Henry D. Thoreau 17
The earliest writings of Thoreau, placed in my hands by his literary
executor, Mr. Harrison Blake of Worcester, are the first of his
Cambridge essays, technically called "themes" and "forensics." These
began several years before his daily journals were kept, namely, in
1834; and it is curious that one of them, dated January 17, 1835,
but written in 1834, recommends "keeping a private journal or record
of our thoughts, feelings, studies, and daily experience." This is
precisely what Thoreau did from 1837 till his death; and it may be
interesting to see what reasons the boy of seventeen advanced for the
practice. He says:--
"As those pieces which the painter sketches for his own
amusement, in his leisure hours, are often superior to
his most elaborate productions, so it is that ideas often
suggest themselves to us spontaneously, as it were, far
surpassing in beauty those which arise in the mind upon
applying ourselves to any particular subject. Hence,
could a machine be invented which would instantaneously
arrange upon paper each idea as it occurs to us, without
any exertion on our part, how extremely useful would it be
considered! The relation between this and the practice of
keeping a journal is obvious.... If each one would employ
a certain portion of each day in looking back upon the
time which has passed, and in writing down his thoughts
and feelings, in reckoning up his daily gains, that he may
be able to detect whatever false coins may have crept into
his coffers, and, as it were, in settling accounts with
his mind,--not only would his daily experience be greatly
increased, since his feelings and ideas would thus be more
clearly defined,--but he would be ready to turn over a
new leaf (having carefully perused the preceding one) and
would not continue to glance carelessly over the same page,
without being able to distinguish it from a new one."
This is ingenious, quaint, and mercantile, bespeaking the hereditary
bent of his family to trade and orderly accounts; but what follows in
the same essay is more to the purpose, as striking the key-note of
Thoreau's whole after-life. He adds:--
"Most of us are apt to neglect the study of our own
characters, thoughts, and feelings, and, for the purpose
of forming our own minds, look to others, _who should
merely be considered as different editions of the same
great work_. To be sure, it would be well for us to examine
the various copies, that we might detect any errors; yet
it would be foolish for one _to borrow a work which he
possessed himself, but had not perused_."
The earliest record of the day's observations which I find is dated a
few months later than this (April 20, 1835), when Henry Thoreau was
not quite eighteen, and relates to the beauties of nature. The first
passage describes a Sunday prospect from the garret window of his
father's house, (afterwards the residence of Mr. William Munroe, the
benefactor of the Concord Library), on the main street of the village.
He writes:--
"'Twas always my delight to monopolize the little Gothic
window which overlooked the kitchen-garden, particularly of
a Sabbath afternoon; when all around was quiet, and Nature
herself was taking her afternoon nap,--when the last peal
of the bell in the neighboring steeple,
'Swinging slow with sullen roar,'
had 'left the vale to _solitude_ and _me_,' and the very
air scarcely dared breathe, lest it should disturb the
universal calm. Then did I use, with eyes upturned, to gaze
upon the clouds, and, allowing my imagination to wander,
search for flaws in their rich drapery, that I might get
a peep at that world beyond, which they seem intended to
veil from our view. Now is my attention engaged by a truant
hawk, as, like a messenger from those ethereal regions,
he issues from the bosom of a cloud, and, at first a mere
speck in the distance, comes circling onward, exploring
every seeming creek, and rounding every jutting precipice.
And now, his mission ended, what can be more majestic than
his stately flight, as he wheels around some towering pine,
enveloped in a cloud of smaller birds that have united to
expel him from their premises."
The second passage, under the same date, seems to describe earlier and
repeated visits, made by his elder brother John and himself, to a hill
which was always a favorite resort of Thoreau's, Fairhaven Cliffs,
overlooking the river-bay, known as "Fairhaven," a mile or two up the
river from Concord village toward Sudbury:--
"In the freshness of the dawn my brother and I were ever
ready to enjoy a stroll to a certain cliff, distant a
mile or more, where we were wont to climb to the highest
peak, and seating ourselves on some rocky platform, catch
the first ray of the morning sun, as it gleamed upon the
smooth, still river, wandering in sullen silence far below.
The approach to the precipice is by no means calculated
to prepare one for the glorious _dénouement_ at hand.
After following for some time a delightful path that winds
through the woods, occasionally crossing a rippling brook,
and not forgetting to visit a sylvan dell, whose solitude
is made audible by the unwearied tinkling of a crystal
spring,--you suddenly emerge from the trees upon a flat
and mossy rock, which forms the summit of a beetling crag.
The feelings which come over one on first beholding this
freak of nature are indescribable. The giddy height, the
iron-bound rock, the boundless horizon open around, and the
beautiful river at your feet, with its green and sloping
banks, fringed with trees and shrubs of every description,
are calculated to excite in the beholder emotions of no
common occurrence,--to inspire him with noble and sublime
emotions. The eye wanders over the broad and seemingly
compact surface of the slumbering forest on the opposite
side of the stream, and catches an occasional glimpse of a
little farm-house, 'resting in a green hollow, and lapped
in the bosom of plenty;' while a gentle swell of the river,
a rustic, and fortunately rather old-looking bridge on the
right, with the cloudlike Wachusett in the distance, give
a finish and beauty to the landscape, that is rarely to be
met with even in our own fair land. This interesting spot,
if we may believe tradition, was the favorite haunt of the
red man, before the axe of his pale-faced visitor had laid
low its loftier honors, or his 'strong water' had wasted
the energies of the race."
Here we have a touch of fine writing, natural in a boy who had read
Irving and Goldsmith, and exaggerating a little the dimensions of
the rocks and rills of which he wrote. But how smooth the flow of
description, how well-placed the words, how sure and keen the eye
of the young observer! To this mount of vision did Thoreau and his
friends constantly resort in after years, and it was on the plateau
beneath that Mr. Alcott, in 1843, was about to cut down the woods and
build his Paradise, when a less inviting fate, as he thought, beckoned
his English friend Lane and himself to "Fruitlands," in the distant
town of Harvard. At some time after this, perhaps while Thoreau was
encamped at Walden with his books and his flute, Mr. Emerson sent him
the following note, which gives us now a glimpse into that Arcadia:--
"Will you not come up to the Cliff this P. M., at any
hour convenient to you, where our ladies will be greatly
gratified to see you? and the more, they say, if you will
bring your flute for the echo's sake, though now the wind
blows.
"R. W. E.
"Monday, 1 o'clock P. M."
It does not appear that Thoreau wrote verses at this time, though he
was a great reader of the best poetry,--of Milton very early, and with
constant admiration and quotation. Thus, in a college essay of 1835,
on "Simplicity of Style," he has this passage concerning the Bible and
Milton:--
"The most sublime and noblest precepts may be conveyed in
a plain and simple strain. The scriptures afford abundant
proof of this. What images can be more natural, what
sentiments of greater weight and at the same time more
noble and exalted than those with which they abound? They
possess no local or relative ornament which may be lost in
a translation; clothed in whatever dress, they still retain
their peculiar beauties. Here is simplicity itself. Every
one allows this, every one admires it, yet how few attain
to it! The union of wisdom and simplicity is plainly hinted
at in the following lines of Milton:--
"Suspicion sleeps
At Wisdom's gate, and to _Simplicity_
Resigns her charge.'"
Early in 1837 Thoreau wrote an elaborate paper, though of no great
length, on Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," with many
quotations, in course of which he said:--
"These poems place Milton in an entirely new and extremely
pleasing light to the reader, who was previously familiar
with him as the author of 'Paradise Lost' alone. If before
he venerated, he may now admire and love him. The immortal
Milton seems for a space to have put on mortality,--to
have snatched a moment from the weightier cares of Heaven
and Hell, to wander for a while among the sons of men....
I have dwelt upon the poet's beauties and not so much as
glanced at his blemishes. A pleasing image, or a fine
sentiment loses none of its charms, though Burton, or
Beaumont and Fletcher, or Marlowe, or Sir Walter Raleigh,
may have written something very similar,--or even in
another connection, may have used the identical word, whose
aptness we so much admire. That always appeared to me a
contemptible kind of criticism which, deliberately and in
cold blood, can dissect the sublimest passage, and take
pleasure in the detection of slight verbal incongruities;
when applied to Milton, it is little better than sacrilege."
The moral view taken by the young collegian in these essays is quite
as interesting as the literary opinions, or the ease of his style. In
September, 1835, discussing punishments, he says:--
"Certainty is more effectual than severity of punishment.
No man will deliberately cut his own fingers. Some have
asked, 'Cannot reward be substituted for punishment?
Is hope a less powerful incentive to action than fear?
When a political pharmacopoeia has the command of both
ingredients, wherefore employ the bitter instead of the
sweet?' This reasoning is absurd. Does a man deserve to
be rewarded for refraining from murder? Is the greatest
virtue merely negative? or does it rather consist in the
performance of a thousand every-day duties, hidden from the
eye of the world?"
In an essay on the effect of story-telling, written in 1836, he says:--
"The story of the world never ceases to interest. The child
enchanted by the melodies of Mother Goose, the scholar
pondering 'the tale of Troy divine,' and the historian
breathing the atmosphere of past ages,--all manifest the
same passion, are alike the creatures of curiosity. The
same passion for the novel (somewhat modified, to be
sure), that is manifested in our early days, leads us, in
after-life, when the sprightliness and credulity of youth
have given way to the reserve and skepticism of manhood,
to the more serious, though scarcely less wonderful annals
of the world. The love of stories and of story-telling
cherishes a purity of heart, a frankness and candor of
disposition, a respect for what is generous and elevated,
a contempt for what is mean and dishonorable, and tends to
multiply merry companions and never-failing friends."
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