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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9221-0.txt b/9221-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b4bc96 --- /dev/null +++ b/9221-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1346 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Old Manse, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Old Manse + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: September 6, 2003 [eBook #9221] +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Widger and Al Haines + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MANSE *** + + + + +The Old Manse + +by Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + + +The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode. + +Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having +fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front +of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash +trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the +venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned from that gateway +towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track leading to the +door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown +with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows and +an old white horse who had his own living to pick up along the +roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between the door +of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium, +seen through which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to +the material world. Certainly it had little in common with those +ordinary abodes which stand so imminent upon the road that every +passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, into the domestic circle. +From these quiet windows the figures of passing travellers looked too +remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In its near retirement +and accessible seclusion, it was the very spot for the residence of a +clergyman,—a man not estranged from human life, yet enveloped, in the +midst of it, with a veil woven of intermingled gloom and brightness. It +was worthy to have been one of the time-honored parsonages of England, +in which, through many generations, a succession of holy occupants pass +from youth to age, and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to +pervade the house and hover over it as with an atmosphere. + +Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant +until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A +priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men +from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers +had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to reflect +how many sermons must have been written there. The latest inhabitant +alone—he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was left +vacant—had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the better, +if not the greater, number that gushed living from his lips. How often, +no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, attuning his +meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and deep and solemn peals +of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that variety of +natural utterances he could find something accordant with every passage +of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential fear. The boughs +over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts, as well as with +rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been so long a +writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom would descend +upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that I should light +upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well worth those hoards +of long-hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses. +Profound treatises of morality; a layman’s unprofessional, and +therefore unprejudiced, views of religion; histories (such as Bancroft +might have written had he taken up his abode here, as he once purposed) +bright with picture, gleaming over a depth of philosophic +thought,—these were the works that might fitly have flowed from such a +retirement. In the humblest event, I resolved at least to achieve a +novel that should evolve some deep lesson, and should possess physical +substance enough to stand alone. + +In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not +fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful +little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a +scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an +inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and +Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When I +first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the smoke of +unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan +ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad +angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so +sternly with the Devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been +imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful +coat of paint and golden-tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small +apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree that swept against the +overhanging eaves atempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of +the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael’s +Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The +only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and +a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no means +choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my +way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed. + +The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of +glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side looked, +or rather peeped, between the willow branches, down into the orchard, +with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third, facing +northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot where its +hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was +at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in the Manse stood +watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two +nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther +side of the river, and the glittering line of the British on the hither +bank. He awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of the musketry. +It came; and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle-smoke +around this quiet house. + +Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the +Old Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of +sight-showing,—perhaps he will choose to take a nearer view of the +memorable spot. We stand now on the river’s brink. It may well be +called the Concord,—the river of peace and quietness; for it is +certainly the most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered +imperceptibly towards its eternity,—the sea. Positively I had lived +three weeks beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception which +way the current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a +northwestern breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the +incurable indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of +becoming the slave of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a +wild, free mountain torrent. While all things else are compelled to +subserve some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life away in lazy +liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or affording even +water-power enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. The +torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so +much as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. +It slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow grass, and +bathes the overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and willows, or the roots +of elms and ash-trees and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes grow along +its plashy shore; the yellow water-lily spreads its broad, flat leaves +on the margin; and the fragrant white pond-lily abounds, generally +selecting a position just so far from the river’s brink that it cannot +be grasped save at the hazard of plunging in. + +It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and +perfume, springing as it does from the black mud over which the river +sleeps, and where lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the +mud-turtle, whom continual washing cannot cleanse. It is the very same +black mud out of which the yellow lily sucks its obscene life and +noisome odor. Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons +assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances +which supply good and beautiful results—the fragrance of celestial +flowers—to the daily life of others. + +The reader must not, from any testimony of mine, contract a dislike +towards our slumberous stream. In the light of a calm and golden sunset +it becomes lovely beyond expression; the more lovely for the quietude +that so well accords with the hour, when even the wind, after +blustering all day long, usually hushes itself to rest. Each tree and +rock and every blade of grass is distinctly imaged, and, however +unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the reflection. The +minutest things of earth and the broad aspect of the firmament are +pictured equally without effort and with the same felicity of success. +All the sky glows downward at our feet; the rich clouds float through +the unruffled bosom of the stream like heavenly thoughts through a +peaceful heart. We will not, then, malign our river as gross and impure +while it can glorify itself with so adequate a picture of the heaven +that broods above it; or, if we remember its tawny hue and the +muddiness of its bed, let it be a symbol that the earthiest human soul +has an infinite spiritual capacity and may contain the better world +within its depths. But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out of +any mud-puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught us +everywhere, it must be true. + +Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious track in our walk to the +battle-ground. Here we are, at the point where the river was crossed by +the old bridge, the possession of which was the immediate object of the +contest. On the hither side grow two or three elms, throwing a wide +circumference of shade, but which must have been planted at some period +within the threescore years and ten that have passed since the +battle-day. On the farther shore, overhung by a clump of elder-bushes, +we discern the stone abutment of the bridge. Looking down into the +river, I once discovered some heavy fragments of the timbers, all green +with half a century’s growth of water-moss; for during that length of +time the tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased along this +ancient highway. The stream has here about the breadth of twenty +strokes of a swimmer’s arm,—a space not too wide when the bullets were +whistling across. Old people who dwell hereabouts will point out, the +very spots on the western bank where our countrymen fell down and died; +and on this side of the river an obelisk of granite has grown up from +the soil that was fertilized with British blood. The monument, not more +than twenty feet in height, is such as it befitted the inhabitants of a +village to erect in illustration of a matter of local interest rather +than what was suitable to commemorate an epoch of national history. +Still, by the fathers of the village this famous deed was done; and +their descendants might rightfully claim the privilege of building a +memorial. + +A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interesting one than the +granite obelisk, may be seen close under the stone wall which separates +the battle-ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is the +grave,—marked by a small, mossgrown fragment of stone at the head and +another at the foot,—the grave of two British soldiers who were slain +in the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully where Zechariah +Brown and Thomas Davis buried them. Soon was their warfare ended; a +weary night-march from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry across the +river, and then these many years of rest. In the long procession of +slain invaders who passed into eternity from the battle-fields of the +Revolution, these two nameless soldiers led the way. + +Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over this grave, told me a +tradition in reference to one of the inhabitants below. The story has +something deeply impressive, though its circumstances cannot altogether +be reconciled with probability. A youth in the service of the clergyman +happened to be chopping wood, that April morning, at the back door of +the Manse; and when the noise of battle rang from side to side of the +bridge, he hastened across the intervening field to see what might be +going forward. It is rather strange, by the way, that this lad should +have been so diligently at work when the whole population of town and +country were startled out of their customary business by the advance of +the British troops. Be that as it might, the tradition, says that the +lad now left his task and hurried to the battle-field with the axe +still in his hand. The British had by this time retreated; the +Americans were in pursuit; and the late scene of strife was thus +deserted by both parties. Two soldiers lay on the ground,—one was a +corpse; but, as the young New-Englander drew nigh, the other Briton +raised himself painfully upon his hands and knees and gave a ghastly +stare into his face. The boy,—it must have been a nervous impulse, +without purpose, without thought, and betokening a sensitive and +impressible nature rather than a hardened one,—the boy uplifted his axe +and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow upon the head. + +I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know +whether either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his +skull. The story comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an +intellectual and moral exercise, I have sought to follow that poor +youth through his subsequent career and observe how his soul was +tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been before the long +custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity and while it still +seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has borne +more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight. + +Many strangers come in the summer-time to view the battle-ground. For +my own part, I have never found my imagination much excited by this or +any other scene of historic celebrity; nor would the placid margin of +the river have lost any of its charm for me, had men never fought and +died there. There is a wilder interest in the tract of land-perhaps a +hundred yards in breadth—which extends between the battle-field and the +northern face of our Old Manse, with its contiguous avenue and orchard. +Here, in some unknown age, before the white man came, stood an Indian +village, convenient to the river, whence its inhabitants must have +drawn so large a part of their substance. The site is identified by the +spear and arrow-heads, the chisels, and other implements of war, labor, +and the chase, which the plough turns up from the soil. You see a +splinter of stone, half hidden beneath a sod; it looks like nothing +worthy of note; but, if you have faith enough to pick it up, behold a +relic! Thoreau, who has a strange faculty of finding what the Indians +have left behind them, first set me on the search; and I afterwards +enriched myself with some very perfect specimens, so rudely wrought +that it seemed almost as if chance had fashioned them. Their great +charm consists in this rudeness and in the individuality of each +article, so different from the productions of civilized machinery, +which shapes everything on one pattern. There is exquisite delight, +too, in picking up for one’s self an arrow-head that was dropped +centuries ago and has never been handled since, and which we thus +receive directly from the hand of the red hunter, who purposed to shoot +it at his game or at an enemy. Such an incident builds up again the +Indian village and its encircling forest, and recalls to life the +painted chiefs and warriors, the squaws at their household toil, and +the children sporting among the wigwams, while the little wind-rocked +pappose swings from the branch of a tree. It can hardly be told whether +it is a joy or a pain, after such a momentary vision, to gaze around in +the broad daylight of reality and see stone fences, white houses, +potato-fields, and men doggedly hoeing in their shirt-sleeves and +homespun pantaloons. But this is nonsense. The Old Manse is better than +a thousand wigwams. + +The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return thither +through the orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, in the +decline of his life, when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed man +for planting trees from which he could have no prospect of gathering +fruit. Even had that been the case, there was only so much the better +motive for planting them, in the pure and unselfish hope of benefiting +his successors,—an end so seldom achieved by more ambitious efforts. +But the old minister, before reaching his patriarchal age of ninety, +ate the apples from this orchard during many years, and added silver +and gold to his annual stipend by disposing of the superfluity. It is +pleasant to think of him walking among the trees in the quiet +afternoons of early autumn and picking up here and there a windfall, +while he observes how heavily the branches are weighed down, and +computes the number of empty flour-barrels that will be filled by their +burden. He loved each tree, doubtless, as if it had been his own child. +An orchard has a relation to mankind, and readily connects itself with +matters of the heart. The trees possess a domestic character; they have +lost the wild nature of their forest kindred, and have grown humanized +by receiving the care of man as well as by contributing to his wants. +There, is so much individuality of character, too, among apple trees, +that it gives them all additional claim to be the objects of human +interest. One is harsh and crabbed in its manifestations; another gives +us fruit as mild as charity. One is churlish and illiberal, evidently +grudging the few apples that it bears; another exhausts itself in +free-hearted benevolence. The variety of grotesque shapes into which +apple, trees contort themselves has its effect on those who get +acquainted with them: they stretch out their crooked branches, and take +such hold of the imagination, that we remember them as humorists and +odd fellows. And what is more melancholy than the old apple-trees that +linger about the spot where once stood a homestead, but where there is +now only a ruined chimney rising out of a grassy and weed-grown cellar? +They offer their fruit to every wayfarer,—apples that are bitter sweet +with the moral of Time’s vicissitude. + +I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world as that of +finding myself, with only the two or three mouths which it was my +privilege to feed, the sole inheritor of the old clergyman’s wealth of +fruits. Throughout the summer there were cherries and currants; and +then came Autumn, with his immense burden of apples, dropping them +continually from his over-laden shoulders as he trudged along. In the +stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great apple was +audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of +perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down +bushels upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach-trees, which, in a good +year, tormented me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor, +without labor and perplexity, to be given away. The idea of an infinite +generosity and exhaustless bounty on the part of our Mother Nature was +well worth obtaining through such cares as these. That feeling can be +enjoyed in perfection only by the natives of summer islands, where the +bread-fruit, the cocoa, the palm, and the orange grow spontaneously and +hold forth the ever-ready meal; but likewise almost as well by a man +long habituated to city life, who plunges into such a solitude as that +of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of trees that he did not +plant, and which therefore, to my heterodox taste, bear the closest +resemblance to those that grew in Eden. It has been an apothegm these +five thousand years, that toil sweetens the bread it earns. For my part +(speaking from hard experience, acquired while belaboring the rugged +furrows of Brook Farm), I relish best the free gifts of Providence. + +Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate +a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as is +never found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they +would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,—be +it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless +weed,—should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy +to maturity altogether by their own care. If there be not too many of +them, each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest. My +garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the +right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. +But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in +deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody +could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of +creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to +observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early +peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. +Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted by the blossoms of +a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me, those little +spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of my +nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the yellow +blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep satisfaction; +although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, they flew away to +some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in requital of what my +garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon +the passing breeze with the certainty that somebody must profit by it +and that there would be a little more honey in the world to allay the +sourness and bitterness which mankind is always complaining of. Yes, +indeed; my life was the sweeter for that honey. + +Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and +varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, +shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a +sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything +more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my eyes +at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever +Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity of +gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most +delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes +gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for +containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate. + +But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my +toil in the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, in +observing the growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the first +little bulb, with the withered blossom adhering to it, until they lay +strewn upon the soil, big, round fellows, hiding their heads beneath +the leaves, but turning up their great yellow rotundities to the +noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my agency something worth +living for had been done. A new substance was born into the world. They +were real and tangible existences, which the mind could seize hold of +and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,—especially the early Dutch cabbage, +which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart +often bursts asunder,—is a matter to be proud of when we can claim a +share with the earth and sky in producing it. But, after all, the +hugest pleasure is reserved until these vegetable children of ours are +smoking on the table, and we, like Saturn, make a meal of them. + +What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard, and the garden, the +reader begins to despair of finding his way back into the Old Manse. +But, in agreeable weather, it is the truest hospitality to keep him out +of doors. I never grew quite acquainted with my habitation till a long +spell of sulky rain had confined me beneath its roof. There could not +be a more sombre aspect of external nature than as then seen from the +windows of my study. The great willow-tree had caught and retained +among its leaves a whole cataract of water, to be shaken down at +intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long, and for a week +together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and splash-splash-splashing +from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into the tubs beneath the +spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house and outbuildings were +black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient growth upon the walls +looked green and fresh, as if they were the newest things and +afterthought of Time. The usually mirrored surface of the river was +blurred by an infinity of raindrops; the whole landscape had a +completely water-soaked appearance, conveying the impression that the +earth was wet through like a sponge; while the summit of a wooded hill, +about a mile distant, was enveloped in a dense mist, where the demon of +the tempest seemed to have his abiding-place and to be plotting still +direr inclemencies. + +Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the fiercest +beat of sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes the +wayfarer to shady nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot penetrate; +but she provides no shelter against her storms. It makes us shiver to +think of those deep, umbrageous recesses, those overshadowing banks, +where we found such enjoyment during the sultry afternoons. Not a twig +of foliage there but would dash a little shower into our faces. Looking +reproachfully towards the impenetrable sky,—if sky there be above that +dismal uniformity of cloud,—we are apt to murmur against the whole +system of the universe, since it involves the extinction of so many +summer days in so short a life by the hissing and spluttering rain. In +such spells of weather,—and it is to be supposed such weather +came,—Eve’s bower in paradise must have been but a cheerless and aguish +kind of shelter, nowise comparable to the old parsonage, which had +resources of its own to beguile the week’s imprisonment. The idea of +sleeping on a couch of wet roses! + +Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret, +stored, like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has +left behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an +arched hall, dimly illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was +but a twilight at the best; and there were nooks, or rather caverns, of +deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too +reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly hewn +and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of the +chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect unlike +what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. But on one +side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore the +traditionary title of the Saint’s Chamber, because holy men in their +youth had slept, and studied, and prayed there. With its elevated +retirement, its one window, its small fireplace, and its closet +convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a young man might +inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish saintly dreams. The +occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and ejaculations +inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered and shrivelled +roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the forcibly wrought +picture of a clergyman, in wig, band, and gown, holding a Bible in his +hand. As I turned his face towards the light, he eyed me with an air of +authority such as men of his profession seldom assume in our days. The +original had been pastor of the parish more than a century ago, a +friend of Whitefield, and almost his equal in fervid eloquence. I bowed +before the effigy of the dignified divine, and felt as if I had now met +face to face with the ghost by whom, as there was reason to apprehend, +the Manse was haunted. + +Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with +spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our ghost used +to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, and sometimes +rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in the long upper +entry,—where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite of the bright +moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not improbably he +wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest full of +manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while Hillard and +other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came a +rustling noise as of a minister’s silk gown, sweeping through the very +midst of the company, so closely as almost to brush against the chairs. +Still there was nothing visible. A yet stranger business was that of a +ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the kitchen at deepest +midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, ironing,—performing, in short, all +kinds of domestic labor,—although no traces of anything accomplished +could be detected the next morning. Some neglected duty of her +servitude, some ill-starched ministerial band, disturbed the poor +damsel in her grave and kept her at work without any wages. + +But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor’s library +was stored in the garret,—no unfit receptacle indeed for such dreary +trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books would +have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable garret, +however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their literary +value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down through a +series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan +divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded ink on +some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations or +interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible +shorthand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. The +world will never be the better for it. A few of the books were Latin +folios, written by Catholic authors; others demolished Papistry, as +with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the Book of +Job—which only Job himself could have had patience to read—filled at +least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at the rate of two or three +volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body of divinity,—too +corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the spiritual +element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two hundred years +or more, and were generally bound in black leather, exhibiting +precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books of +enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to be carried +in the large waistcoat pockets of old times,—diminutive, but as black +as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly interfused with Greek and +Latin quotations. These little old volumes impressed me as if they had +been intended for very large ones, but had been unfortunately blighted +at an early stage of their growth. + +The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty +garret-windows while I burrowed among these venerable books in search +of any living thought which should burn like a coal of fire or glow +like an inextinguishable gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long +hidden it. But I found no such treasure; all was dead alike; and I +could not but muse deeply and wonderingly upon the humiliating fact +that the works of man’s intellect decay like those of his hands. +Thought grows mouldy. What was good and nourishing food for the spirits +of one generation affords no sustenance for the next. Books of +religion, however, cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring and +vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so seldom +really touch upon their ostensible subject, and have, therefore, so +little business to be written at all. So long as an unlettered soul can +attain to saving grace there would seem to be no deadly error in +holding theological libraries to be accumulations of, for the most +part, stupendous impertinence. + +Many of the books had accrued in the latter years of the last +clergyman’s lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest than +the elder works a century hence to any curious inquirer who should then +rummage then as I was doing now. Volumes of the Liberal Preacher and +Christian Examiner, occasional sermons, controversial pamphlets, +tracts, and other productions of a like fugitive nature, took the place +of the thick and heavy volumes of past time. In a physical point of +view, there was much the same difference as between a feather and a +lump of lead; but, intellectually regarded, the specific gravity of old +and new was about upon a par. Both also were alike frigid. The elder +books nevertheless seemed to have been earnestly written, and might be +conceived to have possessed warmth at some former period; although, +with the lapse of time, the heated masses had cooled down even to the +freezing-point. The frigidity of the modern productions, on the other +hand, was characteristic and inherent, and evidently had little to do +with the writer’s qualities of mind and heart. In fine, of this whole +dusty heap of literature I tossed aside all the sacred part, and felt +myself none the less a Christian for eschewing it. There appeared no +hope of either mounting to the better world on a Gothic staircase of +ancient folios or of flying thither on the wings of a modern tract. + +Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap except what had been written +for the passing day and year, without the remotest pretension or idea +of permanence. There were a few old newspapers, and still older +almanacs, which reproduced to my mental eye the epochs when they had +issued from the press with a distinctness that was altogether +unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic looking-glass +among the books with the images of a vanished century in them. I turned +my eyes towards the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked of the +austere divine wherefore it was that he and his brethren, after the +most painful rummaging and groping into their minds, had been able to +produce nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers and +almanac-makers had thrown off in the effervescence of a moment. The +portrait responded not; so I sought an answer for myself. It is the age +itself that writes newspapers and almanacs, which therefore have a +distinct purpose and meaning at the time, and a kind of intelligible +truth for all times; whereas most other works—being written by men who, +in the very act, set themselves apart from their age—are likely to +possess little significance when new, and none at all when old. Genius, +indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, +yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral +writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or +perchance of a hundred centuries. + +Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there yet lingers with me +a superstitious reverence for literature of all kinds. A bound volume +has a charm in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript possess for +the good Mussulman. He imagines that those wind-wafted records are +perhaps hallowed by some sacred verse; and I, that every new book or +antique one may contain the “open sesame,”—the spell to disclose +treasures hidden in some unsuspected cave of Truth. Thus it was not +without sadness that I turned away from the library of the Old Manse. + +Blessed was the sunshine when it came again at the close of another +stormy day, beaming from the edge of the western horizon; while the +massive firmament of clouds threw down all the gloom it could, but +served only to kindle the golden light into a more brilliant glow by +the strongly contrasted shadows. Heaven smiled at the earth, so long +unseen, from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow for the hill-tops and +the woodpaths. + +Or it might be that Ellery Charming came up the avenue to join me in a +fishing excursion on the river. Strange and happy times were those when +we cast aside all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes and +delivered ourselves up to the free air, to live like the Indians or any +less conventional race during one bright semicircle of the sun. Rowing +our boat against the current, between wide meadows, we turned aside +into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for a mile above its +junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth, nowhere, indeed, +except to lave the interior regions of a poet’s imagination. It is +sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside; so that elsewhere +there might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a ripple across the +shaded water. The current lingers along so gently that the mere force +of the boatman’s will seems sufficient to propel his craft against it. +It comes flowing softly through the midmost privacy and deepest heart +of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; while the stream whispers back +again from its sedgy borders, as if river and wood were hushing one +another to sleep. Yes; the river sleeps along its course and dreams of +the sky and of the clustering foliage, amid which fall showers of +broken sunlight, imparting specks of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast +with the quiet depth of the prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the +slumbering river has a dream-picture in its bosom. Which, after all, +was the most real,—the picture, or the original?—the objects palpable +to our grosser senses, or their apotheosis in the stream beneath? +Surely the disembodied images stand in closer relation to the soul. But +both the original and the reflection had here an ideal charm; and, had +it been a thought more wild, I could have fancied that this river had +strayed forth out of the rich scenery of my companion’s inner world; +only the vegetation along its banks should then have had an Oriental +character. + +Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem +hardly satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the very +verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At one spot +there is a lofty bank, on the slope of which grow some hemlocks, +declining across the stream with outstretched arms, as if resolute to +take the plunge. In other places the banks are almost on a level with +the water; so that the quiet congregation of trees set their feet in +the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the surface. +Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate the dark +nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows abundantly along the +margin,—that delicious flower which, as Thoreau tells me, opens its +virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being through the +magic of that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them unfolding in due +succession as the sunrise stole gradually from flower to flower,—a +sight not to be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his inward eye to +a proper focus with the outward organ. Grapevines here and there twine +themselves around shrub and tree and hang their clusters over the water +within reach of the boatman’s hand. Oftentimes they unite two trees of +alien race in an inextricable twine, marrying the hemlock and the maple +against their will and enriching them with a purple offspring of which +neither is the parent. One of these ambitious parasites has climbed +into the upper branches of a tall white-pine, and is still ascending +from bough to bough, unsatisfied till it shall crown the tree’s airy +summit with a wreath of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes. + +The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind +us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth +to depth, and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy kingfisher +flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a distance, +uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had been floating +there since the preceding eve were startled at our approach and skimmed +along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface with a bright streak. +The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads. The turtle, sunning itself +upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid suddenly into the water with +a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled his canoe along the Assabeth +three hundred years ago could hardly have seen a wilder gentleness +displayed upon its banks and reflected in its bosom than we did. Nor +could the same Indian have prepared his noontide meal with more +simplicity. We drew up our skiff at some point where the overarching +shade formed a natural bower, and there kindled a fire with the pine +cones and decayed branches that lay strewn plentifully around. Soon the +smoke ascended among the trees, impregnated with a savory incense, not +heavy, dull, and surfeiting, like the steam of cookery within doors, +but sprightly and piquant. The smell of our feast was akin to the +woodland odors with which it mingled: there was no sacrilege committed +by our intrusion there: the sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted +us free leave to cook and eat in the recess that was at once our +kitchen and banqueting-hall. It is strange what humble offices may be +performed in a beautiful scene without destroying its poetry. Our fire, +red gleaming among the trees, and we beside it, busied with culinary +rites and spreading out our meal on a mossgrown log, all seemed in +unison with the river gliding by and the foliage rustling over us. And, +what was strangest, neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety +of the solemn woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness and +the will-of-the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have +come trooping to share our table-talk and have added their shrill +laughter to our merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the +extremest nonsense or the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product +of the mind which partakes of both, and may become one or the other, in +correspondence with the faith and insight of the auditor. + +So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up +gushed our talk like the babble of a fountain. The evanescent spray was +Ellery’s; and his, too, the lumps of golden thought that lay glimmering +in the fountain’s bed and brightened both our faces by the reflection. +Could he have drawn out that virgin gold, and stamped it with the +mint-mark that alone gives currency, the world might have had the +profit, and he the fame. My mind was the richer merely by the knowledge +that it was there. But the chief profit of those wild days, to him and +me, lay not in any definite idea, not in any angular or rounded truth, +which we dug out of the shapeless mass of problematical stuff, but in +the freedom which we thereby won from all custom and conventionalism +and fettering influences of man on man. We were so free to-day that it +was impossible to be slaves again to-morrow. When we crossed the +threshold of the house or trod the thronged pavements of a city, still +the leaves of the trees that overhang the Assabeth were whispering to +us, “Be free! be free!” Therefore along that shady river-bank there are +spots, marked with a heap of ashes and half-consumed brands, only less +sacred in my remembrance than the hearth of a household fire. + +And yet how sweet, as we floated homeward adown the golden river at +sunset,—how sweet was it to return within the system of human society, +not as to a dungeon and a chain, but as to a stately edifice, whence we +could go forth at will into state—her simplicity! How gently, too, did +the sight of the Old Manse, best seen from the river, overshadowed with +its willow and all environed about with the foliage of its orchard and +avenue,—how gently did its gray, homely aspect rebuke the speculative +extravagances of the day! It had grown sacred in connection with the +artificial life against which we inveighed; it had been a home for many +years, in spite of all; it was my home too; and, with these thoughts, +it seemed to me that all the artifice and conventionalism of life was +but an impalpable thinness upon its surface, and that the depth below +was none the worse for it. Once, as we turned our boat to the bank, +there was a cloud, in the shape of an immensely gigantic figure of a +hound, couched above the house, as if keeping guard over it. Gazing at +this symbol, I prayed that the upper influences might long protect the +institutions that had grown out of the heart of mankind. + +If ever my readers should decide to give up civilized life, cities, +houses, and whatever moral or material enormities in addition to these +the perverted ingenuity of our race has contrived, let it be in the +early autumn. Then Nature will love him better than at any other +season, and will take him to her bosom with a more motherly tenderness. +I could scarcely endure the roof of the old house above me in those +first autumnal days. How early in the summer, too, the prophecy of +autumn comes! Earlier in some years than in others; sometimes even in +the first weeks of July. There is no other feeling like what is caused +by this faint, doubtful, yet real perception—if it be not rather a +foreboding—of the year’s decay, so blessedly sweet and sad in the same +breath. + +Did I say that there was no feeling like it? Ah, but there is a +half-acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the +perfected vigor of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his +flowers, and that the next work of his never-idle fingers must be to +steal them one by one away. + +I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket be not as early a +token of autumn’s approach as any other,—that song which may be called +an audible stillness; for though very loud and heard afar, yet the mind +does not take note of it as a sound, so completely is its individual +existence merged among the accompanying characteristics of the season. +Alas for the pleasant summertime! In August the grass is still verdant +on the hills and in the valleys; the foliage of the trees is as dense +as ever and as green; the flowers gleam forth in richer abundance along +the margin of the river and by the stone walls and deep among the +woods; the days, too, are as fervid now as they were a month ago; and +yet in every breath of wind and in every beam of sunshine we hear the +whispered farewell and behold the parting smile of a dear friend. There +is a coolness amid all the heat, a mildness in the blazing noon. Not a +breeze can stir but it thrills us with the breath of autumn. A pensive +glory is seen in the far, golden gleams, among the shadows of the +trees. The flowers—even the brightest of them, and they are the most +gorgeous of the year—have this gentle sadness wedded to their pomp, and +typify the character of the delicious time each within itself. The +brilliant cardinal-flower has never seemed gay to me. + +Still later in the season Nature’s tenderness waxes stronger. It is +impossible not to be fond of our mother now; for she is so fond of us! +At other periods she does not make this impression on me, or only at +rare intervals; but in those genial days of autumn, when she has +perfected her harvests and accomplished every needful thing that was +given her to do, then she overflows with a blessed superfluity of love. +She has leisure to caress her children now. It is good to be alive and +at such times. Thank Heaven for breath—yes, for mere breath—when it is +made up of a heavenly breeze like this! It comes with a real kiss upon +our cheeks; it would linger fondly around us if it might; but, since it +must be gone, it embraces us with its whole kindly heart and passes +onward to embrace likewise the next thing that it meets. A blessing is +flung abroad and scattered far and wide over the earth, to be gathered +up by all who choose. I recline upon the still unwithered grass and +whisper to myself, “O perfect day! O beautiful world! O beneficent +God!” And it is the promise of a blessed eternity; for our Creator +would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep +hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were +meant to be immortal. This sunshine is the golden pledge thereof. It +beams through the gates of paradise and shows us glimpses far inward. + +By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear +austerity. On some October morning there is a heavy hoarfrost on the +grass and along the tops of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall +from the trees of our avenue, without a breath of wind, quietly +descending by their own weight. All summer long they have murmured like +the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while the branches were +wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both glad and +solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced +to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they can only +rustle under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins to assume a +larger importance, and draws to its fireside,—for the abomination of +the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,—draws closer and +closer to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had gone wandering +about through the summer. + +When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a +hermitage. Not that ever—in my time at least—it had been thronged with +company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out of the +dusty glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with him the +transparent obscurity that was floating over us. In one respect our +precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through which the pilgrim +travelled on his way to the Celestial City. The guests, each and all, +felt a slumberous influence upon them; they fell asleep in chairs, or +took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen stretched among +the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily through the boughs. +They could not have paid a more acceptable compliment to my abode nor +to my own qualities as a host. I held it as a proof that they left +their cares behind them as they passed between the stone gate-posts at +the entrance of our avenue, and that the so powerful opiate was the +abundance of peace and quiet within and all around us. Others could +give them pleasure and amusement or instruction,—these could be picked +up anywhere; but it was for me to give them rest,—rest in a life of +trouble. What better could be done for those weary and world-worn +spirits?—for him whose career of perpetual action was impeded and +harassed by the rarest of his powers and the richest of his +acquirements?—for another who had thrown his ardent heart from earliest +youth into the strife of politics, and now, perchance, began to suspect +that one lifetime is too brief for the accomplishment of any lofty +aim?—for her oil whose feminine nature had been imposed the heavy gift +of intellectual power, such as a strong man might have staggered under, +and with it the necessity to act upon the world?—in a word, not to +multiply instances, what better could be done for anybody who came +within our magic circle than to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit +over him? And when it had wrought its full effect, then we dismissed +him, with but misty reminiscences, as if he had been dreaming of us. + +Were I to adopt a pet idea as so many people do, and fondle it in my +embraces to the exclusion of all others, it would be, that the great +want which mankind labors under at this present period is sleep. The +world should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and +take an age-long nap. It has gone distracted through a morbid activity, +and, while preternaturally wide awake, is nevertheless tormented by +visions that seem real to it now, but would assume their true aspect +and character were all things once set right by an interval of sound +repose. This is the only method of getting rid of old delusions and +avoiding new ones; of regenerating our race, so that it might in due +time awake as an infant out of dewy slumber; of restoring to us the +simple perception of what is right and the single-hearted desire to +achieve it, both of which have long been lost in consequence of this +weary activity of brain and torpor or passion of the heart that now +afflict the universe. Stimulants, the only mode of treatment hitherto +attempted, cannot quell the disease; they do but heighten the delirium. + +Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted against the author; for, +though tinctured with its modicum of truth, it is the result and +expression of what he knew, while he was writing, to be but a distorted +survey of the state and prospects of mankind. There were circumstances +around me which made it difficult to view the world precisely as it +exists; for, severe and sober as was the Old Manse, it was necessary to +go but a little way beyond its threshold before meeting with stranger +moral shapes of men than might have been encountered elsewhere in a +circuit of a thousand miles. + +These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were attracted thither by the +widespreading influence of a great original thinker, who had his +earthly abode at the opposite extremity of our village. His mind acted +upon other minds of a certain constitution with wonderful magnetism, +and drew many men upon long pilgrimages to speak with him face to face. +Young visionaries—to whom just so much of insight had been imparted as +to make life all a labyrinth around them—came to seek the clew that +should guide them out of their self-involved bewilderment. Gray-headed +theorists—whose systems, at first air, had finally imprisoned them in +an iron framework—travelled painfully to his door, not to ask +deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into their own thraldom. +People that had lighted on a new thought or a thought that they fancied +new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem hastens to a +lapidary, to ascertain its quality and value. Uncertain, troubled, +earnest wanderers through the midnight of the moral world beheld his +intellectual fire as a beacon burning on a hill-top, and, climbing the +difficult ascent, looked forth into the surrounding obscurity more +hopefully than hitherto. The light revealed objects unseen +before,—mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses of a creation among the +chaos; but also, as was unavoidable, it attracted bats and owls and the +whole host of night birds, which flapped their dusky wings against the +gazer’s eyes, and sometimes were mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. +Such delusions always hover nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth is +kindled. + +For myself, there bad been epochs of my life when I, too, might have +asked of this prophet the master word that should solve me the riddle +of the universe; but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no +question to be put, and therefore admired Emerson as a poet, of deep +beauty and austere tenderness, but sought nothing from him as a +philosopher. It was good, nevertheless, to meet him in the woodpaths, +or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual gleam diffused +about his presence like the garment of a shining one; and be, so quiet, +so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man alive as if +expecting to receive more than he could impart. And, in truth, the +heart of many an ordinary man had, perchance, inscriptions which he +could not read. But it was impossible to dwell in his vicinity without +inhaling more or less the mountain atmosphere of his lofty thought, +which, in the brains of some people, wrought a singular giddiness,—new +truth being as heady as new wine. Never was a poor little country +village infested with such a variety of queer, strangely dressed, oddly +behaved mortals, most of whom took upon themselves to be important +agents of the world’s destiny, yet were simply bores of a very intense +water. Such, I imagine, is the invariable character of persons who +crowd so closely about an original thinker as to draw in his unuttered +breath and thus become imbued with a false originality. This triteness +of novelty is enough to make any man of common-sense blaspheme at all +ideas of less than a century’s standing, and pray that the world may be +petrified and rendered immovable in precisely the worst moral and +physical state that it ever yet arrived at, rather than be benefited by +such schemes of such philosophers. + +And now I begin to feel—and perhaps should have sooner felt—that we +have talked enough of the Old Manse. Mine honored reader, it may be, +will vilify the poor author as an egotist for babbling through so many +pages about a mossgrown country parsonage, and his life within its +walls, and on the river, and in the woods, and the influences that +wrought upon him from all these sources. My conscience, however, does +not reproach me with betraying anything too sacredly individual to be +revealed by a human spirit to its brother or sister spirit. How +narrow-how shallow and scanty too—is the stream of thought that has +been flowing from my pen, compared with the broad tide of dim emotions, +ideas, and associations which swell around me from that portion of my +existence! How little have I told! and of that little, how almost +nothing is even tinctured with any quality that makes it exclusively my +own! Has the reader gone wandering, hand in hand with me, through the +inner passages of my being? and have we groped together into all its +chambers and examined their treasures or their rubbish? Not so. We have +been standing on the greensward, but just within the cavern’s mouth, +where the common sunshine is free to penetrate, and where every +footstep is therefore free to come. I have appealed to no sentiment or +sensibilities save such as are diffused among us all. So far as I am a +man of really individual attributes I veil my face; nor am I, nor have +I ever been, one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up +their own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit for +their beloved public. + +Glancing back over what I have written, it seems but the scattered +reminiscences of a single summer. In fairyland there is no measurement +of time; and, in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life’s ocean, +three years hastened away with a noiseless flight, as the breezy +sunshine chases the cloud-shadows across the depths of a still valley. +Now came hints, growing more and more distinct, that the owner of the +old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters next, appeared, +making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, strewing the green +grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut joists, and vexing the +whole antiquity of the place with their discordant renovations. Soon, +moreover, they divested our abode of the veil of woodbine which had +crept over a large portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses +were cleared unsparingly away; and there were horrible whispers about +brushing up the external walls with a coat of paint,—a purpose as +little to my taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of +one’s grandmother. But the hand that renovates is always more +sacrilegious than that which destroys. In fine, we gathered up our +household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea in our pleasant little +breakfast-room,—delicately fragrant tea, an unpurchasable luxury, one +of the many angel gifts that had fallen like dew upon us,—and passed +forth between the tall stone gate-posts as uncertain as the wandering +Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by the +hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no +irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while +I am writing, from the Old Manse into a custom-house. As a +story-teller, I have often contrived strange vicissitudes for my +imaginary personages, but none like this. + +The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our secluded +dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics, no +philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand unsupported on its +edges. All that I had to show, as a man of letters, were these, few +tales and essays, which had blossomed out like flowers in the calm +summer of my heart and mind. Save editing (an easy task) the journal of +my friend of many years, the African Cruiser, I had done nothing else. +With these idle weeds and withering blossoms I have intermixed some +that were produced long ago,—old, faded things, reminding me of flowers +pressed between the leaves of a book,—and now offer the bouquet, such +as it is, to any whom it may please. These fitful sketches, with so +little of external life about them, yet claiming no profundity of +purpose,—so reserved, even while they sometimes seem so frank,—often +but half in earnest, and never, even when most so, expressing +satisfactorily the thoughts which they profess to image,—such trifles, +I truly feel, afford no solid basis for a literary reputation. +Nevertheless, the public—if my limited number of readers, whom I +venture to regard rather as a circle of friends, may be termed a +public—will receive them the more kindly, as the last offering, the +last collection of this nature which it is my purpose ever to put +forth. Unless I could do better, I have done enough in this kind. For +myself the book will always retain one charm,—as reminding me of the +river, with its delightful solitudes, and of the avenue, the garden, +and the orchard, and especially the dear Old Manse, with the little +study on its western side, and the sunshine glimmering through the +willow branches while I wrote. + +Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my +guest, and that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within +and about the Old Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study. +There, after seating him in an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the +house, I take forth a roll of manuscript and entreat his attention to +the following tales,—an act of personal inhospitality, however, which I +never was guilty of, nor ever will be, even to my worst enemy. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MANSE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Old Manse</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 6, 2003 [eBook #9221]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger and Al Haines</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MANSE ***</div> + +<h1>The Old Manse</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Nathaniel Hawthorne</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4>The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode.</h4> + +<p> +Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having fallen +from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front of the old +parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash trees. It was now a +twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its last +inhabitant, had turned from that gateway towards the village burying-ground. +The wheel-track leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the +avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or +three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to pick up +along the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between the +door of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium, seen +through which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to the material +world. Certainly it had little in common with those ordinary abodes which stand +so imminent upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, +into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of passing +travellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In its +near retirement and accessible seclusion, it was the very spot for the +residence of a clergyman,—a man not estranged from human life, yet +enveloped, in the midst of it, with a veil woven of intermingled gloom and +brightness. It was worthy to have been one of the time-honored parsonages of +England, in which, through many generations, a succession of holy occupants +pass from youth to age, and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade +the house and hover over it as with an atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant until +that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A priest had +built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men from time to time +had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers had grown up to assume the +priestly character. It was awful to reflect how many sermons must have been +written there. The latest inhabitant alone—he by whose translation to +paradise the dwelling was left vacant—had penned nearly three thousand +discourses, besides the better, if not the greater, number that gushed living +from his lips. How often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, +attuning his meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and deep and solemn +peals of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that variety of natural +utterances he could find something accordant with every passage of his sermon, +were it of tenderness or reverential fear. The boughs over my head seemed +shadowy with solemn thoughts, as well as with rustling leaves. I took shame to +myself for having been so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope +that wisdom would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and +that I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well worth +those hoards of long-hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses. +Profound treatises of morality; a layman’s unprofessional, and therefore +unprejudiced, views of religion; histories (such as Bancroft might have written +had he taken up his abode here, as he once purposed) bright with picture, +gleaming over a depth of philosophic thought,—these were the works that +might fitly have flowed from such a retirement. In the humblest event, I +resolved at least to achieve a novel that should evolve some deep lesson, and +should possess physical substance enough to stand alone. +</p> + +<p> +In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not +fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful little +nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a scholar. It was here +that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used +to watch the Assyrian dawn and Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of +our eastern hill. When I first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the +smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan +ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad angels, or +at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the Devil +that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been imparted to their own visages. +They had all vanished now; a cheerful coat of paint and golden-tinted +paper-hangings lighted up the small apartment; while the shadow of a +willow-tree that swept against the overhanging eaves atempered the cheery +western sunshine. In place of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely +head of one of Raphael’s Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake +of Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always +fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no +means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my way) +stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of glass, +each with a crack across it. The two on the western side looked, or rather +peeped, between the willow branches, down into the orchard, with glimpses of +the river through the trees. The third, facing northward, commanded a broader +view of the river, at a spot where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into +the light of history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt +in the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between +two nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side +of the river, and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank. He +awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of the musketry. It came; and +there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle-smoke around this quiet +house. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the Old +Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of sight-showing,—perhaps +he will choose to take a nearer view of the memorable spot. We stand now on the +river’s brink. It may well be called the Concord,—the river of peace and +quietness; for it is certainly the most unexcitable and sluggish stream that +ever loitered imperceptibly towards its eternity,—the sea. Positively I +had lived three weeks beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception +which way the current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a +northwestern breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the incurable +indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of becoming the slave +of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a wild, free mountain torrent. +While all things else are compelled to subserve some useful purpose, it idles +its sluggish life away in lazy liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or +affording even water-power enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. +The torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so +much as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. It +slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow grass, and bathes the +overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and willows, or the roots of elms and +ash-trees and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes grow along its plashy shore; +the yellow water-lily spreads its broad, flat leaves on the margin; and the +fragrant white pond-lily abounds, generally selecting a position just so far +from the river’s brink that it cannot be grasped save at the hazard of plunging +in. +</p> + +<p> +It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and perfume, +springing as it does from the black mud over which the river sleeps, and where +lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the mud-turtle, whom continual +washing cannot cleanse. It is the very same black mud out of which the yellow +lily sucks its obscene life and noisome odor. Thus we see, too, in the world +that some persons assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral +circumstances which supply good and beautiful results—the fragrance of +celestial flowers—to the daily life of others. +</p> + +<p> +The reader must not, from any testimony of mine, contract a dislike towards our +slumberous stream. In the light of a calm and golden sunset it becomes lovely +beyond expression; the more lovely for the quietude that so well accords with +the hour, when even the wind, after blustering all day long, usually hushes +itself to rest. Each tree and rock and every blade of grass is distinctly +imaged, and, however unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the +reflection. The minutest things of earth and the broad aspect of the firmament +are pictured equally without effort and with the same felicity of success. All +the sky glows downward at our feet; the rich clouds float through the unruffled +bosom of the stream like heavenly thoughts through a peaceful heart. We will +not, then, malign our river as gross and impure while it can glorify itself +with so adequate a picture of the heaven that broods above it; or, if we +remember its tawny hue and the muddiness of its bed, let it be a symbol that +the earthiest human soul has an infinite spiritual capacity and may contain the +better world within its depths. But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out +of any mud-puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught us everywhere, it +must be true. +</p> + +<p> +Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious track in our walk to the +battle-ground. Here we are, at the point where the river was crossed by the old +bridge, the possession of which was the immediate object of the contest. On the +hither side grow two or three elms, throwing a wide circumference of shade, but +which must have been planted at some period within the threescore years and ten +that have passed since the battle-day. On the farther shore, overhung by a +clump of elder-bushes, we discern the stone abutment of the bridge. Looking +down into the river, I once discovered some heavy fragments of the timbers, all +green with half a century’s growth of water-moss; for during that length of +time the tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased along this ancient +highway. The stream has here about the breadth of twenty strokes of a swimmer’s +arm,—a space not too wide when the bullets were whistling across. Old +people who dwell hereabouts will point out, the very spots on the western bank +where our countrymen fell down and died; and on this side of the river an +obelisk of granite has grown up from the soil that was fertilized with British +blood. The monument, not more than twenty feet in height, is such as it +befitted the inhabitants of a village to erect in illustration of a matter of +local interest rather than what was suitable to commemorate an epoch of +national history. Still, by the fathers of the village this famous deed was +done; and their descendants might rightfully claim the privilege of building a +memorial. +</p> + +<p> +A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interesting one than the granite +obelisk, may be seen close under the stone wall which separates the +battle-ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is the +grave,—marked by a small, mossgrown fragment of stone at the head and +another at the foot,—the grave of two British soldiers who were slain in +the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully where Zechariah Brown and +Thomas Davis buried them. Soon was their warfare ended; a weary night-march +from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry across the river, and then these +many years of rest. In the long procession of slain invaders who passed into +eternity from the battle-fields of the Revolution, these two nameless soldiers +led the way. +</p> + +<p> +Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over this grave, told me a tradition +in reference to one of the inhabitants below. The story has something deeply +impressive, though its circumstances cannot altogether be reconciled with +probability. A youth in the service of the clergyman happened to be chopping +wood, that April morning, at the back door of the Manse; and when the noise of +battle rang from side to side of the bridge, he hastened across the intervening +field to see what might be going forward. It is rather strange, by the way, +that this lad should have been so diligently at work when the whole population +of town and country were startled out of their customary business by the +advance of the British troops. Be that as it might, the tradition, says that +the lad now left his task and hurried to the battle-field with the axe still in +his hand. The British had by this time retreated; the Americans were in +pursuit; and the late scene of strife was thus deserted by both parties. Two +soldiers lay on the ground,—one was a corpse; but, as the young +New-Englander drew nigh, the other Briton raised himself painfully upon his +hands and knees and gave a ghastly stare into his face. The boy,—it must +have been a nervous impulse, without purpose, without thought, and betokening a +sensitive and impressible nature rather than a hardened one,—the boy +uplifted his axe and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow upon the +head. +</p> + +<p> +I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know whether +either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his skull. The story +comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an intellectual and moral exercise, +I have sought to follow that poor youth through his subsequent career and +observe how his soul was tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been +before the long custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity and while +it still seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has +borne more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight. +</p> + +<p> +Many strangers come in the summer-time to view the battle-ground. For my own +part, I have never found my imagination much excited by this or any other scene +of historic celebrity; nor would the placid margin of the river have lost any +of its charm for me, had men never fought and died there. There is a wilder +interest in the tract of land-perhaps a hundred yards in breadth—which +extends between the battle-field and the northern face of our Old Manse, with +its contiguous avenue and orchard. Here, in some unknown age, before the white +man came, stood an Indian village, convenient to the river, whence its +inhabitants must have drawn so large a part of their substance. The site is +identified by the spear and arrow-heads, the chisels, and other implements of +war, labor, and the chase, which the plough turns up from the soil. You see a +splinter of stone, half hidden beneath a sod; it looks like nothing worthy of +note; but, if you have faith enough to pick it up, behold a relic! Thoreau, who +has a strange faculty of finding what the Indians have left behind them, first +set me on the search; and I afterwards enriched myself with some very perfect +specimens, so rudely wrought that it seemed almost as if chance had fashioned +them. Their great charm consists in this rudeness and in the individuality of +each article, so different from the productions of civilized machinery, which +shapes everything on one pattern. There is exquisite delight, too, in picking +up for one’s self an arrow-head that was dropped centuries ago and has never +been handled since, and which we thus receive directly from the hand of the red +hunter, who purposed to shoot it at his game or at an enemy. Such an incident +builds up again the Indian village and its encircling forest, and recalls to +life the painted chiefs and warriors, the squaws at their household toil, and +the children sporting among the wigwams, while the little wind-rocked pappose +swings from the branch of a tree. It can hardly be told whether it is a joy or +a pain, after such a momentary vision, to gaze around in the broad daylight of +reality and see stone fences, white houses, potato-fields, and men doggedly +hoeing in their shirt-sleeves and homespun pantaloons. But this is nonsense. +The Old Manse is better than a thousand wigwams. +</p> + +<p> +The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return thither through the +orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, in the decline of his life, +when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed man for planting trees from +which he could have no prospect of gathering fruit. Even had that been the +case, there was only so much the better motive for planting them, in the pure +and unselfish hope of benefiting his successors,—an end so seldom +achieved by more ambitious efforts. But the old minister, before reaching his +patriarchal age of ninety, ate the apples from this orchard during many years, +and added silver and gold to his annual stipend by disposing of the +superfluity. It is pleasant to think of him walking among the trees in the +quiet afternoons of early autumn and picking up here and there a windfall, +while he observes how heavily the branches are weighed down, and computes the +number of empty flour-barrels that will be filled by their burden. He loved +each tree, doubtless, as if it had been his own child. An orchard has a +relation to mankind, and readily connects itself with matters of the heart. The +trees possess a domestic character; they have lost the wild nature of their +forest kindred, and have grown humanized by receiving the care of man as well +as by contributing to his wants. There, is so much individuality of character, +too, among apple trees, that it gives them all additional claim to be the +objects of human interest. One is harsh and crabbed in its manifestations; +another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One is churlish and illiberal, +evidently grudging the few apples that it bears; another exhausts itself in +free-hearted benevolence. The variety of grotesque shapes into which apple, +trees contort themselves has its effect on those who get acquainted with them: +they stretch out their crooked branches, and take such hold of the imagination, +that we remember them as humorists and odd fellows. And what is more melancholy +than the old apple-trees that linger about the spot where once stood a +homestead, but where there is now only a ruined chimney rising out of a grassy +and weed-grown cellar? They offer their fruit to every wayfarer,—apples +that are bitter sweet with the moral of Time’s vicissitude. +</p> + +<p> +I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world as that of finding +myself, with only the two or three mouths which it was my privilege to feed, +the sole inheritor of the old clergyman’s wealth of fruits. Throughout the +summer there were cherries and currants; and then came Autumn, with his immense +burden of apples, dropping them continually from his over-laden shoulders as he +trudged along. In the stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great +apple was audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of +perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down bushels +upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach-trees, which, in a good year, tormented +me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor, without labor and +perplexity, to be given away. The idea of an infinite generosity and +exhaustless bounty on the part of our Mother Nature was well worth obtaining +through such cares as these. That feeling can be enjoyed in perfection only by +the natives of summer islands, where the bread-fruit, the cocoa, the palm, and +the orange grow spontaneously and hold forth the ever-ready meal; but likewise +almost as well by a man long habituated to city life, who plunges into such a +solitude as that of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of trees that he +did not plant, and which therefore, to my heterodox taste, bear the closest +resemblance to those that grew in Eden. It has been an apothegm these five +thousand years, that toil sweetens the bread it earns. For my part (speaking +from hard experience, acquired while belaboring the rugged furrows of Brook +Farm), I relish best the free gifts of Providence. +</p> + +<p> +Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate a +moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as is never +found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they would know +something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,—be it squash, +bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless weed,—should +plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy to maturity altogether +by their own care. If there be not too many of them, each individual plant +becomes an object of separate interest. My garden, that skirted the avenue of +the Manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor +was all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a +day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that +nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of +creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a +hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping +forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. Later in the season the +humming-birds were attracted by the blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and +they were a joy to me, those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip +airy food out of my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in +the yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep satisfaction; +although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, they flew away to some +unknown hive, which would give back nothing in requital of what my garden had +contributed. But I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze +with the certainty that somebody must profit by it and that there would be a +little more honey in the world to allay the sourness and bitterness which +mankind is always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that +honey. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and varied +forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, shallow or deep, +scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a sculptor would do well to copy, +since Art has never invented anything more graceful. A hundred squashes in the +garden were worth, in my eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in +marble. If ever Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a +superfluity of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or +most delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes +gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for +containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate. +</p> + +<p> +But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my toil in +the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, in observing the +growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the first little bulb, with the +withered blossom adhering to it, until they lay strewn upon the soil, big, +round fellows, hiding their heads beneath the leaves, but turning up their +great yellow rotundities to the noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my +agency something worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into +the world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could seize +hold of and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,—especially the early Dutch +cabbage, which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart +often bursts asunder,—is a matter to be proud of when we can claim a +share with the earth and sky in producing it. But, after all, the hugest +pleasure is reserved until these vegetable children of ours are smoking on the +table, and we, like Saturn, make a meal of them. +</p> + +<p> +What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard, and the garden, the reader +begins to despair of finding his way back into the Old Manse. But, in agreeable +weather, it is the truest hospitality to keep him out of doors. I never grew +quite acquainted with my habitation till a long spell of sulky rain had +confined me beneath its roof. There could not be a more sombre aspect of +external nature than as then seen from the windows of my study. The great +willow-tree had caught and retained among its leaves a whole cataract of water, +to be shaken down at intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long, and +for a week together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and +splash-splash-splashing from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into the tubs +beneath the spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house and outbuildings +were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient growth upon the walls +looked green and fresh, as if they were the newest things and afterthought of +Time. The usually mirrored surface of the river was blurred by an infinity of +raindrops; the whole landscape had a completely water-soaked appearance, +conveying the impression that the earth was wet through like a sponge; while +the summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in a dense +mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to have his abiding-place and to be +plotting still direr inclemencies. +</p> + +<p> +Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the fiercest beat of +sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes the wayfarer to shady nooks +of the woods whither the sun cannot penetrate; but she provides no shelter +against her storms. It makes us shiver to think of those deep, umbrageous +recesses, those overshadowing banks, where we found such enjoyment during the +sultry afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would dash a little shower +into our faces. Looking reproachfully towards the impenetrable sky,—if +sky there be above that dismal uniformity of cloud,—we are apt to murmur +against the whole system of the universe, since it involves the extinction of +so many summer days in so short a life by the hissing and spluttering rain. In +such spells of weather,—and it is to be supposed such weather +came,—Eve’s bower in paradise must have been but a cheerless and aguish +kind of shelter, nowise comparable to the old parsonage, which had resources of +its own to beguile the week’s imprisonment. The idea of sleeping on a couch of +wet roses! +</p> + +<p> +Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret, stored, +like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has left behind it +from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an arched hall, dimly +illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was but a twilight at the best; +and there were nooks, or rather caverns, of deep obscurity, the secrets of +which I never learned, being too reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams +and rafters, roughly hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude +masonry of the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect +unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. But on one +side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore the traditionary +title of the Saint’s Chamber, because holy men in their youth had slept, and +studied, and prayed there. With its elevated retirement, its one window, its +small fireplace, and its closet convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot +where a young man might inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish +saintly dreams. The occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and +ejaculations inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered and +shrivelled roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the forcibly +wrought picture of a clergyman, in wig, band, and gown, holding a Bible in his +hand. As I turned his face towards the light, he eyed me with an air of +authority such as men of his profession seldom assume in our days. The original +had been pastor of the parish more than a century ago, a friend of Whitefield, +and almost his equal in fervid eloquence. I bowed before the effigy of the +dignified divine, and felt as if I had now met face to face with the ghost by +whom, as there was reason to apprehend, the Manse was haunted. +</p> + +<p> +Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with spirits +that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our ghost used to heave deep +sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, and sometimes rustled paper, as if +he were turning over a sermon in the long upper entry,—where nevertheless +he was invisible, in spite of the bright moonshine that fell through the +eastern window. Not improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection +from a chest full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, +while Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came +a rustling noise as of a minister’s silk gown, sweeping through the very midst +of the company, so closely as almost to brush against the chairs. Still there +was nothing visible. A yet stranger business was that of a ghostly +servant-maid, who used to be heard in the kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding +coffee, cooking, ironing,—performing, in short, all kinds of domestic +labor,—although no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the +next morning. Some neglected duty of her servitude, some ill-starched +ministerial band, disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work +without any wages. +</p> + +<p> +But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor’s library was +stored in the garret,—no unfit receptacle indeed for such dreary trash as +comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books would have been worth +nothing at an auction. In this venerable garret, however, they possessed an +interest, quite apart from their literary value, as heirlooms, many of which +had been transmitted down through a series of consecrated hands from the days +of the mighty Puritan divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in +faded ink on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations or +interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible shorthand, +perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. The world will never be +the better for it. A few of the books were Latin folios, written by Catholic +authors; others demolished Papistry, as with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. +A dissertation on the Book of Job—which only Job himself could have had +patience to read—filled at least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at +the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body +of divinity,—too corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the +spiritual element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two hundred +years or more, and were generally bound in black leather, exhibiting precisely +such an appearance as we should attribute to books of enchantment. Others +equally antique were of a size proper to be carried in the large waistcoat +pockets of old times,—diminutive, but as black as their bulkier brethren, +and abundantly interfused with Greek and Latin quotations. These little old +volumes impressed me as if they had been intended for very large ones, but had +been unfortunately blighted at an early stage of their growth. +</p> + +<p> +The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty +garret-windows while I burrowed among these venerable books in search of any +living thought which should burn like a coal of fire or glow like an +inextinguishable gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long hidden it. But I +found no such treasure; all was dead alike; and I could not but muse deeply and +wonderingly upon the humiliating fact that the works of man’s intellect decay +like those of his hands. Thought grows mouldy. What was good and nourishing +food for the spirits of one generation affords no sustenance for the next. +Books of religion, however, cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring +and vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so seldom really +touch upon their ostensible subject, and have, therefore, so little business to +be written at all. So long as an unlettered soul can attain to saving grace +there would seem to be no deadly error in holding theological libraries to be +accumulations of, for the most part, stupendous impertinence. +</p> + +<p> +Many of the books had accrued in the latter years of the last clergyman’s +lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest than the elder works a +century hence to any curious inquirer who should then rummage then as I was +doing now. Volumes of the Liberal Preacher and Christian Examiner, occasional +sermons, controversial pamphlets, tracts, and other productions of a like +fugitive nature, took the place of the thick and heavy volumes of past time. In +a physical point of view, there was much the same difference as between a +feather and a lump of lead; but, intellectually regarded, the specific gravity +of old and new was about upon a par. Both also were alike frigid. The elder +books nevertheless seemed to have been earnestly written, and might be +conceived to have possessed warmth at some former period; although, with the +lapse of time, the heated masses had cooled down even to the freezing-point. +The frigidity of the modern productions, on the other hand, was characteristic +and inherent, and evidently had little to do with the writer’s qualities of +mind and heart. In fine, of this whole dusty heap of literature I tossed aside +all the sacred part, and felt myself none the less a Christian for eschewing +it. There appeared no hope of either mounting to the better world on a Gothic +staircase of ancient folios or of flying thither on the wings of a modern +tract. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap except what had been written for the +passing day and year, without the remotest pretension or idea of permanence. +There were a few old newspapers, and still older almanacs, which reproduced to +my mental eye the epochs when they had issued from the press with a +distinctness that was altogether unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits +of magic looking-glass among the books with the images of a vanished century in +them. I turned my eyes towards the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked +of the austere divine wherefore it was that he and his brethren, after the most +painful rummaging and groping into their minds, had been able to produce +nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers and almanac-makers had +thrown off in the effervescence of a moment. The portrait responded not; so I +sought an answer for myself. It is the age itself that writes newspapers and +almanacs, which therefore have a distinct purpose and meaning at the time, and +a kind of intelligible truth for all times; whereas most other +works—being written by men who, in the very act, set themselves apart +from their age—are likely to possess little significance when new, and +none at all when old. Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus +effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of +the more ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, +or perchance of a hundred centuries. +</p> + +<p> +Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there yet lingers with me a +superstitious reverence for literature of all kinds. A bound volume has a charm +in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript possess for the good Mussulman. +He imagines that those wind-wafted records are perhaps hallowed by some sacred +verse; and I, that every new book or antique one may contain the “open +sesame,”—the spell to disclose treasures hidden in some unsuspected cave +of Truth. Thus it was not without sadness that I turned away from the library +of the Old Manse. +</p> + +<p> +Blessed was the sunshine when it came again at the close of another stormy day, +beaming from the edge of the western horizon; while the massive firmament of +clouds threw down all the gloom it could, but served only to kindle the golden +light into a more brilliant glow by the strongly contrasted shadows. Heaven +smiled at the earth, so long unseen, from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow +for the hill-tops and the woodpaths. +</p> + +<p> +Or it might be that Ellery Charming came up the avenue to join me in a fishing +excursion on the river. Strange and happy times were those when we cast aside +all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes and delivered ourselves up to the +free air, to live like the Indians or any less conventional race during one +bright semicircle of the sun. Rowing our boat against the current, between wide +meadows, we turned aside into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for +a mile above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth, nowhere, +indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet’s imagination. It is +sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside; so that elsewhere there +might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a ripple across the shaded water. The +current lingers along so gently that the mere force of the boatman’s will seems +sufficient to propel his craft against it. It comes flowing softly through the +midmost privacy and deepest heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; +while the stream whispers back again from its sedgy borders, as if river and +wood were hushing one another to sleep. Yes; the river sleeps along its course +and dreams of the sky and of the clustering foliage, amid which fall showers of +broken sunlight, imparting specks of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with the +quiet depth of the prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the slumbering river has +a dream-picture in its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real,—the +picture, or the original?—the objects palpable to our grosser senses, or +their apotheosis in the stream beneath? Surely the disembodied images stand in +closer relation to the soul. But both the original and the reflection had here +an ideal charm; and, had it been a thought more wild, I could have fancied that +this river had strayed forth out of the rich scenery of my companion’s inner +world; only the vegetation along its banks should then have had an Oriental +character. +</p> + +<p> +Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem hardly +satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the very verge of the +water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At one spot there is a lofty +bank, on the slope of which grow some hemlocks, declining across the stream +with outstretched arms, as if resolute to take the plunge. In other places the +banks are almost on a level with the water; so that the quiet congregation of +trees set their feet in the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the +surface. Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate the dark +nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows abundantly along the +margin,—that delicious flower which, as Thoreau tells me, opens its +virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being through the magic of +that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them unfolding in due succession as the +sunrise stole gradually from flower to flower,—a sight not to be hoped +for unless when a poet adjusts his inward eye to a proper focus with the +outward organ. Grapevines here and there twine themselves around shrub and tree +and hang their clusters over the water within reach of the boatman’s hand. +Oftentimes they unite two trees of alien race in an inextricable twine, +marrying the hemlock and the maple against their will and enriching them with a +purple offspring of which neither is the parent. One of these ambitious +parasites has climbed into the upper branches of a tall white-pine, and is +still ascending from bough to bough, unsatisfied till it shall crown the tree’s +airy summit with a wreath of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes. +</p> + +<p> +The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind us and +revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth to depth, and +breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy kingfisher flew from the withered +branch close at hand to another at a distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger +or alarm. Ducks that had been floating there since the preceding eve were +startled at our approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark +surface with a bright streak. The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads. The +turtle, sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid suddenly into +the water with a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled his canoe along the +Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly have seen a wilder gentleness +displayed upon its banks and reflected in its bosom than we did. Nor could the +same Indian have prepared his noontide meal with more simplicity. We drew up +our skiff at some point where the overarching shade formed a natural bower, and +there kindled a fire with the pine cones and decayed branches that lay strewn +plentifully around. Soon the smoke ascended among the trees, impregnated with a +savory incense, not heavy, dull, and surfeiting, like the steam of cookery +within doors, but sprightly and piquant. The smell of our feast was akin to the +woodland odors with which it mingled: there was no sacrilege committed by our +intrusion there: the sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted us free leave +to cook and eat in the recess that was at once our kitchen and banqueting-hall. +It is strange what humble offices may be performed in a beautiful scene without +destroying its poetry. Our fire, red gleaming among the trees, and we beside +it, busied with culinary rites and spreading out our meal on a mossgrown log, +all seemed in unison with the river gliding by and the foliage rustling over +us. And, what was strangest, neither did our mirth seem to disturb the +propriety of the solemn woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness +and the will-of-the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have come +trooping to share our table-talk and have added their shrill laughter to our +merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the extremest nonsense or the +profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of the mind which partakes of +both, and may become one or the other, in correspondence with the faith and +insight of the auditor. +</p> + +<p> +So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up gushed our +talk like the babble of a fountain. The evanescent spray was Ellery’s; and his, +too, the lumps of golden thought that lay glimmering in the fountain’s bed and +brightened both our faces by the reflection. Could he have drawn out that +virgin gold, and stamped it with the mint-mark that alone gives currency, the +world might have had the profit, and he the fame. My mind was the richer merely +by the knowledge that it was there. But the chief profit of those wild days, to +him and me, lay not in any definite idea, not in any angular or rounded truth, +which we dug out of the shapeless mass of problematical stuff, but in the +freedom which we thereby won from all custom and conventionalism and fettering +influences of man on man. We were so free to-day that it was impossible to be +slaves again to-morrow. When we crossed the threshold of the house or trod the +thronged pavements of a city, still the leaves of the trees that overhang the +Assabeth were whispering to us, “Be free! be free!” Therefore along that shady +river-bank there are spots, marked with a heap of ashes and half-consumed +brands, only less sacred in my remembrance than the hearth of a household fire. +</p> + +<p> +And yet how sweet, as we floated homeward adown the golden river at +sunset,—how sweet was it to return within the system of human society, +not as to a dungeon and a chain, but as to a stately edifice, whence we could +go forth at will into state—her simplicity! How gently, too, did the +sight of the Old Manse, best seen from the river, overshadowed with its willow +and all environed about with the foliage of its orchard and avenue,—how +gently did its gray, homely aspect rebuke the speculative extravagances of the +day! It had grown sacred in connection with the artificial life against which +we inveighed; it had been a home for many years, in spite of all; it was my +home too; and, with these thoughts, it seemed to me that all the artifice and +conventionalism of life was but an impalpable thinness upon its surface, and +that the depth below was none the worse for it. Once, as we turned our boat to +the bank, there was a cloud, in the shape of an immensely gigantic figure of a +hound, couched above the house, as if keeping guard over it. Gazing at this +symbol, I prayed that the upper influences might long protect the institutions +that had grown out of the heart of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +If ever my readers should decide to give up civilized life, cities, houses, and +whatever moral or material enormities in addition to these the perverted +ingenuity of our race has contrived, let it be in the early autumn. Then Nature +will love him better than at any other season, and will take him to her bosom +with a more motherly tenderness. I could scarcely endure the roof of the old +house above me in those first autumnal days. How early in the summer, too, the +prophecy of autumn comes! Earlier in some years than in others; sometimes even +in the first weeks of July. There is no other feeling like what is caused by +this faint, doubtful, yet real perception—if it be not rather a +foreboding—of the year’s decay, so blessedly sweet and sad in the same +breath. +</p> + +<p> +Did I say that there was no feeling like it? Ah, but there is a +half-acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the perfected vigor +of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his flowers, and that the +next work of his never-idle fingers must be to steal them one by one away. +</p> + +<p> +I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket be not as early a token of +autumn’s approach as any other,—that song which may be called an audible +stillness; for though very loud and heard afar, yet the mind does not take note +of it as a sound, so completely is its individual existence merged among the +accompanying characteristics of the season. Alas for the pleasant summertime! +In August the grass is still verdant on the hills and in the valleys; the +foliage of the trees is as dense as ever and as green; the flowers gleam forth +in richer abundance along the margin of the river and by the stone walls and +deep among the woods; the days, too, are as fervid now as they were a month +ago; and yet in every breath of wind and in every beam of sunshine we hear the +whispered farewell and behold the parting smile of a dear friend. There is a +coolness amid all the heat, a mildness in the blazing noon. Not a breeze can +stir but it thrills us with the breath of autumn. A pensive glory is seen in +the far, golden gleams, among the shadows of the trees. The flowers—even +the brightest of them, and they are the most gorgeous of the year—have +this gentle sadness wedded to their pomp, and typify the character of the +delicious time each within itself. The brilliant cardinal-flower has never +seemed gay to me. +</p> + +<p> +Still later in the season Nature’s tenderness waxes stronger. It is impossible +not to be fond of our mother now; for she is so fond of us! At other periods +she does not make this impression on me, or only at rare intervals; but in +those genial days of autumn, when she has perfected her harvests and +accomplished every needful thing that was given her to do, then she overflows +with a blessed superfluity of love. She has leisure to caress her children now. +It is good to be alive and at such times. Thank Heaven for breath—yes, +for mere breath—when it is made up of a heavenly breeze like this! It +comes with a real kiss upon our cheeks; it would linger fondly around us if it +might; but, since it must be gone, it embraces us with its whole kindly heart +and passes onward to embrace likewise the next thing that it meets. A blessing +is flung abroad and scattered far and wide over the earth, to be gathered up by +all who choose. I recline upon the still unwithered grass and whisper to +myself, “O perfect day! O beautiful world! O beneficent God!” And it is the +promise of a blessed eternity; for our Creator would never have made such +lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond +all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal. This sunshine is the golden +pledge thereof. It beams through the gates of paradise and shows us glimpses +far inward. +</p> + +<p> +By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear austerity. On +some October morning there is a heavy hoarfrost on the grass and along the tops +of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall from the trees of our avenue, +without a breath of wind, quietly descending by their own weight. All summer +long they have murmured like the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while +the branches were wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both +glad and solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced +to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they can only rustle +under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins to assume a larger +importance, and draws to its fireside,—for the abomination of the +air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,—draws closer and closer +to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had gone wandering about through the +summer. +</p> + +<p> +When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a hermitage. +Not that ever—in my time at least—it had been thronged with +company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out of the dusty +glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with him the transparent +obscurity that was floating over us. In one respect our precincts were like the +Enchanted Ground through which the pilgrim travelled on his way to the +Celestial City. The guests, each and all, felt a slumberous influence upon +them; they fell asleep in chairs, or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, +or were seen stretched among the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily +through the boughs. They could not have paid a more acceptable compliment to my +abode nor to my own qualities as a host. I held it as a proof that they left +their cares behind them as they passed between the stone gate-posts at the +entrance of our avenue, and that the so powerful opiate was the abundance of +peace and quiet within and all around us. Others could give them pleasure and +amusement or instruction,—these could be picked up anywhere; but it was +for me to give them rest,—rest in a life of trouble. What better could be +done for those weary and world-worn spirits?—for him whose career of +perpetual action was impeded and harassed by the rarest of his powers and the +richest of his acquirements?—for another who had thrown his ardent heart +from earliest youth into the strife of politics, and now, perchance, began to +suspect that one lifetime is too brief for the accomplishment of any lofty +aim?—for her oil whose feminine nature had been imposed the heavy gift of +intellectual power, such as a strong man might have staggered under, and with +it the necessity to act upon the world?—in a word, not to multiply +instances, what better could be done for anybody who came within our magic +circle than to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit over him? And when it had +wrought its full effect, then we dismissed him, with but misty reminiscences, +as if he had been dreaming of us. +</p> + +<p> +Were I to adopt a pet idea as so many people do, and fondle it in my embraces +to the exclusion of all others, it would be, that the great want which mankind +labors under at this present period is sleep. The world should recline its vast +head on the first convenient pillow and take an age-long nap. It has gone +distracted through a morbid activity, and, while preternaturally wide awake, is +nevertheless tormented by visions that seem real to it now, but would assume +their true aspect and character were all things once set right by an interval +of sound repose. This is the only method of getting rid of old delusions and +avoiding new ones; of regenerating our race, so that it might in due time awake +as an infant out of dewy slumber; of restoring to us the simple perception of +what is right and the single-hearted desire to achieve it, both of which have +long been lost in consequence of this weary activity of brain and torpor or +passion of the heart that now afflict the universe. Stimulants, the only mode +of treatment hitherto attempted, cannot quell the disease; they do but heighten +the delirium. +</p> + +<p> +Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted against the author; for, though +tinctured with its modicum of truth, it is the result and expression of what he +knew, while he was writing, to be but a distorted survey of the state and +prospects of mankind. There were circumstances around me which made it +difficult to view the world precisely as it exists; for, severe and sober as +was the Old Manse, it was necessary to go but a little way beyond its threshold +before meeting with stranger moral shapes of men than might have been +encountered elsewhere in a circuit of a thousand miles. +</p> + +<p> +These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were attracted thither by the widespreading +influence of a great original thinker, who had his earthly abode at the +opposite extremity of our village. His mind acted upon other minds of a certain +constitution with wonderful magnetism, and drew many men upon long pilgrimages +to speak with him face to face. Young visionaries—to whom just so much of +insight had been imparted as to make life all a labyrinth around +them—came to seek the clew that should guide them out of their +self-involved bewilderment. Gray-headed theorists—whose systems, at first +air, had finally imprisoned them in an iron framework—travelled painfully +to his door, not to ask deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into their +own thraldom. People that had lighted on a new thought or a thought that they +fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem hastens to a +lapidary, to ascertain its quality and value. Uncertain, troubled, earnest +wanderers through the midnight of the moral world beheld his intellectual fire +as a beacon burning on a hill-top, and, climbing the difficult ascent, looked +forth into the surrounding obscurity more hopefully than hitherto. The light +revealed objects unseen before,—mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses of a +creation among the chaos; but also, as was unavoidable, it attracted bats and +owls and the whole host of night birds, which flapped their dusky wings against +the gazer’s eyes, and sometimes were mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. +Such delusions always hover nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth is kindled. +</p> + +<p> +For myself, there bad been epochs of my life when I, too, might have asked of +this prophet the master word that should solve me the riddle of the universe; +but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no question to be put, and +therefore admired Emerson as a poet, of deep beauty and austere tenderness, but +sought nothing from him as a philosopher. It was good, nevertheless, to meet +him in the woodpaths, or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual +gleam diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining one; and be, so +quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man alive as if +expecting to receive more than he could impart. And, in truth, the heart of +many an ordinary man had, perchance, inscriptions which he could not read. But +it was impossible to dwell in his vicinity without inhaling more or less the +mountain atmosphere of his lofty thought, which, in the brains of some people, +wrought a singular giddiness,—new truth being as heady as new wine. Never +was a poor little country village infested with such a variety of queer, +strangely dressed, oddly behaved mortals, most of whom took upon themselves to +be important agents of the world’s destiny, yet were simply bores of a very +intense water. Such, I imagine, is the invariable character of persons who +crowd so closely about an original thinker as to draw in his unuttered breath +and thus become imbued with a false originality. This triteness of novelty is +enough to make any man of common-sense blaspheme at all ideas of less than a +century’s standing, and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered +immovable in precisely the worst moral and physical state that it ever yet +arrived at, rather than be benefited by such schemes of such philosophers. +</p> + +<p> +And now I begin to feel—and perhaps should have sooner felt—that we +have talked enough of the Old Manse. Mine honored reader, it may be, will +vilify the poor author as an egotist for babbling through so many pages about a +mossgrown country parsonage, and his life within its walls, and on the river, +and in the woods, and the influences that wrought upon him from all these +sources. My conscience, however, does not reproach me with betraying anything +too sacredly individual to be revealed by a human spirit to its brother or +sister spirit. How narrow-how shallow and scanty too—is the stream of +thought that has been flowing from my pen, compared with the broad tide of dim +emotions, ideas, and associations which swell around me from that portion of my +existence! How little have I told! and of that little, how almost nothing is +even tinctured with any quality that makes it exclusively my own! Has the +reader gone wandering, hand in hand with me, through the inner passages of my +being? and have we groped together into all its chambers and examined their +treasures or their rubbish? Not so. We have been standing on the greensward, +but just within the cavern’s mouth, where the common sunshine is free to +penetrate, and where every footstep is therefore free to come. I have appealed +to no sentiment or sensibilities save such as are diffused among us all. So far +as I am a man of really individual attributes I veil my face; nor am I, nor +have I ever been, one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up their +own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit for their beloved +public. +</p> + +<p> +Glancing back over what I have written, it seems but the scattered +reminiscences of a single summer. In fairyland there is no measurement of time; +and, in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life’s ocean, three years +hastened away with a noiseless flight, as the breezy sunshine chases the +cloud-shadows across the depths of a still valley. Now came hints, growing more +and more distinct, that the owner of the old house was pining for his native +air. Carpenters next, appeared, making a tremendous racket among the +outbuildings, strewing the green grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut +joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their discordant +renovations. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of the veil of woodbine +which had crept over a large portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses +were cleared unsparingly away; and there were horrible whispers about brushing +up the external walls with a coat of paint,—a purpose as little to my +taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of one’s grandmother. +But the hand that renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which +destroys. In fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of +tea in our pleasant little breakfast-room,—delicately fragrant tea, an +unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fallen like dew upon +us,—and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts as uncertain as +the wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by +the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no +irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while I +am writing, from the Old Manse into a custom-house. As a story-teller, I have +often contrived strange vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like +this. +</p> + +<p> +The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our secluded +dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics, no +philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand unsupported on its edges. +All that I had to show, as a man of letters, were these, few tales and essays, +which had blossomed out like flowers in the calm summer of my heart and mind. +Save editing (an easy task) the journal of my friend of many years, the African +Cruiser, I had done nothing else. With these idle weeds and withering blossoms +I have intermixed some that were produced long ago,—old, faded things, +reminding me of flowers pressed between the leaves of a book,—and now +offer the bouquet, such as it is, to any whom it may please. These fitful +sketches, with so little of external life about them, yet claiming no +profundity of purpose,—so reserved, even while they sometimes seem so +frank,—often but half in earnest, and never, even when most so, +expressing satisfactorily the thoughts which they profess to image,—such +trifles, I truly feel, afford no solid basis for a literary reputation. +Nevertheless, the public—if my limited number of readers, whom I venture +to regard rather as a circle of friends, may be termed a public—will +receive them the more kindly, as the last offering, the last collection of this +nature which it is my purpose ever to put forth. Unless I could do better, I +have done enough in this kind. For myself the book will always retain one +charm,—as reminding me of the river, with its delightful solitudes, and +of the avenue, the garden, and the orchard, and especially the dear Old Manse, +with the little study on its western side, and the sunshine glimmering through +the willow branches while I wrote. +</p> + +<p> +Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my guest, and +that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within and about the Old +Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study. There, after seating him in +an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the house, I take forth a roll of +manuscript and entreat his attention to the following tales,—an act of +personal inhospitality, however, which I never was guilty of, nor ever will be, +even to my worst enemy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MANSE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6078c53 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9221 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9221) diff --git a/old/9221.txt b/old/9221.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d8dcf6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/9221.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1393 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old +Manse"), by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: December 8, 2010 [EBook #9221] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 6, 2003 +Last Updated: February 6, 2007 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MANSE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + THE OLD MANSE. + + + The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode. + + +Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself +having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the +gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of +black-ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral +procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned +from that gateway towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track +leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was +almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or +three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to +pick up along the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half +asleep between the door of the house and the public highway were a +kind of spiritual medium, seen through which the edifice had not quite +the aspect of belonging to the material world. Certainly it had +little in common with those ordinary abodes which stand so imminent +upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, +into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of +passing travellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of +privacy. In its near retirement and accessible seclusion, it was the +very spot for the residence of a clergyman,--a man not estranged from +human life, yet enveloped, in the midst of it, with a veil woven of +intermingled gloom and brightness. It was worthy to have been one of +the time-honored parsonages of England, in which, through many +generations, a succession of holy occupants pass from youth to age, +and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade the house and +hover over it as with an atmosphere. + +Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant +until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A +priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men +from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers +had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to +reflect how many sermons must have been written there. The latest +inhabitant alone--he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was +left vacant--had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the +better, if not the greater, number that gushed living from his lips. +How often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, +attuning his meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and deep and +solemn peals of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that +variety of natural utterances he could find something accordant with +every passage of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential +fear. The boughs over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts, as +well as with rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been +so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom +would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that +I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well +worth those hoards of long-hidden gold which people seek for in +moss-grown houses. Profound treatises of morality; a layman's +unprofessional, and therefore unprejudiced, views of religion; +histories (such as Bancroft might have written had he taken up his +abode here, as he once purposed) bright with picture, gleaming over a +depth of philosophic thought,--these were the works that might fitly +have flowed from such a retirement. In the humblest event, I resolved +at least to achieve a novel that should evolve some deep lesson, and +should possess physical substance enough to stand alone. + +In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not +fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful +little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a +scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an +inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and +Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When +I first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the smoke of +unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan +ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad +angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so +sternly with the Devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been +imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful +coat of paint and golden-tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small +apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree that swept against the +overhanging eaves atempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of +the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of +Raphael's Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of +Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, +always fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books +(few, and by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as +chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to +be disturbed. + +The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of +glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side +looked, or rather peeped, between the willow branches, down into the +orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third, +facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot +where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of +history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in +the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle +between two nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on +the farther side of the river, and the glittering line of the British +on the hither bank. He awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of +the musketry. It came; and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the +battle-smoke around this quiet house. + +Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the +Old Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of +sight-showing,--perhaps he will choose to take a nearer view of the +memorable spot. We stand now on the river's brink. It may well be called +the Concord,--the river of peace and quietness; for it is certainly the +most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered imperceptibly +towards its eternity,--the sea. Positively I had lived three weeks +beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception which way the +current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a +northwestern breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the +incurable indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of +becoming the slave of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a +wild, free mountain torrent. While all things else are compelled to +subserve some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life away in lazy +liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or affording even water-power +enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. The torpor +of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so much +as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. It +slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow grass, and +bathes the overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and willows, or the +roots of elms and ash-trees and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes +grow along its plashy shore; the yellow water-lily spreads its broad, +flat leaves on the margin; and the fragrant white pond-lily abounds, +generally selecting a position just so far from the river's brink that +it cannot be grasped save at the hazard of plunging in. + +It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and +perfume, springing as it does from the black mud over which the river +sleeps, and where lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the +mud-turtle, whom continual washing cannot cleanse. It is the very same +black mud out of which the yellow lily sucks its obscene life and +noisome odor. Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons +assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral +circumstances which supply good and beautiful results--the fragrance +of celestial flowers--to the daily life of others. + +The reader must not, from any testimony of mine, contract a dislike +towards our slumberous stream. In the light of a calm and golden +sunset it becomes lovely beyond expression; the more lovely for the +quietude that so well accords with the hour, when even the wind, after +blustering all day long, usually hushes itself to rest. Each tree and +rock and every blade of grass is distinctly imaged, and, however +unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the reflection. The +minutest things of earth and the broad aspect of the firmament are +pictured equally without effort and with the same felicity of success. +All the sky glows downward at our feet; the rich clouds float through +the unruffled bosom of the stream like heavenly thoughts through a +peaceful heart. We will not, then, malign our river as gross and +impure while it can glorify itself with so adequate a picture of the +heaven that broods above it; or, if we remember its tawny hue and the +muddiness of its bed, let it be a symbol that the earthiest human soul +has an infinite spiritual capacity and may contain the better world +within its depths. But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out of +any mud-puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught us +everywhere, it must be true. + +Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious track in our walk to the +battle-ground. Here we are, at the point where the river was crossed +by the old bridge, the possession of which was the immediate object of +the contest. On the hither side grow two or three elms, throwing a +wide circumference of shade, but which must have been planted at some +period within the threescore years and ten that have passed since the +battle-day. On the farther shore, overhung by a clump of elder-bushes, +we discern the stone abutment of the bridge. Looking down +into the river, I once discovered some heavy fragments of the timbers, +all green with half a century's growth of water-moss; for during that +length of time the tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased +along this ancient highway. The stream has here about the breadth of +twenty strokes of a swimmer's arm,--a space not too wide when the +bullets were whistling across. Old people who dwell hereabouts will +point out, the very spots on the western bank where our countrymen +fell down and died; and on this side of the river an obelisk of +granite has grown up from the soil that was fertilized with British +blood. The monument, not more than twenty feet in height, is such as +it befitted the inhabitants of a village to erect in illustration of a +matter of local interest rather than what was suitable to commemorate +an epoch of national history. Still, by the fathers of the village +this famous deed was done; and their descendants might rightfully +claim the privilege of building a memorial. + +A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interesting one than the +granite obelisk, may be seen close under the stone wall which +separates the battle-ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is +the grave,--marked by a small, mossgrown fragment of stone at the head +and another at the foot,--the grave of two British soldiers who were +slain in the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully where +Zechariah Brown and Thomas Davis buried them. Soon was their warfare +ended; a weary night-march from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry +across the river, and then these many years of rest. In the long +procession of slain invaders who passed into eternity from the +battle-fields of the Revolution, these two nameless soldiers led the way. + +Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over this grave, told me a +tradition in reference to one of the inhabitants below. The story has +something deeply impressive, though its circumstances cannot +altogether be reconciled with probability. A youth in the service of +the clergyman happened to be chopping wood, that April morning, at the +back door of the Manse; and when the noise of battle rang from side to +side of the bridge, he hastened across the intervening field to see +what might be going forward. It is rather strange, by the way, that +this lad should have been so diligently at work when the whole +population of town and country were startled out of their customary +business by the advance of the British troops. Be that as it might, +the tradition, says that the lad now left his task and hurried to the +battle-field with the axe still in his hand. The British had by this +time retreated; the Americans were in pursuit; and the late scene of +strife was thus deserted by both parties. Two soldiers lay on the +ground,--one was a corpse; but, as the young New-Englander drew nigh, +the other Briton raised himself painfully upon his hands and knees and +gave a ghastly stare into his face. The boy,--it must have been a +nervous impulse, without purpose, without thought, and betokening a +sensitive and impressible nature rather than a hardened one,--the boy +uplifted his axe and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow +upon the head. + +I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know +whether either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his +skull. The story comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an +intellectual and moral exercise, I have sought to follow that poor +youth through his subsequent career and observe how his soul was +tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been before the long +custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity and while it still +seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has +borne more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight. + +Many strangers come in the summer-time to view the battle-ground. For +my own part, I have never found my imagination much excited by this or +any other scene of historic celebrity; nor would the placid margin of +the river have lost any of its charm for me, had men never fought and +died there. There is a wilder interest in the tract of land-perhaps a +hundred yards in breadth--which extends between the battle-field and +the northern face of our Old Manse, with its contiguous avenue and +orchard. Here, in some unknown age, before the white man came, stood +an Indian village, convenient to the river, whence its inhabitants +must have drawn so large a part of their substance. The site is +identified by the spear and arrow-heads, the chisels, and other +implements of war, labor, and the chase, which the plough turns up +from the soil. You see a splinter of stone, half hidden beneath a +sod; it looks like nothing worthy of note; but, if you have faith +enough to pick it up, behold a relic! Thoreau, who has a strange +faculty of finding what the Indians have left behind them, first set +me on the search; and I afterwards enriched myself with some very +perfect specimens, so rudely wrought that it seemed almost as if +chance had fashioned them. Their great charm consists in this +rudeness and in the individuality of each article, so different from +the productions of civilized machinery, which shapes everything on one +pattern. There is exquisite delight, too, in picking up for one's +self an arrow-head that was dropped centuries ago and has never been +handled since, and which we thus receive directly from the hand of the +red hunter, who purposed to shoot it at his game or at an enemy. Such +an incident builds up again the Indian village and its encircling +forest, and recalls to life the painted chiefs and warriors, the +squaws at their household toil, and the children sporting among the +wigwams, while the little wind-rocked pappose swings from the branch +of a tree. It can hardly be told whether it is a joy or a pain, after +such a momentary vision, to gaze around in the broad daylight of +reality and see stone fences, white houses, potato-fields, and men +doggedly hoeing in their shirt-sleeves and homespun pantaloons. But +this is nonsense. The Old Manse is better than a thousand wigwams. + +The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return thither +through the orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, in the +decline of his life, when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed +man for planting trees from which he could have no prospect of +gathering fruit. Even had that been the case, there was only so much +the better motive for planting them, in the pure and unselfish hope of +benefiting his successors,--an end so seldom achieved by more +ambitious efforts. But the old minister, before reaching his +patriarchal age of ninety, ate the apples from this orchard during +many years, and added silver and gold to his annual stipend by +disposing of the superfluity. It is pleasant to think of him walking +among the trees in the quiet afternoons of early autumn and picking up +here and there a windfall, while he observes how heavily the branches +are weighed down, and computes the number of empty flour-barrels that +will be filled by their burden. He loved each tree, doubtless, as if +it had been his own child. An orchard has a relation to mankind, and +readily connects itself with matters of the heart. The trees possess +a domestic character; they have lost the wild nature of their forest +kindred, and have grown humanized by receiving the care of man as well +as by contributing to his wants. There, is so much individuality of +character, too, among apple trees, that it gives them all additional +claim to be the objects of human interest. One is harsh and crabbed +in its manifestations; another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One +is churlish and illiberal, evidently grudging the few apples that it +bears; another exhausts itself in free-hearted benevolence. The +variety of grotesque shapes into which apple, trees contort themselves +has its effect on those who get acquainted with them: they stretch out +their crooked branches, and take such hold of the imagination, that we +remember them as humorists and odd fellows. And what is more +melancholy than the old apple-trees that linger about the spot where +once stood a homestead, but where there is now only a ruined chimney +rising out of a grassy and weed-grown cellar? They offer their fruit +to every wayfarer,--apples that are bitter sweet with the moral of +Time's vicissitude. + +I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world as that of +finding myself, with only the two or three mouths which it was my +privilege to feed, the sole inheritor of the old clergyman's wealth of +fruits. Throughout the summer there were cherries and currants; and +then came Autumn, with his immense burden of apples, dropping them +continually from his over-laden shoulders as he trudged along. In the +stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great apple was +audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of +perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down +bushels upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach-trees, which, in a good +year, tormented me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor, +without labor and perplexity, to be given away. The idea of an +infinite generosity and exhaustless bounty on the part of our Mother +Nature was well worth obtaining through such cares as these. That +feeling can be enjoyed in perfection only by the natives of summer +islands, where the bread-fruit, the cocoa, the palm, and the orange +grow spontaneously and hold forth the ever-ready meal; but likewise +almost as well by a man long habituated to city life, who plunges into +such a solitude as that of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of +trees that he did not plant, and which therefore, to my heterodox +taste, bear the closest resemblance to those that grew in Eden. It +has been an apothegm these five thousand years, that toil sweetens the +bread it earns. For my part (speaking from hard experience, acquired +while belaboring the rugged furrows of Brook Farm), I relish best the +free gifts of Providence. + +Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate +a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as +is never found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they +would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,--be +it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless +weed,--should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy +to maturity altogether by their own care. If there be not too many of +them, each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest. +My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the +right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it +required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and +stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that +nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the +process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the +world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of +early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate +green. Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted by the +blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me, +those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of +my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the +yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep +satisfaction; although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, +they flew away to some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in +requital of what my garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to +fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze with the certainty that +somebody must profit by it and that there would be a little more honey +in the world to allay the sourness and bitterness which mankind is +always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that +honey. + +Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and +varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, +shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a +sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything +more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my +eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever +Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity +of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most +delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes +gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes +for containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate. + +But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my +toil in the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, +in observing the growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the +first little bulb, with the withered blossom adhering to it, until +they lay strewn upon the soil, big, round fellows, hiding their heads +beneath the leaves, but turning up their great yellow rotundities to +the noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my agency something +worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into the +world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could +seize hold of and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,--especially the early +Dutch cabbage, which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its +ambitious heart often bursts asunder,--is a matter to be proud of when +we can claim a share with the earth and sky in producing it. But, +after all, the hugest pleasure is reserved until these vegetable +children of ours are smoking on the table, and we, like Saturn, make a +meal of them. + +What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard, and the garden, +the reader begins to despair of finding his way back into the Old +Manse. But, in agreeable weather, it is the truest hospitality to keep +him out of doors. I never grew quite acquainted with my habitation +till a long spell of sulky rain had confined me beneath its roof. +There could not be a more sombre aspect of external nature than as +then seen from the windows of my study. The great willow-tree had +caught and retained among its leaves a whole cataract of water, to be +shaken down at intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long, +and for a week together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and +splash-splash-splashing from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into +the tubs beneath the spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house +and outbuildings were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient +growth upon the walls looked green and fresh, as if they were the +newest things and afterthought of Time. The usually mirrored surface +of the river was blurred by an infinity of raindrops; the whole +landscape had a completely water-soaked appearance, conveying the +impression that the earth was wet through like a sponge; while the +summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in a +dense mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to have his +abiding-place and to be plotting still direr inclemencies. + +Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the +fiercest beat of sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes +the wayfarer to shady nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot +penetrate; but she provides no shelter against her storms. It makes us +shiver to think of those deep, umbrageous recesses, those +overshadowing banks, where we found such enjoyment during the sultry +afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would dash a little +shower into our faces. Looking reproachfully towards the impenetrable +sky,--if sky there be above that dismal uniformity of cloud,--we are +apt to murmur against the whole system of the universe, since it +involves the extinction of so many summer days in so short a life by +the hissing and spluttering rain. In such spells of weather,--and it +is to be supposed such weather came,--Eve's bower in paradise must +have been but a cheerless and aguish kind of shelter, nowise +comparable to the old parsonage, which had resources of its own to +beguile the week's imprisonment. The idea of sleeping on a couch of +wet roses! + +Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret, +stored, like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has +left behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an +arched hall, dimly illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was +but a twilight at the best; and there were nooks, or rather caverns, +of deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too +reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly +hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of +the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect +unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. +But on one side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore +the traditionary title of the Saint's Chamber, because holy men in +their youth had slept, and studied, and prayed there. With its +elevated retirement, its one window, its small fireplace, and its +closet convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a young +man might inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish saintly +dreams. The occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and +ejaculations inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered +and shrivelled roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the +forcibly wrought picture of a clergyman, in wig, band, and gown, +holding a Bible in his hand. As I turned his face towards the light, +he eyed me with an air of authority such as men of his profession +seldom assume in our days. The original had been pastor of the parish +more than a century ago, a friend of Whitefield, and almost his equal +in fervid eloquence. I bowed before the effigy of the dignified +divine, and felt as if I had now met face to face with the ghost by +whom, as there was reason to apprehend, the Manse was haunted. + +Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed +with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our +ghost used to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, +and sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in +the long upper entry,--where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite +of the bright moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not +improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest +full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while +Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there +came a rustling noise as of a minister's silk gown, sweeping through +the very midst of the company, so closely as almost to brush against +the chairs. Still there was nothing visible. A yet stranger business +was that of a ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the +kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, +ironing,--performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labor,--although +no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning. +Some neglected duty of her servitude, some ill-starched ministerial +band, disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work +without any wages. + +But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor's +library was stored in the garret,--no unfit receptacle indeed for such +dreary trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books +would have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable +garret, however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their +literary value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down +through a series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty +Puritan divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded +ink on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations +or interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible +shorthand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. +The world will never be the better for it. A few of the books were +Latin folios, written by Catholic authors; others demolished Papistry, +as with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the Book +of Job--which only Job himself could have had patience to read--filled +at least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at the rate of two or +three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body of +divinity,--too corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the +spiritual element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two +hundred years or more, and were generally bound in black leather, +exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to +books of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to +be carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times,--diminutive, +but as black as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly interfused with +Greek and Latin quotations. These little old volumes impressed me as +if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been +unfortunately blighted at an early stage of their growth. + +The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty +garret-windows while I burrowed among these venerable books in search +of any living thought which should burn like a coal of fire or glow +like an inextinguishable gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long +hidden it. But I found no such treasure; all was dead alike; and I +could not but muse deeply and wonderingly upon the humiliating fact +that the works of man's intellect decay like those of his hands. +Thought grows mouldy. What was good and nourishing food for the +spirits of one generation affords no sustenance for the next. Books +of religion, however, cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring +and vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so +seldom really touch upon their ostensible subject, and have, +therefore, so little business to be written at all. So long as an +unlettered soul can attain to saving grace there would seem to be no +deadly error in holding theological libraries to be accumulations of, +for the most part, stupendous impertinence. + +Many of the books had accrued in the latter years of the last +clergyman's lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest +than the elder works a century hence to any curious inquirer who +should then rummage then as I was doing now. Volumes of the Liberal +Preacher and Christian Examiner, occasional sermons, controversial +pamphlets, tracts, and other productions of a like fugitive nature, +took the place of the thick and heavy volumes of past time. In a +physical point of view, there was much the same difference as between +a feather and a lump of lead; but, intellectually regarded, the +specific gravity of old and new was about upon a par. Both also were +alike frigid. The elder books nevertheless seemed to have been +earnestly written, and might be conceived to have possessed warmth at +some former period; although, with the lapse of time, the heated +masses had cooled down even to the freezing-point. The frigidity of +the modern productions, on the other hand, was characteristic and +inherent, and evidently had little to do with the writer's qualities +of mind and heart. In fine, of this whole dusty heap of literature I +tossed aside all the sacred part, and felt myself none the less a +Christian for eschewing it. There appeared no hope of either mounting +to the better world on a Gothic staircase of ancient folios or of +flying thither on the wings of a modern tract. + +Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap except what had been written +for the passing day and year, without the remotest pretension or idea +of permanence. There were a few old newspapers, and still older +almanacs, which reproduced to my mental eye the epochs when they had +issued from the press with a distinctness that was altogether +unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic looking-glass +among the books with the images of a vanished century in them. I +turned my eyes towards the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked +of the austere divine wherefore it was that he and his brethren, after +the most painful rummaging and groping into their minds, had been able +to produce nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers and +almanac-makers had thrown off in the effervescence of a moment. The +portrait responded not; so I sought an answer for myself. It is the +age itself that writes newspapers and almanacs, which therefore have a +distinct purpose and meaning at the time, and a kind of intelligible +truth for all times; whereas most other works--being written by men +who, in the very act, set themselves apart from their age--are likely +to possess little significance when new, and none at all when old. +Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something +permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more +ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, +or perchance of a hundred centuries. + +Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there yet lingers with me +a superstitious reverence for literature of all kinds. A bound volume +has a charm in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript possess +for the good Mussulman. He imagines that those wind-wafted records +are perhaps hallowed by some sacred verse; and I, that every new book +or antique one may contain the "open sesame,"--the spell to disclose +treasures hidden in some unsuspected cave of Truth. Thus it was not +without sadness that I turned away from the library of the Old Manse. + +Blessed was the sunshine when it came again at the close of another +stormy day, beaming from the edge of the western horizon; while the +massive firmament of clouds threw down all the gloom it could, but +served only to kindle the golden light into a more brilliant glow by +the strongly contrasted shadows. Heaven smiled at the earth, so long +unseen, from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow for the hill-tops +and the woodpaths. + +Or it might be that Ellery Charming came up the avenue to join me in a +fishing excursion on the river. Strange and happy times were those +when we cast aside all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes and +delivered ourselves up to the free air, to live like the Indians or +any less conventional race during one bright semicircle of the sun. +Rowing our boat against the current, between wide meadows, we turned +aside into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for a mile +above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth, +nowhere, indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet's +imagination. It is sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside; +so that elsewhere there might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a +ripple across the shaded water. The current lingers along so gently +that the mere force of the boatman's will seems sufficient to propel +his craft against it. It comes flowing softly through the midmost +privacy and deepest heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; +while the stream whispers back again from its sedgy borders, as if +river and wood were hushing one another to sleep. Yes; the river +sleeps along its course and dreams of the sky and of the clustering +foliage, amid which fall showers of broken sunlight, imparting specks +of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with the quiet depth of the +prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the slumbering river has a +dream-picture in its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real,--the +picture, or the original?--the objects palpable to our grosser senses, +or their apotheosis in the stream beneath? Surely the disembodied +images stand in closer relation to the soul. But both the original +and the reflection had here an ideal charm; and, had it been a thought +more wild, I could have fancied that this river had strayed forth out +of the rich scenery of my companion's inner world; only the vegetation +along its banks should then have had an Oriental character. + +Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem +hardly satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the +very verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At +one spot there is a lofty bank, on the slope of which grow some +hemlocks, declining across the stream with outstretched arms, as if +resolute to take the plunge. In other places the banks are almost on +a level with the water; so that the quiet congregation of trees set +their feet in the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the +surface. Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate +the dark nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows abundantly +along the margin,--that delicious flower which, as Thoreau tells me, +opens its virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being +through the magic of that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them +unfolding in due succession as the sunrise stole gradually from flower +to flower,--a sight not to be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his +inward eye to a proper focus with the outward organ. Grapevines here +and there twine themselves around shrub and tree and hang their +clusters over the water within reach of the boatman's hand. +Oftentimes they unite two trees of alien race in an inextricable +twine, marrying the hemlock and the maple against their will and +enriching them with a purple offspring of which neither is the parent. +One of these ambitious parasites has climbed into the upper branches +of a tall white-pine, and is still ascending from bough to bough, +unsatisfied till it shall crown the tree's airy summit with a wreath +of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes. + +The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind +us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth +to depth, and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy +kingfisher flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a +distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had +been floating there since the preceding eve were startled at our +approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface +with a bright streak. The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads. +The turtle, sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid +suddenly into the water with a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled +his canoe along the Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly have +seen a wilder gentleness displayed upon its banks and reflected in its +bosom than we did. Nor could the same Indian have prepared his +noontide meal with more simplicity. We drew up our skiff at some +point where the overarching shade formed a natural bower, and there +kindled a fire with the pine cones and decayed branches that lay +strewn plentifully around. Soon the smoke ascended among the trees, +impregnated with a savory incense, not heavy, dull, and surfeiting, +like the steam of cookery within doors, but sprightly and piquant. +The smell of our feast was akin to the woodland odors with which it +mingled: there was no sacrilege committed by our intrusion there: the +sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted us free leave to cook and +eat in the recess that was at once our kitchen and banqueting-hall. +It is strange what humble offices may be performed in a beautiful +scene without destroying its poetry. Our fire, red gleaming among the +trees, and we beside it, busied with culinary rites and spreading out +our meal on a mossgrown log, all seemed in unison with the river +gliding by and the foliage rustling over us. And, what was strangest, +neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety of the solemn +woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness and the +will-of-the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have come +trooping to share our table-talk and have added their shrill laughter +to our merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the extremest +nonsense or the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of the +mind which partakes of both, and may become one or the other, in +correspondence with the faith and insight of the auditor. + +So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up +gushed our talk like the babble of a fountain. The evanescent spray +was Ellery's; and his, too, the lumps of golden thought that lay +glimmering in the fountain's bed and brightened both our faces by the +reflection. Could he have drawn out that virgin gold, and stamped it +with the mint-mark that alone gives currency, the world might have had +the profit, and he the fame. My mind was the richer merely by the +knowledge that it was there. But the chief profit of those wild days, +to him and me, lay not in any definite idea, not in any angular or +rounded truth, which we dug out of the shapeless mass of problematical +stuff, but in the freedom which we thereby won from all custom and +conventionalism and fettering influences of man on man. We were so +free to-day that it was impossible to be slaves again to-morrow. When +we crossed the threshold of the house or trod the thronged pavements +of a city, still the leaves of the trees that overhang the Assabeth +were whispering to us, "Be free! be free!" Therefore along that shady +river-bank there are spots, marked with a heap of ashes and +half-consumed brands, only less sacred in my remembrance than the +hearth of a household fire. + +And yet how sweet, as we floated homeward adown the golden river at +sunset,--how sweet was it to return within the system of human +society, not as to a dungeon and a chain, but as to a stately edifice, +whence we could go forth at will into state--her simplicity! How +gently, too, did the sight of the Old Manse, best seen from the river, +overshadowed with its willow and all environed about with the foliage +of its orchard and avenue,--how gently did its gray, homely aspect +rebuke the speculative extravagances of the day! It had grown sacred +in connection with the artificial life against which we inveighed; it +had been a home for many years, in spite of all; it was my home too; +and, with these thoughts, it seemed to me that all the artifice and +conventionalism of life was but an impalpable thinness upon its +surface, and that the depth below was none the worse for it. Once, as +we turned our boat to the bank, there was a cloud, in the shape of an +immensely gigantic figure of a hound, couched above the house, as if +keeping guard over it. Gazing at this symbol, I prayed that the upper +influences might long protect the institutions that had grown out of +the heart of mankind. + +If ever my readers should decide to give up civilized life, cities, +houses, and whatever moral or material enormities in addition to these +the perverted ingenuity of our race has contrived, let it be in the +early autumn. Then Nature will love him better than at any other +season, and will take him to her bosom with a more motherly +tenderness. I could scarcely endure the roof of the old house above me +in those first autumnal days. How early in the summer, too, the +prophecy of autumn comes! Earlier in some years than in others; +sometimes even in the first weeks of July. There is no other feeling +like what is caused by this faint, doubtful, yet real perception--if +it be not rather a foreboding--of the year's decay, so blessedly sweet +and sad in the same breath. + +Did I say that there was no feeling like it? Ah, but there is a +half-acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the perfected +vigor of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his flowers, +and that the next work of his never-idle fingers must be to steal them +one by one away. + +I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket be not as early a +token of autumn's approach as any other,--that song which may be +called an audible stillness; for though very loud and heard afar, yet +the mind does not take note of it as a sound, so completely is its +individual existence merged among the accompanying characteristics of +the season. Alas for the pleasant summertime! In August the grass is +still verdant on the hills and in the valleys; the foliage of the +trees is as dense as ever and as green; the flowers gleam forth in +richer abundance along the margin of the river and by the stone walls +and deep among the woods; the days, too, are as fervid now as they +were a month ago; and yet in every breath of wind and in every beam of +sunshine we hear the whispered farewell and behold the parting smile +of a dear friend. There is a coolness amid all the heat, a mildness +in the blazing noon. Not a breeze can stir but it thrills us with the +breath of autumn. A pensive glory is seen in the far, golden gleams, +among the shadows of the trees. The flowers--even the brightest of +them, and they are the most gorgeous of the year--have this gentle +sadness wedded to their pomp, and typify the character of the +delicious time each within itself. The brilliant cardinal-flower has +never seemed gay to me. + +Still later in the season Nature's tenderness waxes stronger. It is +impossible not to be fond of our mother now; for she is so fond of us! +At other periods she does not make this impression on me, or only at +rare intervals; but in those genial days of autumn, when she has +perfected her harvests and accomplished every needful thing that was +given her to do, then she overflows with a blessed superfluity of +love. She has leisure to caress her children now. It is good to be +alive and at such times. Thank Heaven for breath--yes, for mere +breath--when it is made up of a heavenly breeze like this! It comes +with a real kiss upon our cheeks; it would linger fondly around us if +it might; but, since it must be gone, it embraces us with its whole +kindly heart and passes onward to embrace likewise the next thing that +it meets. A blessing is flung abroad and scattered far and wide over +the earth, to be gathered up by all who choose. I recline upon the +still unwithered grass and whisper to myself, "O perfect day! O +beautiful world! O beneficent God!" And it is the promise of a +blessed eternity; for our Creator would never have made such lovely +days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond +all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal. This sunshine is +the golden pledge thereof. It beams through the gates of paradise and +shows us glimpses far inward. + +By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear +austerity. On some October morning there is a heavy hoarfrost on the +grass and along the tops of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall +from the trees of our avenue, without a breath of wind, quietly +descending by their own weight. All summer long they have murmured +like the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while the branches +were wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both glad +and solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I +paced to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they +can only rustle under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins +to assume a larger importance, and draws to its fireside,--for the +abomination of the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry +weather,--draws closer and closer to its fireside the vagrant impulses +that had gone wandering about through the summer. + +When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a +hermitage. Not that ever--in my time at least--it had been thronged +with company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out +of the dusty glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with +him the transparent obscurity that was floating over us. In one +respect our precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through which the +pilgrim travelled on his way to the Celestial City. The guests, each +and all, felt a slumberous influence upon them; they fell asleep in +chairs, or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen +stretched among the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily +through the boughs. They could not have paid a more acceptable +compliment to my abode nor to my own qualities as a host. I held it +as a proof that they left their cares behind them as they passed +between the stone gate-posts at the entrance of our avenue, and that +the so powerful opiate was the abundance of peace and quiet within and +all around us. Others could give them pleasure and amusement or +instruction,--these could be picked up anywhere; but it was for me to +give them rest,--rest in a life of trouble. What better could be +done for those weary and world-worn spirits?--for him whose career of +perpetual action was impeded and harassed by the rarest of his powers +and the richest of his acquirements?--for another who had thrown his +ardent heart from earliest youth into the strife of politics, and now, +perchance, began to suspect that one lifetime is too brief for the +accomplishment of any lofty aim?--for her oil whose feminine nature +had been imposed the heavy gift of intellectual power, such as a +strong man might have staggered under, and with it the necessity to +act upon the world?--in a word, not to multiply instances, what +better could be done for anybody who came within our magic circle than +to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit over him? And when it had +wrought its full effect, then we dismissed him, with but misty +reminiscences, as if he had been dreaming of us. + +Were I to adopt a pet idea as so many people do, and fondle it in my +embraces to the exclusion of all others, it would be, that the great +want which mankind labors under at this present period is sleep. The +world should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and +take an age-long nap. It has gone distracted through a morbid +activity, and, while preternaturally wide awake, is nevertheless +tormented by visions that seem real to it now, but would assume their +true aspect and character were all things once set right by an +interval of sound repose. This is the only method of getting rid of +old delusions and avoiding new ones; of regenerating our race, so that +it might in due time awake as an infant out of dewy slumber; of +restoring to us the simple perception of what is right and the +single-hearted desire to achieve it, both of which have long been lost +in consequence of this weary activity of brain and torpor or passion of +the heart that now afflict the universe. Stimulants, the only mode of +treatment hitherto attempted, cannot quell the disease; they do but +heighten the delirium. + +Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted against the author; for, +though tinctured with its modicum of truth, it is the result and +expression of what he knew, while he was writing, to be but a +distorted survey of the state and prospects of mankind. There were +circumstances around me which made it difficult to view the world +precisely as it exists; for, severe and sober as was the Old Manse, it +was necessary to go but a little way beyond its threshold before +meeting with stranger moral shapes of men than might have been +encountered elsewhere in a circuit of a thousand miles. + +These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were attracted thither by the +widespreading influence of a great original thinker, who had his +earthly abode at the opposite extremity of our village. His mind +acted upon other minds of a certain constitution with wonderful +magnetism, and drew many men upon long pilgrimages to speak with him +face to face. Young visionaries--to whom just so much of insight had +been imparted as to make life all a labyrinth around them--came to +seek the clew that should guide them out of their self-involved +bewilderment. Gray-headed theorists--whose systems, at first air, had +finally imprisoned them in an iron framework--travelled painfully to +his door, not to ask deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into +their own thraldom. People that had lighted on a new thought or a +thought that they fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a +glittering gem hastens to a lapidary, to ascertain its quality and +value. Uncertain, troubled, earnest wanderers through the midnight of +the moral world beheld his intellectual fire as a beacon burning on a +hill-top, and, climbing the difficult ascent, looked forth into the +surrounding obscurity more hopefully than hitherto. The light +revealed objects unseen before,--mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses +of a creation among the chaos; but also, as was unavoidable, it +attracted bats and owls and the whole host of night birds, which +flapped their dusky wings against the gazer's eyes, and sometimes were +mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. Such delusions always hover +nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth is kindled. + +For myself, there bad been epochs of my life when I, too, might have +asked of this prophet the master word that should solve me the riddle +of the universe; but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no +question to be put, and therefore admired Emerson as a poet, of deep +beauty and austere tenderness, but sought nothing from him as a +philosopher. It was good, nevertheless, to meet him in the woodpaths, +or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual gleam +diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining one; and be, +so quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man +alive as if expecting to receive more than he could impart. And, in +truth, the heart of many an ordinary man had, perchance, inscriptions +which he could not read. But it was impossible to dwell in his +vicinity without inhaling more or less the mountain atmosphere of his +lofty thought, which, in the brains of some people, wrought a singular +giddiness,--new truth being as heady as new wine. Never was a poor +little country village infested with such a variety of queer, +strangely dressed, oddly behaved mortals, most of whom took upon +themselves to be important agents of the world's destiny, yet were +simply bores of a very intense water. Such, I imagine, is the +invariable character of persons who crowd so closely about an original +thinker as to draw in his unuttered breath and thus become imbued with +a false originality. This triteness of novelty is enough to make any +man of common-sense blaspheme at all ideas of less than a century's +standing, and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered +immovable in precisely the worst moral and physical state that it ever +yet arrived at, rather than be benefited by such schemes of such +philosophers. + +And now I begin to feel--and perhaps should have sooner felt--that we +have talked enough of the Old Manse. Mine honored reader, it may be, +will vilify the poor author as an egotist for babbling through so many +pages about a mossgrown country parsonage, and his life within its +walls, and on the river, and in the woods, and the influences that +wrought upon him from all these sources. My conscience, however, does +not reproach me with betraying anything too sacredly individual to be +revealed by a human spirit to its brother or sister spirit. How +narrow-how shallow and scanty too--is the stream of thought that has +been flowing from my pen, compared with the broad tide of dim +emotions, ideas, and associations which swell around me from that +portion of my existence! How little have I told! and of that little, +how almost nothing is even tinctured with any quality that makes it +exclusively my own! Has the reader gone wandering, hand in hand with +me, through the inner passages of my being? and have we groped +together into all its chambers and examined their treasures or their +rubbish? Not so. We have been standing on the greensward, but just +within the cavern's mouth, where the common sunshine is free to +penetrate, and where every footstep is therefore free to come. I have +appealed to no sentiment or sensibilities save such as are diffused +among us all. So far as I am a man of really individual attributes I +veil my face; nor am I, nor have I ever been, one of those supremely +hospitable people who serve up their own hearts, delicately fried, +with brain sauce, as a tidbit for their beloved public. + +Glancing back over what I have written, it seems but the scattered +reminiscences of a single summer. In fairyland there is no +measurement of time; and, in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of +life's ocean, three years hastened away with a noiseless flight, as +the breezy sunshine chases the cloud-shadows across the depths of a +still valley. Now came hints, growing more and more distinct, that the +owner of the old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters +next, appeared, making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, +strewing the green grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut +joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their +discordant renovations. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of +the veil of woodbine which had crept over a large portion of its +southern face. All the aged mosses were cleared unsparingly away; and +there were horrible whispers about brushing up the external walls with +a coat of paint,--a purpose as little to my taste as might be that of +rouging the venerable cheeks of one's grandmother. But the hand that +renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which destroys. In +fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea +in our pleasant little breakfast-room,--delicately fragrant tea, an +unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fallen like +dew upon us,--and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts as +uncertain as the wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. +Providence took me by the hand, and--an oddity of dispensation which, +I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at--has led me, as the +newspapers announce while I am writing, from the Old Manse into a +custom-house. As a story-teller, I have often contrived strange +vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like this. + +The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our +secluded dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of +ethics, no philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand +unsupported on its edges. All that I had to show, as a man of +letters, were these, few tales and essays, which had blossomed out +like flowers in the calm summer of my heart and mind. Save editing +(an easy task) the journal of my friend of many years, the African +Cruiser, I had done nothing else. With these idle weeds and withering +blossoms I have intermixed some that were produced long ago,--old, +faded things, reminding me of flowers pressed between the leaves of a +book,--and now offer the bouquet, such as it is, to any whom it may +please. These fitful sketches, with so little of external life about +them, yet claiming no profundity of purpose,--so reserved, even while +they sometimes seem so frank,--often but half in earnest, and never, +even when most so, expressing satisfactorily the thoughts which they +profess to image,--such trifles, I truly feel, afford no solid basis +for a literary reputation. Nevertheless, the public--if my limited +number of readers, whom I venture to regard rather as a circle of +friends, may be termed a public--will receive them the more kindly, +as the last offering, the last collection of this nature which it is +my purpose ever to put forth. Unless I could do better, I have done +enough in this kind. For myself the book will always retain one +charm,--as reminding me of the river, with its delightful solitudes, +and of the avenue, the garden, and the orchard, and especially the +dear Old Manse, with the little study on its western side, and the +sunshine glimmering through the willow branches while I wrote. + +Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my +guest, and that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within +and about the Old Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study. +There, after seating him in an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the +house, I take forth a roll of manuscript and entreat his attention to +the following tales,--an act of personal inhospitality, however, which +I never was guilty of, nor ever will be, even to my worst enemy. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An +Old Manse"), by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MANSE *** + +***** This file should be named 9221.txt or 9221.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/2/2/9221/ + +Produced by David Widger. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: Nov, 2005 [EBook #9221] +[This file was first posted on September 6, 2003] +[Last updated on February 6, 2007] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE OLD MANSE *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + THE OLD MANSE. + + + The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode. + + +Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself +having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the +gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of +black-ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral +procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned +from that gateway towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track +leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was +almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or +three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to +pick up along the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half +asleep between the door of the house and the public highway were a +kind of spiritual medium, seen through which the edifice had not quite +the aspect of belonging to the material world. Certainly it had +little in common with those ordinary abodes which stand so imminent +upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, +into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of +passing travellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of +privacy. In its near retirement and accessible seclusion, it was the +very spot for the residence of a clergyman,--a man not estranged from +human life, yet enveloped, in the midst of it, with a veil woven of +intermingled gloom and brightness. It was worthy to have been one of +the time-honored parsonages of England, in which, through many +generations, a succession of holy occupants pass from youth to age, +and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade the house and +hover over it as with an atmosphere. + +Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant +until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A +priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men +from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers +had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to +reflect how many sermons must have been written there. The latest +inhabitant alone--he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was +left vacant--had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the +better, if not the greater, number that gushed living from his lips. +How often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, +attuning his meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and deep and +solemn peals of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that +variety of natural utterances he could find something accordant with +every passage of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential +fear. The boughs over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts, as +well as with rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been +so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom +would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that +I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well +worth those hoards of long-hidden gold which people seek for in moss- +grown houses. Profound treatises of morality; a layman's +unprofessional, and therefore unprejudiced, views of religion; +histories (such as Bancroft might have written had he taken up his +abode here, as he once purposed) bright with picture, gleaming over a +depth of philosophic thought,--these were the works that might fitly +have flowed from such a retirement. In the humblest event, I resolved +at least to achieve a novel that should evolve some deep lesson, and +should possess physical substance enough to stand alone. + +In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not +fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful +little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a +scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an +inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and +Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When +I first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the smoke of +unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan +ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad +angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so +sternly with the Devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been +imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful +coat of paint and golden-tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small +apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree that swept against the +overhanging eaves atempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of +the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of +Raphael's Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of +Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, +always fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books +(few, and by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as +chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to +be disturbed. + +The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of +glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side +looked, or rather peeped, between the willow branches, down into the +orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third, +facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot +where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of +history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in +the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle +between two nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on +the farther side of the river, and the glittering line of the British +on the hither bank. He awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of +the musketry. It came; and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the +battle-smoke around this quiet house. + +Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the +Old Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of sight-showing,-- +perhaps he will choose to take a nearer view of the memorable spot. +We stand now on the river's brink. It may well be called the +Concord,--the river of peace and quietness; for it is certainly the +most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered imperceptibly +towards its eternity,--the sea. Positively I had lived three weeks +beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception which way the +current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a +northwestern breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the +incurable indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of +becoming the slave of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a +wild, free mountain torrent. While all things else are compelled to +subserve some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life away in lazy +liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or affording even water- +power enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. The torpor +of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so much +as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. It +slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow grass, and +bathes the overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and willows, or the +roots of elms and ash-trees and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes +grow along its plashy shore; the yellow water-lily spreads its broad, +flat leaves on the margin; and the fragrant white pond-lily abounds, +generally selecting a position just so far from the river's brink that +it cannot be grasped save at the hazard of plunging in. + +It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and +perfume, springing as it does from the black mud over which the river +sleeps, and where lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the mud- +turtle, whom continual washing cannot cleanse. It is the very same +black mud out of which the yellow lily sucks its obscene life and +noisome odor. Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons +assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral +circumstances which supply good and beautiful results--the fragrance +of celestial flowers--to the daily life of others. + +The reader must not, from any testimony of mine, contract a dislike +towards our slumberous stream. In the light of a calm and golden +sunset it becomes lovely beyond expression; the more lovely for the +quietude that so well accords with the hour, when even the wind, after +blustering all day long, usually hushes itself to rest. Each tree and +rock and every blade of grass is distinctly imaged, and, however +unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the reflection. The +minutest things of earth and the broad aspect of the firmament are +pictured equally without effort and with the same felicity of success. +All the sky glows downward at our feet; the rich clouds float through +the unruffled bosom of the stream like heavenly thoughts through a +peaceful heart. We will not, then, malign our river as gross and +impure while it can glorify itself with so adequate a picture of the +heaven that broods above it; or, if we remember its tawny hue and the +muddiness of its bed, let it be a symbol that the earthiest human soul +has an infinite spiritual capacity and may contain the better world +within its depths. But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out of +any mud-puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught us +everywhere, it must be true. + +Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious track in our walk to the +battle-ground. Here we are, at the point where the river was crossed +by the old bridge, the possession of which was the immediate object of +the contest. On the hither side grow two or three elms, throwing a +wide circumference of shade, but which must have been planted at some +period within the threescore years and ten that have passed since the +battle-day. On the farther shore, overhung by a clump of elder- +bushes, we discern the stone abutment of the bridge. Looking down +into the river, I once discovered some heavy fragments of the timbers, +all green with half a century's growth of water-moss; for during that +length of time the tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased +along this ancient highway. The stream has here about the breadth of +twenty strokes of a swimmer's arm,--a space not too wide when the +bullets were whistling across. Old people who dwell hereabouts will +point out, the very spots on the western bank where our countrymen +fell down and died; and on this side of the river an obelisk of +granite has grown up from the soil that was fertilized with British +blood. The monument, not more than twenty feet in height, is such as +it befitted the inhabitants of a village to erect in illustration of a +matter of local interest rather than what was suitable to commemorate +an epoch of national history. Still, by the fathers of the village +this famous deed was done; and their descendants might rightfully +claim the privilege of building a memorial. + +A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interesting one than the +granite obelisk, may be seen close under the stone wall which +separates the battle-ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is +the grave,--marked by a small, mossgrown fragment of stone at the head +and another at the foot,--the grave of two British soldiers who were +slain in the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully where +Zechariah Brown and Thomas Davis buried them. Soon was their warfare +ended; a weary night-march from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry +across the river, and then these many years of rest. In the long +procession of slain invaders who passed into eternity from the battle- +fields of the Revolution, these two nameless soldiers led the way. + +Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over this grave, told me a +tradition in reference to one of the inhabitants below. The story has +something deeply impressive, though its circumstances cannot +altogether be reconciled with probability. A youth in the service of +the clergyman happened to be chopping wood, that April morning, at the +back door of the Manse; and when the noise of battle rang from side to +side of the bridge, he hastened across the intervening field to see +what might be going forward. It is rather strange, by the way, that +this lad should have been so diligently at work when the whole +population of town and country were startled out of their customary +business by the advance of the British troops. Be that as it might, +the tradition, says that the lad now left his task and hurried to the +battle-field with the axe still in his hand. The British had by this +time retreated; the Americans were in pursuit; and the late scene of +strife was thus deserted by both parties. Two soldiers lay on the +ground,--one was a corpse; but, as the young New-Englander drew nigh, +the other Briton raised himself painfully upon his hands and knees and +gave a ghastly stare into his face. The boy,--it must have been a +nervous impulse, without purpose, without thought, and betokening a +sensitive and impressible nature rather than a hardened one,--the boy +uplifted his axe and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow +upon the head. + +I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know +whether either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his +skull. The story comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an +intellectual and moral exercise, I have sought to follow that poor +youth through his subsequent career and observe how his soul was +tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been before the long +custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity and while it still +seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has +borne more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight. + +Many strangers come in the summer-time to view the battle-ground. For +my own part, I have never found my imagination much excited by this or +any other scene of historic celebrity; nor would the placid margin of +the river have lost any of its charm for me, had men never fought and +died there. There is a wilder interest in the tract of land-perhaps a +hundred yards in breadth--which extends between the battle-field and +the northern face of our Old Manse, with its contiguous avenue and +orchard. Here, in some unknown age, before the white man came, stood +an Indian village, convenient to the river, whence its inhabitants +must have drawn so large a part of their substance. The site is +identified by the spear and arrow-heads, the chisels, and other +implements of war, labor, and the chase, which the plough turns up +from the soil. You see a splinter of stone, half hidden beneath a +sod; it looks like nothing worthy of note; but, if you have faith +enough to pick it up, behold a relic! Thoreau, who has a strange +faculty of finding what the Indians have left behind them, first set +me on the search; and I afterwards enriched myself with some very +perfect specimens, so rudely wrought that it seemed almost as if +chance had fashioned them. Their great charm consists in this +rudeness and in the individuality of each article, so different from +the productions of civilized machinery, which shapes everything on one +pattern. There is exquisite delight, too, in picking up for one's +self an arrow-head that was dropped centuries ago and has never been +handled since, and which we thus receive directly from the hand of the +red hunter, who purposed to shoot it at his game or at an enemy. Such +an incident builds up again the Indian village and its encircling +forest, and recalls to life the painted chiefs and warriors, the +squaws at their household toil, and the children sporting among the +wigwams, while the little wind-rocked pappose swings from the branch +of a tree. It can hardly be told whether it is a joy or a pain, after +such a momentary vision, to gaze around in the broad daylight of +reality and see stone fences, white houses, potato-fields, and men +doggedly hoeing in their shirt-sleeves and homespun pantaloons. But +this is nonsense. The Old Manse is better than a thousand wigwams. + +The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return thither +through the orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, in the +decline of his life, when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed +man for planting trees from which he could have no prospect of +gathering fruit. Even had that been the case, there was only so much +the better motive for planting them, in the pure and unselfish hope of +benefiting his successors,--an end so seldom achieved by more +ambitious efforts. But the old minister, before reaching his +patriarchal age of ninety, ate the apples from this orchard during +many years, and added silver and gold to his annual stipend by +disposing of the superfluity. It is pleasant to think of him walking +among the trees in the quiet afternoons of early autumn and picking up +here and there a windfall, while he observes how heavily the branches +are weighed down, and computes the number of empty flour-barrels that +will be filled by their burden. He loved each tree, doubtless, as if +it had been his own child. An orchard has a relation to mankind, and +readily connects itself with matters of the heart. The trees possess +a domestic character; they have lost the wild nature of their forest +kindred, and have grown humanized by receiving the care of man as well +as by contributing to his wants. There, is so much individuality of +character, too, among apple trees, that it gives them all additional +claim to be the objects of human interest. One is harsh and crabbed +in its manifestations; another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One +is churlish and illiberal, evidently grudging the few apples that it +bears; another exhausts itself in free-hearted benevolence. The +variety of grotesque shapes into which apple, trees contort themselves +has its effect on those who get acquainted with them: they stretch out +their crooked branches, and take such hold of the imagination, that we +remember them as humorists and odd fellows. And what is more +melancholy than the old apple-trees that linger about the spot where +once stood a homestead, but where there is now only a ruined chimney +rising out of a grassy and weed-grown cellar? They offer their fruit +to every wayfarer,--apples that are bitter sweet with the moral of +Time's vicissitude. + +I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world as that of +finding myself, with only the two or three mouths which it was my +privilege to feed, the sole inheritor of the old clergyman's wealth of +fruits. Throughout the summer there were cherries and currants; and +then came Autumn, with his immense burden of apples, dropping them +continually from his over-laden shoulders as he trudged along. In the +stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great apple was +audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of +perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down +bushels upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach-trees, which, in a good +year, tormented me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor, +without labor and perplexity, to be given away. The idea of an +infinite generosity and exhaustless bounty on the part of our Mother +Nature was well worth obtaining through such cares as these. That +feeling can be enjoyed in perfection only by the natives of summer +islands, where the bread-fruit, the cocoa, the palm, and the orange +grow spontaneously and hold forth the ever-ready meal; but likewise +almost as well by a man long habituated to city life, who plunges into +such a solitude as that of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of +trees that he did not plant, and which therefore, to my heterodox +taste, bear the closest resemblance to those that grew in Eden. It +has been an apothegm these five thousand years, that toil sweetens the +bread it earns. For my part (speaking from hard experience, acquired +while belaboring the rugged furrows of Brook Farm), I relish best the +free gifts of Providence. + +Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate +a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as +is never found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they +would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,-- +be it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless +weed,--should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy +to maturity altogether by their own care. If there be not too many of +them, each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest. +My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the +right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it +required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and +stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that +nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the +process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the +world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of +early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate +green. Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted by the +blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me, +those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of +my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the +yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep +satisfaction; although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, +they flew away to some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in +requital of what my garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to +fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze with the certainty that +somebody must profit by it and that there would be a little more honey +in the world to allay the sourness and bitterness which mankind is +always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that +honey. + +Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and +varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, +shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a +sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything +more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my +eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever +Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity +of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most +delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes +gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes +for containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate. + +But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my +toil in the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, +in observing the growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the +first little bulb, with the withered blossom adhering to it, until +they lay strewn upon the soil, big, round fellows, hiding their heads +beneath the leaves, but turning up their great yellow rotundities to +the noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my agency something +worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into the +world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could +seize hold of and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,--especially the early +Dutch cabbage, which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its +ambitious heart often bursts asunder,--is a matter to be proud of when +we can claim a share with the earth and sky in producing it. But, +after all, the hugest pleasure is reserved until these vegetable +children of ours are smoking on the table, and we, like Saturn, make a +meal of them. + +What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard, and the garden, +the reader begins to despair of finding his way back into the Old +Manse. But, in agreeable weather, it is the truest hospitality to keep +him out of doors. I never grew quite acquainted with my habitation +till a long spell of sulky rain had confined me beneath its roof. +There could not be a more sombre aspect of external nature than as +then seen from the windows of my study. The great willow-tree had +caught and retained among its leaves a whole cataract of water, to be +shaken down at intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long, +and for a week together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and splash- +splash-splashing from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into the tubs +beneath the spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house and +outbuildings were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient +growth upon the walls looked green and fresh, as if they were the +newest things and afterthought of Time. The usually mirrored surface +of the river was blurred by an infinity of raindrops; the whole +landscape had a completely water-soaked appearance, conveying the +impression that the earth was wet through like a sponge; while the +summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in a +dense mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to have his abiding- +place and to be plotting still direr inclemencies. + +Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the +fiercest beat of sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes +the wayfarer to shady nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot +penetrate; but she provides no shelter against her storms. It makes us +shiver to think of those deep, umbrageous recesses, those +overshadowing banks, where we found such enjoyment during the sultry +afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would dash a little +shower into our faces. Looking reproachfully towards the impenetrable +sky,--if sky there be above that dismal uniformity of cloud,--we are +apt to murmur against the whole system of the universe, since it +involves the extinction of so many summer days in so short a life by +the hissing and spluttering rain. In such spells of weather,--and it +is to be supposed such weather came,--Eve's bower in paradise must +have been but a cheerless and aguish kind of shelter, nowise +comparable to the old parsonage, which had resources of its own to +beguile the week's imprisonment. The idea of sleeping on a couch of +wet roses! + +Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret, +stored, like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has +left behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an +arched hall, dimly illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was +but a twilight at the best; and there were nooks, or rather caverns, +of deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too +reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly +hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of +the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect +unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. +But on one side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore +the traditionary title of the Saint's Chamber, because holy men in +their youth had slept, and studied, and prayed there. With its +elevated retirement, its one window, its small fireplace, and its +closet convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a young +man might inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish saintly +dreams. The occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and +ejaculations inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered +and shrivelled roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the +forcibly wrought picture of a clergyman, in wig, band, and gown, +holding a Bible in his hand. As I turned his face towards the light, +he eyed me with an air of authority such as men of his profession +seldom assume in our days. The original had been pastor of the parish +more than a century ago, a friend of Whitefield, and almost his equal +in fervid eloquence. I bowed before the effigy of the dignified +divine, and felt as if I had now met face to face with the ghost by +whom, as there was reason to apprehend, the Manse was haunted. + +Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed +with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our +ghost used to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, +and sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in +the long upper entry,--where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite +of the bright moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not +improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest +full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while +Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there +came a rustling noise as of a minister's silk gown, sweeping through +the very midst of the company, so closely as almost to brush against +the chairs. Still there was nothing visible. A yet stranger business +was that of a ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the +kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, ironing,-- +performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labor,--although no traces +of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning. Some +neglected duty of her servitude, some ill-starched ministerial band, +disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work without +any wages. + +But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor's +library was stored in the garret,--no unfit receptacle indeed for such +dreary trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books +would have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable +garret, however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their +literary value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down +through a series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty +Puritan divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded +ink on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations +or interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible +shorthand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. +The world will never be the better for it. A few of the books were +Latin folios, written by Catholic authors; others demolished Papistry, +as with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the Book +of Job--which only Job himself could have had patience to read--filled +at least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at the rate of two or +three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body of +divinity,--too corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the +spiritual element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two +hundred years or more, and were generally bound in black leather, +exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to +books of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to +be carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times,--diminutive, +but as black as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly interfused with +Greek and Latin quotations. These little old volumes impressed me as +if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been +unfortunately blighted at an early stage of their growth. + +The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty +garret-windows while I burrowed among these venerable books in search +of any living thought which should burn like a coal of fire or glow +like an inextinguishable gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long +hidden it. But I found no such treasure; all was dead alike; and I +could not but muse deeply and wonderingly upon the humiliating fact +that the works of man's intellect decay like those of his hands. +Thought grows mouldy. What was good and nourishing food for the +spirits of one generation affords no sustenance for the next. Books +of religion, however, cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring +and vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so +seldom really touch upon their ostensible subject, and have, +therefore, so little business to be written at all. So long as an +unlettered soul can attain to saving grace there would seem to be no +deadly error in holding theological libraries to be accumulations of, +for the most part, stupendous impertinence. + +Many of the books had accrued in the latter years of the last +clergyman's lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest +than the elder works a century hence to any curious inquirer who +should then rummage then as I was doing now. Volumes of the Liberal +Preacher and Christian Examiner, occasional sermons, controversial +pamphlets, tracts, and other productions of a like fugitive nature, +took the place of the thick and heavy volumes of past time. In a +physical point of view, there was much the same difference as between +a feather and a lump of lead; but, intellectually regarded, the +specific gravity of old and new was about upon a par. Both also were +alike frigid. The elder books nevertheless seemed to have been +earnestly written, and might be conceived to have possessed warmth at +some former period; although, with the lapse of time, the heated +masses had cooled down even to the freezing-point. The frigidity of +the modern productions, on the other hand, was characteristic and +inherent, and evidently had little to do with the writer's qualities +of mind and heart. In fine, of this whole dusty heap of literature I +tossed aside all the sacred part, and felt myself none the less a +Christian for eschewing it. There appeared no hope of either mounting +to the better world on a Gothic staircase of ancient folios or of +flying thither on the wings of a modern tract. + +Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap except what had been written +for the passing day and year, without the remotest pretension or idea +of permanence. There were a few old newspapers, and still older +almanacs, which reproduced to my mental eye the epochs when they had +issued from the press with a distinctness that was altogether +unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic looking-glass +among the books with the images of a vanished century in them. I +turned my eyes towards the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked +of the austere divine wherefore it was that he and his brethren, after +the most painful rummaging and groping into their minds, had been able +to produce nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers and +almanac-makers had thrown off in the effervescence of a moment. The +portrait responded not; so I sought an answer for myself. It is the +age itself that writes newspapers and almanacs, which therefore have a +distinct purpose and meaning at the time, and a kind of intelligible +truth for all times; whereas most other works--being written by men +who, in the very act, set themselves apart from their age--are likely +to possess little significance when new, and none at all when old. +Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something +permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more +ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, +or perchance of a hundred centuries. + +Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there yet lingers with me +a superstitious reverence for literature of all kinds. A bound volume +has a charm in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript possess +for the good Mussulman. He imagines that those wind-wafted records +are perhaps hallowed by some sacred verse; and I, that every new book +or antique one may contain the "open sesame,"--the spell to disclose +treasures hidden in some unsuspected cave of Truth. Thus it was not +without sadness that I turned away from the library of the Old Manse. + +Blessed was the sunshine when it came again at the close of another +stormy day, beaming from the edge of the western horizon; while the +massive firmament of clouds threw down all the gloom it could, but +served only to kindle the golden light into a more brilliant glow by +the strongly contrasted shadows. Heaven smiled at the earth, so long +unseen, from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow for the hill-tops +and the woodpaths. + +Or it might be that Ellery Charming came up the avenue to join me in a +fishing excursion on the river. Strange and happy times were those +when we cast aside all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes and +delivered ourselves up to the free air, to live like the Indians or +any less conventional race during one bright semicircle of the sun. +Rowing our boat against the current, between wide meadows, we turned +aside into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for a mile +above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth, +nowhere, indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet's +imagination. It is sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside; +so that elsewhere there might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a +ripple across the shaded water. The current lingers along so gently +that the mere force of the boatman's will seems sufficient to propel +his craft against it. It comes flowing softly through the midmost +privacy and deepest heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; +while the stream whispers back again from its sedgy borders, as if +river and wood were hushing one another to sleep. Yes; the river +sleeps along its course and dreams of the sky and of the clustering +foliage, amid which fall showers of broken sunlight, imparting specks +of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with the quiet depth of the +prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the slumbering river has a dream- +picture in its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real,--the +picture, or the original?--the objects palpable to our grosser senses, +or their apotheosis in the stream beneath? Surely the disembodied +images stand in closer relation to the soul. But both the original +and the reflection had here an ideal charm; and, had it been a thought +more wild, I could have fancied that this river had strayed forth out +of the rich scenery of my companion's inner world; only the vegetation +along its banks should then have had an Oriental character. + +Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem +hardly satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the +very verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At +one spot there is a lofty bank, on the slope of which grow some +hemlocks, declining across the stream with outstretched arms, as if +resolute to take the plunge. In other places the banks are almost on +a level with the water; so that the quiet congregation of trees set +their feet in the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the +surface. Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate +the dark nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows abundantly +along the margin,--that delicious flower which, as Thoreau tells me, +opens its virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being +through the magic of that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them +unfolding in due succession as the sunrise stole gradually from flower +to flower,--a sight not to be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his +inward eye to a proper focus with the outward organ. Grapevines here +and there twine themselves around shrub and tree and hang their +clusters over the water within reach of the boatman's hand. +Oftentimes they unite two trees of alien race in an inextricable +twine, marrying the hemlock and the maple against their will and +enriching them with a purple offspring of which neither is the parent. +One of these ambitious parasites has climbed into the upper branches +of a tall white-pine, and is still ascending from bough to bough, +unsatisfied till it shall crown the tree's airy summit with a wreath +of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes. + +The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind +us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth +to depth, and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy +kingfisher flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a +distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had +been floating there since the preceding eve were startled at our +approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface +with a bright streak. The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads. +The turtle, sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid +suddenly into the water with a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled +his canoe along the Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly have +seen a wilder gentleness displayed upon its banks and reflected in its +bosom than we did. Nor could the same Indian have prepared his +noontide meal with more simplicity. We drew up our skiff at some +point where the overarching shade formed a natural bower, and there +kindled a fire with the pine cones and decayed branches that lay +strewn plentifully around. Soon the smoke ascended among the trees, +impregnated with a savory incense, not heavy, dull, and surfeiting, +like the steam of cookery within doors, but sprightly and piquant. +The smell of our feast was akin to the woodland odors with which it +mingled: there was no sacrilege committed by our intrusion there: the +sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted us free leave to cook and +eat in the recess that was at once our kitchen and banqueting-hall. +It is strange what humble offices may be performed in a beautiful +scene without destroying its poetry. Our fire, red gleaming among the +trees, and we beside it, busied with culinary rites and spreading out +our meal on a mossgrown log, all seemed in unison with the river +gliding by and the foliage rustling over us. And, what was strangest, +neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety of the solemn +woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness and the will-of- +the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have come trooping +to share our table-talk and have added their shrill laughter to our +merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the extremest +nonsense or the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of the +mind which partakes of both, and may become one or the other, in +correspondence with the faith and insight of the auditor. + +So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up +gushed our talk like the babble of a fountain. The evanescent spray +was Ellery's; and his, too, the lumps of golden thought that lay +glimmering in the fountain's bed and brightened both our faces by the +reflection. Could he have drawn out that virgin gold, and stamped it +with the mint-mark that alone gives currency, the world might have had +the profit, and he the fame. My mind was the richer merely by the +knowledge that it was there. But the chief profit of those wild days, +to him and me, lay not in any definite idea, not in any angular or +rounded truth, which we dug out of the shapeless mass of problematical +stuff, but in the freedom which we thereby won from all custom and +conventionalism and fettering influences of man on man. We were so +free to-day that it was impossible to be slaves again to-morrow. When +we crossed the threshold of the house or trod the thronged pavements +of a city, still the leaves of the trees that overhang the Assabeth +were whispering to us, "Be free! be free!" Therefore along that shady +river-bank there are spots, marked with a heap of ashes and half- +consumed brands, only less sacred in my remembrance than the hearth of +a household fire. + +And yet how sweet, as we floated homeward adown the golden river at +sunset,--how sweet was it to return within the system of human +society, not as to a dungeon and a chain, but as to a stately edifice, +whence we could go forth at will into state--her simplicity! How +gently, too, did the sight of the Old Manse, best seen from the river, +overshadowed with its willow and all environed about with the foliage +of its orchard and avenue,--how gently did its gray, homely aspect +rebuke the speculative extravagances of the day! It had grown sacred +in connection with the artificial life against which we inveighed; it +had been a home for many years, in spite of all; it was my home too; +and, with these thoughts, it seemed to me that all the artifice and +conventionalism of life was but an impalpable thinness upon its +surface, and that the depth below was none the worse for it. Once, as +we turned our boat to the bank, there was a cloud, in the shape of an +immensely gigantic figure of a hound, couched above the house, as if +keeping guard over it. Gazing at this symbol, I prayed that the upper +influences might long protect the institutions that had grown out of +the heart of mankind. + +If ever my readers should decide to give up civilized life, cities, +houses, and whatever moral or material enormities in addition to these +the perverted ingenuity of our race has contrived, let it be in the +early autumn. Then Nature will love him better than at any other +season, and will take him to her bosom with a more motherly +tenderness. I could scarcely endure the roof of the old house above me +in those first autumnal days. How early in the summer, too, the +prophecy of autumn comes! Earlier in some years than in others; +sometimes even in the first weeks of July. There is no other feeling +like what is caused by this faint, doubtful, yet real perception--if +it be not rather a foreboding--of the year's decay, so blessedly sweet +and sad in the same breath. + +Did I say that there was no feeling like it? Ah, but there is a half- +acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the perfected +vigor of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his flowers, +and that the next work of his never-idle fingers must be to steal them +one by one away. + +I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket be not as early a +token of autumn's approach as any other,--that song which may be +called an audible stillness; for though very loud and heard afar, yet +the mind does not take note of it as a sound, so completely is its +individual existence merged among the accompanying characteristics of +the season. Alas for the pleasant summertime! In August the grass is +still verdant on the hills and in the valleys; the foliage of the +trees is as dense as ever and as green; the flowers gleam forth in +richer abundance along the margin of the river and by the stone walls +and deep among the woods; the days, too, are as fervid now as they +were a month ago; and yet in every breath of wind and in every beam of +sunshine we hear the whispered farewell and behold the parting smile +of a dear friend. There is a coolness amid all the heat, a mildness +in the blazing noon. Not a breeze can stir but it thrills us with the +breath of autumn. A pensive glory is seen in the far, golden gleams, +among the shadows of the trees. The flowers--even the brightest of +them, and they are the most gorgeous of the year--have this gentle +sadness wedded to their pomp, and typify the character of the +delicious time each within itself. The brilliant cardinal-flower has +never seemed gay to me. + +Still later in the season Nature's tenderness waxes stronger. It is +impossible not to be fond of our mother now; for she is so fond of us! +At other periods she does not make this impression on me, or only at +rare intervals; but in those genial days of autumn, when she has +perfected her harvests and accomplished every needful thing that was +given her to do, then she overflows with a blessed superfluity of +love. She has leisure to caress her children now. It is good to be +alive and at such times. Thank Heaven for breath--yes, for mere +breath--when it is made up of a heavenly breeze like this! It comes +with a real kiss upon our cheeks; it would linger fondly around us if +it might; but, since it must be gone, it embraces us with its whole +kindly heart and passes onward to embrace likewise the next thing that +it meets. A blessing is flung abroad and scattered far and wide over +the earth, to be gathered up by all who choose. I recline upon the +still unwithered grass and whisper to myself, "O perfect day! O +beautiful world! O beneficent God!" And it is the promise of a +blessed eternity; for our Creator would never have made such lovely +days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond +all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal. This sunshine is +the golden pledge thereof. It beams through the gates of paradise and +shows us glimpses far inward. + +By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear +austerity. On some October morning there is a heavy hoarfrost on the +grass and along the tops of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall +from the trees of our avenue, without a breath of wind, quietly +descending by their own weight. All summer long they have murmured +like the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while the branches +were wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both glad +and solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I +paced to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they +can only rustle under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins +to assume a larger importance, and draws to its fireside,--for the +abomination of the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,-- +draws closer and closer to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had +gone wandering about through the summer. + +When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a +hermitage. Not that ever--in my time at least--it had been thronged +with company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out +of the dusty glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with +him the transparent obscurity that was floating over us. In one +respect our precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through which the +pilgrim travelled on his way to the Celestial City. The guests, each +and all, felt a slumberous influence upon them; they fell asleep in +chairs, or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen +stretched among the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily +through the boughs. They could not have paid a more acceptable +compliment to my abode nor to my own qualities as a host. I held it +as a proof that they left their cares behind them as they passed +between the stone gate-posts at the entrance of our avenue, and that +the so powerful opiate was the abundance of peace and quiet within and +all around us. Others could give them pleasure and amusement or +instruction,--these could be picked up anywhere; but it was for me to +give them rest,--rest in a life of trouble. What better could be +done for those weary and world-worn spirits?--for him whose career of +perpetual action was impeded and harassed by the rarest of his powers +and the richest of his acquirements?--for another who had thrown his +ardent heart from earliest youth into the strife of politics, and now, +perchance, began to suspect that one lifetime is too brief for the +accomplishment of any lofty aim?--for her oil whose feminine nature +had been imposed the heavy gift of intellectual power, such as a +strong man might have staggered under, and with it the necessity to +act upon the world?--in a word, not to multiply instances, what +better could be done for anybody who came within our magic circle than +to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit over him? And when it had +wrought its full effect, then we dismissed him, with but misty +reminiscences, as if he had been dreaming of us. + +Were I to adopt a pet idea as so many people do, and fondle it in my +embraces to the exclusion of all others, it would be, that the great +want which mankind labors under at this present period is sleep. The +world should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and +take an age-long nap. It has gone distracted through a morbid +activity, and, while preternaturally wide awake, is nevertheless +tormented by visions that seem real to it now, but would assume their +true aspect and character were all things once set right by an +interval of sound repose. This is the only method of getting rid of +old delusions and avoiding new ones; of regenerating our race, so that +it might in due time awake as an infant out of dewy slumber; of +restoring to us the simple perception of what is right and the single- +hearted desire to achieve it, both of which have long been lost in +consequence of this weary activity of brain and torpor or passion of +the heart that now afflict the universe. Stimulants, the only mode of +treatment hitherto attempted, cannot quell the disease; they do but +heighten the delirium. + +Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted against the author; for, +though tinctured with its modicum of truth, it is the result and +expression of what he knew, while he was writing, to be but a +distorted survey of the state and prospects of mankind. There were +circumstances around me which made it difficult to view the world +precisely as it exists; for, severe and sober as was the Old Manse, it +was necessary to go but a little way beyond its threshold before +meeting with stranger moral shapes of men than might have been +encountered elsewhere in a circuit of a thousand miles. + +These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were attracted thither by the +widespreading influence of a great original thinker, who had his +earthly abode at the opposite extremity of our village. His mind +acted upon other minds of a certain constitution with wonderful +magnetism, and drew many men upon long pilgrimages to speak with him +face to face. Young visionaries--to whom just so much of insight had +been imparted as to make life all a labyrinth around them--came to +seek the clew that should guide them out of their self-involved +bewilderment. Gray-headed theorists--whose systems, at first air, had +finally imprisoned them in an iron framework--travelled painfully to +his door, not to ask deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into +their own thraldom. People that had lighted on a new thought or a +thought that they fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a +glittering gem hastens to a lapidary, to ascertain its quality and +value. Uncertain, troubled, earnest wanderers through the midnight of +the moral world beheld his intellectual fire as a beacon burning on a +hill-top, and, climbing the difficult ascent, looked forth into the +surrounding obscurity more hopefully than hitherto. The light +revealed objects unseen before,--mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses +of a creation among the chaos; but also, as was unavoidable, it +attracted bats and owls and the whole host of night birds, which +flapped their dusky wings against the gazer's eyes, and sometimes were +mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. Such delusions always hover +nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth is kindled. + +For myself, there bad been epochs of my life when I, too, might have +asked of this prophet the master word that should solve me the riddle +of the universe; but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no +question to be put, and therefore admired Emerson as a poet, of deep +beauty and austere tenderness, but sought nothing from him as a +philosopher. It was good, nevertheless, to meet him in the woodpaths, +or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual gleam +diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining one; and be, +so quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man +alive as if expecting to receive more than he could impart. And, in +truth, the heart of many an ordinary man had, perchance, inscriptions +which he could not read. But it was impossible to dwell in his +vicinity without inhaling more or less the mountain atmosphere of his +lofty thought, which, in the brains of some people, wrought a singular +giddiness,--new truth being as heady as new wine. Never was a poor +little country village infested with such a variety of queer, +strangely dressed, oddly behaved mortals, most of whom took upon +themselves to be important agents of the world's destiny, yet were +simply bores of a very intense water. Such, I imagine, is the +invariable character of persons who crowd so closely about an original +thinker as to draw in his unuttered breath and thus become imbued with +a false originality. This triteness of novelty is enough to make any +man of common-sense blaspheme at all ideas of less than a century's +standing, and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered +immovable in precisely the worst moral and physical state that it ever +yet arrived at, rather than be benefited by such schemes of such +philosophers. + +And now I begin to feel--and perhaps should have sooner felt--that we +have talked enough of the Old Manse. Mine honored reader, it may be, +will vilify the poor author as an egotist for babbling through so many +pages about a mossgrown country parsonage, and his life within its +walls, and on the river, and in the woods, and the influences that +wrought upon him from all these sources. My conscience, however, does +not reproach me with betraying anything too sacredly individual to be +revealed by a human spirit to its brother or sister spirit. How +narrow-how shallow and scanty too--is the stream of thought that has +been flowing from my pen, compared with the broad tide of dim +emotions, ideas, and associations which swell around me from that +portion of my existence! How little have I told! and of that little, +how almost nothing is even tinctured with any quality that makes it +exclusively my own! Has the reader gone wandering, hand in hand with +me, through the inner passages of my being? and have we groped +together into all its chambers and examined their treasures or their +rubbish? Not so. We have been standing on the greensward, but just +within the cavern's mouth, where the common sunshine is free to +penetrate, and where every footstep is therefore free to come. I have +appealed to no sentiment or sensibilities save such as are diffused +among us all. So far as I am a man of really individual attributes I +veil my face; nor am I, nor have I ever been, one of those supremely +hospitable people who serve up their own hearts, delicately fried, +with brain sauce, as a tidbit for their beloved public. + +Glancing back over what I have written, it seems but the scattered +reminiscences of a single summer. In fairyland there is no +measurement of time; and, in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of +life's ocean, three years hastened away with a noiseless flight, as +the breezy sunshine chases the cloud-shadows across the depths of a +still valley. Now came hints, growing more and more distinct, that the +owner of the old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters +next, appeared, making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, +strewing the green grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut +joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their +discordant renovations. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of +the veil of woodbine which had crept over a large portion of its +southern face. All the aged mosses were cleared unsparingly away; and +there were horrible whispers about brushing up the external walls with +a coat of paint,--a purpose as little to my taste as might be that of +rouging the venerable cheeks of one's grandmother. But the hand that +renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which destroys. In +fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea +in our pleasant little breakfast-room,--delicately fragrant tea, an +unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fallen like +dew upon us,--and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts as +uncertain as the wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. +Providence took me by the hand, and--an oddity of dispensation which, +I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at--has led me, as the +newspapers announce while I am writing, from the Old Manse into a +custom-house. As a story-teller, I have often contrived strange +vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like this. + +The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our +secluded dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of +ethics, no philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand +unsupported on its edges. All that I had to show, as a man of +letters, were these, few tales and essays, which had blossomed out +like flowers in the calm summer of my heart and mind. Save editing +(an easy task) the journal of my friend of many years, the African +Cruiser, I had done nothing else. With these idle weeds and withering +blossoms I have intermixed some that were produced long ago,--old, +faded things, reminding me of flowers pressed between the leaves of a +book,--and now offer the bouquet, such as it is, to any whom it may +please. These fitful sketches, with so little of external life about +them, yet claiming no profundity of purpose,--so reserved, even while +they sometimes seem so frank,--often but half in earnest, and never, +even when most so, expressing satisfactorily the thoughts which they +profess to image,--such trifles, I truly feel, afford no solid basis +for a literary reputation. Nevertheless, the public--if my limited +number of readers, whom I venture to regard rather as a circle of +friends, may be termed a public--will receive them the more kindly, +as the last offering, the last collection of this nature which it is +my purpose ever to put forth. Unless I could do better, I have done +enough in this kind. For myself the book will always retain one +charm,--as reminding me of the river, with its delightful solitudes, +and of the avenue, the garden, and the orchard, and especially the +dear Old Manse, with the little study on its western side, and the +sunshine glimmering through the willow branches while I wrote. + +Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my +guest, and that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within +and about the Old Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study. +There, after seating him in an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the +house, I take forth a roll of manuscript and entreat his attention to +the following tales,--an act of personal inhospitality, however, which +I never was guilty of, nor ever will be, even to my worst enemy. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE OLD MANSE *** +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + +* This file should be named haw4810.txt or haw4810.zip ** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, haw4811.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, haw4810a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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