Henry D. Thoreau 18

Henry D. Thoreau 18

In March, 1837, in an essay on the source of our feeling of the

sublime, Thoreau says:--

 

"The emotion excited by the sublime is the most unearthly

and god-like we mortals experience. It depends for the

peculiar strength with which it takes hold on and occupies

the mind, upon a principle which lies at the foundation

of that worship which we pay to the Creator himself.

And is fear the foundation of that worship? Is fear the

ruling principle of our religion? Is it not rather the

mother of superstition? Yes, that principle which prompts

us to pay an involuntary homage to the infinite, the

incomprehensible, the sublime, forms the very basis of our

religion. It is a principle implanted in us by our Maker, a

part of our very selves; we cannot eradicate it, we cannot

resist it; fear may be overcome, death may be despised; but

the infinite, the sublime seize upon the soul and disarm

it. We may overlook them, or rather fall short of them;

we may pass them by, but, so sure as we meet them face to

face, we yield."

 

Speaking of national characteristics, he says:--

 

"It is not a little curious to observe how man, the boasted

lord of creation, is the slave of a name, a mere sound. How

much mischief have those magical words, North, South, East,

and West caused! Could we rest satisfied with one mighty,

all-embracing West, leaving the other three cardinal points

to the Old World, methinks we should not have cause for so

much apprehension about the preservation of the Union."

 

(This was written in February, 1837.) Before he had reached the age of

nineteen he thus declared his independence of foreign opinion, while

asserting its general sway over American literature, in 1836:--

 

"We are, as it were, but colonies. True, we have declared

our independence, and gained our liberty, but we have

dissolved only the political bands which connected us with

Great Britain; though we have rejected her tea, she still

supplies us with food for the mind. The aspirant to fame

must breathe the atmosphere of foreign parts, and learn

to talk about things which the homebred student never

dreamed of, if he would have his talents appreciated or

his opinion regarded by his countrymen. Ours are authors

of the day, they bid fair to outlive their works; they

are too fashionable to write for posterity. True, there

are some amongst us, who can contemplate the babbling

brook, without, in imagination, polluting its waters with

a mill-wheel; but even they are prone to sing of skylarks

and nightingales perched on hedges, to the neglect of the

homely robin-redbreast and the straggling rail-fences of

their own native land."

 

So early did he take this position, from which he never varied.

 

In May, 1837, we find another note of his opening life, in an essay on

Paley's "Common Reasons." He says:--

 

"Man does not wantonly rend the meanest tie that binds

him to his fellows; he would not stand aloof, even in his

prejudices, did not the stern demands of truth require it.

He is ready enough to float with the tide, and when he does

stem the current of popular opinion, sincerity, at least,

must nerve his arm. He has not only the burden of proof,

but that of reproof to support. We may call him a fanatic,

an enthusiast; but these are titles of honor; they signify

the devotion and entire surrendering of himself to his

cause. So far as my experience goes, man _never_ seriously

maintained an objectionable principle, doctrine, or theory;

error _never_ had a sincere defender; her disciples were

_never_ enthusiasts. This is strong language, I confess,

but I do not rashly make use of it. We are told that 'to

err is human,' but I would rather call it inhuman, if I may

use the word in this sense. I speak not of those errors

that have to do with facts and occurrences, but rather,

errors of judgment."

 

Here we have that bold generalization and that calm love of paradox

which mark his later style. The lofty imagination was always his, too,

as where this youth of nineteen says in the same essay:--

 

"Mystery is yet afar off,--it is but a cloud in the

distance, whose shadow, as it flits across the landscape,

gives a pleasing variety to the scene. But as the perfect

day approaches, its morning light discovers the dark and

straggling clouds, which at first skirted the horizon,

assembling as at a signal, and as they expand and multiply,

rolling slowly onward to the zenith, till, at last, the

whole heavens, if we except a faint glimmering in the East,

are overshadowed."

 

What a confident and flowing movement of thought is here! like the

prose of Milton or Jeremy Taylor, but with a more restrained energy.

 

"Duty," writes the young moralist in another essay

of 1837, "is one and invariable; it requires no

impossibilities, nor can it ever be disregarded with

impunity; so far as it exists, it is binding; and, if all

duties are binding, so as on no account to be neglected,

how can one bind stronger than another?" "None but the

highest minds can attain to moral excellence. With by far

the greater part of mankind religion is a habit; or rather

habit is religion. However paradoxical it may seem, it

appears to me that to reject _religion_ is the first step

towards moral excellence; at least no man ever attained to

the highest degree of the latter by any other road. Could

infidels live double the number of years allotted to other

mortals, they would become patterns of excellence. So, too,

of all true poets,--they would neglect the beautiful for

the true."

 

I suspect that Thoreau's first poems date from the year 1836-37,

since the "big red journal," in which they were copied, was begun in

October, 1837. The verses entitled, "To the Maiden in the East," were

by no means among the first, which date from 1836 or earlier; but near

these in time was that poem called "Sympathy," which was the first

of his writings to appear in Mr. Emerson's "Dial." These last were

addressed, we are told, to Ellen Sewall, with whom, the legend says,

both Henry and John Thoreau were in love. Few of these poems show any

imitation of Mr. Emerson, whose own verses at that time were mostly

unpublished, though he sometimes read them in private to his friends.

But like most of Thoreau's verses, these indicate a close familiarity

with the Elizabethan literature, and what directly followed it, in the

time of the Stuarts. The measure of "Sympathy" was that of Davenant's

"Gondibert," which Thoreau, almost alone of his contemporaries, had

read; the thought was above Davenant, and ranged with Raleigh and

Spenser. These verses will not soon be forgotten:--

 

"Lately, alas! I knew a gentle boy,

Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mould,

As one she had designed for Beauty's toy,

But after manned him for her own stronghold.

 

"Say not that Cæsar was victorious,

With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame;

In other sense this youth was glorious,

Himself a kingdom wheresoe'er he came.

 

* * * * *

 

"Eternity may not the chance repeat,

But I must tread my single way alone,

In sad remembrance that we once did meet,

And know that bliss irrevocably gone.

 

"The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing,

For elegy has other subject none;

Each strain of music in my ears shall ring

Knell of departure from that other one.

 

* * * * *

 

"Is't then too late the damage to repair?

Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath reft

The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare,

But in my hands the wheat and kernel left.

 

"If I but love that virtue which he is,

Though it be scented in the morning air,

Still shall we be dearest acquaintances,

Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare."

 

The other poem seems to have been written later than the separation

of which that one so loftily speaks; and it vibrates with a tenderer

chord than sympathy. It begins,--

 

"Low in the eastern sky

Is set thy glancing eye,"

 

and then it goes on with the picture of lover-like things,--the

thrushes and the flowers, until, he says,

 

"The trees a welcome waved,

And lakes their margin laved,

When thy free mind

To my retreat did wind."

 

Then comes the Persian dialect of high love:--

 

"It was a summer eve,--

The air did gently heave,

While yet a low-hung cloud

Thy eastern skies did shroud;

The lightning's silent gleam

Startling my drowsy dream,

_Seemed like the flash

Under thy dark eyelash_.

 

* * * * *

 

"I'll be thy Mercury,

Thou, Cytherea to me,--

_Distinguished by thy face

The earth shall learn my place_.

As near beneath thy light

Will I outwear the night,

With mingled ray

Leading the westward way."

 

"Let us," said Hafiz, "break up the tiresome roof of heaven into new

forms,"--and with as bold a flight did this young poet pass to his

"stellar duties." Then dropping to the Concord meadow again, like the

tuneful lark, he chose a less celestial path