust up through into nature
like a wedge, and not till the wound heals and the scar
disappears, do we begin to discover where we are, and
that nature is one and continuous everywhere. It is
an important epoch when a man who has always lived
on the east side of a mountain, and seen it in the west,
travels round and sees it in the east. Yet the universe
is a sphere whose centre is wherever there is intelligence.
The sun is not so central as a man. Upon an isolated
hill-top, in an open country, we seem to ourselves to be
standing on the boss of an immense shield, the immediate
landscape being apparently depressed below the more
remote, and rising gradually to the horizon, which is the
rim of the shield, villas, steeples, forests, mountains, one
above another, till they are swallowed up in the heavens
The most distant mountains in the horizon appear to

FRIDAY. 371

rise directly from the shore of that lake in the wocds by
which we chance to be standing, while from the motin-
tain-top, not only this, but a thousand nearer and larger
lakes, are equally unobserved.

Seen through this clear atmosphere, the works of the
farmer, his ploughing and reaping, had a beauty to our
eyes which he never saw. How fortunate were TSC who
did not own an acre of these shores, who had not re
nounced our title to the whole. One who knew how to
appropriate the true value of this world would be the
poorest man in it. The poor rich man ! all he has is
what he has bought. What I see is mine. I am a large
owner in the Merrimack intervals.

Men dig and dive bnt cannot my wealth spend,

Who yet no partial store appropriate,
Who no armed ship into the Indies send,

To rob me of my orient estate.

He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruits of riches, who
summer and winter forever can find delight in his own
thoughts. Buy a farm ! What have I to pay for a farm
which a farmer will take ?

When I visit again some haunt of my youth, I am
glad to find that nature wears so well. The landscape
is indeed something real, and solid, and sincere, and I
have not put my foot through it yet. There is a pleas
ant tract on the bank of the Concord, called Conantum,
which I have in my mind; — the old deserted farm
house, the desolate pasture with its bleak cliff, the open
wood, the river-reach, the green meadow in the midst,
and the moss-grown wild-apple orchard, — places where
one may have many thoughts and not decide anything.
It is a scene which I can not only remember, as I might
a vision, but when I will can bodily revisit, and find it

372 A WKEK.

even so, unaccountable, yet unpretending in its pleasant
dreariness. When my thoughts are sensible of change,
I Jove to see and sit on rocks which I have known, and
pry into their moss, and see unchangeableness so estab
lished. I not yet gray on rocks forever gray, I no
longer green under the evergreens. There is something
even in the lapse of time by which time recovers itself.

As we have said, it proved a cool as well as breezy
day, and by the time we reached Penichook Brook we
were obliged to sit muffled in our cloaks, while the wind
and current carried us along. We bounded swiftly over
the rippling surface, far by many cultivated lands and
the ends of fences which divided innumerable farms,
with hardly a thought for the various lives which they
separated ; now by long rows of alders or groves of
pines or oaks, and now by some homestead where the
women and children stood outside to gaze at us, till w«
had swept out of their sight, and beyond the limit of
their longest Saturday ramble. We glided past the
mouth of the Nashua, and not long after, of Salmon
Brook, without more pause than the wind.

Salmon Brook,
Penichook,

Ye sweet waters of my brain,
When shall I look,
Or cast the hook,
In your waves again ?

Silver eels,
Wooden creels,

These the baits that still allure,
And dragon-fly
That floated by,
May they still endure ?

The shadows chased one another swiftly over wood

FRIDAY. 373

mid meadow, and their alternation harmonized with our
mood. We could distinguish the clouds which cast each
one, though never so high in the heavens. When a
shadow flits across the landscape of the soul, where is
the substance ? Probably, if we were wise enough, we
should see to what virtue we are indebted for any
happier moment we enjoy. No doubt we have earned
it at some time ; for the gifts of Heaven are never quite
gratuitous. The constant abrasion and decay of our
lives makes the soil of our future growth. The wood
which we now mature, when it becomes virgin mould,
determines the character of our second growth, whether
that be oaks or pines. Every man casts a shadow ; not
his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This
is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls
opposite to the sun ; short at noon, long at eve. Did
you never see it? — But, referred to the sun, it is widest
at its base, which is no greater than his own opacity.
The divine light is diffused almost entirely around us,
and by means of the refraction of light, or else by
a certain self-luminousness, or, as some will have it,
transparency, if we preserve ourselves untarnished, we
are able to enlighten our shaded side. At any rate, our
darkest grief has that bronze color of the moon eclipsed.
There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like the
dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it. Shadows,
referred to the source of light, are pyramids whose
bases are never greater than those of the substances
which cast them, but light is a spherical congeries of
pyramids, whose very apexes are the sun itself, and
hence the system shines with uninterrupted light. But
If the light we use is but a paltry and narrow taper,
most objects will cast a shadow wider than them-
telves.

ft4 A tt'EKK.

Tlie places where we had stopped or spent the night
in our way up the river, had already acquired a slight
historical interest for us; for many upward day's voyag
ing were unravelled in this rapid downward passage.
When one landed to stretch his limbs by walking, he
Boon found himself falling behind his companion, and
was obliged to take advantage of the curves, and ford
the brooks and ravines in haste, to recover his ground.
Already the banks and the distant meadows wore a
sober and deepened tinge, for the September air had
shorn them of their summer's pride.

"And what's a life? The flourishing array
Of the proud summer meadow, which to-day
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay."

The air was really the " fine element " which the poets
describe. It had a finer and sharper grain, seen against
the russet pastures and meadows, than before, as if
cleansed of the summer's impurities.

Having passed the New Hampshire line and reached
the Horseshoe Interval in Tyngsborough, where there is
a high and regular second bank, we climbed up this in
haste to get a nearer sight of the autumnal flowers,
asters, golden-rod, and yarrow, and blue-curls (Trichos-
tema dichotoma), humble roadside blossoms, and, linger
ing still, the harebell and the Rhexia Virginica. The
ast, growing in patches of lively pink flowers on the
edge of the meadows, had almost too gay an appearance
for the rest of the landscape, like a pink ribbon on the
bonnet of a Puritan woman. Asters and golden- rods
were the livery which nature wore at present. The
latter alone expressed all the ripeness of the season, and
ihed their mellow lustre over the fields, as if the now

FRIDAY. 375

declining summer's sun had bequeathed its hues to them.
It is the floral solstice a little after midsummer, when
the particles of golden light, the sun-dust, have, as it
were, fallen like seeds on the earth, and produced these
blossoms. On every hillside, and in every valley, stood
countless asters, coreopses, tansies, golden-rods, and the
whole race of yellow flowers, like Brahminical devotees,
turning steadily with their luminary from morning till
night.

" I see the golden-rod shine bright,

As sun-showers at the birth of day,
A golden plume of yellow light,

That robs the Day-god's splendid ray.

" The aster's violet rays divide

The bank with many stars for me,
And yarrow in blanch tints is dyed,
As moonlight floats across the sea.

" I see the emerald woods prepare

To shed their vestiture once more,
And distant elm-trees spot the air
With yellow pictures softly o'er.

" No more the water-lily's pride

In milk-white circles swims content,
No more the blue-weed's clusters ride
And mock the heavens' element.

" Autumn, thy wreath and mine are blent

With the same colors, for to me
A richer sky than all is lent,

While fades my dream-like company.

** Our skies glow purple, but the wind

Sobs chill through green trees and bright grass,
To-day shines fair, and lurk behind
The times that into winter pass.

' So fair we seem, so cold we are,
So fast we hasten to uecay,

376 A WEEK.

Yet through our night glows many a star,
That still shall claim its sunny day."

So sang a Concord poet once.

There is a peculiar interest belonging to the still later
flowers, which abide with us the approach of winter.
There is something witch-like in the appearance of the
witch-hazel, which blossoms late in October and in No
vember, with its irregular and angular spray and petals
like furies' hair, or small ribbon streamers. Its blos
soming, too, at this irregular period, when other shrubs
have lost their leaves, as well as blossoms, looks like
witches' craft. Certainly it blooms in no garden of
man's. There is a whole fairy-land on the hillside
where it grows.

Some have thought that the gales do not at present
waft to the voyager the natural and original fragrance
of the land, such as the early navigators described, and
that the loss of many odoriferous native plants, sweet-
scented grasses and medicinal herbs, which formerly
sweetened the atmosphere, and rendered it salubrious,
— by the grazing of cattle and the rooting of swine, is
the source of many diseases which now prevail ; the
earth, say they, having been long subjected to extremely
artificial and luxurious modes of cultivation, to gratify
the appetite, converted into a stye and hot-bed, where
men for profit increase the ordinary decay of nature.

According to the record of an old inhabitant of
Tyngsborough, now dead, whose farm we were now
gliding past, one of the greatest freshets on this rivei
took place in October, 1785, and its height was marked
by a nail driven into an apple-tree behind his house

FRIDAY. 377

One of his descendants has shown this to me, and 1
judged it to be at least seventeen or eighteen feet above
the level of the river at the time. According to Barber,
the river rose twenty-one feet above the common high-
water mark, at Bradford in the year 1818. Before the
Lowell and Nashua railroad was built, the engineer
made inquiries of the inhabitants along the banks as to
how high they had known the river to rise. When ho
came to this house he was conducted to the apple-tree,
and as the nail was not then visible, the lady of the
house placed her hand on the trunk where she said that
she remembered the nail to have been from her child
hood. In the mean while the old man put his arm inside
the tree, which was hollow, and felt the point of the nail
sticking through, and it was exactly opposite to her
hand. The spot is now plainly marked by a notch in
the bark. But as no one else remembered the river to
have risen so high as this, the engineer disregarded this
statement, and I learn that there has since been a freshet
which rose within nine inches of the rails at Biscuit
Brook, and such a freshet as that of 1785 would have
covered the railroad two feet deep.

The revolutions of nature tell as fine tales, and make
as interesting revelations, on this river's banks, as on
the Euphrates or the Nile. This apple-tree, which
stands within a few rods of the river, is called " Elisha's
apple-tree," from a friendly Indian, who was anciently
in the service of Jonathan Tyng, and, with one other
man, was killed here by his own race in one of ihe In
dian wars, — the particulars of which affair were told
. s on the spot. He was buried close by, no one knew
exactly where, but in the flood of 1785, so great a
weight of water standing over the gravs, c/aused the

378 A WEEK.

earth to settle where it had once been disturbed, and
when the flood went down, a sunken spot, exactly of the
form and size of the grave, revealed its locality ; but
this was now lost again, and no future flood can detect
it; yet, no doubt, Nature will know how to point it out
in due time, if it be necessary, by methods yet more
searching and unexpected. Thus there is not only the
crisis when the spirit ceases to inspire and expand the
body, marked by a fresh mound in the churchyard, but
there is also a crisis when the body ceases to take up
room as such in nature, marked by a fainter depression
in the earth.

We sat awhile to rest us here upon the brink of the
western bank, surrounded by the glossy leaves of the
red variety of the mountain laurel, just above the head
of Wicasuck Island, where we could observe some scows
which were loading with clay from the opposite shore,
and also overlook the grounds of the farmer, of whom I
have spoken, who once hospitably entertained us for a
night. He had on his pleasant farm, besides an abun
dance of the beach-plum, or Prunus littoralis, which
grew wild, the Canada, plum under cultivation, fine
Porter apples, some peaches, and large patches of musk
And water melons, which he cultivated for the Lowell
market. Elisha's apple-tree, too, bore a native fruit,
which was prized by the family. lie raised the blood
peach, which, as he showed us with satisfaction, was
more like the oak in the color of its bark and in the set
ting of its branches, and was less liable to break down
under the weight of the fruit, or the snow, than other
varieties. It was of slower growth, and its branches
strong and tough. There, also, was his nursery of na
tive apple-Uses, thickly set upon the bank, which coa*

379

but little care, and which he sold to the neighboring far
mers when they were five or six years old. To see a
single peach upon its stem makes an impression of para
disaical fertility and luxury. This reminded us even of
an old Roman farm, as described by Varro : — Cresar
Vopiscus ^Edilicius, when he pleaded before the Cen
sors, said that the grounds of Rosea were the garden
(sumen the tid-bit) of Italy, in which a pole being left
would not be visible the day after, on account of the
growth of the herbage." This soil may not have been
remarkably fertile, yet at this distance we thought that
this anecdote might be told of the Tyngsborough farm.

When we passed Wicasuck Island, there was a pleas
ure-boat containing a youth and a maiden on the island
brook, which we were pleased to see, since it proved
that there were some hereabouts to whom our excursion
would not be wholly strange. Before this, a canal-boat
man, of whom we made some inquiries respecting Wica
suck Island, and who told us that it was disputed prop
erty, suspected that we had a claim upon it, and though
we assured him that all this was news to us, and ex
plained, as well as we could, why we had come to see it,
he believed not a word of it, and seriously offered us
one hundred dollars for our title. The only other small
boats which we met with were used to pick up drift
wood. Some of the poorer class along the stream col
lect, in this way, all the fuel which they require. While
one of us landed not far from this island to forage for
provisions among the farm-houses whose roofs we saw,
for our supply was now exhausted, the other, sitting in
the boat, which was moored to th-3 shore, was left alone
to his reflections.

If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveller

380 A WKKK.

always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly
turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types
on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always ead
a new truth there. There are things there written with
such fine and subtile tinctures, paler than the juice of
limes, that to the diurnal eye they leave no trace, and
only the chemistry of night reveals them. Every man's
daylight firmament answers in his mind to the brightness
of the vision in his starriest hour.

These continents and hemispheres are soon run over,
but an always unexplored and infinite region makes off
on every side from the mind, further than to sunset, and
we can make no highway or beaten track into it, but the
grass immediately springs up in the path, for we travel
there chiefly with our wings.

Sometimes we see objects as through a thin haze, in
their eternal relations, and they stand like Palenque
and the Pyramids, and we wonder who set them up,
and for what purpose. If we see the reality in things,
of what moment is the superficial and apparent longer?
What are the earth and all its interests beside the deep
Bunnise which pierces and scatters them ? While I sit
here listening to the waves which ripple and break ou
this shore, I am absolved from all obligation to the past,
and the council of nations may reconsider its votes.
The grating of a pebble annuls them. Still occasionally
in my dreams I remember that rippling water.

Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o'er,
I hear the lapse of waves upon the shore,
Distinct as if it were at broad noonday,
And I were drifting down from Nashua.

With a bending sail we glided rapidly by Tyngsborougb
and Chelmsford, each holding in one hand half of a tar*

FRIDAY. 381

country apple-pie which we had purchased to celebrate
our return, and in the other a fragment of the newspaper
in which it was wrapped, devouring these with divided
relish, and learning the news which had transpired since
we sailed. The river here opened into a broad and
straight reach of great length, which we bounded merrily
over before a smacking breeze, with a devil-may-care
look in our faces, and our boat a white bone in its mouth,
and a speed which greatly astonished some scow boat
men whom we met. The wind in the horizon rolled like
a flood over valley and plain, and every tree bent to the
blast, and the mountains like school-boys turned their
cheeks to it. They were great and current motions, the
flowing sail, the running stream, the waving tree, the
roving wind. The north- wind stepped readily into the
harness which we had provided, and pulled us along with
good will. Sometimes we sailed as gently and steadily
as the olouds overhead, watching the receding shores and
the motions of our sail ; the play of its pulse so like our
own lives, so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when
it labored hardest, so noisy and impatient when least ef
fective ; now bending to some generous impulse of the
breeze, and then fluttering and flapping with a kind of
human suspense. It was the scale on which the varying
temperature of distant atmospheres was graduated, and
it was some attraction for us that the breeze it played
with had been out of doors so long. Thus we sailed, not
being able to fly, but as next best, making a long furrow
in the fields of the Merrimack toward our home, with our
wings spread, but never lifting our heel from the watery
trench ; gracefully ploughing homeward with our brisk
and willing team, wind and stream, pulling together, the
former yet a wild steer, yoked to his more sedate fellow

382 A WEEK.

It was very near flying, as when the duck rushes through
the water with an impulse of her wings, throwing the
spray about hei before she can rise. How we had stuck
fast if drawn up but a few feet on the shore !

When we reached the great bend just above Middle
sex, where the river runs east thirty-five miles to the
sea, we at length lost the aid of this propitious wind,
though we contrived to make one long and judicious tack
carry us nearly to the locks of the canal. We were here
locked through at noon by our old friend, the lover of
the higher mathematics, who seemed glad to see us safe
back again through so many locks ; but we did not stop
to consider any of his problems, though we could cheer
fully have spent a whole autumn in this way another
time, and never have asked what his religion was. It is
so rare to meet with a man out-doors who cherishes a
worthy thought in his mind, which is independent of the
labor of his hands. Behind every man's busy-ness there
should be a level of undisturbed serenity and industry,
as within the reef encircling a coral isle there is always
an expanse of still water, where the depositions are going
on which will finally raise it above the surface.

The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute
beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that
which is attracted by a moral one. Few detect the mo
rality in the former, or the science in the latter. Aris
totle defined art to be \6yos rov epyov avtv vXrjs, The prin
ciple of the work without the wood; but most men pre
fer to have some of the wood along with the principle ;
they demand that the truth be clothed in flesh and blood
and the warm colors of life. They prefer the partia.
statement because it fits and measures them and theil

FRIDAY. 383

commodities best. But science still exists everywhere
as the sealer of weights and measures at least.

We have heard much about the poetry of mathemat
ics, but very little of it has yet been sung. The ancients
had a juster notion of their poetic value than we. The
most distinct and beautiful statement of any truth must
take at last the mathematical form. We might so sim
plify the rules of moral philosophy, as well as of arith
metic, that one formula would express them both. All
the moral laws are readily translated into natural phi
losophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive
meaning of the words by which they are expressed, or
to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical
sense. They are already supernatural philosophy. The
whole body of what is now called moral or ethical truth
existed in the golden age as abstract science. Or, if
we prefer, we may say that the laws of Nature are the
purest morality. The Tree of Knowledge is a Tree of
Knowledge of good and evil. He is not a true man of
science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies,
and expect to learn something by behavior as well as
by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of
mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws.
The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the
mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry
one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with phys
ics but with ethics, that is mixed mathematics. The fact
which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The
purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify
and elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from
the moral life of its devotee, and he professes another
religion than it teaches, and worships at a foreign shrine.
Anciently the faith of a philosopher tvas identical with

884 A WEEK.

his system, or, iii other words, his view of the uni
verse.

My friends mistake when they communicate facts to
me with so much pains. Their presence, even their ex
aggerations and loose statements, are equally good facts
for me. I have no respect for facts even except when
I would use them, and for the most part I am indepen
dent of those which I hear, and can afford to be inaccu
rate, or, in other words, to substitute more present and
pressing facts in their place.

The poet uses the results of science and philosophy,
and generalizes their widest deductions.

The process of discovery is very simple. An unwea
ried and systematic application of known laws to nature,
causes the unknown to reveal themselves. Almost any
mode of observation will be successful at last, for what
is most wanted is method. Only let something be deter
mined and fixed around which observation may rally.
How many new relations a foot-rule alone will reveal,
and to how many things still this has not been applied !
What wonderful discoveries have been, and may still be,
made, with a plumb-line, a level, a surveyor's compass,
a thermometer, or a barometer ! Where there is an ob
servatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will
see new worlds at once. I should say that the most promi
nent scientific men of our country, and perhaps of this
age, are either serving the arts and not pure science, or
are performing faithful but quite subordinate labors in
particular departments. They make no steady and sys
tematic approaches to the central fact. A discovery is
made, and at once the attention of all observers is dis
tracted to that, and it draws many analogous discoveries
in its train ; as if their work were not already laid oui

FRIDAY. 385

for them, but they had been lying on their oars. There
is wanting constant and accurate observation with enough
of theory to direct and discipline it.

But, above all, there is wanting genius Our books
of science, as they improve in accuracy, are in danger
of losing the freshness and vigor and readiness to appre
ciate the real laws of Nature, which is a marked merit
in the ofttimes false theories of the ancients. I am at
tracted by the slight pride and satisfaction, the emphatic
and even exaggerated style in which some of the older
naturalists speak of the operations of Nature, though
they are better qualified to appreciate than to discrimi
nate the facts. Their assertions are not without value
when disproved. If they are not facts, they are sugges
tions for Nature herself to act upon. "The Greeks,"
says Gesner, " had a common proverb (Aayos KaOtv&ov)
a sleeping hare, for a dissembler or counterfeit ; because
the hare sees when she sleeps ; for this is an admirable
and rare work of Nature, that all the residue of her
bodily parts take their rest, but the eye standeth contin
ually sentinel."

Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so
rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it
appears as if the theorizer would always be in arrears,
and were doomed forever to arrive at imperfect conclu
sions ; but the power to perceive a law is equally rare
in all ages of the world, and depends but little on the
number of facts observed. The senses of the savage will
furnish him with facts enough to set him up as a philoso
pher. The ancients can still speak to us with author
ity, even on the themes of geology and chemistry, though
these studies are thought to have had their birth in
modern times. Much Is said abo.it the progress of science
17

886 A WEEK.

in these centuries. I should say^that the useful results
of science had accumulated, but that there had been no
accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking, for poster
ity ; for knowledge is to be acquired only by a corre
sponding experience. Plow can we know what we are
told merely ? Each man can interpret another's expe
rience only by his own. We read that Newton discov
ered the law of gravitation, but how many who have
heard of his famous discovery have recognized the same
truth that he did ? It may be not one. The revelation
which was then made to him lias not been superseded
by the revelation made to any successor.

We see the. planet fall,
And that is all.

In a review of Sir James Clark Ross's Antarctic Voy
age of Discovery, there is a passage which shows how
far a body of men are commonly impressed by an object
of sublimity, and which is also a good instance of the
step from the sublime to the ridiculous. After describ
ing the discovery of the Antarctic Continent, at first seen
a hundred miles distant over fields of ice, — stupendous
ranges of mountains from seven and eight to twelve and
fourteen thousand feet high, covered with eternal snow
and ice, in solitary and inaccessible grandeur, at one
time the weather being beautifully clear, and the sun
shining on the icy landscape ; a continent whose islands
only are accessible, and these exhibited " not the small
est trace of vegetation," only in a few places the rocks
protruding through their icy covering, to convince the
beholder that land formed the nucleus, and that it wai
not an iceberg ; — the practical British reviewer pro
ceeds thus, sticking to his last, " On the 22d of January

FRIDAY. 387

afternoon, the Expedition made the latitude of 74° 20'
and by 7h P. M., having ground (ground ! where did
they get ground ?) to believe that they were then in a
higher southern latitude than had been attained by that
enterprising seaman, the late Captain James Weddel,
and therefore higher than all their predecessors, an ex
tra allowance of grog was issued to the crews as a
reward for their perseverance."

Let not us sailors of late centuries take upon our
selves any airs on account of our Newtons and our Cu-
viers ; we deserve an extra allowance of grog only.

We endeavored in vain to persuade the wind to blow
through the long corridor of the canal, which is here
cut straight through the woods, and were obliged to re
sort to our old expedient of drawing by a cord. When
»ve reached the Concord, we were forced to row once
more in good earnest, with neither wind nor current in
our favor, but by this time the rawness of the day had
disappeared, and we experienced the warmth of a sum
mer afternoon. This change in the weather was favor
able to our contemplative mood, and disposed us to
dream yet deeper at our oars, while we floated in imag
ination farther down the stream of time, as we had
floated down the stream of the Merrimack, to poets of
a milder period than had engaged us in the morning.
Chelmsford and Billerica appeared like old English
towns, compared with Merrimack and Nashua, and
many generations of civil poets might have lived and
»ung here.

What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry
of Osaan, and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare

388 A WKEK.

and Milton, much more of Dryden, and Pope, and Gray
Our summer of English poetry like the Greek and
Latin before it, seems well advanced toward its fall,
and laden with the fruit and foliage of the season, will)
bright autumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its
myriad clustering and shading leaves, and leave only
a few desolate and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow
and rime, and creak in the blasts of^iges. We cannot
escape the impression that the Muse has stooped a little
in her flight, when we come to the literature of civilized
eras. Now first we hear of various ages and styles of
poetry ; it is pastoral, and lyric, and narrative, and di
dactic; but the poetry of runic monuments is of one
style, and for every age. The bard has in a great
measure lost the dignity and sacredness of his office.
Formerly he wa^s called a seer, but now it is thought
that one man sees as much as another. He has no lon
ger the bardic rage, and only conceives the deed, which
he formerly stood ready to perform. Hosts of warriors
earnest for battle could not mistake nor dispense with
the ancient bard. His lays were heard in the pauses of
the fight. There was no danger of his being overlooked
by his contemporaries. But now the hero and the bard
are of different professions. When we come to the
pleasant English verse, the storms have all cleared a^vay
and it will never thunder and lighten more. The poet
has come within doors, and exchanged the forest and
crag for the fireside, the hut of the Gael, and Stone-
heLge with its circles of stones, for the house of the
Englishman. No hero stands at the door prepared to
break forth into song or heroic action, but a homely
Englishman, who cultivates the art of poetry. We see
the comfortable fireside, and hear the crackling fagots io
all the verse.

FRIDAY. 389

Notwithstanding the broad humanity of Chaucer, and
Jie many social and domestic comforts which we meet
with in his verse, we have to narrow our vision some
what to consider him, as if he occupied less space in the
landscape, and did not stretch over hill and valley as
Ossian does. Yet, seen from the side of posterity, as
the father of English poetry, preceded by a long silence
or confusion in history, unenlivened by any strain of
pure melody, we easily come to reverence him. Pass
ing over the earlier continental poets, since we are
bound to the pleasant archipelago of English poetry,
Chaucer's is the first name after that misty weather in
which Ossian lived, which can detain us long. Indeed,
though he represents so different a culture and society,
he may be regarded as in many respects the Homer of
the English poets. Perhaps he is the youthfullest of
them all. We return to him as to the purest well, the
fountain farthest removed from the highway of desuUory
life. He is so natural and cheerful, compared with later
poets, that we might almost regard him as a personifi
cation of spring. To the faithful reader his muse has
even given an aspect to his times, and when he is fresh
from perusing him, they seem related to the golden age.
It is still the poetry of youth and life, rather than of
thought ; and though the moral vein is obvious and con
stant, it has not yet banished the sun and daylight from
his verse. The loftiest strains of the muse are, for the
most part, sublimely plaintive, and not a carol as free
as nature's The content which the sun shines to cele
brate from morning to evening, is unsung. The muse
solaces herself, and is not ravished but consoled. There
is a catastrophe implied, and a tragic element in all our
reree, and less of the lark and morning dews, thai? of

390 A \VKKK.

the nightingale and evening shades. But in Homer
and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity
of youth than in the more modern and moral poets.
The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men
cling to this old song, because they still have moments
of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them
an appetite for more. To the innocent there are neither
cherubim nor angels. At rare intervals we rise above
the necessity of virtue into an unchangeable morning
light, in which we have only to live right on and breathe
the ambrosial air. The Iliad represents no creed nor
opinion, and we read it with a rare sense of freedom
and irresponsibility, as if we trod on native ground, and
were autochthones of the soil.

Chaucer had eminently the habits of a literary man
and a scholar. There were never any times so stirring
that there were not to be found some sedentary still.
He was surrounded by the din of arms. The battles of
Ilallidon Hill and Neville's Cross, and the still more
memorable battles of Cressy and Poictiers, were fought
in his youth ; but these did not concern our poet much,
Wickliffe and his reform much more. He regarded him
self always as one privileged to sit and converse with
books. He helped to establish the literary class. His
character as one of the fathers of the English language
would alone make his works important, even those which
have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Words
worth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon
tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not
yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a
similar service to his country to that which Dante rea
dered to Italy. If Greek sufficeth for Greek, and Ara.
bic for Arabian, and Hebrew for Jew, and Latin foi

FRIDAY. 391

Latin, then English shall suffice for him, for any of these
will serve to teach truth " right as divers pathes leaden
divers folke the right waye to Rome." In the Testa
ment of Love he writes, " Let then clerkes enditen in
Latin, for they have the propertie of science, and the
knowirige in that facultie, and lette Frenchmen in their
Frenche also enditen their queinte termes, for it is
kyndely to their mouthes, and let us shewe our fantasies
in soche wordes as we lerneden of our dames tonge."

He will know how to appreciate Chaucer best, who
has come down to him the natural way, through the
meagre pastures of Saxon and ante-Chaucerian poetry ;
and yet, so human and wise he appears after such diet,
that we are liable to misjudge him still. In the Saxon
poetry extant, in the earliest English, and the contem
porary Scottish poetry, there is less to remind the reader
of the rudeness and vigor of youth, than of the feeble
ness of a declining age. It is for the most part transla
tion of imitation merely, with only an occasional and
slight tinge of poetry, oftentimes the falsehood and ex
aggeration of fable, without its imagination to redeem
it, and we look in vain to find antiquity restored, hu
manized, and made blithe again by some natural sym
pathy between it and the present. But Chaucer is fresh
and modern still, and no dust settles on his true pas
sages. It lightens along the line, and we are reminded
that flowers have bloomed, and birds sung, and hearts
Veaten in England. Before the earnest gaze of the
reader, the rust and moss of time gradually drop off,
and tii original green life is revealed. He was a home
ly and domestic man, and did breathe quite as modern
men do.

There is no wisdom tha> can take place of humanity,

392 A WEEK.

*nd wo find that in Chaucer. We can expand at last in
his breadth, and we think that we could have been that
man's acquaintance. He was worthy to be a citizen of
England, while Petrarch and Boccacio lived in Italy,
and Tell and Tamerlane in Switzerland and in Asia,
and Bruce in Scotland, and Wickliffe, and Gower, and
Edward the Third, and John of Gaunt, and the Black
Prince, were his own countrymen as well as contempo
raries : all stout and stirring names. The fame of Rogor
Bacon came down from the preceding century, and the
name of Dante still possessed the influence of a living
presence. On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as great
er than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and
Shakespeare, for he would have held up his head in their
company. Among early English poets he is the land
lord and host, and has the authority of such. The af
fectionate mention which succeeding early poets make
of him, coupling him with Homer and Virgil, is to be
taken into the account in estimating his character and
influence. King James and Dunbar of Scotland speak
of him with more love and reverence than any modern
author of his predecessors of the last century. The
same childlike relation is without a parallel now. For
the most part we read him without criticism, for he does
lot plead his own cause, but speaks for his readers, and
nas that greatness of trust and reliance which compels
popularity. lie confides in the reader, and speaks
privily with him, keeping nothing back. And in return
the reader has great confidence in him, that he tells nc
lies, and reads his story with indulgence, as if it were
the circumlocution of a cliild, but often discovers after
wards that he has spoken with more directness and
economy of words than a sage. He is never heartless

FRIDAY. 398

" For first the thing is thought within the hart,
Er any word out from the mouth astart."

And so new was all his theme in those days, that he did
not have to invent, but only to tell.

We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit. The
easy height he speaks from in his Prologue to the 3an~
terbury Tales, as if he were equal to any of the com-'
pany there assembled, is as good as any particular ex
cellence in it. But though it is full of good sense and
humanity, it is not transcendent poetry. For picta-
resque description of persons it is, perhaps, without a
parallel in English poetry ; yet it is essentially humor
ous, as the loftiest genius never is. Humor, however
broad and genial, takes a narrower view than enthusi
asm. To his own finer vein he added all the common
wit and wisdom of his time, and everywhere in his works
his remarkable knowledge of the world, and nice per
ception of character, his rare common sense and prover
bial wisdom, are apparent. His genius does not soar
like Milton's, but is genial and familiar. It shows great
tenderness and delicacy, but not the heroic sentiment.
It is only a greater portion of humanity with all its
weakness. He is not heroic, as Raleigh, nor pious, as
Herbert, nor philosophical, as Shakespeare, but he is the
child of the English muse, that child which is the father
of the man. The charm of his poetry consists often
only in an exceeding naturalness, perfect sincerity, with
the behavior of a child rather than of a man.

Gentleness and delicacy of character are everywhere
apparent in his verse. The simplest and humblest
words come readily to his lips. No one can read the
Prioress's tale, understanding the spirit in which it was
written, and in which the child sings 0 alma redemptorit
17*

394 A WEEK.

mater, 01 the account of the departure of Constance with
her child upon the sea, in the Man of Lawe's tale, with
out feeling the native innocence and refinement of the
author. Nor can we be mistaken respecting the essen
tial purity of his character, disregarding the apology of
the manners of the age. A simple pathos and feminine
gentleness, which Wordsworth only occasionally ap
proaches, but does not equal, are peculiar to him. We
are tempted to say that his genius was feminine, not
masculine. It was such a feminineness, however, as is
rarest to find in woman, though not the appreciation of
it ; perhaps it is not to be found at all in woman, but is
only the feminine in man.

Such pure and genuine and childlike love of Nature
is hardly to be found in any poet.

Chaucer's remarkably trustful and affectionate charac
ter appears in his familiar, yet innocent and reverent,
manner of speaking of his God. He comes into his
thought without any false reverence, and with no more
parade than the zephyr to his ear. If Nature is our
mother, then God is our father. There is less love
and simple, practical trust in Shakespeare and Milton.
How rarely in our English tongue do we find expressed
any affection for God. Certainly, there is no sentiment
«o rare as the love of God. Herbert almost alone ex
presses it, " Ah, my dear God ! " Our poet uses similar
words with propriety ; and whenever he sees a beautiful
person, or other object, prides himself on the " maistry '
of his God. He even recommends Dido to Ire hw
bride, —

' if that Gdd that heaven and yearth made,
Would have a love for beauty and poodnesse,
And womanhede, trouth, and semeliness."

FK1DAY. 395

But in justification of our praisey we must refer to his
works themselves ; to the Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales, the account of Gentilesse, the Flo-wer and the
Leaf, the stories of Griselda, Virginia, Ariadne, and
Blanche the Dutchesse, and much more of less distin
guished merit. There are many poets of more taste,
and better manners, who knew how to leave out their
dulness ; but such negative genius cannot detain us
long ; we shall return to Chaucer still with love. Some
natures, which are really rude and ill-developed, have
yet a higher standard of perfection than others which
are refined and well balanced. Even the clown has
taste, whose dictates, though he disregards them, are
higher and purer than those which the artist obeys. If
we have to wander through many dull and prosaic
passages in Chaucer, we have at least the satisfaction of
knowing that it is not an artificial dulness, but too easily
matched by many passages in life. We confess that we
feel a disposition commonly to concentrate sweets, and
accumulate pleasures ; but the poet may be presumed
always to speak as a traveller, who leads us through a
varied scenery, from one eminence to another, and
it is, perhaps, more pleasing, after all, to meet with a
fine thought in its natural setting. Surely fate has en
shrined it in these circumstances for some end. Nature
strews her nuts arid flowers broadcast, and never col*
lects them into heaps. This was the soil it grew in, and
this the hour it bloomed in ; if sun, wind, and rain came
here to cherish and expand the flower, shall not we
pome here to pluck it?

A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felici
tous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the at-

3% A WEEK.

oiosphere which surrounds it. Most have beaut/ of
outliae merely, and are striking as the form and bearing
of a stranger ; but true verses come toward us indis
tinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envel
op us in their spirit and fragrance. Much of our poetry
has the very best manners, but no character. It is only
an unusual precision and elasticity of speech, as if its
author had taken, not an intoxicating draught, but an
electuary. It has the distinct outline of sculpture, and
chronicles an early hour. Under the influence of pas
sion all men speak thus distinctly, but wrath is not al
ways divine.

There are two classes of men called poets. The one
cultivates life, the other art, — one seeks food for nutri
ment, the other for flavor; one satisfies hunger, the
other gratifies the palate. There are two kinds of writ
ing, both great and rare ; one that of genius, or the in
spired, the other of intellect and taste, in the intervals
of inspiration. The former is above criticism, always
correct, giving the law to criticism. It vibrates and
pulsates with life forever. It is sacred, and to be read
with reverence, as the works of nature are studied.
There are few instances of a sustained style of this
kind ; perhaps every man has spoken words, but the
speaker is then careless of the record. Such a style re
moves us out of personal relations with its author ; wf>
do not take his words on our lips, but his sense into
our hearts. It is the stream of inspiration, which bub-
oles out, now here, now there, now in this man, now in
that. It matters not through what ice-crystals it is seen,
now a fountain, now the ocean stream running under
ground. It is in Shakespeare, Alpheus, in Burns, Are
thuse ; but ever the same. The other is self-possessed

FRIDAY. 397

und wise. It is reverent of genius, and greedy of inspi
ration. It is conscious in the highest and the least de
gree. It consists with the most perfect command of
the faculties. It dwells in a repose as of the desert, and
objects are as distinct in it as oases or palms in the ho
rizon of sand. The train of thought moves with sub
dued and measured step, like a caravan. But the pen
is only an instrument in its hand, and not instinct with
life, like a longer arm. It leaves a thin varnish or glaze
over all its work. The works of Goethe furnish re
markable instances of the latter.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet. Noth
ing is considered simply as it lies in the lap of eternal
beauty, but our thoughts, as well as our bodies, must be
dressed after the latest fashions. Our taste is too deli
cate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but
never yea to his hope. It invites him to adorn his de
formities, and not to cast them off by expansion, as the
tree its bark. We are a people who live in a bright
light, in houses of pearl and porcelain, and drink only
light wines, whose teeth are easily set on edge by the
least natural sour. If we had been consulted, the back
bone of the earth would have been made, not of granite,
but of Bristol spar. A modern author would have died
.in infancy in a ruder age. But the poet is something
more than a scald, "a smoother and polisher of lan
guage " ; he is a Cincinnatus in literature, and occupies
ao west end of the world. Like the sun, he will indif
ferently select his rhymes, and with a liberal taste
weave into his verse the planet and the stubble.

In these old books the stucco has long since crumbled
away, and we read what was sculptured in the granite.
They are rude and massive in their proportions, rather

398 A WEEK.

than smooth and delicate in their finish. The workers
in stone polish only their chimney ornaments, but their
pyramids are roughly done. There is a soberness in a
rough aspect, as of unhewn granite, which addresses a
depth in us, but a polished surface hits only the ball of
the eye. The true finish is the work of time, and the
use to which a thing is put. The elements are still pol
ishing the pyramids. Art may varnish and gild, but it
can do no more. A work of genius is rough-hewn from
the first, because it anticipates the lapse of time, and has
an ingrained polish, which still appears when fragments
are broken off, an essential quality of its substance. Ita
beauty is at the same time its strength, and it breaks
with a lustre.

The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as
well as its essence. The reader easily goes within the
shallowest contemporary poetry, and informs it with all
the life and promise of the day, as the pilgrim goes
within the temple, and hears the faintest strains of the
worshippers ; but it will have to speak to posterity, trav
ersing these deserts, through the ruins of its outmost
walls, by the grandeur and beauty of its proportions.

But here on the stream of the Concord, where we
have all the while been bodily, Nature, who is superior
•Q all styles and ages, is now, with pensive face, com
posing her poem Autumn, with which no work of man
will bear to be compared.

In summer we live out of doors, and have only im
pulses and feelings, which are all for action, and musf
wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of

FRIDAY. 399

autumn and winter before any thought will subside ; we
are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the
stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there
is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has
lived; that even this earth was made for more myste
rious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In
the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other
mansions than those which we occupy, not far off geo
graphically, —

u There is a place beyond that flaming hill,

From whence the stars their thin appearance shed,
A place beyond all place, where never ill,
Nor impure thought was ever harbored."

Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature, not his Fa
ther but his Mother slirs within him, and he becomes
immortal with her immortality. From time to time she
alaims kindredship with us, and some globule from her
veins steals up into our own.

I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run ;
When will the hazel put forth its flowers,
Or the grape ripen under my bowers ?
When will the harvest or the hunter's moon,
Turn my midnight into mid-noon ?

I am all sere and yellow,

And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief.

To an unskilful rhymer the Muse thus spoke in prose

The moon no longer reflects the day, but rises to her
Absolute rule, and the husbandman and hunter acknowt

•100 A WEEK.

edge her for their mistress. Asters and golden-rods reign
along the way, and the life-everlasting withers not. The
fields arc reaped and shorn of their pride, but an inward
verdure still crowns them. The thistle scatters its down
on the pool, and yellow leaves clothe the vine, and naught
disturbs the serious life of men. But behind the sheaves,
*nd under the sod, there lurks a ripe fruit, which the
reapers have not gathered, the true harvest of the year,
which it bears forever, annually watering and maturing
it, and man never severs the stalk which bears this pal
atable fruit.

Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life,
round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly
shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so
the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs
not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil
of earth. Who shall conceive what kind of roof the
heavens might extend over him, what seasons minister to
nim, and what employment dignify his life ! Only the
convalescent raise the veil of nature. An immortality
in his life would confer immortality on his abode. The
winds should be his breath, the seasons his moods, and
ne should impart of his serenity to Nature herself. But
such as we know him he is ephemeral like the scenery
which surrounds him, and does not aspire to an enduring
existence. When we come down into the distant village,
visible from the mountain-top, the nobler inhabitants
with whom we peopled it have departed, and left only
ermin in its desolate streets. It is the imagination of
poets which puts those brave speeches into the mouths
of their heroes. They may feign that Cato's last word*
irero

401

" The earth, the air, and seas I know, and all
The joys and horrors of their peace and wars ;
And now will view the Gods' state and the stars,"

but such are not the thoughts nor the destiny of common
men. What is this heaven which they expect, if it is no
better than they expect ? Are they prepared for a better
than they can now imagine ? Where is the heaven of him
who dies on a stage, in a theatre ? Here or nowhere is
our heaven.

" Although we see celestial bodies move
Above the earth, the earth we till and love."

We can conceive of nothing more fair than something
which we have experienced. "The remembrance of
youth is a sigh." We linger in manhood to tell the dreams
of our childhood, and they are half forgotten ere we have
learned the language. We have need to be earth-born
as well as heaven-born, yrjyw'is, as was said of the Titans
of old, or in a better sense than they. There have been
heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared,
as if creation had at last succeeded ; whose daily life was
the stuff of which our dreams are made, and whose pres
ence enhanced the beauty and ampleness of Nature her
self. Where they walked,

" Largior hie canipos aether et lumine vestit
Purpureo : Solemque suum, sua sidera norunt."

" Here a more copious air invests the fields, and clothes
with purple light ; and they know their own sun and their
own stars." We love to hear some men speak, though
we hear not what they say ; the V3ry air they breathe is
rich and perfumed, and the sound of their voices falls on
the ear like the rustling of leaves or the crackling of the

402 A WKEK.

fire. They stand many deep. They have the heavens
for their abettors, as those who have never stood from
under them, and they look at the stars with an answering
ray. Their eyes are like glow-worms, and their motions
graceful and flowing, as if a place were already found for
them, like rivers flowing through valleys. The distinc
tions of morality, of right and wrong, sense and nonsense,
are petty, and have lost their significance, beside these
pure primeval natures. When I consider the clouda
stretched in stupendous masses across the sky, frowning
with darkness or glowing with downy light, or gilded with
the rays of the setting sun, like the battlements of a city
in the heavens, their grandeur appears thrown away OB
the meanness of my employment ; the drapery is alto
gether too rich for such poor acting. I am hardly worthy
to be a suburban dweller outside those walls

" Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man I "

With our music we would fain challenge transiently
another and finer sort of intercourse than our daily toil
permits. The strains come back to us amended in the
echo, as when a friend reads our verse. Why have they
BO painted the fruits, and freighted them with such fra
grance as to satisfy a more than animal appetite ?

" I asked the schoolman, his advice was free,
But scored me out too intricate a way."

These things imply, perchance, that we live on the verge
c*f another and purer realm, from which these odors and
sounds are wafted over to us. The borders of our plot
Ere set with flowers, whose seeds were blown from more
Elysian fields r.djacent. They are the pot-herbs of th«

FRIDAY. 403

gods. Some fairer fruits and sweeter fragrances wafted
over to us, betray another realm's vicinity. There, too,
does Echo dwell, and there is the abutment of the rain
bow's arch.

A finer race and finer fed

Feast and revel o'er our head,

And we titmen are only able

To catch the fragments from their table.

Theirs is the fragrance of the fruits,

While we consume the pulp and roots.

What are the moments that we stand

Astonished on the Olympian land !

We need pray for no higher heaven than the pure
senses can furnish, a purely sensuous life. Our present
senses are but the rudiments of what they are destined
to become. We are comparatively deaf and dumb and
blind, and without smell or taste or feeling. Every gen
eration makes the discovery, that its divine vigor has
been dissipated, and each sense and faculty misapplied
and debauched. The ears were made, not for such triv
ial uses as men are wont to suppose, but to hear celestial
sounds. The eyes were not made for such grovelling
uses as they are now put to and worn out by, but to be
hold beauty now invisible. May we not see God ? Are
we to be put off and amused in this life, as it were
with a mere allegory ? Is not Nature, rightly read, that
of which she is commonly taken to be the symbol mere
ly ? When the common man looks into the sky, which
he has not so much profaned, he thinks it less gross than
the earth, and with reverence speaks of " the Heavens,"
but the seer will in the same sense speak of" the Earths,"
and his Father who is in them. " Did not he that made
that which is within, make that which is without also ? r
What is it, then, to educate but to develop these divine

404 A. WEEK.

germs called the senses? for individuals and states to
deal magnanimously with the rising generation, leading
it not into temptation, — not teach the eye to squint, nor
attune the ear to profanity. But where is the instructed
teacher? Where are the normal schools ?

A Hindoo sage said, " As a dancer, having exhibited
herself to the spectator, desists from the dance, so does
Nature desist, having manifested herself to soul — .
Nothing, in my opinion, is more gentle than Nature;
once aware of having been seen, she does not again ex
pose herself to the gaze of soul."

It is easier to discover another such a new world as
Columbus did, than to go within one fold of this which
we appear to know so well ; the land is lost sight of, the
compass varies, and mankind mutiny ; and still history
accumulates like rubbish before the portals of nature.
Rut there is only necessary a moment's sanity and sound
senses, to teach us that there is a nature behind the ordi
nary, in which we have only some vague pre-emption
right and western reserve as yet. We live on the out
skirts of that region. Carved wood, and floating boughs,
and sunset skies, are all that we know of it. We are not
to be imposed on by the longest spell of weather. Let
us not, my friends, be wheedled and cheated into good
behavior to earn the salt of our eternal porridge, who
ever they are that attempt it. Let us wait a little, and
not purchase any clearing here, trusting that richer bot
toms will soon be put up. It is but thin soil where we
stand : I have felt my roots in a richer ere this. I havf
seen a bunch of violets in a glass vase, tied loosely witfr
a straw, which reminded me of myself.

FKIDA1.

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied

By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their linki
Were made so loose and wide,

Methinks,
For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,

And sorrel intermixed,
Encircled by a wisp of straw

Once coiled abont their shoots,

The law
By which I 'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from out

Those fair Elysian fields,
With weeds and broken stems, in haste,
Doth make the rabble rout
That waste
11 The day he yields.

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,

Drinking my juices up,
With no root in the land

To keep my branches green,

But stand
In a bare cup.

Some tender buds were left upon my stem

In mimicry of life,
But ah ! the children will not know,
Till time has withered them,

The woe
With which they 're rife.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,

And after in life's vase
Of glass set while I might survive,
But by a kind hand brought

Alive
To a strange place.

That stock thus thinned will scon redeem its loan,
And by another year,

406 A WEEK.

Such as God knows, with freer air,
More fruita and fairer flowers

Will bear,
While I droop here.

This world has many rings, like Saturn, and we live
now on the outmost of them all. None can say deliber
ately that he inhabits the same sphere, or is contempora
ry with, the flower which his hands have plucked, and
though his feet may seem to crush it, inconceivable
spaces and ages separate them, and perchance there is
no danger that he will hurt it. What do the botanists
know ? Our lives should go between the lichen and the
bark. The eye may see for the hand, but not for the
mind. We are still being born, and have as yet but a
dim vision of sea and land, sun, moon and stars, and
shall not see clearly till after nine days at least. That
is a pathetic inquiry among travellers and geographers
after the site of ancient Troy. It is not near where they
think it is. When a thing is decayed and gone, how in
distinct must be the place it occupied!

The anecdotes of modern astronomy affect me in the
same way as do those faint revelations of the Real
which are vouchsafed to men from time to time, or
rather from eternity to eternity. When I remember the
history of that faint light in our firmament, which we call
Venus, which ancient men regarded, and which most
modern men still regard, as a bright spark attached to a
hollow sphere revolving about our earth, but which we
have discovered to be another world, in itself, — how
Copernicus, reasoning long and patiently about the mat
ter, predicted confidently concerning it, before yet tha
telescope had been invented, that if ever men came to
see it more clearly than they did then, thev would dis-

FRIDAY. 407

cover that it had phases like our moon, and that within
a century after his death the telescope was invented, and
that prediction verified, by Galileo, — I am not without
hope that we may, even here and now obtain some accu
rate information concerning that OTHER WORLD which the
instinct of mankind has so long predicted. Indeed, all
that we call science, as well as all that we call poetry, is
a particle of such information, accurate as far as it goes,
though it be but to the confines of the iruth. If we can
reason so accurately, and with such wonderful confirma
tion of our reasoning, respecting so-called material ob
jects and events infinitely removed beyond the range of
our natural vision, so that the mind hesitates to trust its
calculations even when they are confirmed by observa
tion, why may not our speculations penetrate as far into
the immaterial starry system, of which the former is but
the outward and visible type ? Surely, we are provided
with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the
real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to
penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroas
ter, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg, — these
are some of our astronomers.

There are perturbations in our orbits produced by the
influence of outlying spheres, and no astronomer has
ever yet calculated the elements of that undiscovered
world which produces them. I perceive in the common
train of my thoughts a natural and uninterrupted se
quence, each implying the next, or, if interruption oc
curs, it is occasioned by a new object being presented to
my senses. But a steep, and sudden, and by these means
unaccountable transition, is that from a comparatively
narrow and partial, what is called common sense view
of things, to an infinitely expanded and liberating one

408 A WEEK.

from seeing things as men describe them, to seeing them
as men cannot describe them. This implies a sense
which is not common, but rare in the wisest man's expe
rience ; which is sensible or sentient of more than com
mon.

In what enclosures does the astronomer loiter ! His
skies are shoal, and imagination, like a thirsty traveller,
pants to be through their desert. The roving mind
impatiently bursts the fetters of astronomical orbits, like
cobwebs in a corner of its universe, and launches itself
to where distance fails to follow, and law, such as science
has discovered, grows weak and weary. The mind
knows a distance and a space of which all those sums
combined do not make a unit of measure, — the interval
between that which appears, and that which is. I know
that there are many stars, I know that they are far
enough off, bright enough, steady enough in their orbits,
— but what are they all worth ? They are more waste
land in the West, — star territory, — to be made slave
States, perchance, if we colonize them. I have interest
but for six feet of star, and that interest is transient.
Then farewell to all ye bodies, such as I have known
ye.

Every man, if he is wise, will stand on such bottom
as will sustain him, and if one gravitates downward
more strongly than another, he will not venture on
those meads where the latter walks securely, but
rather leave the cranberries which grow there un-
raked by himself. Perchance, some spring a higher
freshet will float them within his reach, though they
may be watery and frost-bitten by that time. Such
shrivelled berries I have seen in many a poor man's

FRIDAY. 409

garret, ay, in many a church-bin and state-coffer, and
with a little water and heat they swell again to their
original size and fairness, and added sugar enough, stead
mankind for sauce to this world's dish.

What is called common sense is excellent in its de
partment, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity
in the army and navy, — for there must be subordina
tion, — but uncommon sense, that sense which is com
mon only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it
is more rare. Some aspire to excellence in the subordi
nate department, and may God speed them. What
Fuller says of masters of colleges is universally applica
ble, that " a little alloy of dulness in a master of a col
lege makes him fitter to manage secular affairs."

" He that wants faith, and apprehends a grief
Because he wants it, hath a true belief;
And he that grieves because his grief 's so small,
Has a true grief, and the best Faith of all."

Or be encouraged by this other poet's strain, —

" By them went Fido marshal of the field:

Weak was his mother when she gave him day;
And he at first a sick and weakly child,
As e'er with tears welcomed the sunny ray;
Yet when more years afford more growth and might,
A champion stout he was, and puissant knight,
As ever came in field, or shone in armor bright.

" Mountains he flings in seas with mighty hand;

Stops and turns back the sun's impetuous course,
Nature breaks Nature's laws at his command ;
No force of Hell or Heaven withstands his force;
Events to come yet many ages nence,
He present makes, by wondrous prescience;
Proving the senses blind by being blind to sense."

* Yesterday, at (lawn," says Hafiz, " God delivered me
18

410 A WEKK.

from all worldly affliction; and amidst the gloom of
night presented me with the water of immortality."

In the life of Sadi by Dowlat Shah occurs this sen
tence: "The eagle of the immaterial soul of Shaikh
Sadi shook from his plumage the dust of his body."

Thus thoughtfully we were rowing homeward to find
Some autumnal work to do, and help on the revolution
of the seasons. Perhaps Nature would condescend to
make use of us even without our knowledge, as when
we help to scatter her seeds in our walks, and carry
burrs and cockles on our clothes from field to field.

All things are current fonnd
On earthly ground,
Spirits and elements
Have their descents.

Night and day, year on year,
High and low, far and near,
These are our own aspects,
These are our own regrets.

Ye gods of the shore,
Who abide evermore,
I see your far headland,
Stretching on either hand ;

I hear the sweet evening sounds
From your undecaying grounds;
Cheat me no more with time,
Take me to your clime.

As it grew later in the afternoon, and we rowed leis
urely up the gentle stream, shut in between fragran
and blooming banks, where we had first pitched our
tent, and drew nearer to the fields where our lives had

FRIDAY. 411

passed, we seemed to detect the hues of our native sky
in the southwest horizon. The sun was just setting
behind the edge of a wooded hill, so rich a sunset as
would never have ended but for some reason unknown
to men, and to be marked with brighter colors than or
dinary in the scroll of time. Though the shadows of
the hills were beginning to steal over the stream, the
whole river valley undulated with mild light, purer and
more memorable than the noon. For so day bids fare
well even to solitary vales uninhabited by man. Two
herons, Ardea herodias, with their long and slender
limbs relieved against the sky, were seen travelling high
over our heads, — their lofty and silent flight, as they
were wending their way at evening, surely not to alight
in any marsh on the earth's surface, but, perchance, on
the other side of our atmosphere, a symbol for the ages
to study, whether impressed upon the sky, or sculptured
amid the hieroglyphics of Egypt. Bound to some north
ern meadow, they held on their stately, stationary flight,
like the storks in the picture, and disappeared at length
behind the clouds. Dense flocks of blackbirds were
winging their way along the river's course, as if on a
short evening pilgrimage to some shrine of theirs, or to
celebrate so fair a sunset.

" Therefore, as doth the pilgrim, whom the night

Hastes darkly to imprison on his way,
Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright
Of what 's yet left thee of life's wasting day:
Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born."

The sun-setting presumed all men at leisure, and in a
contemplative mood ; but the farmer's boy only whistled
the more thoughtfully as he drove his cows home from

412 A WEKK.

pasture, and the team&ter refrained from cracking his
whip, and guided his team with a subdued voice. The
last vestiges of daylight at length disappeared, and as
we rowed silently along with our backs toward home
through the darkness, only a few stars being visible, we
had little to say, but sat absorbed in thought, or in silence
listened to the monotonous sound of our oars, a sort of
rudimental music, suitable for the ear of Night and the
acoustics of her dimly lighted halls ;

" PulssB referunt ad sidera valles,"

and the valleys echoed the sound to the stars.

As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we
were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first
taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a
great benefit on mankind. It is recorded in the Chroni
cle of Bernaldez, that in Columbus's first voyage the
natives " pointed towards the heavens, making signs that
they believed that there was all power and holiness."
We have reason to be grateful for celestial phenomena,
for they chiefly answer to the ideal in man. The stars
are distant and unobtrusive, but bright and enduring as
our fairest and most memorable experiences. " Let the
immortal depth of your soul lead you, but earnestly ex
tend your eyes upwards."

As the truest society approaches always nearer to
solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into
Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and
in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound
when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced
her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds
aro her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not onlj

FRIDAY. 413

that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnest
ly to be sought after. They are so far akin to Silence,
that they are but bubbles on her surface, which straight
way burst, an evidence of the strength and prolificness
of the under-current ; a faint utterance of Silence, and
then only agreeable to our auditory nerves when they
contrast themselves with and relieve the former. In
proportion as they do this, and are heighteners and in-
tensifiers of the Silence, they are harmony and purest
melody.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull
discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every cha
grin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment ;
that background which the painter may not daub, be he
master or bungler, and which, however awkward a fig
ure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever
our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no
personality disturb us.

The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most
eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks,
and is a hearer along with his audience. Who has not
hearkened to Her infinite din ? She is Truth's speaking-
trumpet, the sole oracle, the true Delphi and Dodona,
which kings and courtiers would do well to consult, nor
will they be balked by an ambiguous answer. For
through Her all revelations have been made, and just
in proportion as men have consulted her oracle within,
they have obtained a clear insight, and their age has
been marked as an enlightened one. But as often as
they have gone gadding abroad to a strange Delphi and
her mad priestess, their age has been dark and leaden.
Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer
yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious

414 A WEKK.

era is ever sounding and resounding in the ears of
men.

A good book is the plectrum with which our else si
lent lyres are struck. We not unfrequently refer the
interest which belongs to our own unwritten sequel, to
the written and comparatively lifeless body of the work.
Of all books this sequel is the most indispensable part.
It should be the author's aim to say once and emphati
cally, " He said," €^, «. This is the most the book
maker can attain to. If he make his volume a mole
whereon the waves of Silence may break, it is well.

It were vain for me to endeavor to interrupt the Si
lence. She cannot be done into English. For six
thousand years men have translated her with what fidel
ity belonged to each, and still she is little better than a
sealed book. A man may run on confidently for a
time, thinking he has her under his thumb, and shall
one day exhaust her, but he too must at last be silent,
and men remark only how brave a beginning he made ;
for when he at length dives into her, so vast is the dis
proportion of the told to the untold, that the former will
Beem but the bubble on the surface where he disap
peared. Nevertheless, we will go on, like those Chinese
cliff swallows, feathering our nests with the froth, which
may one day be bread of life to such as dwell by the
sea-shore.

We had made about fifty miles this day with sail and
Dar, and now, far in the evening, our boat was grating
against the bulrushes of its native port, and its keel reo*
ognized the Concord mud, where some semblance of ita
outline was still preserved in the flattened flags which
had scarce yet erected themselves since our departure

FRIDAY. 415

and we leaped gladly on shore, drawing it up, and fas
tening it to the wild apple-tree, whose stem still bore
the mark which its chain had worn in the chafing of the
spring freshets.

14 DAY USE

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