Saturday, October 9th.--Still dismal weather. Our household, being
composed in great measure of children and young people, is generally a
cheerful one enough, even in gloomy weather. For a week past we have
been especially gladdened with a little seamstress from Boston, about
seventeen years old; but of such a petite figure, that, at first view,
one would take her to be hardly in her teens. She is very vivacious and
smart, laughing and singing and talking all the time,--talking sensibly;
but still taking the view of matters that a city girl naturally would.
If she were larger than she is, and of less pleasing aspect, I think she
might be intolerable; but being so small, and with a fair skin, and as
healthy as a wild-flower, she is really very agreeable; and to look at
her face is like being shone upon by a ray of the sun. She never walks,
but bounds and dances along, and this motion, in her diminutive person,
does not give the idea of violence. It is like a bird, hopping from twig
to twig, and chirping merrily all the time. Sometimes she is rather
vulgar, but even that works well enough into her character, and accords
with it. On continued observation, one discovers that she is not a
little girl, but really a little woman, with all the prerogatives and
liabilities of a woman. This gives a new aspect to her, while the
girlish impression still remains, and is strangely combined with the
sense that this frolicsome maiden has the material for the sober bearing
of a wife. She romps with the boys, runs races with them in the yard,
and up and down the stairs, and is heard scolding laughingly at their
rough play. She asks William Allen to place her "on top of that horse,"
whereupon he puts his large brown hands about her waist, and, swinging
her to and fro, lifts her on horseback. William threatens to rivet two
horseshoes round her neck, for having clambered, with the other girls and
boys, upon a load of hay, whereby the said load lost its balance and slid
off the cart. She strings the seed-berries of roses together, making a
scarlet necklace of them, which she fastens about her throat. She
gathers flowers of everlasting to wear in her bonnet, arranging them with
the skill of a dress-maker. In the evening, she sits singing by the
hour, with the musical part of the establishment, often breaking into
laughter, whereto she is incited by the tricks of the boys. The last
thing one hears of her, she is tripping up stairs to bed, talking
lightsomely or warbling; and one meets her in the morning, the very image
of bright morn itself, smiling briskly at you, so that one takes her for
a promise of cheerfulness through the day. Be it said, with all the
rest, that there is a perfect maiden modesty in her deportment. She has
just gone away, and the last I saw of her was her vivacious face peeping
through the curtain of the cariole, and nodding a gay farewell to the
family, who were shouting their adieus at the door. With her other
merits, she is an excellent daughter, and supports her mother by the
labor of her hands. It would be difficult to conceive beforehand how
much can be added to the enjoyment of a household by mere sunniness of
temper and liveliness of disposition; for her intellect is very ordinary,
and she never says anything worth hearing, or even laughing at, in
itself. But she herself is an expression well worth studying.
Brook Farm, October 9th.--A walk this afternoon to Cow Island. The
clouds had broken away towards noon, and let forth a few sunbeams, and
more and more blue sky ventured to appear, till at last it was really
warm and sunny,--indeed, rather too warm in the sheltered hollows, though
it is delightful to be too warm now, after so much stormy chillness. O
the beauty of grassy slopes, and the hollow ways of paths winding between
hills, and the intervals between the road and wood-lots, where Summer
lingers and sits down, strewing dandelions of gold, and blue asters, as
her parting gifts and memorials! I went to a grapevine, which I have
already visited several times, and found some clusters of grapes still
remaining, and now perfectly ripe. Coming within view of the river, I
saw several wild ducks under the shadow of the opposite shore, which was
high, and covered with a grove of pines. I should not have discovered
the ducks had they not risen and skimmed the surface of the glassy
stream, breaking its dark water with a bright streak, and, sweeping
round, gradually rose high enough to fly away. I likewise started a
partridge just within the verge of the woods, and in another place a
large squirrel ran across the wood-path from one shelter of trees to the
other. Small birds, in flocks, were flitting about the fields, seeking
and finding I know not what sort of food. There were little fish, also,
darting in shoals through the pools and depths of the brooks, which are
now replenished to their brims, and rush towards the river with a swift,
amber-colored current.
Cow Island is not an island,--at least, at this season,--though, I
believe, in the time of freshets, the marshy Charles floods the meadows
all round about it, and extends across its communication with the
mainland. The path to it is a very secluded one, threading a wood of
pines, and just wide enough to admit the loads of meadow hay which are
drawn from the splashy shore of the river. The island has a growth of
stately pines, with tall and ponderous stems, standing at distance enough
to admit the eve to travel far among them; and, as there is no
underbrush, the effect is somewhat like looking among the pillars of a
church.
I returned home by the high-road. On my right, separated from the road
by a level field, perhaps fifty yards across, was a range of young
forest-trees, dressed in their garb of autumnal glory. The sun shone
directly upon them; and sunlight is like the breath of life to the pomp
of autumn. In its absence, one doubts whether there be any truth in what
poets have told about the splendor of an American autumn; but when this
charm is added, one feels that the effect is beyond description. As I
beheld it to-day, there was nothing dazzling; it was gentle and mild,
though brilliant and diversified, and had a most quiet and pensive
influence. And yet there were some trees that seemed really made of
sunshine, and others were of a sunny red, and the whole picture was
painted with but little relief of darksome lines, only a few evergreens.
But there was nothing inharmonious; and, on closer examination, it
appeared that all the tints had a relationship among themselves. And
this, I suppose, is the reason that, while nature seems to scatter them
so carelessly, they still never shock the beholder by their contrasts,
nor disturb, but only soothe. The brilliant scarlet and the brilliant
yellow are different lines of the maple-leaves, and the first changes
into the last. I saw one maple-tree, its centre yellow as gold, set in a
framework of red. The native poplars have different shades of green,
verging towards yellow, and are very cheerful in the sunshine. Most of
the oak-leaves have still the deep verdure of summer; but where a change
has taken place, it is into a russet-red, warm, but sober. These colors,
infinitely varied by the progress which different trees have made in
their decay, constitute almost the whole glory of autumnal woods; but it
is impossible to conceive how much is done with such scanty materials.
In my whole walk I saw only one man, and he was at a distance, in the
obscurity of the trees. He had a horse and a wagon, and was getting a
load of dry brushwood.
Sunday, October 10th.--I visited my grapevine this afternoon, and ate the
last of its clusters. This vine climbs around a young maple-tree, which
has now assumed the yellow leaf. The leaves of the vine are more decayed
than those of the maple. Thence to Cow Island, a solemn and thoughtful
walk. Returned by another path of the width of a wagon, passing through
a grove of hard wood, the lightsome hues of which make the walk more
cheerful than among the pines. The roots of oaks emerged from the soil,
and contorted themselves across the path. The sunlight, also, broke
across in spots, and otherwheres the shadow was deep; but still there was
intermingling enough of bright hues to keep off the gloom from the whole
path.
Brooks and pools have a peculiar aspect at this season. One knows that
the water must be cold, and one shivers a little at the sight of it; and
yet the grass about the pool may be of the deepest green, and the sun may
be shining into it. The withered leaves which overhanging trees shed
upon its surface contribute much to the effect.
Insects have mostly vanished in the fields and woods. I hear locusts
yet, singing in the sunny hours, and crickets have not yet finished their
song. Once in a while I see a caterpillar,--this afternoon, for
instance, a red, hairy one, with black head and tail. They do not appear
to be active, and it makes one rather melancholy to look at them.
Tuesday, October 12th.--The cawing of the crow resounds among the woods.
A sentinel is aware of your approach a great way off, and gives the alarm
to his comrades loudly and eagerly,--Caw, caw, caw! Immediately the
whole conclave replies, and you behold them rising above the trees,
flapping darkly, and winging their way to deeper solitudes. Sometimes,
however, they remain till you come near enough to discern their sable
gravity of aspect, each occupying a separate bough, or perhaps the
blasted tip-top of a pine. As you approach, one after another, with loud
cawing, flaps his wings and throws himself upon the air.
There is hardly a more striking feature in the landscape nowadays than
the red patches of blueberry and whortleberry bushes, as seen on a
sloping hillside, like islands among the grass, with trees growing in
them; or crowning the summit of a bare, brown hill with their somewhat
russet liveliness; or circling round the base of an earth-imbedded rock.
At a distance, this hue, clothing spots and patches of the earth, looks
more like a picture than anything else,--yet such a picture as I never
saw painted.
The oaks are now beginning to look sere, and their leaves have withered
borders. It is pleasant to notice the wide circle of greener grass
beneath the circumference of an overshadowing oak. Passing an orchard,
one hears an uneasy rustling in the trees, and not as if they were
struggling with the wind. Scattered about are barrels to contain the
gathered apples; and perhaps a great heap of golden or scarlet apples is
collected in one place.
Wednesday, October 13th.--A good view, from an upland swell of our
pasture, across the valley of the river Charles. There is the meadow, as
level as a floor, and carpeted with green, perhaps two miles from the
rising ground on this side of the river to that on the opposite side.
The stream winds through the midst of the flat space, without any banks
at all; for it fills its bed almost to the brim, and bathes the meadow
grass on either side. A tuft of shrubbery, at broken intervals, is
scattered along its border; and thus it meanders sluggishly along,
without other life than what it gains from gleaming in the sun. Now,
into the broad, smooth meadow, as into a lake, capes and headlands put
themselves forth, and shores of firm woodland border it, covered with
variegated foliage, making the contrast so much the stronger of their
height and rough outline with the even spread of the plain. And beyond,
and far away, rises a long, gradual swell of country, covered with an
apparently dense growth of foliage for miles, till the horizon terminates
it; and here and there is a house, or perhaps two, among the contiguity
of trees. Everywhere the trees wear their autumnal dress, so that the
whole landscape is red, russet, orange, and yellow, blending in the
distance into a rich tint of brown-orange, or nearly that,--except the
green expanse so definitely hemmed in by the higher ground.
I took a long walk this morning, going first nearly to Newton, thence
nearly to Brighton, thence to Jamaica Plain, and thence home. It was a
fine morning, with a northwest-wind; cool when facing the wind, but warm
and most genially pleasant in sheltered spots; and warm enough everywhere
while I was in motion. I traversed most of the by-ways which offered
themselves to me; and, passing through one in which there was a double
line of grass between the wheel-tracks and that of the horses' feet, I
came to where had once stood a farm-house, which appeared to have been
recently torn down. Most of the old timber and boards had been carted
away; a pile of it, however, remained. The cellar of the house was
uncovered, and beside it stood the base and middle height of the chimney.
The oven, in which household bread had been baked for daily food, and
puddings and cake and jolly pumpkin-pies for festivals, opened its month,
being deprived of its iron door. The fireplace was close at hand. All
round the site of the house was a pleasant, sunny, green space, with old
fruit-trees in pretty fair condition, though aged. There was a barn,
also aged, but in decent repair; and a ruinous shed, on the corner of
which was nailed a boy's windmill, where it had probably been turning and
clattering for years together, till now it was black with time and
weather-stain. It was broken, but still it went round whenever the wind
stirred. The spot was entirely secluded, there being no other house
within a mile or two.
No language can give an idea of the beauty and glory of the trees, just
at this moment. It would be easy, by a process of word-daubing, to set
down a confused group of gorgeous colors, like a bunch of tangled skeins
of bright silk; but there is nothing of the reality in the glare which
would thus be produced. And yet the splendor both of individual clusters
and of whole scenes is unsurpassable. The oaks are now far advanced in
their change of hue; and, in certain positions relatively to the sun,
they light up and gleam with a most magnificent deep gold, varying
according as portions of the foliage are in shadow or sunlight. On the
sides which receive the direct rays, the effect is altogether rich; and
in other points of view it is equally beautiful, if less brilliant. This
color of the oak is more superb than the lighter yellow of the maples and
walnuts. The whole landscape is now covered with this indescribable
pomp; it is discerned on the uplands afar off; and Blue Hill in Milton,
at the distance of several miles, actually glistens with rich, dark
light,--no, not glistens, nor gleams,--but perhaps to say glows subduedly
will be a truer expression for it.
Met few people this morning; a grown girl, in company with a little boy,
gathering barberries in a secluded lane; a portly, autumnal gentleman,
wrapped in a greatcoat, who asked the way to Mr. Joseph Goddard's; and a
fish-cart from the city, the driver of which sounded his horn along the
lonesome way.
Monday, October 18th.--There has been a succession of days which were
cold and bright in the forenoon, and gray, sullen, and chill towards
night. The woods have now taken a soberer tint than they wore at my last
date. Many of the shrubs which looked brightest a little while ago are
now wholly bare of leaves. The oaks have generally a russet-brown shade,
although some of them are still green, as are likewise other scattered
trees in the forests. The bright yellow and the rich scarlet are no more
to be seen. Scarcely any of them will now bear a close examination; for
this shows them to be rugged, wilted, and of faded, frost-bitten hue; but
at a distance, and in the mass, and enlivened by the sun, they have still
somewhat of the varied splendor which distinguished them a week ago. It
is wonderful what a difference the sunshine makes; it is like varnish,
bringing out the hidden veins in a piece of rich wood. In the cold, gray
atmosphere, such as that of most of our afternoons now, the landscape
lies dark,--brown, and in a much deeper shadow than if it were clothed in
green. But, perchance, a gleam of sun falls on a certain spot of distant
shrubbery or woodland, and we see it brighten with many lines, standing
forth prominently from the dimness around it. The sunlight gradually
spreads, and the whole sombre scene is changed to a motley picture,--the
sun bringing out many shades of color, and converting its gloom to an
almost laughing cheerfulness. At such times I almost doubt whether the
foliage has lost any of its brilliancy. But the clouds intercept the sun
again, and lo! old Autumn appears, clad in his cloak of russet-brown.
Beautiful now, while the general landscape lies in shadow, looks the
summit of a distant hill (say a mile off), with the sunshine brightening
the trees that cover it. It is noticeable that the outlines of hills,
and the whole bulk of them at the distance of several miles, become
stronger, denser, and more substantial in this autumn atmosphere and in
these autumnal tints than in summer. Then they looked blue, misty, and
dim. Now they show their great humpbacks more plainly, as if they had
drawn nearer to us.
A waste of shrubbery and small trees, such as overruns the borders of the
meadows for miles together, looks much more rugged, wild, and savage in
its present brown color than when clad in green.
I passed through a very pleasant wood-path yesterday, quite shut in and
sheltered by trees that had not thrown off their yellow robes. The sun
shone strongly in among them, and quite kindled them; so that the path
was brighter for their shade than if it had been quite exposed to the
sun.
In the village graveyard, which lies contiguous to the street, I saw a
man digging a grave, and one inhabitant after another turned aside from
his way to look into the grave and talk with the digger. I heard him
laugh, with the traditionary mirthfulness of men of that occupation.
In the hollow of the woods, yesterday afternoon, I lay a long while
watching a squirrel, who was capering about among the trees over my head
(oaks and white-pines, so close together that their branches
intermingled). The squirrel seemed not to approve of my presence,
for he frequently uttered a sharp, quick, angry noise, like that of a
scissors-grinder's wheel. Sometimes I could see him sitting on an
impending bough, with his tail over his hack, looking down pryingly upon
me. It seems to be a natural posture with him, to sit on his hind legs,
holding up his fore paws. Anon, with a peculiarly quick start, he would
scramble along the branch, and be lost to sight in another part of the
tree, whence his shrill chatter would again be heard. Then I would see
him rapidly descending the trunk, and running along the ground; and a
moment afterwards, casting my eye upward, I beheld him flitting like a
bird among the high limbs at the summit, directly above me. Afterwards,
he apparently became accustomed to my society, and set about some
business of his own. He came down to the ground, took up a piece of a
decayed bough (a heavy burden for such a small personage), and, with this
in his mouth, again climbed up and passed from the branches of one tree
to those of another, and thus onward and onward till he went out of
sight. Shortly afterwards he returned for another burden, and this he
repeated several times. I suppose he was building a nest,--at least, I
know not what else could have been his object. Never was there such an
active, cheerful, choleric, continually-in-motion fellow as this little
red squirrel, talking to himself, chattering at me, and as sociable in
his own person as if he had half a dozen companions, instead of being
alone in the lonesome wood. Indeed, he flitted about so quickly, and
showed himself in different places so suddenly, that I was in some doubt
whether there were not two or three of them.
I must mention again the very beautiful effect produced by the masses of
berry-bushes, lying like scarlet islands in the midst of withered
pasture-ground, or crowning the tops of barren hills. Their hue, at a
distance, is lustrous scarlet, although it does not look nearly as bright
and gorgeous when examined close at hand. But at a proper distance it is
a beautiful fringe on Autumn's petticoat.
Friday, October 22d.--A continued succession of unpleasant, Novembery
days, and autumn has made rapid progress in the work of decay. It is now
somewhat of a rare good fortune to find a verdant, grassy spot, on some
slope, or in a dell; and even such seldom-seen oases are bestrewn with
dried brown leaves,--which, however, methinks, make the short, fresh
grass look greener around them. Dry leaves are now plentiful everywhere,
save where there are none but pine-trees. They rustle beneath the tread,
and there is nothing more autumnal than that sound. Nevertheless, in a
walk this afternoon, I have seen two oaks which retained almost the
greenness of summer. They grew close to the huge Pulpit Rock, so that
portions of their trunks appeared to grasp the rough surface; and they
were rooted beneath it, and, ascending high into the air, overshadowed
the gray crag with verdure. Other oaks, here and there, have a few green
leaves or boughs among their rustling and rugged shade.
Yet, dreary as the woods are in a bleak, sullen day, there is a very
peculiar sense of warmth and a sort of richness of effect in the slope of
a bank and in sheltered spots, where bright sunshine falls, and the brown
oaken foliage is gladdened by it. There is then a feeling of comfort,
and consequently of heart-warmth, which cannot be experienced in summer.
I walked this afternoon along a pleasant wood-path, gently winding, so
that but little of it could be seen at a time, and going up and down
small mounds, now plunging into a denser shadow and now emerging
from it. Part of the way it was strewn with the dusky, yellow leaves of
white-pines,--the cast-off garments of last year; part of the way with
green grass, close-cropped, and very fresh for the season. Sometimes the
trees met across it; sometimes it was bordered on one side by an old
rail-fence of moss-grown cedar, with bushes sprouting beneath it, and
thrusting their branches through it; sometimes by a stone-wall of unknown
antiquity, older than the wood it closed in. A stone-wall, when
shrubbery has grown around it, and thrust its roots beneath it, becomes a
very pleasant and meditative object. It does not belong too evidently to
man, having been built so long ago. It seems a part of nature.
Yesterday I found two mushrooms in the woods, probably of the preceding
night's growth. Also I saw a mosquito, frost-pinched, and so wretched
that I felt avenged for all the injuries which his tribe inflicted upon
me last summer, and so did not molest this lone survivor.
Walnuts in their green rinds are falling from the trees, and so are
chestnut-burrs.
I found a maple-leaf to-day, yellow all over, except its extremest point,
which was bright scarlet. It looked as if a drop of blood were hanging
from it. The first change of the maple-leaf is to scarlet; the next, to
yellow. Then it withers, wilts, and drops off, as most of them have
already done.
October 27th.--Fringed gentians,--I found the last, probably, that will
be seen this year, growing on the margin of the brook.
1842.--Some man of powerful character to command a person, morally
subjected to him, to perform some act. The commanding person suddenly to
die; and, for all the rest of his life, the subjected one continues to
perform that act.
"Solomon dies during the building of the temple, but his body remains
leaning on a staff, and overlooking the workmen, as if it were alive."
A tri-weekly paper, to be called the Tertian Ague.
Subject for a picture,--Satan's reappearance in Pandemonium, shining out
from a mist, with "shape star-bright."
Five points of Theology,--Five Points at New York.
It seems a greater pity that an accomplished worker with the hand should
perish prematurely, than a person of great intellect; because
intellectual arts may be cultivated in the next world, but not physical
ones.
To trace out the influence of a frightful and disgraceful crime in
debasing and destroying a character naturally high and noble, the guilty
person being alone conscious of the crime.
A man, virtuous in his general conduct, but committing habitually some
monstrous crime,--as murder,--and doing this without the sense of guilt,
but with a peaceful conscience,--habit, probably, reconciling him to it;
but something (for instance, discovery) occurs to make him sensible of
his enormity. His horror then.
The strangeness, if they could be foreseen and forethought, of events
which do not seem so strange after they have happened. As, for instance,
to muse over a child's cradle, and foresee all the persons in different
parts of the world with whom he would have relations.
A man to swallow a small snake,--and it to be a symbol of a cherished
sin.
Questions as to unsettled points of history, and mysteries of nature, to
be asked of a mesmerized person.
