The First and Last Journeys of Thoreau, Volume 1/Chapter 1
THE FIRST AND LAST
JOURNEYS OF THOREAU
Besides his daily and nightly walks about the Township of Concord and its immediate vicinity, in Acton, Bedford, Carlisle, Lincoln, Sudbury, and Stow, Henry Thoreau was frequently taking longer excursions, several of which were united by him in his first Book, the Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. Of these the first was made in company with his elder brother John, and it began during the summer vacation of their small private school in Concord, in 1839. This school opened in the "Parkman House," a former residence of Deacon Parkman (one of the family of which Francis Parkman the historian was the most distinguished member), standing where the Concord Library now is. This house was occupied by John Thoreau, Sr., and his large family, from the spring of 1837 to the late autumn of 1844; and the two brothers commenced their school in it during the summer of 1838. Just before that, Henry had made a visit to his father's relatives in Bangor, Maine, and on the way sought for a school to teach in that State, taking with him the kindly recommendation of the aged pastor of Concord, Dr. Ripley, then occupying the Old Manse.
In the household of the Thoreaus were then included two ladies from Boston, Mrs. Colonel Ward, widow of a Revolutionary officer, and her daughter, Miss Prudence Ward, an accomplished person and a faithful correspondent of her brothers and sisters. From her letters we get glimpses of the Thoreau brothers, and some mention of their voyage up the New Hampshire rivers. Thus, in April, 1838, Miss Ward writes as follows:
"April 2. I am writing now in a sick-chamber. My friend Maria Thoreau [aunt of Henry] isn't well, and I am head nurse for the day. At our house, Mrs. John Thoreau's children are soon to leave her,—Helen and Sophia to keep school in Roxbury, and John and Henry to go to the West. They purpose instructing there, but have no fixed plan. (April 13.) Mrs. Thoreau is very busy preparing her sons to go to the West. John is expected home from Taunton to-morrow; he will stay here a week, and then set out with Henry. They will go as far as Louisville, in Kentucky, unless employment (school-keeping) can be found nearer. This plan was arranged while I was in Boston. To-day Henry has had a letter from President Quincy of Harvard College, speaking of a school in Alexandria, Virginia, to be opened the 5th of May. He is willing to take it, and if he is accepted, this may alter or delay a little their journey. Helen and Sophia have advertised their intention of opening a boarding-school in Roxbury. When there she found a suitable room, and a lady willing to board them with some of the scholars. This is a great undertaking, with H.'s feeble health. She wished to have Louisa Dunbar [Mrs. Thoreau's sister] for a partner, but she is otherwise engaged. . . . Our bluebirds do battle every day with some martins, who are trying to take possession of their habitation. Luckily, the right is with the strongest, and the bluebirds are not to be ousted. Dr. Ripley preached last Sunday afternoon extempore, as his eyes will not admit of his reading his notes."
The school in Alexandria did not accept Henry Thoreau, and the journey to Kentucky was given up. May 2, 1838, Miss Ward wrote:
"Mr. Thoreau has begun to prepare his garden, and I have been digging the flower-beds. Henry has left us this morning to try and obtain a school at the Eastward. John has taken one in West Roxbury. Helen is in another part of Roxbury establishing herself in a boarding and day school. Sophia will probably be wanted as an assistant; so the family are all disposed of. I shall miss these juvenile members very much, for they are the most important part of the establishment."
Two months later the brothers had given up all thoughts of teaching elsewhere, and had begun their school in Concord, alternating it with gardening,—for Miss Ward wrote, June 29, 1838:
"Mr. Thoreau's potatoes and squashes look finely, and Henry's melons are flourishing. He has over sixty hills, and we are likely to have an abundance. He was much troubled with the cutworm. John's school is flourishing. There are four boys from Boston boarding with us. I want Ellen Sewall should make us a visit of a week or two. Tell little Mary Ward that we have a black kitten, and that the martins have driven away the bluebirds and taken possession of their box. Our flower-garden looks very gay. It is more forward than our neighbors', and is quite filled with a variety of roses and other flowers."
Ellen Sewall was the niece of Miss Ward, living in Scituate, where her father, a cousin of Mrs. Alcott, was pastor. She made her visit in Concord, and the two brothers fell in love with her, as will be mentioned later. In the autumn of this year (September 11, 1838), Henry gave his first lecture before the Concord Lyceum, on "Society," in the Freemasons Hall, on the public square. He afterwards gave eighteen other lectures before this same Lyceum; the last one in 1860. In the end of August, 1839, the two brothers, having built their boat, set forth in it for the White Mountains of New Hampshire,—rowing or sailing up the two rivers as far as Hooksett, and then travelling to the mountains and back, to find their boat where they had left it. Of this journey Miss Ward wrote, September 30, 1839:
"The young gentlemen returned from their expedition to the White Mountains in less than a fortnight; having gone nearly to Concord, N. H., in their boat,—from there they travelled most of the way on foot, returning to their boat by stage. Their return was very expeditious,—coming in the boat fifty miles the last day. Having so much of his vacation left, John thought he would visit his sisters at Roxbury, and also go to Scituate. We knew not for certain whether Mr. Sewall would be gone. It seems he had set off that very day. John enjoyed himself, however, very well with Ellen and the boys. Caroline told you of the very pleasant visit we had from Ellen; and we have also heard directly from there by John Thoreau."
A slight notice of John's visit also came from Ellen to her aunt, accompanying some flowers pressed in a pamphlet sermon, on the inside of the cover of which the maiden wrote, "I have enjoyed Mr. John's visit exceedingly, though sorry that father and mother were not at home."
How sorry she was for their absence we may well imagine. And now for,—
I.THOREAU'S DIARY OF THE FIRST VOYAGE
On the Merrimac River, September 2, 1839
Early this morning we were again on our way, steering through the fog as before. The countrymen, recruited by the day of rest [Sunday being the day before], were already awake, and had begun to cross the ferry on the business of the week. The fog soon dispersed and we rowed leisurely along, with a clear sky and a mild atmosphere, between the territories of Dunstable[1] and Nashua on the one hand, and Hudson on the other. It was from the former place [then a frontier town], it will be remembered, that the famous Captain Lovewell, with his company, marched in quest of the Indians, on the 18th of April, 1725. He was the son of "an ensign in the army of Oliver Cromwell, who came to this country and settled at Dunstable, where he died at the great age of one hundred and twenty years." In the words of the old nursery tale, written about a hundred years ago [speaking of the Captain, not the Ensign]:
He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide,
And hardships they endured, to quell the Indians pride.
In the shaggy pine forest Pigwacket he met the rebel Indians and conquered them; and a remnant returned home to enjoy the fruits of their victory in the township which was granted them by the State.
Of all our valiant English there were but thirty-four;
And of the rebel Indians there were about fourscore;
And sixteen of our English did safely home return,
The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn.
Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die;
They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded good young Frye,
Who was our English chaplain; he many Indians slew,
And some of them he scalped when bullets round him flew.
Alas! our brave forefathers have exterminated all the Indians, and their degenerate children no longer dwell in garrisoned houses, nor hear any war-whoop in their path; but rest in disgraceful peace, it may be, while enemies as active are still in the field. It would be well, perchance, if many an English chaplain in these days could exhibit as unquestionable trophies of his valor as did good young Frye.
And braving many dangers, and hardships on the way,
They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth day of May.
Two of the seven who marched from Concord (whence we have sailed) who were wounded, were fourteen days in the wilderness, escaping toward the mountains. One of them cut his moccasins into strings and with a hook caught fishes in a pond, but the fruits (as cranberries) which they ate, are said to have come out through their wounds.
Meanwhile we were advancing farther into the country and into the day, which last proved almost as golden as the preceding, the slight bustle and activity of Monday being added to the Sundayness of Nature. Occasionally one would run along the shore for a change; examining the country, and visiting the nearest farm-houses, while the other followed the winding of the river, alone, with the view of meeting the companion at some distant point and hearing the report of each other's adventures,—how the farmer praised the coolness of his wells, and his wife offered the stranger a draught of milk. For though the country was so new, and the inhabitants unobserved and unexplored by us (shut in between the steep banks that still and sunny day), we did not have to travel far to find where men inhabited like wild bees and had sunk wells in the loose sand and loam. There dwelt the subject of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Esprit des Lois, whose thin vaporous smoke curled up through the noon. All that is told of mankind,—of the inhabitants of the Upper Nile, and the Sunderbunds, and Timbuctoo, and the Orinoko, is experience there. And there have lived original and free-thinking men, perhaps,—those men of whom we read in the history of New Hampshire.
While we were engaged in these reflections, and thought ourselves the only navigators of this water, suddenly a canal-boat, like some huge river-horse, with its large sail set, glided round a point before us, and changed the scene in an instant. And then another and another glided into sight, and we found ourselves once more in the current of commerce.
At length we were delivered from this fleet of junks, and ascended the river in solitude once more. In the middle of the day we rested under a willow or maple, which hung over the water; and drew forth a melon for our repast, contemplating at our leisure the lapse of that river and of human life. As this current, with its floating twigs and leaves, so did all things pass in review before us; while far away, in cities and marts on this very stream, the old routine was proceeding still.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
as the poet says; and yet the ebb always balanced the flow, and the shores were unchanged, but in longer periods than we can measure. Now and then we had to muster all our energy to get round a point where the river broke rippling over rocks, and the maples trailed their branches in the stream. There is generally a backwater or eddy on the sides of the stream, which the boatman takes advantage of.
The hardest material obeys the same law with the most fluid. Trees are but rivers of sap and woody fibre, flowing from the atmosphere and emptying into the earth by their trunks; as their roots, on the other hand, flow upward to the surface. And in the heavens there are rivers of stars and Milky Ways. There are rivers of rock on the surface, and rivers of ore in the bowels of the earth. And our thoughts flow and circulate, and lapse into the current year. As things flow they circulate, and all streams are tributary to the ocean, which itself does not stream.
There are moments when all anxiety and stinted toil and desires must cease, in the infinite leisure and repose of Nature. Laborers must have their nooning undisturbed. The sailor, in a sultry day, stretched on the deck of his craft, and drifting with the sluggish water, is even more of a philosopher than a reformer. Sometimes we cease to row against the stream, and float or sail upon the tide of life,—rock, tree, kine, knoll, and all the panorama of the shore assuming new and varying positions as wind and water shift the scene, favoring the liquid lapse of thought.
When I go into the Museum and see the mummies, wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the times began to need reform as long ago as when these walked the earth. I go out into the streets, and meet men who declare that other times and other dynasties are now at hand. But still I know that as man stood in Thebes so does he stand in Dunstable to-day.
The sap of all noble schemes drieth up, and the schemers return again and again, in despair, to "common sense and labor;" but to return is not the right way, nor will it be the last.
Such is the testimony of the poet, and Time seems longer than Eternity; but there are secret articles which the historian can never know, as often in the treaties of states there are secret articles inserted which are of more importance than all the rest. So in our treaties with the gods, the faintest and most secret clauses are ever the most vital. All things teach Man to be calm and patient. The language of excitement is only picturesque; but you must be calm to utter oracles, not such as the Delphic priestess uttered. Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity. Such is the oldest history. Mankind seem anciently to have exercised the passive virtues; and all these active Saxon qualities seem modern.
While lying on our oars under the willows in the heat of the day, our boat being held by an osier put through the staple in its prow, and slicing the melons which are a fruit of the East, our thoughts reverted to Arabia, Persia, and Hindustan, the lands of contemplation, the dwelling-places of the ruminant nations; and in the experience of this noontide is found apology for the instinct of the opium, betel, and tobacco chewers. Mount Saber, according to the French traveller and naturalist Botta, is celebrated for producing the Kát tree, of which the soft tops of the twigs and tender leaves are eaten, says his reviewer, "and produce an agreeable, soothing excitement; restoring from fatigue, banishing sleep, and disposing to the enjoyment of conversation."
What a dignified Oriental life might be lived along this stream! browsing the tree-tops, and chewing mallows and apple-tree buds, like the camelopards, rabbits, and partridges! I have sometimes wished to go away and live by some river or a certain pond-side; and have had no other reason to give my friends than that so I might have a fair opportunity to hear the wind whispering among the reeds, and see the spring come in.
But sometimes man's blood seems to circulate faster than the currents of the universe, and he has his morning while she has her noon. Eternity is merely living, and the tune unchangeable.
One wonders if setting hens are troubled with ennui, those long March days sitting on and on, in the crevice of a hay-loft, in this inactive employment.
At length we threw our rinds into the water for the fishes to nibble, and added a breath to the life of living men. Our melons lay at home on the sandy bottom of the Merrimac; and our potatoes in the sun and water, in the bottom of the boat, looked like a fruit of the country. Again we rowed steadily upward, Saxon-wise, as it were, against the current of Nature, again from time to time scaring up a kingfisher or a summer duck,—the former flying rather by vigorous impulses than by steady and patient steering with this short rudder of his,—sounding his rattle along the fluvial street.
And now another scow hove in sight, sweeping down the river; and, hailing it, we attached ourselves to its side, and floated back in company, chatting with the boatmen, and obtaining a draught of cooler water from their jug. They appeared to be merchants from among the hills, who had taken this means to get to the seaboard, and see the world; and who would possibly visit the Falkland Isles and the China Sea before they again saw the waters of the Merrimac,—or peradventure they might never return. They had already embarked the private interests of the landsman in the larger venture of the race, and were ready to mess with mankind,—securing only the till of a chest to themselves. But still the noon prevailed; and we turned our prow ashore, under the oaks of a retired pasture, sloping to the water's edge, and bordered with hazel, in the town of Hudson. Still had India the better part of our thoughts, and that old noontide philosophy.
Here then the actual voyage ended for the night; but the Oriental scriptures and their antiquity occupied the debate of the two brothers, and the journal goes on,—
We will not inquire into the antiquity of this Scripture. One might as well investigate the chronology of light and heat. Let the sun shine. Menu understood the matter best when he said: "Those persons best know the divisions of days and nights, who understand that the day of Brahma, which endures to the end of a thousand such ages, gives rise to virtuous exertions; and that his night endures as long as his day." The true India is neither now nor then, East nor West. Who has not lived under the Mussulman and Tartar dynasty? You will not have to penetrate far into the summer day to come to these. In the New England noontide are more materials for Oriental history than the Sanscrit contains. In every man s brain is the Sanscrit. Was not Asia mapped there before it was in any geography? The Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as serene and deliberate thought. The mind contemplates them as Brahma his scribe.
Why will we be imposed on by antiquity? Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more ancient than Nestor or the Sibyl, and wears the wrinkles of Saturn himself. It is more venerable than the oldest man, and does not soon learn to attend to these new things. And do we live but in the present? How broad a line is that?
I sit now on a stump whose rings number centuries of growth. If I look around, I see that the sod is composed of the remains of just such stumps—ancestors to this. The earth is covered with mould. I thrust this stick many æons deep in its surface. With my heel I make a deeper furrow than the elements have ploughed here for a thousand years; and I unearth walnuts and acorns which were buried before the Vedas were written. If I listen, I hear the croaking of frogs, which is older than the slime of Egypt; or the distant drumming of a partridge on a log, as if it were the pulse-beat of the summer air. I raise my fairest and freshest flowers in the old mould. Why! what we would fain call new is not skin deep; the earth is not yet stained by it. It is not the fertile ground we walk upon, but the leaves that flutter over our heads. The newest is but the oldest, made visible to our senses. When we dig up the soil from a thousand feet below the surface, we call it, and the plants which spring from it, new; and when our vision pierces deeper into space, and detects a remoter star, we call that new also. It had shone only to itself, and quite superior to our observation. And now in an instant and distinctly it is shown to these woods as if its rays had travelled hither from Eternity. So are these old truths like serene lakes in the horizon, at length revealed to us, which have so long been reflecting their own sky in their bosom. And thus serene is Antiquity always, like the horizon in which the wind never blows. Silenter and silenter grows the memory as she wanders farther back. When I revolve it again in my mind, gazing into the West at evening, whether these ordinances of the Hindoos are to be passed by as the whims of an Asiatic brain, I seem to see the divine Brahma himself sitting in the angle of a cloud and revealing himself to the senile Menu; and this fair modern world is only a reprint of the Laws of Menu with the Gloss of Culluca. Tried by a New England eye, or the mere practical wisdom of modern times, they are but the oracles of a race already in its dotage. But held up to the sky, which is the only impartial and incorruptible ordeal, they seem of a piece with its depth and serenity; and I am assured that they will have a place and significance as long as there is a sky to test them by.
Suddenly a boatman's horn was heard, echoing from shore to shore to give notice of his approach to the farmer's wife, with whom he was to take his dinner; though in that retired place only the muskrats and kingfishers seemed to hear. And the current of our reflections being thus disturbed, went on and mingled with the music.
Proceeding on our way in the afternoon, the banks became lower, or receded farther from the channel; leaving a few trees only to fringe the water's edge, among which were the maple, birch, and bass. The last—(also called the lime or linden) the white-wood of the mechanic—overhung the water with its broad leaf, affording a grateful shade to us sailors. The inner bark of this genus is the material of the fisherman's matting, and the peasant's shoes, of which the Russians make so much use. In the wildest scenes is the raw material of the most refined life. Here is bast for our shoes and for matting, and rushes for our light, and no doubt there is papyrus by this river's side; while the goose surely flies overhead. It was a new tree to us, with its broad and handsome leaf, but still like those we knew. What an impulse was given, some time or other, to vegetation that now nothing can stay it! but everywhere it is Nature's business constantly to create new leaves and repeat the type in many materials. One who travelled hastily through her territories would say that she was a vast manufactory of leaves. The leaf is her constant cipher. It is grass in the field,—the garment she wears; it flutters on the oak; it springs in the mould upon a jar; and in animal, vegetable, and mineral; in fluids and in crystals,—plain or variegated, fresh or decayed, it acts a principal part in the economy of the universe. The flower is the colored leaf, and the trunk the leaf-stalk, or, as it were, folded leaves; and in the bare tree-stock in the winter is seen the naked fibre and outline of the leaf, which in the spring will be filled with vegetable pulp, and layers of leaves make the soil itself in which new forests are planted.
In all her various products Nature only develops her simplest germs; and whether it be tangled and weathered vines, or cedar or oak forests, or wide-stretching grain-fields,—all are to be referred to one; all belong to one head like the curls of a maiden s hair. It seems to have been no great stretch of invention to have created birds. The hawk perchance, which now takes its flight over the top of the wood, was at first only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves, she came, in the course of ages, to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird. Look up at the tree-tops and see how finely she finishes off her work there, as if she would never have done. See how the pines spire, without end, higher and higher, and give a graceful fringe to the earth! And who shall count the finer cobwebs that soar and float away from their utmost tops, and the myriad insects that lodge between them?
Salmon Brook comes in from the east, under the railroad, but we sailed up far enough into the meadows which border it to learn its piscatorial history from a haymaker on its banks. He told me that the silver eel was formerly abundant here, and pointed to some sunken creels at its mouth. Pennichook forms the northern boundary of Nashua, which we expected to reach before night. In these fair meadows, where the haymaker rested on his rake and told us all he knew, we were tired and yet our eyes ranged over them contentedly, and we touched their margins with our hands; and we made that afternoon a pleasant and memorable acquaintance. But we could not afford to loiter in this pleasant roadstead, and so stood out to sea again.[2]
We soon after passed the village of Nashua upon the river of the same name, where a stately covered bridge spans the Merrimac. This river, one of the largest tributaries of the Merrimac, so pleasant a stream where it winds through the meadows of Lancaster and Groton, was here so obstructed, by falls and factories, that we did not delay to explore it. While one threaded the stream, his companion rowed steadily on to meet him above at a pine-wooded island at the mouth of the Nashua, where a few sheep, the only inhabitants, who were reposing in the shade upon its summit, reminded us of Colchos and the Argo.
We rowed slowly on before sunset, looking for a solitary place to spend the night. A few red clouds began to be reflected in the yellowish water, and soon the village was out of sight, the woods were gained again, and the calm surface of the water was only dimpled by the muskrats crossing the stream.
We camped this night on the confines of Nashville, near the Pennichook brook, on the west bank, in a deep ravine, under the skirts of a pine wood, where the dead pine-needles were our carpet, and the tawny boughs stretched protecting arms over us. The kindling a fire and spreading our buffalo skins was too frank an advance to be resisted. The fire and smoke seemed to tame the scene. The rocks consented to be our walls, and the pines our roof.
Already we stood upon the verge of the forest, with such right as the aborigines of the country. A forest is in all mythologies a sacred place; as the oaks among the Druids, and the grove of Egeria; and what is Robin Hood without his Barnsdale and Sherwood? It is the life that is lived in the unexplored scenery of the wood that charms us. The oldest villagers are more indebted to the neighborhood of wild Nature than to the operations of man's creation.
There is something indescribably wild and beautiful in the aspect of the forests, skirting and occasionally getting in to the midst of new towns; which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of Nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine still flourishes and the jay still screams. So near us is the forest of undreamed-of exploits, and the whole genii of untamed and winged thoughts.
I shall not soon forget the sounds which we heard as we were falling asleep this night, on the banks of the Merrimac. Far into the night we heard some tyro beating a drum incessantly, in preparation for a country muster in Candia, as we learned, and we thought of the line,—
When the drum beat at dead of night.
The very firmament echoed his beat, and we could have answered him that it would be answered, and the forces be mustered. Fear not, thou drummer of the night, we too will be there! And still he drummed on alone in the silence and the dark. This stray sound from a far-off sphere came to our ears from time to time to remind us of those fabulous Arabian notes we had almost forgotten. It was as if our shoulders jogged the stars.
Occasionally we hear a remote sound from a distant sphere, with so unprejudiced a sense for the sweet and significant, that we seem for the first time to have heard at all; and then the cheapest sound has a larger meaning and a wider undulation than we knew.
When we hear any musical sound in Nature, it is as if it were a bell ringing; we feel that we are not belated, but in season wholly, and enjoy a pensive and leisure hour. What a fine and beautiful communication from age to age of the fairest and noblest thoughts,—the aspirations of ancient men preserved,—even such as were never communicated by speech,—is music! It is the flower of language,—thought colored and curved, tinged and wreathed,—fluent and flexible. Its crystal fountain tinged with the sun's rays, and its purling ripples reflecting the green grass and the red clouds. It teaches us, again and again, to trust the remotest and finest as the divinest instinct, and it makes a dream our only real experience.
There was a high wind this night which we afterwards learned had been still more violent elsewhere, and had done much injury to corn-fields far and near. But we only heard it sigh occasionally that it could not shake the foundations of our tent; and laid our ears closer to the ground with a sense of security, while the blast swept on to alarm other men.
The pines murmured, the water rippled, and the tent rocked a little, and before sun rise we were ready to pursue our voyage as usual.
As late as 1724 there were no houses or settlements on the north side of the Nashua. In September of that year two men who were engaged in making turpentine on this side were taken captive and carried to Canada by a party of thirty Indians. Ten of the inhabitants of Dunstable, going to look for them, found the hoops of their barrels cut and the turpentine spread on the ground; but one, named Farwell, perceiving that the turpentine had not done spreading, concluded that the Indians had been gone but a short time, and they consequently went in instant pursuit. Following directly on the trail of the Indians (contrary to the advice of Farwell) they fell into an ambuscade near Thornton's Ferry on the Merrimac, and nine were killed; Farwell alone escaping after a vigorous pursuit. He lived to fight another day. The next year he was Lovewell's lieutenant at Pigewacket, but that time he left his bones in the wilderness.
Gentle river, gentle river,
Lo, thy streams are stained with gore,
Many a brave and noble captain
Floats along thy willowed shore;
All beside thy limpid waters,
All beside thy sands so bright,
Indian chiefs and Christian warriors
Joined in fierce and mortal fight.
Tuesday, September 3, is mostly omitted from this fragment of a journal; and there was not much to record on the Merrimac; for in the volume Thoreau goes out of his way, both in time and space, to record a journey taken five years later, to meet his friend Channing in 1844 (who had come up from New York, and awaited Thoreau at the foot of the Berkshire mountain, Saddleback, where the Concord pilgrim had passed the night). This journey Thoreau, in The Week, breaks into two parts, printing the last first, near the beginning of his "Tuesday," where it runs on for fourteen pages. Then after sixteen pages devoted to the Merrimac and its suggestions, while waiting for the canal lock to fill at Cromwell's Falls, he takes up the tale of his tramp from Shelburne Falls on the Deerfield River, up the valley of that stream, and over the Hoosac Mountain, through which the railroad has since bored its way. This takes up ten pages more; so that, of the seventy-five pages given to "Tuesday" in The Week, twenty-five, at least, are devoted to this journey of 1844 from the Connecticut valley to the Catskills; while seven more are given to the pseudo-Anacreon, and Thoreau's translations of his odes. As an excuse for introducing these digressions, Thoreau says, "Our voyage this Tuesday forenoon furnishes but few incidents of importance." At the end of that day's record he says: "Just before sundown we reached some more falls, in the town of Bedford, where some stone-masons were repairing the locks in a solitary part of the river. . . . One young man of our own age left his work and helped us through the locks with a sort of quiet enthusiasm; telling us we were at Coos Falls; and we could distinguish the strokes of his chisel for many sweeps after we had left him. We wished to camp this night on a large rock in the middle of the stream, just above these Falls; but the want of fuel, and the difficulty of fixing our tent firmly, prevented us; so we made our bed on the mainland opposite, on the west bank, in the town of Bedford, in a retired place, as we supposed, there being no house in sight."
This encounter with the masons and mention of the rock will explain what is said at the opening of the next day, September 4,—the fifth day since they had left Concord; for their voyage began Saturday, August 31, 1839.
We supposed we had selected a retired part of the shore, but we discovered this morning that we had pitched our tent directly in the path of the masons, whom we had seen crossing the river in their boat the evening before, while we were surveying the rock. And now, going to their work again, they came upon us as we were rolling up our tent, and tarried to examine our furniture and handle our guns, which were leaning against a tree. This was the first and only time that we were observed in our camping ground by any one,—though our white tent on an eminence must have been a conspicuous object,—so much room is there still in Nature, and so easy would it be to travel the length and breadth of the land without the knowledge of its inhabitants. Thus without skulking, far from the dust and din of travel, we had beheld the country at our leisure by daylight and by night, secure of the best introduction to Nature; for all other roads intrude and bring the traveller to a stand; but the river has stolen into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, watering and adorning it, and is as free to come and go as the zephyr.
As we shoved away from the rocks in the morning the small green bittern, the genius of this shore, stood probing the mud for its food,—a melancholy contemplative bird, with ever an eye upon us, though so industriously at work. It was running along over the wet stones, like a wrecker in his storm coat,—looking out for wrecks of snails and cockles. Then away it goes with a limping flight, uncertain where it will alight, until a rod of clean sand amid the alders invites its feet. But now our steady approach compels it to another flight, a new retreat. I have seen them standing by the half-dozen together, with their heads thrust into the mud under the water. It is a bird of the oldest Thalesian school, and no doubt believes in the priority of water to the other elements. When the world was made, from water was it made; when the earth subsided from the waters, was it left on the shore, a relic, perhaps, of some slimy antediluvian age, which yet inhabits these bright American rivers, along with us Yankees. It is of my kindred after all, then; and I have a lingering respect for my unreclaimed brother. There is something venerable in the race of birds, which might have trodden the earth while yet in a transitory and imperfect state. What second advent does it look forward to? Meanwhile, bravely supporting its fate, it continues to fulfil its end, without sympathy from proud man.
The neighboring wood was alive with pigeons, which were now moving south, looking for mast—and like ourselves, spending their noon in the shade. It is pleasant to stand in the oak or white pine woods, and hear the slight, aery, winnowing sound of their wings, and their gentle, tremulous cooing. You will frequently discover a single pair in the depths of the wood sitting at noon upon the lower branches of the white pine; so silent and solitary, and with such a hermit-like appearance, as if they had never strayed beyond the skirts of the forest; while the acorn which was gathered in the woods of Maine is still undigested in their crops.
We passed in the late forenoon a large and densely wooded island, which would have been an addition to a nobleman's estate. We fancied we could see the deer glancing between the stems of the trees. It was a perfect San Salvador or Bahama isle; and if it had been at evening or nearer night fall we should have occupied and taken possession of it in the name of our majesties; but we passed on, like Americus Vespucius, flattering ourselves that we should discover a mainland. We soon after saw the Piscataquoag emptying on our left, and heard the Falls of Amoskeag above.
It was here, according to tradition, that the sachem Wonolancet resided; and when at war with the Mohawks, his tribe are said to have concealed their provisions in the cavities of the rocks in the upper part of these Falls.
The future reader of history will associate this generation with the red man in his thoughts, and give it credit for some sympathy with his race. Our history will have some copper tints and reflections at least, and be read as through an Indian-summer haze. But such are not our associations. The Indian has vanished as completely as if trodden into the earth; absolutely forgotten but by a few persevering poets. The white man has commenced a new era. Instead of Philip and Logan, there are Webster and Crockett on the plains; instead of the Council House is the Legislature. What do our anniversaries commemorate but white men's exploits? For Indian deeds there must be an Indian memory; the white man will remember only his own. The foeman is dead or dying. We have forgotten their hostility as well as friendship. This oldest race, a venerable and hospitable nation, gave us liberty to settle and plow these fields. Who can realize that, within the memory of this generation, the remnant of an ancient and dusky race of warriors now, like Ossian's heroes, no more resident on this earth, furnished a company to the war, on condition only, as they wrote to the General Court, that they should not be expected to train or fight white man's fashion, but Indian fashion. And occasionally their wigwams are seen on the banks of this very stream, still solitary and withdrawn, like the cabins of the muskrats in the meadow.
They seem like a race who have exhausted the secrets of Nature; tanned with age, while this younger and still fair Saxon race, on whom the sun has not long shone, is but commencing its career. Their memory is in harmony with the russet hue of the fall of the year. And yet they did not always retreat before the ravages of time,—more than before the arrows of their foes. These relics in the fields, which have preserved their rugged forms so long, are evidence of the vital energy of the people that made them. Wherever I go, I am still on the track of the Indian. The light sandy soil which the first settlers cultivated were the Indian corn-fields, and with every fresh plowing the surface is strewn with their relics. Arrow-heads, spear-heads, tomahawks, axes, chisels, gouges, pestles, mortars, hoes, pipes of soapstone, ornaments for the neck and breast, and other curious implements of war and of the chase, attract the transient curiosity of the farmer. I have myself collected some hundreds, and am as surely guided to their localities as to the berry-fields in autumn. Unlike the white man, they selected the light and sandy plains and rising grounds, near to ponds and streams, which the squaws could easily cultivate with their rude hoes.
And where these fields have been harrowed and rolled for grain, in the fall, their surface yields its annual crop of arrow-heads and other relics, as regularly as of grain. And the circles of burnt stones on which their fires were built are seen dispersed by the plow on every side.
The arrow and spear heads are of any color, and of various forms and material, though commonly made of a stone which has a conchoidal fracture. Many small ones of white quartz are mere equilateral triangles, with one side slightly convex. These were probably small shot for birds and squirrels. The chips which were broken off in making them are also found in large quantities, wherever a lodge has stood for a season. And these slivers are the surest indication of Indian ground, since the geologists tell us that the stone of which they are principally made does not occur in this manner, nor in most neighborhoods where they are found. The spear-heads are of the same form and material, only larger. Some are still as perfect and sharp as ever, since time has not the effect of injuring them; but, when broken, they still preserve a ragged and cutting edge. Yet they are so brittle that they can hardly be carried in the pocket without being broken.
It is matter of wonder how the Indians manufactured even these rude implements without iron or steel tools. Which one of our mechanics, with all the aids of Yankee ingenuity, could soon learn to copy one of the thousand specimens under his feet? It is well known that the art of making flints with a cold chisel, as practised on the continent of Europe, requires long practice and a knack in the operator; but the arrow-head is of much more irregular form, and, like the flint, can only be struck out by a succession of skilful blows.
An Indian to whom I once exhibited some arrow-heads (to whom they were as much objects of curiosity as to myself) suggested that, as many white men have but one blacksmith, so the Indians had one arrow-head-maker for many families. But there are marks of too many fingers—unless they were like travelling cobblers—to admit of this supposition. I have seen arrow-heads from the South Sea, precisely similar to those found here; so necessary and so little whimsical is the form of this little tool. So has the steel hatchet its prototype in the stone one of the Indian, as the stone hatchet its original in the necessities of man.
Venerable are these ancient arts whose history is lost in that of the race itself. Here, too, are the pestle and mortar,—those ancient forms and symbols older than the plow or the spade. The invention of the plow, which now turns them up, marks the era of their burial,—an era which can never have its history,—which is older or more primitive than history itself.
These are relics of an era older than modern civilization; compared with which Greece and Rome and Egypt are modern. And still the savage retreats and the white man advances. Some of these implements deserve notice for the constancy with which they occur, and their uniformity wherever found. They are part of the history of the Indian, and identified with his life. These slowly wrought, durable, and widely dispersed forms in stone mark the prevalent peculiarities and permanent customs of the red man. Many of them are symbols which cannot be interpreted at this day. A small pear-shaped implement of stone, two or three inches long, with a short neck, is found everywhere; its use is unknown.
In one instance the surface of a corn-field, plowed in an unusually dry and windy season, has blown away to the depth of several feet, exposing the foundations of an Indian village, interspersed with relics of every description, whose use can only be conjectured. The bodies of warriors of other centuries are dug up in our gardens, their soapstone pipes still unbroken,—the arrow and spear heads, released from their bondage, again lying loose in the dust by the side of the brave,—the deer-horns which were his trophy and his amulet, and the record in stone of the scalps he had taken. I am interested by the sight of these arrow-heads and spear-heads; which, though their shafts have long since crumbled into dust, are still pointed and sharp and undying as the Indian's revenge.
The Indians, who hid their possessions in holes, and affirmed that "God had cut them out for that express purpose," seem to have understood their philosophy better than the Royal Society of London, which, many years ago, gave an account of these holes in their Philosophical Transactions, and declared that "they seem plainly to be artificial."
There were many white basins found in the limestone rock at Shelburne Falls in Dearsfield River, from one foot to four or five feet in diameter, and as many in depth, with smooth and delicately carved brims like goblets. Their origin is apparent to the most careless observer. Some stone which the current has washed down, meeting with obstacles in front, revolves as on a pivot where it lies; gradually sinking, in the course of ages, deeper and deeper into the rock; and in new freshets receiving the assistance of fresh stones drawn into this trap, and doomed to revolve for limitless periods, doing more than Sisyphus-like penance for stony sins, until it wears through the bottom of its prison or is released by some more violent freshet, or some revolution of Nature. In one instance, near the edge of the Fall, they had finally worn quite through the rock, so that a portion of the river leaked through and anticipated the fall.
But the most remarkable instance of this kind is the well-known Basin of the Pemigewasset, in the head waters of this stream, near the Franconia Notch, by the road side, in the town of Lincoln, N. H., where a mere brook, which may be passed at a stride, falling upon a rock, has worn it to an oval basin from twenty to thirty feet in diameter, and proportionately deep; the water passing out, probably, after one or more revolutions, by a deep channel, though scarcely more than a foot in width, and directly opposite its entrance. It has a rounded brim of glassy smoothness, and is filled with cold, pellucid greenish water. Smaller "potholes" may be observed also at the Flume, at Bottom s Falls; and more or less generally, I presume, about all falls.
The Manchester Manufacturing Company have constructed a canal at the Amoskeag Falls, almost a mile long, through which we passed. We presently came upon several canal-boats at intervals of a quarter of a mile, standing up to Hooksett with a light breeze, and one by one they disappeared round a point above. With their broad sails set, they moved slowly up the stream in the sluggish and fitful breeze, as if impelled by some mysterious counter current, like antediluvian birds,—a grand motion so slow and steady, it reminded us of the beauty of the expression "standing out" applied to a vessel to describe its gradual and steady progress, as it were without shuffling, by mere rectitude and disposition. The steersman of one of the boats offered to take us in tow, but when we came alongside we found that he intended to take us on board, as otherwise we should retard his own voyage too much. As we were too heavy to be lifted aboard, we left him and proceeded up the stream a half a mile, to the shade of some maples, to spend our noon.
In the course of half an hour several boats passed up the river, at intervals of half a mile; and among them came the boat we have mentioned, keeping the middle of the stream, with a fair wind. When within speaking distance, the steersman called out ironically, that if we would come alongside now he would take us in tow. We made no haste to give chase until our preparations were completed, by which time they were a quarter of a mile ahead. Then with all our sails set, and plying our four oars, we shot swiftly up the stream, and one after another we overtook them; and, as we glided close under the side of our acquaintances, we quietly promised, if they would throw us a rope, to take them in tow. Thus we gradually overhauled each boat in succession until we had the river to ourselves again.
When we awoke this morning we heard the ominous, still deliberate, sound of raindrops on our cotton roof. The rain had pattered all night, and now the whole country wept,—the drops falling in the river and on the alders, and on the pastures; but, instead of any bow in the heavens, there were the trills of the tree-sparrow all the morning. The cheery faith of this little bird atoned for the silence of the whole woodland quire. It was a cloudy, drizzling day, with occasional brightenings in the mist, when the trill of the tree-sparrows seemed to be ushering in sunny hours.
We learned afterward that we had pitched our camp upon the very spot which a few summers before had been occupied by a roving party of Penobscots, as if we had at length been led by an Indian instinct. We could see rising before us a dark conical eminence called Hooksett Pinnacle.[3] This was the utmost limit of our voyage; for a few hours more in the rain would have taken us to the last of the locks, and our boat was too heavy to be dragged around the long and numerous rapids that would occur.
On foot indeed we continued up along the banks, feeling our way with a stick through the showery and foggy day, and climbing over the slippery logs in our path; still with as much pleasure and buoyancy as in brightest sunshine, pushing on whither our path led through the genial drenching rain; and cheered by the tunes of invisible waterfalls, scenting the fragrance of the pines and the wet clay under our feet, with visions of toadstools and wandering frogs, and festoons of moss hanging from the spruce trees, and thrushes hiding silent under the leaves; the road still holding together through that watery weather, like faith, and reaching to distant points, while the travellers confidently followed its lead. We had resolved to travel to those White Mountains whither the old colonists went in search of the Great Carbuncle,—the Crystal Hills, which one Darby Field, the Irishman, had visited, as Winthrop says. On foot indeed we continued up along its banks, till it became the Pemigewasset that leaped by our side,—and still another, the wild Ammonoosuc that murmured in our ears,—whose puny channel we crossed at a stride, wondering that it should be so rapid to forsake the pleasant land of its birth. But why should we take the reader, who may be gentle and tender, through this rude tract, where the ways are steep, and the inns none of the best for such as are tenderly bred? Rustic men and rough truth would he have to encounter, and many a cool blast near the mountain side.
Here again a break occurs, of a week instead of a day. For now the two brothers were on foot, making their way through Concord and Plymouth, Holderness, Lincoln, Franconia, and Bethlehem, to the Notch of the White Mountains and to the summit of Mount Washington, their highest peak, which Thoreau calls Agiocochook. In this foot-journey they called on Nathaniel P. Rogers, at Plymouth, a friend of the Thoreaus, and a brilliant anti-slavery orator and writer; and made other stops and observations which did not get into the printed volume, even if entered in the daily journal. In fragments of a diary which I have seen, Thoreau says that he and his brother left their boat at Hooksett, September 4, walked to Concord, N. H., September 5, on the 6th took the stage-coach to Plymouth, and thence on foot to Tilton's tavern in Thornton. He notes that the "mountain scenery commences on Sanbornton Square." On the 7th they were at the Franconia Notch, where they saw the "Old Man of the Mountain;" on the 8th reached Tom Crawford's at the Great Notch; and on September 10th went up Mount Washington. Returning by North Conway, they were again at Hooksett, September 12, where the fragmentary journal re-commences.
In the Tuesday's record, in The Week (here omitted), Thoreau quotes from his poem Away, Away! which was written early in July, 1839, on the Assabet River in Concord. Another poem of that summer, written July 20, The Breeze's Invitation, seems to depict an imaginary voyage through the air with Ellen Sewall, then perhaps visiting her friends in Concord.
Like two careless swifts let's sail,
(Zephyrus shall think for me)
Over hill and over dale;
Riding on the easy gale
We will scan the earth and sea.
Yonder see that willow tree,
Winnowing the buxom air!
You a gnat and I a bee,
With our merry minstrelsy
We will make a concert there.
One green leaf shall be our screen
Till the sun doth go to bed;
I the king and you the queen
Of that peaceful little green,
Without any subject's aid.
To our music Time shall linger,
And Earth open wide her ear;
Nor shall any need to tarry,
To immortal verse to marry
Such sweet music as he'll hear.[4]
Emerson added his briefer and equally pointed commendation to Dr. Ripley's[5]
compliment given below,—"I shall esteem the town fortunate that secures his services." That town, as it proved, was his native Concord.
Finding our boat safe in its harbor under the Uncannunuc Mountain, with a fair wind and the current in our favor, we commenced our return voyage at noon, sitting at our ease and conversing, or in silence watching for the end of each reach in the river, as a bend concealed it from view. As the season was now farther advanced, the wind blew steadily from the north, and we were enabled to lie upon our oars without much loss of time when it pleased us. The lumbermen throwing down wood from the top of the high bank, thirty or forty feet above the water, that it might be sent down the river, paused
in their work to watch our retreating sail. And by this time, indeed, we had become known as a strange craft upon the river, and had acquired the nickname of "the Revenue Cutter." The sound of the timber rolled down the steep banks, or the vision of a distant scow just heaving in sight round a headland, enhances the majestic silence and vastness of Nature. They were the primeval and natural echoes that were awakened. In many parts the Merrimac is as wild and natural as ever, and the shore and surrounding scenery exhibit only the revolutions of Nature. The pine stands up erect on its brink, and the alders and willows fringe its edge; only the beaver and the red man have departed.
Through the din and desultoriness even of a Byzantine noon is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature in which Scythians and Ethiopians dwell. What is echo? what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, then? The works of man, which we call art, are swallowed up in immensity. The savage will find his overthrow in the Aegean Sea. On the other hand, there is all the refinement of civilized life in the woods, under a sylvan garb. The wildest scenes even have an air of domesticity and homeliness to the citizen, and when the flicker's cackle is heard in the clearings, he is reminded that civilization has imported nothing into them. Science is welcome to their deepest recesses, for there, too, Nature obeys the same old civil laws. The little red bug on the stump of a pine,—for him the wind shifts, and the sun breaks through the clouds.
With this propitious breeze and the additional help of our oars, we soon reached the Falls of Amoskeag at the mouth of the Piscataquoag, and recognized, as we passed rapidly by, many a fair bank and islet upon which our thoughts had rested on the upward passage. All the world reposes in beauty to him who preserves equipoise in his life, and moves serenely on his path without resistance, as he who sails down a stream. He has only to steer, keeping his boat in the middle of the stream and carrying it round the portages. Our boat was like that which Chaucer describes in his Dream in which the knight took his departure from the island,—
To journey for his marriage,
And return with such an host,
That wedded might be least and most.
Which barge was as a man's thought,
After his pleasure to him brought,
The queene her selfe accustomed aye
In the same barge to play,
It needed neither mast ne rother
I have not heard of such another,
No maister for the gouvernaunce,
Hie sayled by thought and pleasaunce,
Without labour, east and west,
All was one, calme or tempest.
So we sailed this afternoon. "It is beautiful, therefore," said Pythagoras, "when prosperity is present with intellect, and when sailing, as it were, with a prosperous wind, actions are performed looking to virtue, just as a pilot looks to the motions of the stars." Without any design or effort of ours, the ripples curled away in the wake of our boat, like ringlets from the head of a child, while we went serenely on our way. So always, in the performing of our proper work, the forms of beauty fall naturally around our path, like the curled shavings which drop from the plane, or the borings from the auger; and our work makes no rubbish or dirt. How much gracefulness we learn from the ripples and curves of running water, and the form and motions of trees on the shore! And the sailor derives some suppleness from his element, even through the planks of his ship.
We passed in broad daylight the scene of our night's encampment at Coos Falls, and at length pitched our tent on the west bank in the northern part of Merrimac, opposite to the large island on which we had spent our noon in our way up the river.
When we looked out from under our tent this evening the trees were seen dimly through the mist like spectres, and a cool dew hung upon the grass, which seemed to rejoice in the night. In the damp air we seemed to imbibe a solid fragrance.
Nature is a greater and more perfect art. When the overhanging pine drops into the water; by the action of the sun, and the wind rubbing it against the shore, its boughs are worn white and smooth, and take fantastic forms as if turned by a lathe. She has perfected herself by an eternity of practice. Consider the evening stealing over the fields. The stars come to bathe in retired waters; the shadows of the trees creeping farther and farther into the meadows, and a myriad phenomena beside. Nature supplies inexhaustible means by the most frugal methods. Having carefully determined the extent of her charity, she establishes it forever; her almsgiving is an annuity. She supplies to the bee only so much wax as is necessary for its cell, so that no poverty could stint it more; but the little economist which fed the Evangelist in the desert still keeps in advance of the immigrant, and fills the cavities of the forest for his repast.
It is wholesome to contemplate the natural laws,—gravity, heat, light, moisture, dryness. Though to the indifferent and casual observer the laws of Nature are mere science, to the enlightened and spiritual they are not only facts, but deeds,—the purest morality, or modes of divine life. Science must have love and reverence and imagination for her pioneers and counsellors, as well as ants, or sturdy and patient husbandmen, to complete and fence and settle her clearings. Degerando said justly that "Plato gives science sublime counsels,—directs her toward the regions of the ideas; Aristotle gives her positive and severe laws, and directs her toward a practical end." Only, in our researches into Nature, let not the higher faculties interfere with the lower. Let the mind reside steadily in the labyrinth of the brain; let the affections, not misplaced, have their constant residence in the heart; and not interfere with the hands and feet, more than with birds and monkeys and other parts of Nature.
Nature aids the efforts of the honest inquirer; for, by the visible form or shell, truth is simply contained, not withheld; as one of the three circles of the cocoa-nut is always so soft that it may be pierced with a thorn, and the traveller is grateful for the thick shell which held the liquor so faithfully. The works of science, as they improve in accuracy, are liable to lose the freshness and vigor, and the readiness to appreciate the profounder and more imposing secrets of Nature; which is a marked merit in the false theories of the ancients. I like the slight pride and satisfaction, and even emphatic and exaggerated style, in which the old naturalists speak of the operations of Nature. They are better qualified to appreciate than to discriminate the facts. Modern science is deficient in this poetic perception. The assertions of the ancient naturalists are not without value even when disproved.
"The Greeks," says Goethe, "had a common proverb, λάγος καθεύδωυ, 'a sleeping hare,' for a dissembler or counterfeiter, because the hare sees when she sleeps; for this is an admirable and rare work of Nature, that all the residue of her bodily parts take their rest, but the eye standeth continually sentinel." Facts must be learned directly and personally. The collector of facts must possess a perfect physical organization; the philosopher a perfect intellectual organization. But in the true poet they are so fairly but mysteriously balanced, that we can see the results of both, and generalize even the widest deductions of philosophy.
Seed, stalk, flower,—for as yet the fruit eludes our grasp,—and whether we had best eat it or plant it is uncertain. At any rate, when it is mature it drops to the ground, and if it is not disturbed springs again. Some dig up the root, some sever the stalk, some pluck the flower, some gather the kernel; but all equally interrupt the order of Nature. The wise incline to make an innocent use of all, and regard each as one of the phases of the flower.
We passed a ferry and fall on our way home, rowing between Manchester and Bedford. The canal-boats go down many of these falls at high water without danger, and some of them even at low water, though locks are at hand. Sometimes even a small boat is guided down in the deepest part, by humoring the current, and keeping the boat perfectly straight and upright,—though not without danger; for two lads, we were told, had been drowned at Coos Falls the week before, while making the experiment.
No such risks were run by the cautious Thoreaus, who, the next (Friday) morning, at five o clock, had fifty miles to run before the wind, which had now shifted to the northwest and blew coldly autumnal; and they sped along past all their up-stream camping places, until they were passed through the locks at Lowell about noon, and launched upon the adverse but gentle current of the Concord. Up this they pressed with oar and sail, until, late in the evening of September 13, the boat "was grating against the bulrushes of its native port," somewhere near the mouth of the Mill Brook; and they drew it up and fastened it by its chain to the wild apple-tree, where it was easily reached from the "Parkman House," to which they hastened home.
When Hawthorne came, three years later, to dwell in the Old Manse, he wished for a boat for his excursions, and after John Thoreau's death, early in 1842, and Henry's departure for Staten Island in the spring of 1843, this adventurous but rather clumsy boat was turned over to Hawthorne and Ellery Channing. Thoreau thereafter made his river-voyages in a newer boat, which for a time he kept moored on Walden.
- ↑ Dunstable was originally all in Massachusetts; but when the courts sustained the right of New Hampshire to a part of the township, it became a border town between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and also a frontier settlement, liable to Indian attack. The township granted the Lovewell men was Pembroke in New Hampshire, but was granted by the Province of Massachusetts.
- ↑ Here in the original journal stood the verses about Salmon Brook, which now appear on page 463 of The Week, where the brothers are passing that water in their chilly return voyage of September 12.
- ↑ The Pinnacle is a small hill rising sharply some two hundred feet above the river near the bank at Hooksett Falls, affording the best view of the Merrimac as a river. Thoreau said of it, and the view therefrom:
"I have sat upon its summit, a precipitous rock only a few rods long, when the sun was setting and filling the river valley with a flood of light. You can see up and down the Merrimac several miles each way. The broad and straight river, full of light and life, with its sparkling and foaming falls, the islet which divides the stream, the village of Hooksett on the shore almost directly under your feet,—so near that you can converse with its inhabitants, or throw a stone into its yards,—the woodland lake at its western base, and the mountains in the north and northeast, make a scene of rare beauty and completeness."
These northern and eastern mountains are those in Strafford and Rockingham counties; while at the south, near by is the graceful Uncannunuc, which Thoreau thought the best point from which to view the Merrimac valley. Its Indian name signifies "Two breasts," and it is visible from high hills in Concord, as Wachusett and Monadnoc are. The brothers left their boat "safe in its harbor under Uncannunuc Mountain," instead of taking it with many difficulties to "New Concord" as Thoreau calls the capital of New Hampshire, which in fact was named for the Massachusetts town where the British were repulsed, while Rumford was the name of the Indian region known as Penacook. This capital, Thoreau says, "would have been the proper place to conclude our voyage, uniting Concord with Concord by these meandering rivers; but our boat was moored some miles below its port." Before the building of railroads there was much commerce on the river, and Concord was the head of rather a difficult navigation. - ↑ This year 1839 was marked by the writing of many verses, some of which were destroyed without seeing the light, as Thoreau said in his last illness, while others were handed to Emerson for publication in The Dial of 1840. The long poem, Sympathy, supposed to relate to Ellen Sewall, was written June 24, 1839. On the 21st of May, 1838, after returning from his two weeks' tour in Maine, this verse appears among the fragments preserved:
How long I slept I know not, but at last
I felt my consciousness returning fast;
For Zephyr rustled past with leafy tread,
And heedlessly with one heel grazed my head.
In this Maine journey, mentioned above, Thoreau went on May 3 from Boston to Portland by boat; thence by coach to Bath and Brunswick. May 7 he went to Augusta by Gardiner and Hallowell; meeting at the latter an old English gentleman, of whom he says: "Though I peered into his eyes, I could not discern myself in them. He walked and fluttered like a strange bird at my side."
May 8, Thoreau went to Bangor and Oldtown; then after a visit to his cousins at Bangor, he went to Belfast May 11, and thence by sailboat, May 13, to Castine; and May 17 he returned by boat to Boston and Concord, without having found any school in want of a teacher like himself. Like the good Dr. Ripley, who gave him a certificate of fitness for teaching, the Maine committees must have had "their eyesight much impaired," not to recognize Thoreau's qualifications; though his personal aspect at that time was not very attractive, far less so than his brother John's. - ↑ Dr. Ripley wrote: Concord, May 1, 1838.
To the Friends of Education:—The undersigned very cheerfully hereby introduces to public notice the bearer, Mr. David Henry Thoreau, as a teacher in the higher branches of useful literature. He is a native of this town, and a graduate of Harvard University. He is well disposed and well qualified to instruct the rising generation. His scholarship and moral character will bear the strictest scrutiny. He is modest and mild in his disposition and government, but not wanting in energy of character, and fidelity in the duties of his profession. It is presumed his character and usefulness will be appreciated more highly as an acquaintance with him shall be cultivated. Cordial wishes for his success, reputation and usefulness attend him as an instructor and gentleman.
(Signed) Ezra Ripley,Senior Pastor of the First Church in Concord, Mass.N. B. It is but justice to observe here that the eyesight of the writer is much impaired.