April 26th.--Here is another misty day, muffling the sun. The
lilac-shrubs under my study window are almost in leaf. In two or three
days more, I may put forth my hand and pluck a green bough. These lilacs
appear to be very aged, and have lost the luxuriant foliage of their
prime. Old age has a singular aspect in lilacs, rose-bushes, and other
ornamental shrubs. It seems as if such things, as they grow only for
beauty, ought to flourish in immortal youth, or at least to die before
their decrepitude. They are trees of Paradise, and therefore not
naturally subject to decay; but have lost their birthright by being
transplanted hither. There is a kind of ludicrous unfitness in the idea
of a venerable rose-bush; and there is something analogous to this in
human life. Persons who can only be graceful and ornamental--who can
give the world nothing but flowers--should die young, and never be seen
with gray hairs and wrinkles, any more than the flower-shrubs with mossy
bark and scanty foliage, like the lilacs under my window. Not that
beauty is not worthy of immortality. Nothing else, indeed, is worthy of
it; and thence, perhaps, the sense of impropriety when we see it
triumphed over by time. Apple-trees, on the other hand, grow old without
reproach. Let them live as long as they may, and contort themselves in
whatever fashion they please, they are still respectable, even if they
afford us only an apple or two in a season, or none at all. Human
flower-shrubs, if they will grow old on earth, should, beside their
lovely blossoms, bear some kind of fruit that will satisfy earthly
appetites; else men will not be satisfied that the moss should gather on
them.
Winter and Spring are now struggling for the mastery in my study; and I
yield somewhat to each, and wholly to neither. The window is open, and
there is a fire in the stove. The day when the window is first thrown
open should be an epoch in the year; but I have forgotten to record it.
Seventy or eighty springs have visited this old house; and sixty of them
found old Dr. Ripley here,--not always old, it is true, but gradually
getting wrinkles and gray hairs, and looking more and more the picture of
winter. But he was no flower-shrub, but one of those fruit-trees or
timber-trees that acquire a grace with their old age. Last Spring found
this house solitary for the first time since it was built; and now again
she peeps into our open windows and finds new faces here. . . . .
It is remarkable how much uncleanness winter brings with it, or leaves
behind it. . . . . The yard, garden, and avenue, which should be my
department, require a great amount of labor. The avenue is strewed with
withered leaves,--the whole crop, apparently, of last year,--some of
which are now raked into heaps; and we intend to make a bonfire of
them. . . . . There are quantities of decayed branches, which one tempest
after another has flung down, black and rotten. In the garden are the
old cabbages which we did not think worth gathering last autumn, and the
dry bean-vines, and the withered stalks of the asparagus-bed; in short,
all the wrecks of the departed year,--its mouldering relics, its dry
bones. It is a pity that the world cannot be made over anew every
spring. Then, in the yard, there are the piles of firewood, which I
ought to have sawed and thrown into the shed long since, but which will
cumber the earth, I fear, till June, at least. Quantities of chips are
strewn about, and on removing them we find the yellow stalks of grass
sprouting underneath. Nature does her best to beautify this disarray.
The grass springs up most industriously, especially in sheltered and
sunny angles of the buildings, or round the doorsteps,--a locality which
seems particularly favorable to its growth; for it is already high enough
to bend over and wave in the wind. I was surprised to observe that some
weeds (especially a plant that stains the fingers with its yellow juice)
had lived, and retained their freshness and sap as perfectly as in
summer, through all the frosts and snows of last winter. I saw them, the
last green thing, in the autumn; and here they are again, the first in
the spring.
Thursday, April 27th.--I took a walk into the fields, and round our
opposite hill, yesterday noon, but made no very remarkable observation.
The frogs have begun their concerts, though not as yet with a full choir.
I found no violets nor anemones, nor anything in the likeness of a
flower, though I looked carefully along the shelter of the stone-walls,
and in all spots apparently propitious. I ascended the hill, and had a
wide prospect of a swollen river, extending around me in a semicircle of
three or four miles, and rendering the view much finer than in summer,
had there only been foliage. It seemed like the formation of a new
world; for islands were everywhere emerging, and capes extending forth
into the flood; and these tracts, which were thus won from the watery
empire, were among the greenest in the landscape. The moment the deluge
leaves them, Nature asserts them to be her property by covering them with
verdure; or perhaps the grass had been growing under the water. On the
hill-top where I stood, the grass had scarcely begun to sprout; and I
observed that even those places which looked greenest in the distance
were but scantily grass-covered when I actually reached them. It was
hope that painted them so bright.
Last evening we saw a bright light on the river, betokening that a boat's
party were engaged in spearing fish. It looked like a descended star,--
like red Mars,--and, as the water was perfectly smooth, its gleam was
reflected downward into the depths. It is a very picturesque sight. In
the deep quiet of the night I suddenly heard the light and lively note of
a bird from a neighboring tree,--a real song, such as those which greet
the purple dawn, or mingle with the yellow sunshine. What could the
little bird mean by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the note
gushed out from the midst of a dream, in which he fancied himself in
Paradise with his mate; and, suddenly awaking, he found he was on a cold,
leafless bough, with a New England mist penetrating through his feathers.
That was a sad exchange of imagination for reality; but if he found his
mate beside him, all was well.
This is another misty morning, ungenial in aspect, but kinder than it
looks; for it paints the hills and valleys with a richer brush than the
sunshine could. There is more verdure now than when I looked out of the
window an hour ago. The willow-tree opposite my study window is ready to
put forth its leaves. There are some objections to willows. It is not a
dry and cleanly tree; it impresses me with an association of sliminess;
and no trees, I think, are perfectly satisfactory, which have not a firm
and hard texture of trunk and branches. But the willow is almost the
earliest to put forth its leaves, and the last to scatter them on the
ground; and during the whole winter its yellow twigs give it a sunny
aspect, which is not without a cheering influence in a proper point of
view. Our old house would lose much were this willow to be cut down,
with its golden crown over the roof in winter, and its heap of summer
verdure. The present Mr. Ripley planted it, fifty years ago, or
thereabouts.
Friday, June 2d.--Last night there came a frost, which has done great
damage to my garden. The beans have suffered very much, although,
luckily, not more than half that I planted have come up. The squashes,
both summer and winter, appear to be almost killed. As to the other
vegetables, there is little mischief done,--the potatoes not being yet
above ground, except two or three; and the peas and corn are of a hardier
nature. It is sad that Nature will so sport with us poor mortals,
inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her; and then, when we are
entirely in her power, striking us to the heart. Our summer commences at
the latter end of June, and terminates somewhere about the first of
August. There are certainly not more than six weeks of the whole year
when a frost may be deemed anything remarkable.
Friday, June 23d.--Summer has come at last,--the longest days, with
blazing sunshine, and fervid heat. Yesterday glowed like molten brass.
Last night was the most uncomfortably and unsleepably sultry that we have
experienced since our residence in Concord; and to-day it scorches again.
I have a sort of enjoyment in these seven-times-heated furnaces of
midsummer, even though they make me droop like a thirsty plant. The
sunshine can scarcely be too burning for my taste; but I am no enemy to
summer showers. Could I only have the freedom to be perfectly idle now,
--no duty to fulfil, no mental or physical labor to perform,--I should be
as happy as a squash, and much in the same mode; but the necessity of
keeping my brain at work eats into my comfort, as the squash-bugs do into
the heart of the vines. I keep myself uneasy and produce little, and
almost nothing that is worth producing.
The garden looks well now: the potatoes flourish; the early corn waves in
the wind; the squashes, both for summer and winter use, are more forward,
I suspect, than those of any of my neighbors. I am forced, however, to
carry on a continual warfare with the squash-bugs, who, were I to let
them alone for a day, would perhaps quite destroy the prospects of the
whole summer. It is impossible not to feel angry with these
unconscionable insects, who scruple not to do such excessive mischief to
me, with only the profit of a meal or two to themselves. For their own
sakes they ought at least to wait till the squashes are better grown.
Why is it, I wonder, that Nature has provided such a host of enemies for
every useful esculent, while the weeds are suffered to grow unmolested,
and are provided with such tenacity of life, and such methods of
propagation, that the gardener must maintain a continual struggle or they
will hopelessly overwhelm him? What hidden virtue is in these things,
that it is granted them to sow themselves with the wind, and to grapple
the earth with this immitigable stubbornness, and to flourish in spite of
obstacles, and never to suffer blight beneath any sun or shade, but
always to mock their enemies with the same wicked luxuriance? It is
truly a mystery, and also a symbol. There is a sort of sacredness about
them. Perhaps, if we could penetrate Nature's secrets, we should find
that what we call weeds are more essential to the well-being of the world
than the most precious fruit or grain. This may be doubted, however, for
there is an unmistakable analogy between these wicked weeds and the bad
habits and sinful propensities which have overrun the moral world; and we
may as well imagine that there is good in one as in the other.
Our peas are in such forwardness that I should not wonder if we had some
of them on the table within a week. The beans have come up ill, and I
planted a fresh supply only the day before yesterday. We have
watermelons in good advancement, and muskmelons also within three or four
days. I set out some tomatoes last night, also some capers. It is my
purpose to plant some more corn at the end of the month, or sooner.
There ought to be a record of the flower-garden, and of the procession of
the wild-flowers, as minute, at least, as of the kitchen vegetables and
pot-herbs. Above all, the noting of the appearance of the first roses
should not be omitted; nor of the Arethusa, one of the delicatest,
gracefullest, and in every manner sweetest of the whole race of flowers.
For a fortnight past I have found it in the swampy meadows, growing up to
its chin in heaps of wet moss. Its hue is a delicate pink, of various
depths of shade, and somewhat in the form of a Grecian helmet. To
describe it is a feat beyond my power. Also the visit of two friends,
who may fitly enough be mentioned among flowers, ought to have been
described. Mrs. F. S------ and Miss A. S------. Also I have neglected
to mention the birth of a little white dove.
I never observed, until the present season, how long and late the
twilight lingers in these longest days. The orange line of the western
horizon remains till ten o'clock, at least, and how much later I am
unable to say. The night before last, I could distinguish letters by
this lingering gleam between nine and ten o'clock. The dawn, I suppose,
shows itself as early as two o'clock, so that the absolute dominion of
night has dwindled to almost nothing. There seems to be also a
diminished necessity, or, at all events, a much less possibility, of
sleep than at other periods of the year. I get scarcely any sound repose
just now. It is summer, and not winter, that steals away mortal life.
Well, we get the value of what is taken from us.
Saturday, July 1st.--We had our first dish of green peas (a very small
one) yesterday. Every day for the last week has been tremendously hot;
and our garden flourishes like Eden itself, only Adam could hardly have
been doomed to contend with such a ferocious banditti of weeds.
Sunday, July 9th.--I know not what to say, and yet cannot be satisfied
without marking with a word or two this anniversary. . . . . But life now
swells and heaves beneath me like a brim-full ocean; and the endeavor to
comprise any portion of it in words is like trying to dip up the ocean in
a goblet. . . . . God bless and keep us! for there is something more
awful in happiness than in sorrow,--the latter being earthly and finite,
the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that
spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.
July 18th.--This morning I gathered our first summer-squashes. We should
have had them some days earlier, but for the loss of two of the vines,
either by a disease of the roots or by those infernal bugs. We have had
turnips and carrots several times. Currants are now ripe, and we are in
the full enjoyment of cherries, which turn out much more delectable than
I anticipated. George Hillard and Mrs. Hillard paid us a visit on
Saturday last. On Monday afternoon he left us, and Mrs. Hillard still
remains here.
Friday, July 28th.--We had green corn for dinner yesterday, and shall
have some more to-day, not quite full grown, but sufficiently so to be
palatable. There has been no rain, except one moderate shower, for many
weeks; and the earth appears to be wasting away in a slow fever. This
weather, I think, affects the spirits very unfavorably. There is an
irksomeness, a restlessness, a pervading dissatisfaction, together with
an absolute incapacity to bend the mind to any serious effort. With me,
as regards literary production, the summer has been unprofitable; and I
only hope that my forces are recruiting themselves for the autumn and
winter. For the future, I shall endeavor to be so diligent nine months
of the year that I may allow myself a full and free vacation of the other
three.
Monday, July 31st.--We had our first cucumber yesterday. There were
symptoms of rain on Saturday, and the weather has since been as moist as
the thirstiest soul could desire.
Wednesday, September 13th.--There was a frost the night before last,
according to George Prescott; but no effects of it were visible in our
garden. Last night, however, there was another, which has nipped the
leaves of the winter-squashes and cucumbers, but seems to have done no
other damage. This is a beautiful morning, and promises to be one of
those heavenly days that render autumn, after all, the most delightful
season of the year. We mean to make a voyage on the river this
afternoon.
Sunday, September 23d.--I have gathered the two last of our
summer-squashes to-day. They have lasted ever since the 18th of July,
and have numbered fifty-eight edible ones, of excellent quality. Last
Wednesday, I think, I harvested our winter-squashes, sixty-three in
number, and mostly of fine size. Our last series of green corn, planted
about the 1st of July, was good for eating two or three days ago. We
still have beans; and our tomatoes, though backward, supply us with a
dish every day or two. My potato-crop promises well; and, on the whole,
my first independent experiment of agriculture is quite a successful one.
This is a glorious day,--bright, very warm, yet with an unspeakable
gentleness both in its warmth and brightness. On such days it is
impossible not to love Nature, for she evidently loves us. At other
seasons she does not give me this impression, or only at very rare
intervals; but in these happy, autumnal days, when she has perfected the
harvests, and accomplished every necessary thing that she had to do, she
overflows with a blessed superfluity of love. It is good to be alive
now. Thank God for breath,--yes, for mere breath! when it is made up of
such a heavenly breeze as this. It comes to the cheek with a real kiss;
it would linger fondly around us, if it might; but, since it must be
gone, it caresses us with its whole kindly heart, and passes onward, to
caress likewise the next thing that it meets. There is a pervading
blessing diffused over all the world. I look out of the window and
think, "O perfect day! O beautiful world! O good God!" And such a day
is the promise of a blissful eternity. Our Creator would never have made
such weather; and given us the deep heart to enjoy it, above and beyond
all thought, if he had not meant us to be immortal. It opens the gates
of heaven, and gives us glimpses far inward.
Bless me! this flight has carried me a great way; so now let me come back
to our old abbey. Our orchard is fast ripening; and the apples and great
thumping pears strew the grass in such abundance that it becomes almost a
trouble--though a pleasant one--to gather them. This happy breeze, too,
shakes them down, as if it flung fruit to us out of the sky; and often,
when the air is perfectly still, I hear the quiet fall of a great apple.
Well, we are rich in blessings, though poor in money. . . . .
Friday, October 6th.--Yesterday afternoon I took a solitary walk to
Walden Pond. It was a cool, windy day, with heavy clouds rolling and
tumbling about the sky, but still a prevalence of genial autumn sunshine.
The fields are still green, and the great masses of the woods have not
yet assumed their many-colored garments; but here and there are solitary
oaks of deep, substantial red, or maples of a more brilliant hue, or
chestnuts either yellow or of a tenderer green than in summer. Some
trees seem to return to their hue of May or early June before they put on
the brighter autumnal tints. In some places, along the borders of low
and moist land, a whole range of trees were clothed in the perfect
gorgeousness of autumn, of all shades of brilliant color, looking like
the palette on which Nature was arranging the tints wherewith to paint a
picture. These hues appeared to be thrown together without design; and
yet there was perfect harmony among them, and a softness and a delicacy
made up of a thousand different brightnesses. There is not, I think, so
much contrast among these colors as might at first appear. The more you
consider them, the more they seem to have one element among them all,
which is the reason that the most brilliant display of them soothes the
observer, instead of exciting him. And I know not whether it be more a
moral effect or a physical one, operating merely on the eye; but it is a
pensive gayety, which causes a sigh often, and never a smile. We never
fancy, for instance, that these gayly clad trees might be changed into
young damsels in holiday attire, and betake themselves to dancing on the
plain. If they were to undergo such a transformation, they would surely
arrange themselves in funeral procession, and go sadly along, with their
purple and scarlet and golden garments trailing over the withering grass.
When the sunshine falls upon them, they seem to smile; but it is as if
they were heart-broken. But it is in vain for me to attempt to describe
these autumnal brilliancies, or to convey the impression which they make
on me. I have tried a thousand times, and always without the slightest
self-satisfaction. Fortunately there is no need of such a record, for
Nature renews the picture year after year; and even when we shall have
passed away from the world, we can spiritually create these scenes, so
that we may dispense with all efforts to put them into words.
Walden Pond was clear and beautiful as usual. It tempted me to bathe;
and, though the water was thrillingly cold, it was like the thrill of a
happy death. Never was there such transparent water as this. I threw
sticks into it, and saw them float suspended on an almost invisible
medium. It seemed as if the pure air were beneath them, as well as
above. It is fit for baptisms; but one would not wish it to be polluted
by having sins washed into it. None but angels should bathe in it; but
blessed babies might be dipped into its bosom.
In a small and secluded dell that opens upon the most beautiful cove of
the whole lake, there is a little hamlet of huts or shanties, inhabited
by the Irish people who are at work upon the railroad. There are three
or four of these habitations, the very rudest, I should imagine, that
civilized men ever made for themselves,--constructed of rough boards,
with the protruding ends. Against some of them the earth is heaped up to
the roof, or nearly so; and when the grass has had time to sprout upon
them, they will look like small natural hillocks, or a species of
ant-hills,--something in which Nature has a larger share than man. These
huts are placed beneath the trees, oaks, walnuts, and white-pines,
wherever the trunks give them space to stand; and by thus adapting
themselves to natural interstices, instead of making new ones, they do
not break or disturb the solitude and seclusion of the place. Voices are
heard, and the shouts and laughter of children, who play about like the
sunbeams that come down through the branches. Women are washing in open
spaces, and long lines of whitened clothes are extended from tree to
tree, fluttering and gambolling in the breeze. A pig, in a sty even more
extemporary than the shanties, is grunting and poking his snout through
the clefts of his habitation. The household pots and kettles are seen at
the doors; and a glance within shows the rough benches that serve for
chairs, and the bed upon the floor. The visitor's nose takes note of the
fragrance of a pipe. And yet, with all these homely items, the repose
and sanctity of the old wood do not seem to be destroyed or profaned. It
overshadows these poor people, and assimilates them somehow or other to
the character of its natural inhabitants. Their presence did not shock
me any more than if I had merely discovered a squirrel's nest in a tree.
To be sure, it is a torment to see the great, high, ugly embankment of
the railroad, which is here thrusting itself into the lake, or along its
margin, in close vicinity to this picturesque little hamlet. I have
seldom seen anything more beautiful than the cove on the border of which
the huts are situated; and the more I looked, the lovelier it grew. The
trees overshadowed it deeply; but on one side there was some brilliant
shrubbery which seemed to light up the whole picture with the effect of a
sweet and melancholy smile. I felt as if spirits were there,--or as if
these shrubs had a spiritual life. In short, the impression was
indefinable; and, after gazing and musing a good while, I retraced my
steps through the Irish hamlet, and plodded on along a wood-path.
According to my invariable custom, I mistook my way, and, emerging upon
the road, I turned my back instead of my face towards Concord, and walked
on very diligently till a guide-board informed me of my mistake. I then
turned about, and was shortly overtaken by an old yeoman in a chaise, who
kindly offered me a drive, and soon set me down in the village.
[EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.]
Salem, April 14th, 1844.--. . . . I went to George Hillard's office, and
he spoke with immitigable resolution of the necessity of my going to dine
with Longfellow before returning to Concord; but I have an almost
miraculous power of escaping from necessities of this kind. Destiny
itself has often been worsted in the attempt to get me out to dinner.
Possibly, however, I may go. Afterwards I called on Colonel Hall, who
held me long in talk about politics and other sweetmeats. Then I
stepped into a book auction, not to buy, but merely to observe, and,
after a few moments, who should come in, with a smile as sweet as sugar
(though savoring rather of molasses), but, to my horror and petrifaction,
---- ------! I anticipated a great deal of bore and botheration; but,
through Heaven's mercy, he merely spoke a few words, and left me. This
is so unlike his deportment in times past, that I suspect "The Celestial
Railroad" must have given him a pique; and, if so, I shall feel as if
Providence had sufficiently rewarded me for that pious labor.
In the course of the forenoon I encountered Mr. Howes in the street. He
looked most exceedingly depressed, and, pressing my hand with peculiar
emphasis, said that he was in great affliction, having just heard of his
son George's death in Cuba. He seemed encompassed and overwhelmed by
this misfortune, and walks the street as in a heavy cloud of his own
grief, forth from which he extended his hand to meet my grasp. I
expressed my sympathy, which I told him I was now the more capable of
feeling in a father's suffering, as being myself the father of a little
girl,--and, indeed, the being a parent does give one the freedom of a
wider range of sorrow as well as of happiness. He again pressed my hand,
and left me. . . . .
When I got to Salem, there was great joy, as you may suppose. . . . .
Mother hinted an apprehension that poor baby would be spoilt, whereupon I
irreverently observed that, having spoiled her own three children, it was
natural for her to suppose that all other parents would do the same; when
she averred that it was impossible to spoil such children as E---- and I,
because she had never been able to do anything with us. . . . . I could
hardly convince them that Una had begun to smile so soon. It surprised
my mother, though her own children appear to have been bright specimens
of babyhood.
E---- could walk and talk at nine months old. I do not understand that I
was quite such a miracle of precocity, but should think it not
impossible, inasmuch as precocious boys are said to make stupid men.
May 27th, 1844.--. . . . My cook fills his office admirably. He prepared
what I must acknowledge to be the best dish of fried fish and potatoes
for dinner to-day that I ever tasted in this house. I scarcely
recognized the fish of our own river. I make him get all the dinners,
while I confine myself to the much lighter task of breakfast and tea. He
also takes his turn in washing the dishes.
We had a very pleasant dinner at Longfellow's, and I liked Mrs.
Longfellow very much. The dinner was late and we sat long; so that
C---- and I did not get to Concord till half past nine o'clock, and truly
the old Manse seemed somewhat dark and desolate. The next morning George
Prescott came with Una's Lion, who greeted me very affectionately, but
whined and moaned as if he missed somebody who should have been here. I
am not quite so strict as I should be in keeping him out of the house;
but I commiserate him and myself, for are we not both of us bereaved?
C----, whom I can no more keep from smoking than I could the kitchen
chimney, has just come into the study with a cigar, which might perfume
this letter and make you think it came from my own enormity, so I may as
well stop here.
