Henry D. Thoreau 20

Henry D. Thoreau 20

"O band of Friends, ye breathe within this space,

And the rough finish of a humble man

By your kind touches rises into art."

 

His earliest companion was his brother John, "a flowing generous

spirit," as one described him, for whom his younger brother never

ceased to grieve. Walking among the Cohasset rocks and looking at the

scores of shipwrecked men from the Irish brig St. John, in 1849, he

said, "A man can attend but one funeral in his life, can behold but

one corpse." With him it was the funeral of John Thoreau in February,

1842. They had made the voyage of the Concord and Merrimac together,

in 1839; they had walked and labored together, and invented Indian

names for one another from boyhood. John was "Sachem Hopeful of

Hopewell,"--a sunny soul, always serene and loving. When publishing

his first book, in 1849, Henry dedicated it to this brother, with the

simple verse--

 

"Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me,

Though now thou climbest loftier mounts,

And fairer rivers dost ascend,

Be thou my Muse, my Brother John."

 

John Thoreau's death was singular and painful; his brother could not

speak of it without physical suffering, so that when he related it to

his friend Ricketson at New Bedford, he turned pale and was forced to

go to the door for air. This was the only time Mr. Ricketson ever saw

him show deep emotion. His sister Sophia once said:--

 

"Henry rarely spoke of dear John; it pained him too much.

He sent the following verses from Staten Island in May,

1843, the year after John's death, in a letter to Helen.

You will see that they apply to himself:"--

 

"Brother, where dost thou dwell?

What sun shines for thee now?

Dost thou, indeed, fare well,

As we wished here below?

 

"What season didst thou find?

'T was winter here.

Are not the Fates more kind

Than they appear?

 

"Is thy brow clear again,

As in thy youthful years?

And was that ugly pain

The summit of thy fears?

 

"Yet thou wast cheery still;

They could not quench thy fire;

Thou didst abide their will,

And then retire.

 

"Where chiefly shall I look

To feel thy presence near?

Along the neighboring brook

May I thy voice still hear?

 

"Dost thou still haunt the brink

Of yonder river's tide?

And may I ever think

That thou art by my side?

 

"What bird wilt thou employ

To bring me word of thee?

For it would give them joy,--

'T would give them liberty,

To serve their former lord

With wing and minstrelsy.

 

"A sadder strain mixed with their song,

They've slowlier built their nests;

Since thou art gone

Their lively labor rests.

 

"Where is the finch, the thrush

I used to hear?

Ah, they could well abide

The dying year.

 

"Now they no more return,

I hear them not;

They have remained to mourn;

Or else forgot."

 

Before the death of his brother, Thoreau had formed the friendship

with Ellery Channing, that was in some degree to replace the daily

intimacy he had enjoyed with John Thoreau. This man of genius, and

of the moods that sometimes make genius an unhappy boon, was a year

younger than Thoreau when he came, in 1843, to dwell in Concord with

his bride, a younger sister of Margaret Fuller. They lived first in a

cottage near Mr. Emerson's, Thoreau being at that time an inmate of

Mr. Emerson's household; afterwards, in 1843, Mr. Channing removed

to a hill-top some miles away, then to New York in 1844-45, then to

Europe for a few months, and finally to a house on the main street

of the village, opposite the last residence of the Thoreau family,

where Henry lived from 1850 till his death in 1862. In the garden

of Mr. Channing's house, which lay on the river, Thoreau kept his

boat, under a group of willows, and from that friendly harbor all his

later voyages were made. At times they talked of occupying this house

together.

 

"I have an old house and a garden patch," said Channing,

"you have legs and arms, and we both need each other's

companionship. These miserable cracks and crannies which

have made the wall of life look thin and fungus-like, will

be cemented by the sweet and solid mortar of friendship."

 

They did in fact associate more closely than if they had lived in the

same house.

 

At the age of thirty-seven, when contemplating a removal from the

neighborhood of his friend Thoreau, this humorous man of letters thus

described himself and his tastes to another friend:--

 

"I am a poet, or of a poetical temper or mood, with a very

limited income both of brains and of moneys. This world

is rather a sour world. But as I am, equally with you,

an admirer of Cowper, why should I not prove a sort of

unnecessary addition to your neighborhood possibly? I may

leave Concord, and my aim would be to get a small place,

in the vicinity of a large town, with some land, and, if

possible, near to some _one_ person with whom I might in

some measure fraternize. Come, my neighbor! thou hast now

a new occupation, the setting up of a poet and literary

man,--one who loves old books, old garrets, old wines,

old pipes, and (last not least) Cowper. We might pass the

winter in comparing _variorum_ editions of our favorite

authors, and the summer in walking and horticulture. This

is a grand scheme of life. All it requires is the house

of which I spake. I think one in middle life feels averse

to change, and especially to local change. The Lares and

Penates love to establish themselves, and desire no moving.

But the fatal hour may come, when, bidding one long, one

last adieu to those weather-beaten Penates, we sally forth

with Don Quixote, once more to strike our lances into some

new truth, or life, or man."

 

This hour did come, and the removal was made for a few months or

years, during which the two friends met at odd intervals, and in

queer companionship. But the "sweet and solid mortar of friendship"

was never broken, though the wall of life came to look like a ruin.

When, in Thoreau's last illness, Channing, in deep grief, said "that

a change had come over the dream of life, and that solitude began to

peer out curiously from the dells and wood-roads," Thoreau whispered,

"with his foot on the step of the other world," says Channing, "It is

better some things should end." Of their earlier friendship, and of

Channing's poetic gift, so admirable, yet so little appreciated by his

contemporaries, this mention occurs in a letter written by Thoreau in

March, 1856:--

 

"I was surprised to hear the other day that Channing was in

X. When he was here last (in December, I think), he said,

like himself, in answer to my inquiry where he lived, 'that

he did not know the name of the place;' so it has remained

in a degree of obscurity to me. I am rejoiced to hear that

you are getting on so bravely with him and his verses. He

and I, as you know, have been old cronies,--

 

"'Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill,

Together both, ere the high lawns appeared

Under the opening eyelids of the morn,

We drove afield, and both together heared,' etc.

 

"'But O, the heavy change,' now he is gone. The Channing

you have seen and described is the real Simon Pure. You

have seen him. Many a good ramble may you have together!

You will see in him still more of the same kind to attract

and to puzzle you. How to serve him most effectually has

long been a problem with his friends. Perhaps it is left

for you to solve it. I suspect that the most that you or

any one can do for him is to appreciate his genius,--to

buy and read, and cause others to buy and read his poems.

That is the hand which he has put forth to the world,--take

hold of that. Review them if you can,--perhaps take the

risk of publishing something more which he may write.

Your knowledge of Cowper will help you to know Channing.

He will accept sympathy and aid, but he will not bear

questioning, unless the aspects of the sky are particularly

auspicious. He will ever be 'reserved and enigmatic,' and

you must deal with him at arm's length. I have no secrets

to tell you concerning him, and do not wish to call

obvious excellences and defects by far-fetched names. Nor

need I suggest how witty and poetic he is,--and what an

inexhaustible fund of good-fellowship you will find in him."

 

In the record of his winter visitors at Walden, Thoreau had earlier

made mention of Channing, who then lived on Ponkawtasset Hill, two or

three miles away from the hermitage.

 

"He who came from farthest to my lodge," says Thoreau,

"through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a

poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even

a philosopher may be daunted, but nothing can deter a

poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict

his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all

hours; even when doctors sleep. We made that small house

ring with boisterous mirth, and resound with the murmur

of much sober talk,--making amends then to Walden vale

for the long silences. At suitable intervals there were

regular salutes of laughter, which might have been referred

indifferently to the last uttered or the forthcoming jest."

 

In his "Week," as Thoreau floats down the Concord, past the Old Manse,

he commemorates first Hawthorne and then Channing, saying of the

latter,--

 

"On Ponkawtasset, since, with such delay,

Down this still stream we took our meadowy way,

A poet wise hath settled whose fine ray

Doth faintly shine on Concord's twilight day.

Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high,

Shining more brightly as the day goes by,

Most travelers cannot at first descry,

But eyes that wont to range the evening sky."

 

These were true and deserved compliments, but they availed little (no

more than did the praises of Emerson in the "Dial," and of Hawthorne

in his "Mosses") to make Channing known to the general reader. Some

years after Thoreau's death, when writing to another friend, this neglected poet said:--