Henry D. Thoreau 31

Henry D. Thoreau 31

and I remember one brilliant autumn

afternoon, when he took us to gather the wild grapes

overhanging the river, and we brought home a load of

crimson and golden boughs as well. He never took us to walk

with him, but sometimes joined us for a little way, if he

met us in the woods on Sunday afternoons. He made those few

steps memorable by showing us many wonders in so short a

space: perhaps the only chincapin oak in Concord, so hidden

that no one but himself could have discovered it--or some

remarkable bird, or nest, or flower. He took great interest

in my garden of wild flowers, and used to bring me seeds,

or roots, of rare plants. In his last illness it did not

occur to us that he would care to see us, but his sister

told my mother that he watched us from the window as we

passed, and said: 'Why don't they come to see me? I love

them as if they were my own.' After that we went often,

and he always made us so welcome that we liked to go. I

remember our last meetings with as much pleasure as the old

play-days."

 

Although so great a traveler in a small circle--being every day

a-field when not too ill,--he was also a great stay-at-home. He never

crossed the ocean, nor saw Niagara or the Mississippi until the year

before his death. He lived within twenty miles of Boston, but seldom

went there, except to pass through it on his way to the Maine woods,

to Cape Cod, to the house of his friend, Marston Watson at Plymouth,

or to Daniel Ricketson's at New Bedford. To the latter he wrote in

February, 1855:--

 

"I did not go to Boston, for, with regard to that place I

sympathize with one of my neighbors (George Minott), an old

man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was

compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at

home."

 

What took him from home in the winter season was generally some

engagement to lecture, of which he had many after his Walden life

became a little known abroad.

 

From the year 1847 Thoreau may be said to have fairly entered on his

career as author and lecturer; having taken all the needful degrees

and endured most of the mortifications necessary for the public

profession of authorship. Up to that time he had supported himself,

except while in college, chiefly by the labor of his hands; after

1847, though still devoted to manual labor occasionally, he yet

worked chiefly with his head as thinker, observer, surveyor, magazine

contributor, and lecturer.

 

His friends were the first promoters of his lectures, and among his

correspondence are some letters from Hawthorne, inviting him to the

Salem Lyceum. The first of these letters is dated, Salem, October 21,

1848, and runs thus:--

 

"MY DEAR SIR,--The managers of the Salem Lyceum, sometime

ago, voted that you should be requested to deliver a

lecture before that Institution during the approaching

season. I know not whether Mr. Chever, the late

corresponding secretary, communicated the vote to you;

at all events, no answer has been received, and as Mr.

Chever's successor in office, I am requested to repeat the

invitation. Permit me to add my own earnest wishes that you

will accept it; and also, laying aside my official dignity,

to express my wife's desire and my own that you will be

our guest, if you do come. In case of your compliance, the

Managers desire to know at what time it will best suit you

to deliver the lecture.

 

"Very truly yours,

 

"NATH^L HAWTHORNE,

 

"_Cor. Sec'y, Salem Lyceum_.

 

"P.S. I live at No. 14 Mall Street, where I shall be very

happy to see you. The stated fee for lectures is $20."

 

A month later, Hawthorne, who had received an affirmative answer from

Thoreau, wrote to him from Boston (November 20, 1848), as follows:--

 

"MY DEAR THOREAU,--I did not sooner write you, because

there were preëngagements for the two or three first

lectures, so that I could not arrange matters to have you

come during the present month. But, as it happens, the

expected lectures have failed us, and we now depend on you

to come the very next Wednesday. I shall announce you in

the paper of to-morrow, so you _must_ come. I regret that

I could not give you longer notice. We shall expect you on

Wednesday at No. 14 Mall Street.

 

"Yours truly,

 

"NATH^L HAWTHORNE.

 

"If it be utterly impossible for you to come, pray write me

a line so that I may get it Wednesday evening. But by all

means come.

 

"This secretaryship is an intolerable bore. I have traveled

thirty miles, this wet day, on no other business."

 

Apparently another lecture was wanted by the Salem people the same

winter, for on the 19th of February, 1849, when the "Week on the

Concord and Merrimac" was in press, Hawthorne wrote again, thus:--

 

"The managers request that you will lecture before the

Salem Lyceum on Wednesday evening _after_ next, that is

to say, on the 28th inst. May we depend on you? Please to

answer immediately, if convenient. Mr. Alcott delighted my

wife and me, the other evening, by announcing that you had

a book in press. I rejoice at it, and nothing doubt of such

success as will be worth having. Should your manuscripts

all be in the printer's hands, I suppose you can reclaim

one of them for a single evening's use, to be returned the

next morning,--or perhaps that Indian lecture, which you

mentioned to me, is in a state of forwardness. Either that,

or a continuation of the Walden experiment (or indeed,

anything else), will be acceptable. We shall expect you at

14 Mall Street.

 

"Very truly yours,

 

"NATH^L HAWTHORNE."

 

These letters were written just before Hawthorne was turned out of his

office in the Salem custom-house, and while his own literary success

was still in abeyance,--the "Scarlet Letter" not being published till

a year later. They show the friendly terms on which Hawthorne stood

with the Concord Transcendentalists, after leaving that town in 1846.

He returned to it in 1852, when he bought Mr. Alcott's estate, then

called "Hillside," which he afterward christened "Wayside," and by

this name it is still known. Mr. Alcott bought this place in 1845, and

from then till 1848, when he left it to reside in Boston, he expended,

as Hawthorne said, "a good deal of taste and some money in forming

the hill-side behind the house into terraces, and building arbors and

summer-houses of rough stems, and branches, and trees, on a system of

his own." In this work he was aided by Thoreau, who was then in the

habit of performing much manual labor. In 1847 he joined Mr. Alcott

in the task of cutting trees for Mr. Emerson's summer-house, which

the three friends were to build in the garden. Mr. Emerson, however,

went with them to the woods but one day, when finding his strength and

skill unequal to that of his companions, he withdrew, and left the

work to them. Mr. Alcott relates that Thoreau was not only a master

workman with the axe, but also had such strength of arm, that when a

tree they were felling lodged in some unlucky position, he rushed at

it, and by main strength carried out the trunk until it fell where he

wanted it.

 

It was one of the serious doctrines of the Transcendentalists that

each person should perform his quota of hand-work, and accordingly

Alcott, Channing, Hawthorne, and the rest, took their turn at

wood-chopping, hay-making, plowing, tree-pruning, grafting, etc. Even

Emerson trimmed his own orchard, and sometimes lent a hand in hoeing

corn and raking hay. To Thoreau such tasks were easy, and, unlike some

amateur farmers, he was quite willing to be seen at his work, whatever

it might be (except the pencil-making, in which there were certain

secrets), and by choice he wore plain working clothes, and generally

old ones. The fashion of his garments gave him no concern, and was

often old, or even grotesque. At one time he had a fancy for corduroy,

such as Irish laborers then wore, but which occasionally appeared in

the wardrobe of a gentleman. As he climbed trees, waded swamps, and

was out in all weathers during his daily excursions, he naturally

dressed himself for what he had to do.

 

As may be inferred from his correspondence with Horace Greeley,

Thoreau's whole income from authorship during the twenty years that he

practiced that profession, cannot have exceeded a few hundred dollars

yearly,--not half enough in most years to supply even his few wants.

He would never be indebted to any person pecuniarily, and therefore

he found out other ways of earning his subsistence and paying his

obligations,--gardening, fence-building, white-washing, pencil-making,

land-surveying, etc.,--for he had great mechanical skill, and a

patient, conscientious industry in whatever he undertook. When his

father, who had been long living in other men's houses, undertook, at

last, to build one of his own, Henry worked upon it, and performed

no small part of the manual labor. He had no false pride in such

matters,--was, indeed, rather proud of his workmanship, and averse to the gentility even of his industrious village.