The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 58, August, 1862

"I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks, and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud; and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves." [Walden, p. 20.]

His riddles were worth the reading, and I confide, that, if at any time I do not understand the expression, it is yet just. Such was the wealth of his truth that it was not worth his while to use words in vain. His poem entitled "Sympathy" reveals the tenderness under that triple steel of stoicism, and the intellectual subtilty it could animate. His classic poem on "Smoke" suggests Simonides, but is better than any poem of Simonides. His biography is in his verses. His habitual thought makes all his poetry a hymn to the Cause of causes,

"I hearing get, who had but ears,And sight, who had but eyes before;I moments live, who lived but years,And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore."

And still more in these religious lines:–

"Now chiefly is my natal hour,And only now my prime of life;I will not doubt the love untold,Which not my worth or want hath bought,Which wooed me young, and wooes me old,And to this evening hath me brought."

Whilst he used in his writings a certain petulance of remark in reference to churches or churchmen, he was a person of a rare, tender, and absolute religion, a person incapable of any profanation, by act or by thought. Of course, the same isolation which belonged to his original thinking and living detached him from the social religious forms. This is neither to be censured nor regretted. Aristotle long ago explained it, when he said, "One who surpasses his fellow-citizens in virtue is no longer a part of the city. Their law is not for him, since he is a law to himself."

Thoreau was sincerity itself, and might fortify the convictions of prophets in the ethical laws by his holy living. It was an affirmative experience which refused to be set aside. A truth-speaker he, capable of the most deep and strict conversation; a physician to the wounds of any soul; a friend, knowing not only the secret of friendship, but almost worshipped by those few persons who resorted to him as their confessor and prophet, and knew the deep value of his mind and great heart. He thought that without religion or devotion of some kind nothing great was ever accomplished: and he thought that the bigoted sectarian had better bear this in mind.

His virtues, of course, sometimes ran into extremes. It was easy to trace to the inexorable demand on all for exact truth that austerity which made this willing hermit more solitary even than he wished. Himself of a perfect probity, he required not less of others. He had a disgust at crime, and no worldly success would cover it. He detected paltering as readily in dignified and prosperous persons as in beggars, and with equal scorn. Such dangerous frankness was in his dealing that his admirers called him "that terrible Thoreau," as if he spoke when silent, and was still present when he had departed. I think the severity of his ideal interfered to deprive him of a healthy sufficiency of human society.

The habit of a realist to find things the reverse of their appearance inclined him to put every statement in a paradox. A certain habit of antagonism defaced his earlier writings,–a trick of rhetoric not quite outgrown in his later, of substituting for the obvious word and thought its diametrical opposite. He praised wild mountains and winter forests for their domestic air, in snow and ice he would find sultriness, and commended the wilderness for resembling Rome and Paris. "It was so dry, that you might call it wet."

The tendency to magnify the moment, to read all the laws of Nature in the one object or one combination under your eye, is of course comic to those who do not share the philosopher's perception of identity. To him there was no such thing as size. The pond was a small ocean; the Atlantic, a large Walden Pond. He referred every minute fact to cosmical laws. Though he meant to be just, he seemed haunted by a certain chronic assumption that the science of the day pretended completeness, and he had just found out that the savans had neglected to discriminate a particular botanical variety, had failed to describe the seeds or count the sepals. "That is to say," we replied, "the blockheads were not born in Concord; but who said they were? It was their unspeakable misfortune to be born in London, or Paris, or Rome; but, poor fellows, they did what they could, considering that they never saw Bateman's Pond, or Nine-Acre Corner, or Becky-Stow's Swamp. Besides, what were you sent into the world for, but to add this observation?"

Had his genius been only contemplative, he had been fitted to his life, but with his energy and practical ability he seemed born for great enterprise and for command; and I so much regret the loss of his rare powers of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition. Wanting this, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckleberry-party. Pounding beans is good to the end of pounding empires one of these days; but if, at the end of years, it is still only beans!

But these foibles, real or apparent, were fast vanishing in the incessant growth of a spirit so robust and wise, and which effaced its defeats with new triumphs. His study of Nature was a perpetual ornament to him, and inspired his friends with curiosity to see the world through his eyes, and to hear his adventures. They possessed every kind of interest.

He had many elegances of his own, whilst he scoffed at conventional elegance. Thus, he could not bear to hear the sound of his own steps, the grit of gravel; and therefore never willingly walked in the road, but in the grass, on mountains and in woods. His senses were acute, and he remarked that by night every dwelling-house gives out bad air, like a slaughter-house. He liked the pure fragrance of melilot. He honored certain plants with special regard, and, over all, the pond-lily,–then, the gentian, and the Mikania scondens, and "life-everlasting," and a bass-tree which he visited every year, when it bloomed, in the middle of July. He thought the scent a more oracular inquisition than the sight,–more oracular and trustworthy. The scent, of course, reveals what is concealed from the other senses. By it he detected earthiness. He delighted in echoes, and said they were almost the only kind of kindred voices that he heard. He loved Nature so well, was so happy in her solitude, that he became very jealous of cities, and the sad work which their refinements and artifices made with man and his dwelling.

The axe was always destroying his forest. "Thank God," he said, "they cannot cut down the clouds!" "All kinds of figures are drawn on the blue ground with this fibrous white paint."

I subjoin a few sentences taken from his unpublished manuscripts, not only as records of his thought and feeling, but for their power of description and literary excellence.

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."

"The chub is a soft fish, and tastes like boiled brown paper salted."

"The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them."

"The locust z-ing."

"Devil's-needles zigzagging along the Nut-Meadow brook."

"Sugar is not so sweet to the palate as sound to the healthy ear."

"I put on some hemlock-boughs, and the rich salt crackling of their leaves was like mustard to the ear, the crackling of uncountable regiments. Dead trees love the fire."

"The bluebird carries the sky on his back."

"The tanager flies through the green foliage as if it would ignite the leaves."

"If I wish for a horse-hair for my compass-sight, I must go to the stable; but the hair-bird, with her sharp eyes, goes to the road."

"Immortal water, alive even to the superficies."

"Fire is the most tolerable third party."

"Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what she could do in that line."

"No tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an instep as the beech."

"How did these beautiful rainbow-tints get into the shell of the fresh-water clam, buried in the mud at the bottom of our dark river?"

"Hard are the times when the infant's shoes are second-foot."

"We are strictly confined to our men to whom we give liberty."

"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself."

"Of what significance the things you can forget? A little thought is sexton to all the world."

"How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?"

"Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present a face of bronze to expectations."

"I ask to be melted. You can only ask of the metals that they be tender to the fire that melts them. To nought else can they be tender."

There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our summer plant called "Life-Everlasting," a Gnaphalium like that, which grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese mountains, where the chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted by its beauty, and by his love, (for it is immensely valued by the Swiss maidens,) climbs the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes found dead at the foot, with the flower in his hand. It is called by botanists the Gnaphalium leontopodium, but by the Swiss Edelweisse, which signifies Noble Purity. Thoreau seemed to me living in the hope to gather this plant, which belonged to him of right. The scale on which his studies proceeded was so large as to require longevity, and we were the less prepared for his sudden disappearance. The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst his broken task, which none else can finish,–a kind of indignity to so noble a soul, that it should depart out of Nature before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what be is. But he, at least, is content. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.

A SUMMER DAY

At daybreak, in the fresh light, joyfullyThe fishermen drew in their laden net;The shore shone rosy purple, and the seaWas streaked with violet,And, pink with sunrise, many a shadowy sailLay southward, lighting up the sleeping bay,And in the west the white moon, still and pale,Faded before the day.Silence was everywhere. The rising tideSlowly filled every cove and inlet small:A musical low whisper, multiplied,You heard, and that was all.No clouds at dawn,–but, as the sun climbed higher,White columns, thunderous, splendid, up the skyFloated and stood, heaped in the sun's clear fire,A stately company.Stealing along the coast from cape to cape,The weird mirage crept tremulously on,In many a magic change and wondrous shape,Throbbing beneath the sun.At noon the wind rose,–swept the glassy seaTo sudden ripple,–thrust against the cloudsA strenuous shoulder,–gathering steadily,Drove them before in crowds,Till all the west was dark, and inky blackThe level ruffled water underneath,And up the wind-cloud tossed, a ghostly rack,In many a ragged wreath.Then sudden roared the thunder, a great pealMagnificent, that broke and rolled away;And down the wind plunged, like a furious keelCleaving the sea to spray,And brought the rain, sweeping o'er land and sea.And then was tumult! Lightning, sharp and keen,Thunder, wind, rain,–a mighty jubileeThe heaven and earth between!And loud the ocean sang,–a chorus grand,–A solemn music sung in undertoneOf waves that broke about, on either hand,The little island lone,Where, joyful in His tempest as His calm,Held in the hollow of that hand of His,I joined with heart and soul in God's great psalm,Thrilled with a nameless bliss.Soon lulled the wind,-the summer storm soon died;The shattered clouds went eastward, drifting slow;From the low sun the rain-fringe swept aside,Bright in his rosy glow,And wide a splendor streamed through all the skyO'er land and sea one soft, delicious blush,That touched the gray rocks lightly, tenderly,A transitory flush.Warm, odorous gusts came off the distant land,With spice of pine-woods, breath of hay new-mown,O'er miles of waves and sea-scents cool and bland,Full in our faces blown.Slow faded the sweet light, and peacefullyThe quiet stars came out, one after one,–The holy twilight deepened silently,The summer day was done.Such unalloyed delight its hours had given,Musing, this thought rose in my grateful mind,That God, who watches all things, up in heaven,With patient eyes and kind,Saw and was pleased, perhaps, one child of HisDared to be happy like the little birds,Because He gave His children days like this,Rejoicing beyond words,–Dared, lifting up to Him untroubled eyesIn gratitude that worship is, and prayer,Sing and be glad with ever new surpriseHe made His world so fair!

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

Ravenshoe. By HENRY KINGSLEY, Author of "Geoffry Hamlyn." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

This novel belongs to that class which has been most in favor of late years, in which the incidents and characters are drawn from the daily life that is going on around us, and the sources of interest are sought in the acts, struggles, and sufferings of the world that lies at our feet, discarding the idealizing charm which arises from distance in space or remoteness in time. The novels of Disraeli, Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Miss Bronté, Mrs. Gaskell, Miss Muloch, and Miss Evans, differing as they do so widely in style, treatment, and spirit, all come under this general division. Fictitious compositions of this class have difficulties peculiar to themselves, but success, when attained, is proportionally great; and from the sympathetic element in man they can secure the interest of their readers, though their plots may be improbable and their characters unnatural. The scene of "Ravenshoe" is laid in England, the time is the present, and the men and women are such as may be seen at a flower-show at Chiswick or on the race-course at Epsom on a Derby day. The plot is ingenious, thickly strewn with sudden and startling incidents, though very improbable; but the story flows on in so rapid and animated a current that the reader can never pause long enough for criticism, and it is not till he lays the volume down, and recalls the ground he has been over, that he has leisure to remark that the close has been reached by such stepping-stones as are never laid down in the path of real life.

The characters are various, drawn with the greatest spirit, but not all of them natural. Lord Saltire, for instance, is a portrait with which the author has evidently taken much pains; but the elements we see in him are such as never were, never could be, combined in any living and breathing man. Father Mackworth is elaborately drawn, but the sketch wants vitality and unity. Adelaide and Ellen present essentially the same type, modified by difference of position and circumstances, and, in the latter, by the infusion of a fanatical religious element. Charles Ravenshoe, the hero, is well conceived and consistently carried; and the same may be said of Cuthbert. But the best character in the book is old Lady Ascot. She is quite original, and yet quite natural; and we guess that some of her peculiarities are drawn from life.

The descriptions of scenery are admirable,–so admirable that we pardon the author for introducing them a little too frequently. He is evidently one of those few men who love Nature with a manly and healthy love,–by whom the outward world is not sought as a shelter against invading cares, or as balm for a wounded spirit, but who find in the sunshine, the play of the breeze, and the dance of the waves, a cheerful, enduring, and satisfying companionship. The scenery is English, and South English too: the author's pictures are drawn from memory, and not from imagination. And the whole tone and spirit of the book are thoroughly English. It represents the best aspects of English life, character, and manners as they are to-day. Whatever is most generous, heroic, tender, and true in the men and women of England is here to be seen, and not drawn in colors any more flattering than it is the right of fiction to use. We think the author carries us too much into the stable and the kennel; but this, we need not say, is also English.

But we have yet to mention what we consider the highest charm of this charming book, and that is the combination which we find in it of healthiness of tone and earnestness of purpose. A healthier book we have never read. Earnestness of purpose is apt to be attended with something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic. The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that is good in the world, with a firm purpose of improving the world in all possible ways. It is one of the many books which have appeared in England of late years which show the influence of the life and labors of the late Dr. Arnold. It is as inspiriting in its influence as a gallop over one of the breezy downs of Mr. Kingsley's own Devonshire.

It is, in short, a delightful book, in which all defects of structure and form are atoned for by a wonderful amount of energy, geniality, freshness, poetical feeling, and moral elevation. And furthermore, we think, no one can read it without saying to himself that he would like to see and know the writer. Long may he live to write new novels!

Vanity Fair. Volumes I.-V. New York: Louis H. Stephens, Publisher for the Proprietors.

The American is often considered to be by nature unadapted for jollity, if not positively averse to it. This supposition is not without some reasonable foundation, and the stranger may be readily excused for adopting it as an axiomatic truth. Busy calculation and restless labor appear at first to be the grand elements of American life; mirth is apparently excluded, as the superfluous members of his equations are eliminated by the algebraist. Fun is not practical enough for the American, and subserves none of his profitable projects; it provokes to idle laughter, and militates against the unresting career of industry which he has prescribed, and his utilitarian spirit thinks it were as well abolished. His recreations are akin to his toil. If he give to study such hours as business spares, fates first claim his attention, and then philosophy or ethics: he cannot resign himself to lighter topics. When he reads in his Horace, "Dulce est desipere in loco," he grants the proposition, with the commentary that he, at least, has very rarely been "in loco." He reads tragedies, and perhaps writes one; but he does not affect comedies, and he could have no sympathy with an uproarious burlesque or side-shaking Christmas pantomime. His brethren who seek the theatre for amusement are of similar opinion, and so are they who stand behind the foot-lights. Therefore it is, that, for every passable comedian, America can produce a whole batch of very fair tragic actors.

This serious character the American is apt to wear abroad as well as at home. When he travels, he is wont to be in a hurry, and to examine curious cities as if he were making sharp bargains against time. In spite of the wonderful power of adaptation which makes him of all men the best cosmopolitan, he never is quite perfect in his assumption of another nationality, and he generally falls short of a thorough appreciation of its mirthful principle. If he emigrate to France, he soon feasts upon frogs as freely and speaks with as accurate an accent as the Parisian, but he cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,–the "chaff,"–with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental bizarrerie fails to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and easily into the outward life of the people among whom he is,–while he always reserves within himself a cold, stern individuality; he often is angered when he should be amused, and retorts with resentment when he should reply in repartee. Still, the American is not sombre to the core. He has a kind of grim merriment bestowed somewhere in the recesses of his being. It is quaint and severe, however, and abounding in dry conceits. It inclines more to the nature of sarcasm than of flashing wit or genial humor. There is apt to be the bitterness about it which would provoke a heavy blow, unless it had been itself so weighty in attack as to crush what might have sprung into resistance. It passes from badinage into personalities and recriminations. In these respects it is consonant with the general bearing of the American character. The levity of wit and the pleasantry of humor appear at first purposeless; they are immaterial, and, even when most palpably present, seem, like Macbeth's encountering witches, to make of themselves air, into which they vanish. But sarcasm, and the direct application of ridicule, effect something at once; their course may be swift and cloudy, like that of the bullet, but it has a definite end in view; they are discharged and sweep away invisibly, or like a dark speck at most, but the crash and shiver of the distant target show that the shot has told. They are practical, and the American understands them; as for mere wit and humor, he will perhaps investigate them when there shall come to him that season of leisure which he mythically proposes to enjoy when there shall be no more work to do, and into which he is usually ushered by one busier even than himself, and less tolerant of idleness and folly,–Death, the great Chamberlain of Eternal Halls.

There is another characteristic of American wit and humor: they are evanescent and keen, escaping adroitly from the snares of the printer. America cannot boast of her satirists or humorists as forming a class like the great English and European groups, and yet her literature is enriched with many volumes wherein may be found the most brilliant wit and the most genial, genuine humor. Seldom, however, are these the main features of the books in which they occur; they are not bound in the great, all-important chain, but are woven into the little threads which underlie it; the obtuse or careless reader may easily overlook them, passing on to the end without suspecting the treasures which he has missed; and the foreigner, who does not look for such qualities among a people so perversely practical as Americans, will be apt entirely to ignore their possible existence. Again, if the writers are first-class men, their birth is the most purely American characteristic they possess. Their cast of thought and culture denotes that they belong to other times and lands as well as to this. They would have been at home among the literati of Queen Anne's day,–for their fellowship has been with such in spirit, if not in the flesh. Therefore the prejudiced, and they whose perceptions are not quick to recognize the finer traits which indicate the real character of men and of their works, are wont to say that here is nothing new, nothing indigenous to the soil, only an outgrowth of the Old World,–merely exotics, which would soon perish from the pains of transplanting, if they were not carefully fostered.

As a bit of drift-wood warns the most unpractised eye of the direction which a current takes, so the light, ephemeral brochures of any epoch give a plain hint of the tendency of its thought. The librarian and historian know the value of newspapers and pamphlets, for in them can be found what big books and voluminous records do not contain. From pasquinades, caricatures, and bits of comedy or satire can be drawn an idea of the popular humor of any era, which the works of great authors fail to convey. They are spontaneous and unstudied, regardless alike of reputation already established, which must be maintained, and of that which may yet be won; for they come from unknown sources, and exist solely for their own sakes and by their own vitality. They are, therefore, trustworthy assistants to him who studies the spirit of any people or generation.