Concord Days

I know of nothing better suited to inspire a taste for rural affairs than a Gardener's Almanac, containing matters good to be known by country people. All the more attractive the volume if tastefully illustrated, and contain reprints of select pastoral verses, biographies, with portraits of those who have written on country affairs, and lists of their works. The old herbals, too, with all their absurdities, are still tempting books, and contain much information important for the countryman to possess.3

Cowley and Evelyn are of rural authors the most attractive. Cowley's Essays are delightful reading. Nor shall I forgive his biographer for destroying the letters of a man of whom King Charles said at his interment in Westminster Abbey, "Mr. Cowley has not left a better in England." The friend and correspondent of the most distinguished poets, statesmen, and gentlemen of his time, himself the first poet of his day, his letters must have been most interesting and important, and but for the unsettled temper of affairs, would doubtless have been added to our polite literature.

Had King Charles remembered Cowley's friend Evelyn, the compliment both to the living and dead would have been just. Evelyn was the best of citizens and most loyal of subjects. A complete list of his writings shows to what excellent uses he gave himself. The planter of forests in his time, he might be profitably consulted as regards the replanting of New England now.

Respecting his planting, and the origin of his Sylva, he writes to his friend, Lady Sunderland, August, 1690: —

"As to the Kalendar your ladyship mentions, whatever assistance it may be to some novice gardener, sure I am his lordship will find nothing in it worth his notice, but an old inclination to an innocent diversion; and the acceptance it found with my dear, and while he lived, worthy friend, Mr. Cowley; upon whose reputation only it has survived seven impressions, and is now entering on the eighth, with some considerable improvement more agreeable to the present curiosity. 'Tis now, Madam, almost forty years since I first writ it, when horticulture was not much advanced in England, and near thirty years since it was published, which consideration will, I hope, excuse its many defects. If in the meantime it deserve the name of no unuseful trifle, 'tis all it is capable of.

"When, many years ago, I came from rambling abroad, and a great deal more since I came home than gave me much satisfaction, and, as events have proved, scarce worth one's pursuit, I cast about how I should employ the time which hangs on most young men's hands, to the best advantage; and, when books and grave studies grew tedious, and other impertinence would be pressing, by what innocent diversions I might sometimes relieve myself without compliance to recreations I took no felicity in, because they did not contribute to any improvement of mind. This set me upon planting of trees, and brought forth my Sylva, which book, infinitely beyond my expectations, is now also calling for a fourth impression, and has been the occasion of propagating many millions of useful timber trees throughout this nation, as I may justify without immodesty, from many letters of acknowledgement received from gentlemen of the first quality, and others altogether strangers to me. His late Majesty, Charles II, was sometimes graciously pleased to take notice of it to me; and that I had by that book alone incited a world of planters to repair their broken estates and woods which the greedy rebels had wasted and made such havoc of. Upon encouragement, I was once speaking to a mighty man then in despotic power to mention the great inclination I had to serve his majesty in a little office then newly vacant (the salary I think hardly £300), whose province was to inspect the timber trees in his majesty's forests, etc., and take care of their culture and improvement; but this was conferred upon another, who, I believe, had seldom been out of the smoke of London, where, though there was a great deal of timber, there were not many trees. I confess I had an inclination to the employment upon a public account as well as its being suitable to my rural genius, born as I was, at Watton, among woods.

"Soon after this, happened the direful conflagration of this city, when, taking notice of our want of books of architecture in the English tongue, I published those most useful directions of ten of the best authors on that subject, whose works were very rarely to be had, all written in French, Latin, or Italian, and so not intelligible to our mechanics. What the fruit of that labor and cost has been, (for the sculptures, which are elegant, were very chargeable,) the great improvement of our workmen and several impressions of the copy since will best testify.

"In this method I thought proper to begin planting trees, because they would require time for growth, and be advancing to delight and shade at least, and were, therefore, by no means to be neglected and deferred, while buildings might be raised and finished in a summer or two, if the owner pleased.

"Thus, Madam, I endeavored to do my countrymen some little service, in as natural an order as I could for the improving and adorning of their estates and dwellings, and, if possible, make them in love with those useful and innocent pleasures, in exchange for a wasteful and ignoble sloth which I had observed so universally corrupted an ingenious education.

"To these I likewise added my little history of Chalcography, a treatise of the perfection of painting and of libraries, medals, with some other intermesses which might divert within doors as well as altogether without."

PASTORALSSaturday, 8.False were the muse, did she not bringOur village poet's offering —Haunts, fields, and groves, weaving his rhymes,Leaves verse and fame to coming times.

Is it for the reason that rural life here in New England furnishes nothing for pastoral verse, that our poets have as yet produced so little? Yet we cannot have had almost three centuries' residence on this side of the Atlantic, with old England's dialect, traditions, and customs still current in our rural districts for perspective, not to have so adorned life and landscape with poetic associations as to have neither honey nor dew for hiving in sweet and tender verse, though it should fall short of the antique or British models. Our fields and rivers, brooks and groves, the rural occupations of country-folk, have not been undeserving of being celebrated in appropriate verse. Our forefathers delighted in Revolutionary lore. We celebrate natural scenery, legends of foreign climes, historic events, but rarely indulge in touches of simple country life. And the idyls of New England await their poet, unless the following verses announce his arrival: —

NEW ENGLAND"My country, 'tis for thee I strike the lyre;My country, wide as is the free wind's flight,I prize New England as she lights her fireIn every Prairie's midst; and where the brightEnchanting stars shine pure through Southern night,She still is there the guardian on the tower,To open for the world a purer hour."Could they but know the wild enchanting thrillThat in our homely houses fills the heart,To feel how faithfully New England's willBeats in each artery, and each small partOf this great Continent, their blood would startIn Georgia, or where Spain once sat in state,Or Texas, with her lone star, desolate.• • • • •"'Tis a New-England thought, to make this landThe very home of Freedom, and the nurse"Of each sublime emotion; she does standBetween the sunny South, and the dread curseOf God, who else should make her hearseOf condemnation to this Union's life, —She stands to heal this plague, and banish strife."I do not sing of this, but hymn the dayThat gilds our cheerful villages and plains,Our hamlets strewn at distance on the way,Our forests and the ancient streams' domains;We are a band of brothers, and our painsAre freely shared; no beggar in our roads,Content and peace within our fair abodes."In my small cottage on the lonely hill,Where like a hermit I must bide my time,Surrounded by a landscape lying stillAll seasons through as in the winter's prime,Rude and as homely as these verses chime,I have a satisfaction which no kingHas often felt, if Fortune's happiest thing."'Tis not my fortune, which is meanly low,'Tis not my merit that is nothing worth,'Tis not that I have stores of thought belowWhich everywhere should build up heaven on earth;Nor was I highly favored in my birth;Few friends have I, and they are much to me,Yet fly above my poor society."But all about me live New-England men,Their humble houses meet my daily gaze, —The children of this land where Life againFlows like a great stream in sunshiny ways,This is a joy to know them, and my daysAre filled with love to meditate on them, —These native gentlemen on Nature's hem."That I could take one feature of their life,Then on my page a mellow light should shine;Their days are holidays, with labor rife,Labor the song of praise that sounds divine,And better, far, than any hymn of mine;The patient Earth sets platters for their food,Corn, milk, and apples, and the best of good."See here no shining scenes for artist's eye,This woollen frock shall make no painter's fame;These homely tools all burnishing deny;The beasts are slow and heavy, still or tame;The sensual eye may think this labor lame;'Tis in the man where lies the sweetest art,His true endeavor in his earnest part.• • • • •"He meets the year confiding; no great throws,That suddenly bring riches, does he use,But like Thor's hammer vast, his patient blowsVanquish his difficult tasks, he does refuseTo tread the path, nor know the way he views;No sad complaining words he uttereth,But draws in peace a free and easy breath.• • • • •"This man takes pleasure o'er the crackling fire,His glittering axe subdued the monarch oak,He earned the cheerful blaze by something higherThan pensioned blows, – he owned the tree he stroke,And knows the value of the distant smokeWhen he returns at night, his labor done,Matched in his action with the long day's sun.• • • • •"I love these homely mansions, and to meA farmer's house seems better than a king's;The palace boasts its art, but libertyAnd honest pride and toil are splendid things;They carved this clumsy lintel, and it bringsThe man upon its front; Greece hath her art, —But this rude homestead shows the farmer's heart."I love to meet him on the frozen road,How manly is his eye, as clear as air; —He cheers his beasts without the brutal goad,His face is ruddy, and his features fair;His brave good-day sounds like an honest prayer;This man is in his place and feels his trust, —'Tis not dull plodding through the heavy crust."And when I have him at his homely hearth,Within his homestead, where no ornamentGlows on the mantel but his own true worth,I feel as if within an Arab's tentHis hospitality is more than meant;I there am welcome, as the sunlight is,I must feel warm to be a friend of his.• • • • •"How many brave adventures with the cold,Built up the cumberous cellar of plain stone;How many summer heats the bricks did mould,That make the ample fireplace, and the toneOf twice a thousand winds sing through the zoneOf rustic paling round the modest yard, —These are the verses of this simple bard."Who sings the praise of Woman in our clime?I do not boast her beauty or her grace;Some humble duties render her sublime,She the sweet nurse of this New-England race,The flower upon the country's sterile face,The mother of New England's sons, the prideOf every house where these good sons abide."There is a Roman splendor in her smile,A tenderness that owes its depth to toil;Well may she leave the soft voluptuous wileThat forms the woman of a softer soil;She does pour forth herself a fragrant oilUpon the dark austerities of Fate,And make a garden else all desolate."From early morn to fading eve she stands,Labor's best offering on the shrine of worth,And Labor's jewels glitter on her hands,To make a plenty out of partial dearth,To animate the heaviness of earth,To stand and serve serenely through the pain,To nurse a vigorous race and ne'er complain."New-England women are New-England's pride,'Tis fitting they should be so, they are free, —Intelligence doth all their acts decide,Such deeds more charming than old ancestry.I could not dwell beside them, and not beEnamored of them greatly; they are meantTo charm the Poet, by their pure intent."A natural honest bearing of their lot,Cheerful at work, and happy when 'tis done;They shine like stars within the humblest cot,And speak for freedom centred all in one.From every river's side I hear the sonOf some New-England woman answer me,'Joy to our Mothers, who did make us free.'"And when those wanderers turn to home again,See the familiar village, and the streetWhere they once frolicked, they are less than menIf in their eyes the tear-drops do not meet,To feel how soon their mothers they shall greet:Sons of New England have no dearer day,Than once again within those arms to lay."These are her men and women; this the sightThat greets me daily when I pass their homes;It is enough to love, it throws some lightOver the gloomiest hours; the fancy roamsNo more to Italy or Greece; the loamsWhereon we tread are sacred by the livesOf those who till them, and our comfort thrives."Here might one pass his days, content to beThe witness of those spectacles alway;Bring if you may your treasure from the sea,My pride is in my Townsmen, where the dayRises so fairly on a race who layTheir hopes on Heaven after their toil is o'er,Upon this rude and bold New-England shore."Vainly ye pine woods rising on the heightShould lift your verdant boughs and cones aloft;Vainly ye winds should surge around in might,Or murmur o'er the meadow stanzas soft;To me should nothing yield or lake or crost,Had not the figures of the pleasant sceneLike trees and fields an innocent demean."I feel when I am here some pride elate,Proud of your presence who do duty here,For I am some partaker of your fate,Your manly anthem vibrates in my ear;Your hearts are heaving unconsumed by fear;Your modest deeds are constantly supplied;Your simpler truths by which you must abide."Therefore I love a cold and flinty realm,I love the sky that hangs New England o'er,And if I were embarked, and at the helmI ran my vessel on New England's shore,And dashed upon her crags, would live no more,Rather than go seek those lands of gravesWhere men who tread the fields are cowering slaves."W. Ellery Channing.CONVERSATIONMonday, 17.

If one would learn the views of some of our most thoughtful New-England men and women, he will find their fullest and freshest expression in the discussions of the Radical Club. Almost every extreme of Liberalism is there represented, and its manners and methods are as various as the several members who take part in the readings and conversations. It is assumed that all subjects proposed for discussion are open to the freest consideration, and that each is entitled to have the widest scope and hospitality allowed it. Truth is spherical, and seen differently according to the culture, temperament, and disposition of those who survey it from their individual standpoint. Of two or more sides, none can be absolutely right, and conversation fails if it find not the central truth from which all radiate. Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity. Who speaks deeply excludes all possibility of controversy. His affirmation is self-sufficient: his assumption final, absolute.

Yes, yes, I see it must be so,The Yes alone resolves the No.

Thus holding himself above the arena of dispute, he gracefully settles a question by speaking so home to the core of the matter as to undermine the premise upon which an issue had been taken. For whoso speaks to the Personality drives beneath the grounds of difference, and deals face to face with principles and ideas.4

Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements. It avoids argument, by finding a common basis of agreement; and thus escapes controversy, by rendering it superfluous. Pertinent to the platform, debate is out of place in the parlor. Persuasion is the better weapon in this glittering game.

Nothing rarer than great conversation, nothing more difficult to prompt and guide. Like magnetism, it obeys its own hidden laws, sympathies, antipathies, is sensitive to the least breath of criticism. It requires natural tact, a familiarity with these fine laws, long experience, a temperament predisposed to fellowship, to hold high the discourse by keeping the substance of things distinctly in view throughout the natural windings of the dialogue. Many can argue, not many converse. Real humility is rare everywhere and at all times. If women have the larger share, and venture less in general conversation, it may be from the less confidence, not in themselves, but in those who have hitherto assumed the lead, even in matters more specially concerning woman. Few men are diffident enough to speak beautifully and well on the finest themes.

Conversation presupposes a common sympathy in the subject, a great equality in the speakers; absence of egotism, a tender criticism of what is spoken. 'Tis this great equality and ingenuousness that renders this game of questions so charming and entertaining, and the more that it invites the indefinable complement of sex. Only where the sexes are brought into sympathy, is conversation possible. Where women are, men speak best; for the most part, below themselves, where women are not. And the like holds presumably of companies composed solely of women.

Good discourse wins from the bashful and discreet what they have to speak, but would not, without this provocation. The forbidding faces are Fates to overbear and blemish true fellowship. We give what we are, not necessarily what we know; nothing more, nothing less, and only to our kind, those playing best their parts who have the nimblest wits, taking out the egotism, the nonsense; putting wisdom, information, in their place. Humor to dissolve, and wit to fledge your theme, if you will rise out of commonplace; any amount of erudition, eloquence of phrase, scope of comprehension; figure and symbol sparingly but fitly. Who speaks to the eye, speaks to the whole mind.

Most people are too exclusively individual for conversing. It costs too great expenditure of magnetism to dissolve them; who cannot leave himself out of his discourse, but embarrasses all who take part in it. Egotists cannot converse, they talk to themselves only.

Conversation with plain people proves more agreeable and profitable, usually, than with companies more pretentious and critical. It is wont to run the deeper and stronger without impertinent interruptions, inevitable where cultivated egotism and self-assurance are present with such. There remains this resource, of ignoring civilly the interruption, and proceeding as if the intrusion had not been interposed.

"Oft when the wiseAppears not wise, he works the greater good."

"Never allow yourself," said Goethe, "to be betrayed into a dispute. Wise men fall into ignorance if they dispute with ignorant men." Persuasion is the finest artillery. It is the unseen guns that do execution without smoke or tumult. If one cannot win by force of wit, without cannonade of abuse, flourish of trumpet, he is out of place in parlors, ventures where he can neither forward nor grace fellowship. The great themes are feminine, and to be dealt with delicately. Debate is masculine; conversation is feminine.

Here is a piece of excellent counsel from Plotinus: —

"And this may everywhere be considered, that he who pursues our form of philosophy, will, besides all other graces, genuinely exhibit simple and venerable manners, in conjunction with the possession of wisdom, and will endeavor not to become insolent or proud, but will possess confidence, accompanied with reason, with sincerity and candor, and great circumspection."

MARGARET FULLERThursday, 20.

Horace Greeley has just issued from the "Tribune" office a uniform edition of Margaret Fuller's works, together with her Memoirs first published twenty years ago. And now, while woman is the theme of public discussion, her character and writings may be studied to advantage. The sex has had no abler advocate. Her book entitled "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" anticipated most of the questions now in the air, and the leaders in the movement for woman's welfare might take its counsels as the text for their action. Her methods, too, suggest the better modes of influence. That she wrote books is the least of her merits. She was greatest when she dropped her pen. She spoke best what others essayed to say, and what women speak best. Hers was a glancing logic that leaped straight to the sure conclusion; a sibylline intelligence that divined oracularly; knew by anticipation; in the presence always, the open vision. Alas, that so much should have been lost to us, and this at the moment when it seemed we most needed and could profit by it! Was it some omen of that catastrophe which gave her voice at times the tones of a sadness almost preternatural? What figure were she now here in times and triumphs like ours! She seemed to have divined the significance of woman, dared where her sex had hesitated hitherto, was gifted to untie social knots which the genius of a Plato even failed to disentangle. "Either sex alone," he said, "was but half itself." Yet he did not complement the two in honorable marriage in his social polity. "If a house be rooted in wrong," says Euripides, "it will blossom in vice." As the oak is cradled in the acorn's cup, so the state in the family. Domestic licentiousness saps every institution, the morals of the community at large, – a statement trite enough, but till it is no longer needful to be made is the commonwealth established on immovable foundations.

"Revere no God whom men adore by night."

Let the sexes be held to like purity of morals, and equal justice meted to them for any infraction of the laws of social order. Women are the natural leaders of society in whatever concerns private morals, lead where it were safe for men to follow. About the like number as of men, doubtless, possess gifts to serve the community at large; while most women, as most men, will remain private citizens, fulfilling private duties. Her vote as such will tell for personal purity, for honor, temperance, justice, mercy, peace, – the domestic virtues upon which communities are founded, and in which they must be firmly rooted to prosper and endure. The unfallen souls are feminine.

Crashaw's Ideal Woman should win the love and admiration of her sex as well as ours.

"Whoe'er she beThat not impossible sheThat shall command my heart and me;"Where'er she lieLock'd up from mortal eyeIn shady leaves of destiny;"Till that ripe birthOf studied fate stand forth,And teach her fair steps to our earth;"Till that divineIdea take a shrineOf crystal flesh, through which to shine,"Meet you her my wishes,Bespeak her to my blisses,And be ye called my absent kisses."I wish her beautyThat owes not all its dutyTo gaudy tire, or glistening shoe-ty."Something more thanTaffata or tissue can,Or rampant feather, or rich fan."More than the spoilOf shop, or silkworm's toil,Or a bought blush, or a set smile."A face that's bestBy its own beauty drest,And can alone command the rest."A face made upOut of no other shopThan what nature's white hand sets ope."A cheek where youthAnd blood, with pen of truth,Write what the reader sweetly rueth."A cheek where growsMore than a morning rose,Which to no box his being owes."Lips, where all dayA lover's kiss may play,Yet carry nothing thence away."Looks, that oppressTheir richest tires, but dressAnd clothe their simplest nakedness."Eyes, that displacesThe neighbor diamond and out-facesThat sunshine by their own sweet graces."Tresses, that wearJewels, but to declareHow much themselves more precious are."Whose native rayCan tame the wanton dayOf gems that in their bright shades play."Each ruby there,Or pearl that dare appear,Be its own blush, be its own tear."A well-tamed heart,For whose more noble smartLove may be long choosing a dart."Eyes, that bestowFull quivers on Love's bow,Yet pay less arrows than they owe."Smiles, that can warmThe blood, yet teach a charmThat chastity shall take no harm."Blushes, that beenThe burnish of no sin,Nor flames of aught too hot within."Days, that need borrowNo part of their good morrowFrom a fore-spent night of sorrow."Days, that in spiteOf darkness, by the lightOf a clear mind are day all night."Life, that dares sendA challenge to his end,And when it comes say, 'Welcome, friend.'"Sydneian showersOf sweet discourse, whose powersCan crown old Winter's head with flowers."Soft silken hours,Open suns, shady bowers,'Bove all, nothing within that lowers."Whate'er delightCan make day's forehead bright,Or give down to the wings of night."In her whole frame,Have nature all the name,Art and ornament the shame."Her flattery,Picture and poesy,Her counsel her own virtue be."I wish her storeOf worth may leave her poorOf wishes; and I wish – no more."CHILDHOODSunday, 23.

My little grandsons visit me at this becoming season of birds and apple blossoms. They accompany me to the brook, and are pleased with their willow whistles and sail-boats, – toys delightful to childhood from the first. Their manners, that first of accomplishments, delight us in return, showing that the sense of beauty has dawned and their culture fairly begun. 'Tis a culture to watch them through their days' doings. Endless their fancies and engagements. What arts, accomplishments, graces, are woven in their playful panorama; the scene shifting with the mood, and all in keeping with the laws of thought and of things. Verily, there are invisible players playing their parts through these pretty puppets all day long.