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diff --git a/1022-0.txt b/1022-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf818ff --- /dev/null +++ b/1022-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1153 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1022 *** + +WALKING + +by Henry David Thoreau + + + + +I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as +contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as +an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member +of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make +an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the +minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of +that. + +I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who +understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a +genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived +“from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and +asked charity, under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy +Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a +Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their +walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they +who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, +however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home, +which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular +home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of +successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be +the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is +no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while +sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the +first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is +a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth +and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels. + +It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, +nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our +expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old +hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our +steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the +spirit of undying adventure, never to return,—prepared to send back +our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are +ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife +and child and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid your +debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free +man; then you are ready for a walk. + +To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes +have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, +or rather an old, order—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or +Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. +The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems +now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker—not +the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of +Church and State and People. + +We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced this noble art; +though, to tell the truth, at least if their own assertions are to be +received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but +they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and +independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only +by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven +to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. +Ambulator nascitur, non fit. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can +remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years +ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half +an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined +themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make +to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a moment +as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they +were foresters and outlaws. + + “When he came to grene wode, + In a mery mornynge, + There he herde the notes small + Of byrdes mery syngynge. + + “It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn, + That I was last here; + Me lyste a lytell for to shote + At the donne dere.” + +I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend +four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering +through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from +all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, +or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics +and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all +the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them—as if the +legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon—I think that +they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago. + +I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some +rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh +hour, or four o’clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, +when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the +daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for,—I +confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing +of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to +shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and years +almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are of—sitting +there now at three o’clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o’clock +in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the three-o’clock-in-the-morning +courage, but it is nothing to the courage which can sit down cheerfully +at this hour in the afternoon over against one’s self whom you have +known all the morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound +by such strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say +between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, too late for the morning +papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a general +explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a legion of +antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four winds for an +airing—and so the evil cure itself. + +How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand +it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do not +stand it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon, we have been shaking +the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making haste +past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have such +an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that probably about +these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that I +appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself never +turns in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping watch over the +slumberers. + +No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do with +it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor +occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as the +evening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before +sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour. + +But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking +exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours—as +the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and +adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the +springs of life. Think of a man’s swinging dumb-bells for his health, +when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him! + +Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast +which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth’s servant +to show him her master’s study, she answered, “Here is his library, but +his study is out of doors.” + +Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a +certain roughness of character—will cause a thicker cuticle to grow over +some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and hands, +or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy +of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may produce a +softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accompanied by an +increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps we should be more +susceptible to some influences important to our intellectual and moral +growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown on us a little less; and +no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion rightly the thick and thin +skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will fall off fast enough—that +the natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which the night +bears to the day, the winter to the summer, thought to experience. There +will be so much the more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous +palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect +and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of +idleness. That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks +itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience. + +When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become +of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some sects +of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to +themselves, since they did not go to the woods. “They planted groves and +walks of Platanes,” where they took subdiales ambulationes in porticos +open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the +woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens +that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there +in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning +occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that +I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run +in my head and I am not where my body is—I am out of my senses. In my +walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the +woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, +and cannot help a shudder when I find myself so implicated even in what +are called good works—for this may sometimes happen. + +My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have +walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have +not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, +and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours’ walking +will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single +farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the +dominions of the king of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony +discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle +of ten miles’ radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the +threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite +familiar to you. + +Nowadays almost all man’s improvements, so called, as the building of +houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply +deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A people +who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand! I saw +the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the prairie, +and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his bounds, while +heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the angels +going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the midst of +paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the middle of a boggy +Stygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds without +a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven, and looking +nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor. + +I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing +at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road +except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then +the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are square miles +in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can see +civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works +are scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and +his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and +manufactures and agriculture even politics, the most alarming of them +all,—I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. +Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower highway yonder +leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveler thither. If you would go to +the political world, follow the great road,—follow that market-man, keep +his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to it; for it, too, +has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I pass from it as +from a bean field into the forest, and it is forgotten. In one half hour +I can walk off to some portion of the earth’s surface where a man does +not stand from one year’s end to another, and there, consequently, +politics are not, for they are but as the cigar smoke of a man. + +The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion of +the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads are +the arms and legs—a trivial or quadrivial place, the thoroughfare and +ordinary of travelers. The word is from the Latin villa which together +with via, a way, or more anciently ved and vella, Varro derives from +veho, to carry, because the villa is the place to and from which things +are carried. They who got their living by teaming were said vellaturam +facere. Hence, too, the Latin word _vilis_ and our _vile_; also _villain_. +This suggests what kind of degeneracy villagers are liable to. They +are wayworn by the travel that goes by and over them, without traveling +themselves. + +Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across +lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel +in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any +tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead. I am +a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The +landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not +make that use of my figure. I walk out into a nature such as the old +prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may +name it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, +nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer +amount of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, +that I have seen. + +However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as +if they led somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There +is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not go to Marlborough now, +methinks, unless that is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the +bolder to speak of it here, because I presume that there are one or two +such roads in every town. + + THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD. + + Where they once dug for money, + But never found any; + Where sometimes Martial Miles + Singly files, + And Elijah Wood, + I fear for no good: + No other man, + Save Elisha Dugan— + O man of wild habits, + Partridges and rabbits, + Who hast no cares + Only to set snares, + Who liv’st all alone, + Close to the bone; + And where life is sweetest + Constantly eatest. + When the spring stirs my blood + With the instinct to travel, + I can get enough gravel + On the Old Marlborough Road. + Nobody repairs it, + For nobody wears it; + It is a living way, + As the Christians say. + Not many there be + Who enter therein, + Only the guests of the + Irishman Quin. + What is it, what is it + But a direction out there, + And the bare possibility + Of going somewhere? + Great guide boards of stone, + But travelers none; + Cenotaphs of the towns + Named on their crowns. + It is worth going to see + Where you might be. + What king + Did the thing, + I am still wondering; + Set up how or when, + By what selectmen, + Gourgas or Lee, + Clark or Darby? + They’re a great endeavor + To be something forever; + Blank tablets of stone, + Where a traveler might groan, + And in one sentence + Grave all that is known + Which another might read, + In his extreme need. + I know one or two + Lines that would do, + Literature that might stand + All over the land, + Which a man could remember + Till next December, + And read again in the spring, + After the thawing. + If with fancy unfurled + You leave your abode, + You may go round the world + By the Old Marlborough Road. + +At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private +property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative +freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off +into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and +exclusive pleasure only,—when fences shall be multiplied, and man +traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road, +and walking over the surface of God’s earth shall be construed to mean +trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively +is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us +improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come. + +What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will +walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we +unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent +to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable +from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain +take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which +is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the +interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult +to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our +idea. + +When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will +bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, +I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and +inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow +or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to +settle—varies a few degrees, and does not always point due southwest, +it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always +settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to +me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. +The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a +parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been +thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in +which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round +irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for a +thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I +go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads +me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or +sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not +excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest +which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward +the setting sun, and there are no towns nor cities in it of enough +consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the +city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and +more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much +stress on this fact, if I did not believe that something like this is +the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and +not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that +mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed +the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of +Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging +from the moral and physical character of the first generation of +Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern +Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. “The world ends +there,” say they; “beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea.” It is +unmitigated East where they live. + +We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and +literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the +future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a +Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity +to forget the Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed +this time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before +it arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the +Pacific, which is three times as wide. + +I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of +singularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest walk +with the general movement of the race; but I know that something akin +to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds,—which, in some +instances, is known to have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them +to a general and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say some, +crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with its tail +raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with their dead,—that +something like the furor which affects the domestic cattle in the +spring, and which is referred to a worm in their tails,—affects both +nations and individuals, either perennially or from time to time. Not +a flock of wild geese cackles over our town, but it to some extent +unsettles the value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker, I +should probably take that disturbance into account. + + “Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, + And palmeres for to seken strange strondes.” + +Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a West +as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He appears +to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great +Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those +mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which +were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islands +and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear +to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and +poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset +sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those +fables? + +Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He +obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon. The herd of men +in those days scented fresh pastures from afar. + + “And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, + And now was dropped into the western bay; + At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue; + To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.” + +Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that +occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and varied in +its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as +this is? Michaux, who knew but part of them, says that “the species of +large trees are much more numerous in North America than in Europe; in +the United States there are more than one hundred and forty species that +exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirty that attain +this size.” Later botanists more than confirm his observations. Humboldt +came to America to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, +and he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the primitive forests of +the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which he has so +eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes +further—further than I am ready to follow him; yet not when he says: “As +the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is made for the +animal world, America is made for the man of the Old World.... The man +of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving the highlands of Asia, +he descends from station to station towards Europe. Each of his steps +is marked by a new civilization superior to the preceding, by a greater +power of development. Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore of +this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he knows not, and turns upon +his footprints for an instant.” When he has exhausted the rich soil of +Europe, and reinvigorated himself, “then recommences his adventurous +career westward as in the earliest ages.” So far Guyot. + +From this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the +Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The younger +Michaux, in his Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802, says that the +common inquiry in the newly settled West was, “‘From what part of +the world have you come?’ As if these vast and fertile regions would +naturally be the place of meeting and common country of all the +inhabitants of the globe.” + +To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, Ex oriente lux; ex occidente +FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit. + +Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a Governor-General of Canada, +tells us that “in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New +World, Nature has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has +painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she +used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of +America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, +the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter the +thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, +the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the +forests bigger, the plains broader.” This statement will do at least +to set against Buffon’s account of this part of the world and its +productions. + +Linnæus said long ago, “Nescio quæ facies læta, glabra plantis +Americanis” (I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect +of American plants); and I think that in this country there are no, or +at most very few, Africanæ bestiæ, African beasts, as the Romans called +them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for the +habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the center of +the East Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants are annually +carried off by tigers; but the traveler can lie down in the woods at +night almost anywhere in North America without fear of wild beasts. + +These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than +in Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America +appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these +facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry +and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, +the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, +and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I believe that +climate does thus react on man—as there is something in the mountain +air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater +perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? +Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust +that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, +fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky—our understanding more +comprehensive and broader, like our plains—our intellect generally on a +grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains +and forests,—and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth +and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will appear to the +traveler something, he knows not what, of læta and glabra, of joyous and +serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does the world go on, and +why was America discovered? + +To Americans I hardly need to say— + + “Westward the star of empire takes its way.” +As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise +was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this +country. + +Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though +we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize with the West. There +is the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took to +the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it +is more important to understand even the slang of today. + +Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like +a dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in +something more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans, and +repaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names were +music to my ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend. There +were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew only in +history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to +come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed +music as of crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under +the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic age, +and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry. + +Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked +my way up the river in the light of to-day, and saw the steamboats +wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of +Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as before +I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri and +heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona’s Cliff—still thinking more +of the future than of the past or present—I saw that this was a Rhine +stream of a different kind; that the foundations of castles were yet to +be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the river; +and I felt that this was the heroic age itself, though we know it not, +for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men. + +The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I +have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of +the World. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The +cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the +forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our +ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by +a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has +risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar +wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled +by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of +the northern forests who were. + +I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which +the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock spruce or arbor +vitæ in our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking +for strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the +marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course. +Some of our northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, +as well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers, as +long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march +on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the fire. This +is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughterhouse pork to make +a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure,—as +if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw. + +There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, +to which I would migrate—wild lands where no settler has squatted; to +which, methinks, I am already acclimated. + +The African hunter Cumming tells us that the skin of the eland, as well +as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most delicious +perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild +antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person +should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence, and remind us +of those parts of nature which he most haunts. I feel no disposition to +be satirical, when the trapper’s coat emits the odor of musquash even; +it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales from the +merchant’s or the scholar’s garments. When I go into their wardrobes and +handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains and flowery +meads which they have frequented, but of dusty merchants’ exchanges and +libraries rather. + +A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is +a fitter color than white for a man—a denizen of the woods. “The pale +white man!” I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the +naturalist says, “A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like +a plant bleached by the gardener’s art, compared with a fine, dark green +one, growing vigorously in the open fields.” + +Ben Jonson exclaims,— + + “How near to good is what is fair!” +So I would say,— + + “How near to good is what is wild!” + +Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet +subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward +incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made +infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country +or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be +climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest trees. + +Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not +in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, +formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had +contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted +solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog—a +natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. +I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native +town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no +richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda +(Cassandra calyculata) which cover these tender places on the earth’s +surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs +which grow there—the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, +azalea, and rhodora—all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often think +that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull red +bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce +and trim box, even graveled walks—to have this fertile spot under my +windows, not a few imported barrow-fuls of soil only to cover the sand +which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my +parlor, behind this plot, instead of behind that meager assemblage of +curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and art, which I call my +front yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a decent appearance +when the carpenter and mason have departed, though done as much for the +passer-by as the dweller within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was +never an agreeable object of study to me; the most elaborate ornaments, +acorn tops, or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills +up to the very edge of the swamp, then (though it may not be the best +place for a dry cellar,) so that there be no access on that side to +citizens. Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, +and you could go in the back way. + +Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to +dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human +art contrived, or else of a dismal swamp, I should certainly decide for +the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me! + +My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give +me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure air +and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveler +Burton says of it—“Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, +hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituous liquors +excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal +existence.” They who have been traveling long on the steppes of Tartary +say, “On reentering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and +turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to +fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia.” When +I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most +interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as +a sacred place,—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, +of Nature. The wild wood covers the virgin mould,—and the same soil is +good for men and for trees. A man’s health requires as many acres of +meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck. There are +the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is saved, not more by the +righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A +township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive +forest rots below—such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and +potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a +soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness +comes the reformer eating locusts and wild honey. + +To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for +them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years ago +they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very +aspect of those primitive and rugged trees there was, methinks, a +tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibers of men’s +thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days +of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good +thickness, and we no longer produce tar and turpentine. + +The civilized nations—Greece, Rome, England—have been sustained by the +primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive +as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is +to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and +it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There +the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the +philosopher comes down on his marrow bones. + +It is said to be the task of the American “to work the virgin soil,” and +that “agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown everywhere +else.” I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he +redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects +more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a single straight +line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp at whose +entrance might have been written the words which Dante read over the +entrance to the infernal regions,—“Leave all hope, ye that enter”—that +is, of ever getting out again; where at one time I saw my employer +actually up to his neck and swimming for his life in his property, +though it was still winter. He had another similar swamp which I +could not survey at all, because it was completely under water, and +nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, which I did survey from a +distance, he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not +part with it for any consideration, on account of the mud which it +contained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole +in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by the magic of his +spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class. + +The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, +which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the +sword and the lance, but the bushwhack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and +the bog hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with +the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian’s +cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not +the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench +himself in the land than a clam-shell. But the farmer is armed with plow +and spade. + +In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but +another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking +in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the scriptures and mythologies, not +learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift +and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild—the mallard—thought, which +’mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is +something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and +perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the west or +in the jungles of the east. Genius is a light which makes the darkness +visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters the temple +of knowledge itself—and not a taper lighted at the hearthstone of the +race, which pales before the light of common day. + +English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake +Poets—Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare +included—breathes no quite fresh and in this sense wild strain. It is an +essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. +Her wilderness is a green wood, her wild man a Robin Hood. There is +plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. Her +chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild man in +her, became extinct. + +The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The +poet today, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the +accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer. + +Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a +poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak +for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive +down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his +words as often as he used them—transplanted them to his page with earth +adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and natural +that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of +spring, though they lay half smothered between two musty leaves in a +library,—aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, +for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature. + +I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this +yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is +tame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or modern, +any account which contents me of that Nature with which even I am +acquainted. You will perceive that I demand something which no Augustan +nor Elizabethan age, which no culture, in short, can give. Mythology +comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, +at least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature! +Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was +exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight; +and which it still bears, wherever its pristine vigor is unabated. All +other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses; +but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as old as +mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the +decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives. + +The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The +valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine, having yielded their +crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, +the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. +Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become +a fiction of the past,—as it is to some extent a fiction of the +present,—the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology. + +The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they +may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among +Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends +itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis +as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are +reminiscent,—others merely sensible, as the phrase is,—others prophetic. +Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. The geologist +has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins, flying dragons, +and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have their prototypes in +the forms of fossil species which were extinct before man was created, +and hence “indicate a faint and shadowy knowledge of a previous state +of organic existence.” The Hindoos dreamed that the earth rested on an +elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent; +and though it may be an unimportant coincidence, it will not be out of +place here to state, that a fossil tortoise has lately been discovered +in Asia large enough to support an elephant. I confess that I am +partial to these wild fancies, which transcend the order of time and +development. They are the sublimest recreation of the intellect. The +partridge loves peas, but not those that go with her into the pot. + +In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in +a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the human +voice—take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for instance,—which +by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of the cries +emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so much of their +wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and neighbors wild +men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of +the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet. + +I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights—any +evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild habits and +vigor; as when my neighbor’s cow breaks out of her pasture early in the +spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, gray tide, twenty-five or +thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. It is the buffalo crossing +the Mississippi. This exploit confers some dignity on the herd in my +eyes—already dignified. The seeds of instinct are preserved under the +thick hides of cattle and horses, like seeds in the bowels of the earth, +an indefinite period. + +Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a +dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldy sport, +like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook their heads, raised their +tails, and rushed up and down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as +well as by their activity, their relation to the deer tribe. But, alas! +a sudden loud Whoa! would have damped their ardor at once, reduced them +from venison to beef, and stiffened their sides and sinews like the +locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried “Whoa!” to mankind? +Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of +locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, +is meeting the horse and the ox half way. Whatever part the whip has +touched is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a side of any of +the supple cat tribe, as we speak of a side of beef? + +I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be +made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats +still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. +Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; +and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited +disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures +broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main +alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. +If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well as +another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. Any man +can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so +rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says,—“The +skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the +skins of the dog and the sheep tanned.” But it is not the part of a true +culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and +tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use to which they can be +put. + +When looking over a list of men’s names in a foreign language, as +of military officers, or of authors who have written on a particular +subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The +name Menschikoff, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more human +than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles +and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. It is as if they had been +named by the child’s rigmarole—Iery-wiery ichery van, tittle-tol-tan. I +see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over the earth, and to +each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in his own dialect. +The names of men are, of course, as cheap and meaningless as Bose and +Tray, the names of dogs. + +Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named +merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to +know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. +We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman +army had a name of his own—because we have not supposed that he had a +character of his own. At present our only true names are nicknames. I +knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called “Buster” by +his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some +travellers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but +earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired +a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name +for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame. + +I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still +see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less +strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his +own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and +a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my +neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William or Edwin, takes it off +with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or in anger, or +aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some +of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or +else melodious tongue. + +Here is this vast, savage, hovering mother of ours, Nature, lying all +around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the +leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to +that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,—a sort +of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, +a civilization destined to have a speedy limit. + +In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a +certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are +already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the +meadows, and deepens the soil—not that which trusts to heating manures, +and improved implements and modes of culture only! + +Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, +both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very +late, he honestly slumbered a fool’s allowance. + +There may be an excess even of informing light. Niepce, a Frenchman, +discovered “actinism,” that power in the sun’s rays which produces a +chemical effect; that granite rocks, and stone structures, and statues +of metal “are all alike destructively acted upon during the hours of +sunshine, and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful, would +soon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtle of the agencies +of the universe.” But he observed that “those bodies which underwent +this change during the daylight possessed the power of restoring +themselves to their original conditions during the hours of night, +when this excitement was no longer influencing them.” Hence it has been +inferred that “the hours of darkness are as necessary to the inorganic +creation as we know night and sleep are to the organic kingdom.” Not +even does the moon shine every night, but gives place to darkness. + +I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more +than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, +but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an +immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the +annual decay of the vegetation which it supports. + +There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus +invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky +knowledge—Gramatica parda—tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived +from that same leopard to which I have referred. + +We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is +said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need +of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call +Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what +is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know +something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? +What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our +negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of +the newspapers—for what are the libraries of science but files of +newspapers—a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his memory, +and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into the +Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a horse and +leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say to the Society +for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,—Go to grass. You have +eaten hay long enough. The spring has come with its green crop. The very +cows are driven to their country pastures before the end of May; though +I have heard of one unnatural farmer who kept his cow in the barn and +fed her on hay all the year round. So, frequently, the Society for the +Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its cattle. + +A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful—while his +knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being +ugly. Which is the best man to deal with—he who knows nothing about a +subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he +who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all? + +My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe my head +in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest +that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. +I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more +definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the +insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before—a discovery that +there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our +philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot +know in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely +and with impunity in the face of the sun: ?? t? ????, ?? ?e???? +???se??,—“You will not perceive that, as perceiving a particular thing,” +say the Chaldean Oracles. + +There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we +may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, +but a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery +certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before +that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist—and with respect to +knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the liberty +to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the +law-maker. “That is active duty,” says the Vishnu Purana, “which is +not for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation: all +other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the +cleverness of an artist.” + +It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories, +how little exercised we have been in our minds, how few experiences we +have had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, +though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity—though it be with +struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would +be well if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this +trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others appear to have been +exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a kind of +culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate. +Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more +to live for, aye, and to die for, than they have commonly. + +When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is +walking on a railroad, then, indeed, the cars go by without his hearing +them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars +return. + + “Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen, + And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms, + Traveler of the windy glens, + Why hast thou left my ear so soon?” + +While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are +attracted strongly to Nature. In their relation to Nature men appear +to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than the +animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of the +animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there +is among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world Κόσμος +Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, and we +esteem it at best only a curious philological fact. + +For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border +life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and +transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state +into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. +Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a +will-o’-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor +firefly has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so vast +and universal that we have never seen one of her features. The walker in +the familiar fields which stretch around my native town sometimes finds +himself in another land than is described in their owners’ deeds, as it +were in some faraway field on the confines of the actual Concord, where +her jurisdiction ceases, and the idea which the word Concord suggests +ceases to be suggested. These farms which I have myself surveyed, these +bounds which I have set up, appear dimly still as through a mist; but +they have no chemistry to fix them; they fade from the surface of the +glass, and the picture which the painter painted stands out dimly from +beneath. The world with which we are commonly acquainted leaves no +trace, and it will have no anniversary. + +I took a walk on Spaulding’s Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting +sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden +rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I +was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining +family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, +unknown to me—to whom the sun was servant—who had not gone into society +in the village—who had not been called on. I saw their park, +their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding’s +cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. +Their house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it. I do +not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. +They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. +They are quite well. The farmer’s cart-path, which leads directly +through their hall, does not in the least put them out, as the muddy +bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. +They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their +neighbor,—notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team +through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Their +coat-of-arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. +Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. +There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving +or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done +away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,—as of a distant hive in +May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle +thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry +was not as in knots and excrescences embayed. + +But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out +of my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them, and +recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to +recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their +cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I should +move out of Concord. + +We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons visit +us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, +few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for +the grove in our minds is laid waste,—sold to feed unnecessary fires of +ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for them +to perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial +season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of the +mind, cast by the wings of some thought in its vernal or autumnal +migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of +the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry. They +no longer soar, and they attain only to a Shanghai and Cochin China +grandeur. Those gra-a-ate thoughts, those gra-a-ate men you hear of! + +We hug the earth—how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate +ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found my +account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top +of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for +I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen +before,—so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have walked +about the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I +certainly should never have seen them. But, above all, I discovered +around me,—it was near the end of June,—on the ends of the topmost +branches only, a few minute and delicate red conelike blossoms, +the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. I carried +straightway to the village the topmost spire, and showed it to stranger +jurymen who walked the streets,—for it was court week—and to farmers and +lumber-dealers and wood-choppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen +the like before, but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell +of ancient architects finishing their works on the tops of columns as +perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts! Nature has from +the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the +heavens, above men’s heads and unobserved by them. We see only the +flowers that are under our feet in the meadows. The pines have developed +their delicate blossoms on the highest twigs of the wood every summer +for ages, as well over the heads of Nature’s red children as of her +white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or hunter in the land has ever seen +them. + +Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed +over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering +the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard +within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us +that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of +thoughts. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. +There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,—the gospel +according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up early +and kept up early, and to be where he is, is to be in season, in the +foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and soundness +of Nature, a brag for all the world,—healthiness as of a spring burst +forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last instant of +time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who has not +betrayed his master many times since last he heard that note? + +The merit of this bird’s strain is in its freedom from all +plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, +but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in +doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on +a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a +cockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, “There is one of us well, +at any rate,”—and with a sudden gush return to my senses. + +We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a +meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before +setting, after a cold grey day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, +and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on +the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leaves of the +shrub-oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over the +meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such +a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also +was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of +that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, +never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever, an +infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child +that walked there, it was more glorious still. + +The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all +the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as it +has never set before,—where there is but a solitary marsh hawk to have +his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and +there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just +beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked +in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, +so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a +golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every +wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun +on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening. + +So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine +more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our +minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening +light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in Autumn. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1022 *** |